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burnstyle
Jan 9, 2015

Sometimes a nut job...
Sometimes a really good person

Snowy posted:

Somebody dug something?!?

I dig all the time.

Mostly I find rocks and bones though.

I went to Nola a couple weeks back to dig for some dude on the Q4T boards.


Contrary o popular belief, some of us actually dig.

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BigBadSteve
Apr 29, 2009

burnstyle posted:

I dig all the time.

Mostly I find rocks and bones though.

Human bones?

burnstyle
Jan 9, 2015

Sometimes a nut job...
Sometimes a really good person

BigBadSteve posted:

Human bones?

wrist bones.

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

burnstyle posted:

wrist bones.

I like your podcast. it's good! keep making them!

Snowy
Oct 6, 2010

A man whose blood
Is very snow-broth;
One who never feels
The wanton stings and
Motions of the sense



Urban Smurf posted:

What if Byron Preiss buried beer?



Please bury these at all the suspected cask locations.

Viruswithshoes
Mar 26, 2007

burnstyle posted:

I dig all the time.

Mostly I find rocks and bones though.

I went to Nola a couple weeks back to dig for some dude on the Q4T boards.


Contrary o popular belief, some of us actually dig.

Post some pics here?

Corky Romanovsky
Oct 1, 2006

Soiled Meat
I'm disappointed that many of urban smurf's images are no longer available.

Urban Smurf
Jun 12, 2013

Take this avatar, rotate it 180 degrees, mirror it, mark a point from the tip of the dogs noses and you will see it will line up to this image of the centaurs tail "exactly."

Corky Romanovsky posted:

I'm disappointed that many of urban smurf's images are no longer available.

I didnt realize so many links were broken. I had everything in one big folder and decided to move pics to 12 seperate folders to be more organized. I'm not too attached to many old ideas, so most pics were obsolete anyhow. PM me if you have a specific link you're trying to find and I'll dig it up for you.

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

burnstyle posted:


I went to Nola a couple weeks back to dig for some dude on the Q4T boards.


This was under-the-radar, but baller as poo poo:

New Guy: I have a solve, but New Orleans says I'll get fined if I dig.

Burnstyle: Pm'ing you.

[2 days pass]

New Guy: Okay, there was nothing there.

Merlot Brougham
Dec 16, 2004

The White Darryl Strawberry


Salad Prong
Image 11, Verse 3 - Xie's Theory



Piggy Smalls posted:

I’m all ears errrr eyes. Please post it.

Viruswithshoes posted:

Stop teasing and post it then!! :munch:



We're pushing nearly 3 and a half years since the below information came into my possession and attempts to reach out to him on the matter have failed, so I feel I can post Xie's Boston theory with a clear conscience. There are some other folks along the way who have shared theories with me in confidence, and I would hope they can still feel comfortable doing that. I don't personally roll that way. All of my theories are out in the open for anyone who wants to look/ask. I am very into the spirit of cooperation on this, but I also respect (reluctantly) those who want to keep their information secret. I suppose that was the only reason I took some time to think about posting this.

Let's get to Xie. His opening remark below about the Boston University castle has to do with my idea about the BU castle being featured on the box in Image 11. I'd be happy to discuss that again (I believe I have posts in this thread with most of the details on that). I think it is compelling as a location both for the content of the image as well as the information in the verse, but Image 11 isn't one I have spent the lions share of my time on.

But this post isn't about me. I give to you, Xie's Boston solve (all of the links work):

xie's Boston Theory posted:

Nov 24, 2014 9:17 PM:
The BU Castle has always been on my radar. It's about 2,000 feet from where I have the start of the puzzle. It's on the other side of the Harvard Bridge though (an issue), and across Storrow Dr (this part doesn't bug me at all). It's not visible from anywhere specifically on my route. http://buquad.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/TheCastle.jpg I assume you mean this matches the "wall" in front of the turrets? I think they do, but the turrets aren't there. Unless you have a shot that I've missed?

This is visible from my starting location. Without moving, just turning around: http://i.imgur.com/HLz37ro.png You'll see the same distinctive 4-pronged wall, but with turrets. The turrets also have more of a mushroom cap to them.

Boylston St Bridge is of no interest to me. If I could have one wish and make one thing go away it would be for Charlesgate (the "2C" as people lovingly refer to it as) to just go the gently caress away from everyone's minds. It's the epitome of "Google Maps" solving this thing. Everyone fell in love with this match: http://goo.gl/maps/QyFHv as the "globes" in the bottom right hand corner of the image. They're gaga for it and have been for years. This is going to be another expression of that, I promise you. It's total horse poop. I've been there a lot. There is nothing there. It's not a real park. It's a "park" that almost nobody goes to underneath a hated and ugly highway onramp. There are no statues, there is no place to walk around, there are literally zero matches to the image.

