Let's solve a 40 year old unsolved treasure hunt!

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Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

In the one that's supposed to be New York, one element of the picture appears to be a Russian Orthodox church, but it's not like New York has a shortage of those.

# ¿ May 31, 2013 07:36

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:43

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Cask 3/North Carolina

Is there any way to get a better scan of this image? It's very dark and there are features that I can't make out. Up at the top of the window, it looks like there might be two slitted eyes, like a gargoyle or dragon or something? Don't know if it's relevant, because I can't see if it's actually there or not.

In addition to that, in the lower right, there are one or two objects. One looks like it might be a spoon? Is there something in the bowl of the spoon? What's the thing to the lower right of the spoon?

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 05:44

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Bankok posted:

If you got to http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage you can download their "high scans" from what looks like 2004 from the BunnyEars website link.

Thanks, I had tried to download one of the other linked zip files, and the link was non-functional.

The image is better, but I still can't see if that's actually something up at the top of the window, or if it's some kind of printing anomaly.

I also still can't tell what that is under the spoon either.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 06:32

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Sorry it's so sloppy, I'm using the touchpad of a laptop (and it's 3am).

EDIT: This may also be hopelessly grasping, but the shape of the red "skirt" on the suit of armor has been bugging me. It's very weird looking, so it has to mean something. The only things I've been able to think of that it kind of resembles are either a pinecone or the boughs of a pine tree...and from that one picture of the gate leading to the beach, there's a pine tree right next to the gate.
http://i.imgur.com/WTIGfz2.jpg

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Mnemosyne fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jun 1, 2013

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 08:36

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

an adult beverage posted:

I'm not familiar with that place, but did the park have that same pathing shape 30 years ago?

I'm not from the area, but the history I read said they built the gardens in the 50's, and placed that gazebo at the top of the circle loop in April of 1981, which is probably very close to when he buried the casks.

Which actually maybe ties in with another part of the verse? The history says the gazebo (very close to the gate to the beach that's been mentioned) "is situated at a site overlooking the Roanoke and Currituck Sounds, very possibly the spot were Sir Richard Grenville, Walter Raleigh�s cousin, first set foot in 1585 upon his arrival with a fleet of seven ships and 108 men."

Could this be related to the "first seen" line?

EDIT: There's also a dot/rivet on the wrist of the armor at the top right of the circular loop of the path. The dot looks like it corresponds with where the gate opens onto the beach. I originally thought it was just a feature of the armor, but there isn't a matching dot on the other wrist, so maybe it's intentional?

Mnemosyne fucked around with this message at 09:28 on Jun 1, 2013

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 09:21

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Premeditated Toast posted:

Besides some minor renovations over the years, yeah it's stayed the same. I also noticed this while looking at your pics, Mnemosyne:

That's the Wright Brothers Memorial as seen from across the waters! I'd guess to say it's buried by one of the gate pillars, which has a ball top. As for the pine tree, I recall there being a lot more around that area but my memory could be fuzzy.

I want to go dig between that gatepost and the pine tree really badly, but I'm also a giant pansy who is afraid of getting arrested. :ohdear:

I also live about 6 hours away, but I've driven to the Outer Banks before, and would be totally willing to do it again for this, if it weren't for that getting arrested business.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 09:47

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Cask 3 / North Carolina

More confirmation about the location. The image is full of things that have to be relevant, which I just haven't placed yet. One of them is the multiple bells (and keys). From here:

http://www.kitchensaremonkeybusiness.com/2008/02/another-stroll-through-elizabethan.html

"The parterres in the Sunken Garden are in the shapes of boats and in the shapes of bells. A gentleman named Bell did the back-hoe work when digging this area out, plus bells go along with the boats."

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 20:34

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

plaguedoctor posted:

Re: "object of Twain�s attention"

Wouldn't that be the Mississippi River?

If there's anything that looking at all of this has taught me, it's that this clue has got to be useless, because Mark Twain wrote a little bit about everything.

Unless it means that there's a statue of Mark Twain somewhere and his eyes are looking in the direction of whatever the "object" is.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 23:31

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

I was reading Tweleve.org and it was mentioned that due to it's historical significance, digging on Roanoke is a federal crime.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 04:06

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Strongylocentrotus posted:

Any news on Roanoke? That feels like the one we're closest to finding, just need to get some brave soul on the ground to start rooting around for it.

I keep checking in with the same question. I had to give up working on these because I was staying up at night doing it and then I was really grumpy during the day and my husband got mad at me.

If nobody else ends up digging, I'll probably try myself, but I'll probably wait until September or so. I'm not digging in 90+ degree heat, and the hotel rooms down there are triple what they'll cost at the end of the summer.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 21:00

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Nesetril posted:

The best part is that he allegedly said something cryptic like "there was only one blue stone back there".

If the light wasn't good, an unset aquamarine could definitely appear to be clear rather than blue. It makes sense. Some of them are very light in color.

For example, this is taken in a bright light against a whitish background:
http://www.lawsons.com.au/thumb//910/10118910tn.jpg

It's almost clear with good lighting. In a dim setting, you probably wouldn't think it was blue at all.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2013 04:24

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

rookhunter posted:

IF someone wanted to dig there, I imagine all they would have to do is take a small army shovel and wait until that remote part of the island was empty. The casques that have been found were never deeper than 2 feet down. Most of us could dig that in 15 min.

The guys who found the last cask had a really good idea of where it was, and it still took two guys digging for 5 hours to find it.

It would only have taken 15 minutes to bury it, but speaking as someone who has dug up pipes in their yard, if you're off by even 6 inches, it's going to take much, much longer.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2013 01:51

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

rookhunter posted:

Here is what they have found out at Q4T:

The lamp was discovered by a user passing by in Aug 2006.
William Tutin Thomas built the house.
The lamps have no markings on them, they were closely looked at by one of the users.
The lamp is so old that they actually had to be converted from gas to electric at one point.
An old employee and administrator that was questioned believed they were made for the house.
No others have been found.

Has anyone tried contacting the local Historical Society to see if they have any other info?

# ¿ Jun 21, 2013 19:48

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

xie posted:

The coastline thing comes up a lot but would be unprecedented