They claim the Somerset Condos (visible right next to the "2C" in that GMaps link) is the solve for "18th day, 12th hour" because in the Longfellow poem about Revere, there is a ship called the Somerset that is mentioned. Yes, the Condos are supposed to make you "feel at home." Maybe the leasing office knows where the casque is. If he wants to bark up that tree I'm happy to let him.

My solve starts at the Compass, seen on the map right here: https://goo.gl/maps/Inez5

I have no doubt that this is the correct park at all. My verse solve flows as such:

-You start at the compass. You walk 5 FOOTbridges (steps) in the direction of both the BPL, and the direction that Thucydides name faces on the side of the BPL. (note: It's not North)

-Somewhere along here you pass a green tower of lights. This is a tough clue, there are lots of these. You can really take your pick. There's a REALLY big one right here, there's more everywhere. This isn't a really "walking direction" clue so I'm not too bothered.

-When you reach the 5th footbridge you are at the DCR Memorial Hatch shell. There are 3 statues located here, 2 of which I am positive make up the left and right arm of the gypsy, respectively. I think, considering their proximity, that the middle statue likely makes up her dress, but there's so little detail that I really don't care. The arms are a dead on match. I posted one in the thread. The hatch shell is also depicted in the image as you've seen me claim before.

-At the 5th footbridge and only the 5th one, there are a few stairs leading up to cross. If you face the water and put your back to the stairs, you are looking directly at the Community Boating Building. Here is an attempt to show where you should be standing: https://goo.gl/maps/aJtb2 If you stand past the bridge, you'll see that the land juts out, giving you a very unique ability to look out over the water, but not across the shores to the Charles.

-You walk from this spot directly to the Community Boating Building which is right in front of you. On the front is an old wooden sign that says in huge letters BOAT HOUSE (feel at home). This map illustrates the line of sight and distance perfectly: https://goo.gl/maps/yhf3X

-From the boat house, it's time to wrap this up and hit the final stanza. The next line is "All the letters" - remember, none of the solves so far have been esoteric or weird. They're just describing things you see along your route. This is consistent with the solved lines of the other puzzles. The toughest reference we have is "friends of Octave." Occam's Razor applies here.

New google maps sucks, but this map contains the last walking bit, it's a 3 minute walk from the Boat house to approximately this spot: https://goo.gl/maps/3mQgz

You'll notice the proximity to the Longfellow Bridge (a much, much more obvious solution for "Eighteenth Day, Twelfth Hour"), this is important.

The spot I marked contains this: https://goo.gl/maps/iXoBf See that white thing? It's a large boulder that was placed on that spot in the 1970s by the family of the man this part of the park is named after. The name of this park? Lederman Park. The words on the boulder? LEDERMAN FIELD. The boulder faces inward, so the lettering is only readable before you reach the boulder. This is the dig spot: https://goo.gl/maps/EyRVK

From here you can see the boulder and read its letters clearly and you can take a strong piss and hit the Longfellow Bridge. It's located in front of the hatch I posted in the thread, and directly under the lamp I posted in the thread.

If you look across the Charles from this exact spot, you can see the big statue on the Athenaeum Press building. The statue? Athena, Greek goddess of Truth.

Here are the rest of the pictures from the dig spot to show proximity to the bridge and the boulder. You can see there is a very small window of space where you can see both, and you're smack in the middle of them, staring at the statue. I am fairly drat confident this is the correct solution to Image #11. :) http://imgur.com/a/KnBGW

Good luck!



E: Is QFT down?

Merlot Brougham fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Mar 21, 2018

asecondduck
Feb 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

Merlot Brougham posted:

Image 11, Verse 3 - Xie's Theory

Woah he told me a totally different one involving a lamppost by the hatch shell. Either he was loving with me or changed the theory.

asecondduck fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Mar 21, 2018

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

lelandjs posted:

Woah he told me a totally different one involving a lamppost by the hatch shell. Either he was loving with me or changed the theory.

Weird. I got the first one.

Also :siren: There's stuff happening in the Milawukee search :siren:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkep/sets/72157691464823792

FACT: Someone found a killer lead in the final dig spot for Milwaukee, "first young birch" : In the Robert Frost short poem "Young Birch" there is a reference to it being *first* as small is a cane. There is a pipe by the "millstone" that kinda maybe looks like a cane

FACT: There is a pretty big hole dug there

FACT: People have been checking it out and finding pretty deec clay and plexiglass fragments from the hole

FACT: The people who originally dug the hole left a drat mess. Didn't fill in the hole, left a buncha crap.

So, there is a chance someone found out a decent solution for the puzzle, dug, found nothing, threw in some shards of porcelain and plexiglass, and are trolling.

There's also a chance the puzzle may have been solved.

Hard to tell because :911was a conspiracy: the q4t forums, the main place to talk about this, went down yesterday. It was 1996 tech, so, I dunno... hack? Solution overloaded the server (=31 people)?

Make your own choices based on your own interpretations. I tend to lean towards the comedy option.

It was a decent enough solve imo

Posts from people who came across the site afterward:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkep/40169911404/in/album-72157691464823792/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/156106511@N04/sets/72157694643003285/

Here's one I don't get at all, even more than these other pieces I don't get at all (all the other pieces)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkep/39931820665/in/album-72157691464823792/

Pissed Ape Sexist
Apr 19, 2008

They either found or placed a broken gravy boat and some garbage. You can see the top of the filigree to the right of the bird on some of the larger shots of the 'scorched' pieces (sorry, no comparison due to phoneposting), as well as the remnants of the handle base.


Pissed Ape Sexist fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Mar 22, 2018

burnstyle
Jan 9, 2015

Sometimes a nut job...
Sometimes a really good person
It's not a casque.

All of them are identical and that isn't even close.

Urban Smurf
Jun 12, 2013

Take this avatar, rotate it 180 degrees, mirror it, mark a point from the tip of the dogs noses and you will see it will line up to this image of the centaurs tail "exactly."
Re: Xie's Boston theory.

That's one of the better theories despite some points which need to be verified for being "spot on" matches. He selects many suitable objects to develop the breadcrumb layer, but fails to explain the dig spot in a way that is most convincing. I think it's worth looking into as it has potential.

Pissed Ape Sexist
Apr 19, 2008

That theory is more coherent than anything you have ever posted, and the only throughline is that it's equally unprovable. You are an utterly self-absorbed weenie

Urban Smurf
Jun 12, 2013

Take this avatar, rotate it 180 degrees, mirror it, mark a point from the tip of the dogs noses and you will see it will line up to this image of the centaurs tail "exactly."
I agree that it's coherent and better, much more than anything I've shared. Xie had good points. Recommending a closer look at his identifiers to evaluate the prospects.

How thick is your skull, my weenie wants to know?

E: thanks Merlot for sharing Xie's theory. Normally I'd be against sharing something outside of confidence. Maybe it's for the best, in the spirit of progress and all, that Xie's work and his wrist be freed by a "statute of limitation" after he went silent for more than 2 years.

Urban Smurf fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Mar 22, 2018

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

Pissed Ape Sexist posted:

They either found or placed a broken gravy boat and some garbage. You can see the top of the filigree to the right of the bird on some of the larger shots of the 'scorched' pieces (sorry, no comparison due to phoneposting), as well as the remnants of the handle base.




Good find. Thanks

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe
So for those keeping score, this is officially awesome:

- Someone most likely planned a hoax: Dug a hole, got pictures of porcelain and plexiglass
- They posted their flickr account with the pics, because they are idiots
- Turns out they didn't clean up their hole and left a lot of litter, which is a fineable offense. MKE kinda hates people doing this, so there's a good chance they'll find them
- Great prank, bro, here's a fine!

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

Pissed Ape Sexist posted:

That theory is more coherent than anything you have ever posted, and the only throughline is that it's equally unprovable. You are an utterly self-absorbed weenie

That’s rude.

Crusty Nutsack
Apr 21, 2005

SUCK LASER, COPPERS


Drunk Nerds posted:

Weird. I got the first one.

Also :siren: There's stuff happening in the Milawukee search :siren:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkep/sets/72157691464823792

FACT: Someone found a killer lead in the final dig spot for Milwaukee, "first young birch" : In the Robert Frost short poem "Young Birch" there is a reference to it being *first* as small is a cane. There is a pipe by the "millstone" that kinda maybe looks like a cane

FACT: There is a pretty big hole dug there

FACT: People have been checking it out and finding pretty deec clay and plexiglass fragments from the hole

FACT: The people who originally dug the hole left a drat mess. Didn't fill in the hole, left a buncha crap.

So, there is a chance someone found out a decent solution for the puzzle, dug, found nothing, threw in some shards of porcelain and plexiglass, and are trolling.

There's also a chance the puzzle may have been solved.

Hard to tell because :911was a conspiracy: the q4t forums, the main place to talk about this, went down yesterday. It was 1996 tech, so, I dunno... hack? Solution overloaded the server (=31 people)?

Make your own choices based on your own interpretations. I tend to lean towards the comedy option.

It was a decent enough solve imo

Posts from people who came across the site afterward:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkep/40169911404/in/album-72157691464823792/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/156106511@N04/sets/72157694643003285/

Here's one I don't get at all, even more than these other pieces I don't get at all (all the other pieces)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkep/39931820665/in/album-72157691464823792/

Do these people have morgellons because those photos have the same exact quality of crazy

Pissed Ape Sexist
Apr 19, 2008

BigFactory posted:

That’s rude.

I'm a real gruff honcho and my leather jacket has a toothpick sticking out of its mouth

Urban Smurf posted:

How thick is your skull, my weenie wants to know?

First off, your weird burn sucks. Second off, the issue isn't that you incessantly jerk off to the smell of your own farts-- after all, this thread is here for everyone to do just that. No problem. The issue is that when you're not generally chatting or posting lorem ipsum-rear end solves, you flip a switch and become Lord Dad of Next Steps, Addressor of Nobody in Particular who deigns to choose methods of completion regardless of the solve or city. Every single time for --years-- you have to chime in with exactly what folks should do next in order to solve these unsolvable (come on, let's be honest) puzzles, and it's as tiresome as it is seemingly inevitable. Reading even remotely realistic imaginative solves and listening to grassroots puzzle podcasts is the fun part of this fun thread! What's not fun is watching you catalog your judgements and recommended next steps for each iteration of each solve in each city for other people, and all with a tone that suggests you're waiting for the swine to take up the pearls before them. You are obviously a sharp, focused guy (100% sarcasm-free) but I don't know if you always come off the way you might intend. People working through the huge backlog of dumb poo poo themselves and then watching others do the same is the cool part, you know? All I'm saying is just let stuff breeeeeathe.

Maybe I'm parsing things wrong and I'm genuinely sorry if that's the case, but I love and am defensive of this gay elderly thread. In fairness, I second the shout-out to Merlot Brougham for posting the Xie solve! The last four shortened GMaps URLs are 404s, but it may have been a Xie error or link rot or something(?)...

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

Pissed Ape Sexist posted:

I'm a real gruff honcho and my leather jacket has a toothpick sticking out of its mouth

Super funny and clever .... and random! Hahaha so many lols.

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

Crusty Nutsack posted:

Do these people have morgellons because those photos have the same exact quality of crazy

Yes! It really sucks that the Q4T forums might be down forever. Not only is there a lot of history, there, but it was a AAA place for mental illness tourism

Pissed Ape Sexist
Apr 19, 2008

BigFactory posted:

Super funny and clever .... and random! Hahaha so many lols.

I was hoping for just a sarcastic 'dah-ha, dah-ha' frankly. Can you hook me up

burnstyle
Jan 9, 2015

Sometimes a nut job...
Sometimes a really good person

Drunk Nerds posted:

Yes! It really sucks that the Q4T forums might be down forever. Not only is there a lot of history, there, but it was a AAA place for mental illness tourism

Mark (the admin) didn't know it was Down. He's working on it.

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

burnstyle posted:

Mark (the admin) didn't know it was Down. He's working on it.

That's great to hear, thanks!

Think one of those more mentally ill posters hacked it?

burnstyle
Jan 9, 2015

Sometimes a nut job...
Sometimes a really good person
Server error. The hard drives failed. It's being restored

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe

burnstyle posted:

I dig all the time.

Mostly I find rocks and bones though.


Whoa... maybe Cask= Casket?

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe
Just checking in: Q4T board is a cesspool, with most people there just stuck in their "omigosh this is the right solve and you are dumb for not getting it first therefore you are too dumb to criticize." It's a great place for getting extremely well-diagrammed insights into how a mentally ill mind works, but I fear it is not going to be a place for groundbreaking research for at least a few months. Several veterans and cool new people I talk to privately have said they are staying away until the crazy dies down.

Travel channel is going to re-air the special, so get ready for an aftershock of short-sightedness infiltrating those forums. It's a unique sight I've not experienced since the heyday of e/n

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe
Apparently Josh Cornell posted an obscenity ridden meltdown on the SF facebook thread, which someone who might be slightly too obsessed with him (not me) clocked as 125 fb posts in one hour.

If I had decent journalism skills I would have quietly capped it for here. Instead, I'm not even sure how to find the SF facebook thread. So there's plenty of people to laugh at, here.

Howard Beale
Feb 22, 2001

It's like this, Peanut

lelandjs posted:

Woah he told me a totally different one involving a lamppost by the hatch shell. Either he was loving with me or changed the theory.

Xie definitely changed his theory several times. One spot, unless I've confused it with QFT theories, was close to the fens, near the Storrow Drive turnoff overpass where it goes over Comm Ave. The others were all along the Esplanade, including the Hatch shell and (again, maybe a QFT thing) the round Charles River monument near one of the docks. The spot between the Longfellow bridge and the ballfields was the last one he talked about before going completely silent. I've been down to that spot and it's pretty unassuming and wouldn't have looked any more impressive back in the 80s, so I dunno.

I think Xie realized that he liked theorizing more than he liked the thought of organizing and actually digging, but to be fair trying to get any kind of go-ahead from the MDC to mess up their parkland is probably demoralizing and discouraging.

DeNofa
Aug 25, 2009

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

So does anyone want to talk about whatever-the-gently caress is the newest Secret podcast episode?

CrashCat
Jan 10, 2003

another shit post


Urban Smurf posted:

I didnt realize so many links were broken. I had everything in one big folder and decided to move pics to 12 seperate folders to be more organized. I'm not too attached to many old ideas, so most pics were obsolete anyhow. PM me if you have a specific link you're trying to find and I'll dig it up for you.
just repost some of them at random and pretend they're new, most of us won't know the difference

burnstyle
Jan 9, 2015

Sometimes a nut job...
Sometimes a really good person

DeNofa posted:

So does anyone want to talk about whatever-the-gently caress is the newest Secret podcast episode?

We are giving away a first printing of the book.
I was going to just give it away randomly, but the Facebook group wanted to do a mini puzzle with the winner getting the book.


The puzzle sort of took on a life of its own.

BigBadSteve
Apr 29, 2009

burnstyle posted:

We are giving away a first printing of the book.
I was going to just give it away randomly, but the Facebook group wanted to do a mini puzzle with the winner getting the book.

The puzzle sort of took on a life of its own.

Here's a suggestion for marketing the book.

With each book include a miniature plastic treasure box with little plastic treasures in it, and a plastic hand shovel, so the buyer can bury the treasure box in their yard or a public place, and dig it up later.

FREE TREASURE BOX WITH EVERY BOOK!!
COLLECT THE WHOLE SET!!!

Piggy Smalls
Jun 21, 2015



BOSS MAKES A DOLLAR,
YOU MAKE A DIME,
I'LL LICK HIS BOOT TILL THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS SHINE.

BigBadSteve posted:

Here's a suggestion for marketing the book.

With each book include a miniature plastic treasure box with little plastic treasures in it, and a plastic hand shovel, so the buyer can bury the treasure box in their yard or a public place, and dig it up later.

FREE TREASURE BOX WITH EVERY BOOK!!
COLLECT THE WHOLE SET!!!

Nope. No can do. Too much legal fees as owners of the book break their wrists as they attempt to dig up the plastic boxes.

CrashCat
Jan 10, 2003

another shit post


burnstyle posted:

We are giving away a first printing of the book.
I was going to just give it away randomly, but the Facebook group wanted to do a mini puzzle with the winner getting the book.


The puzzle sort of took on a life of its own.
put the book in the cache where the Destiny 2 ARG prize was, along with some wooden nickels

Drunk Nerds
Jan 25, 2011

Just close your eyes
Fun Shoe
The good:
Two prominent searchers held a puzzle contest to give away an original copy.

The bad:
After 5 cities were solved, the puzzlers shut down the hunt because... reasons. They gave away the prize, but one was getting blown up with texts all night and the other... didn't like how we were diligently following his rules, I still don't get it

The funly:
I'm running a puzzle treasure hunt based on the remaining 7 cities. It starts tomorrow at 7 PM PST, with prizes, and you don't have to be there live to play (it's a premade hunt so just check it out at your leisure.)


Rules, here:
http://mildville.proboards.com/thread/480/rules-secret-treasure-hunt

Drunk Nerds fucked around with this message at 01:35 on May 28, 2018

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Cosmik Debris
Sep 12, 2006

The idea of a place being called "Chuck's Suck & Fuck" is, first of all, a little hard to believe
so I've been in this thread off an on for the last couple years. Has any more significant progress been made?

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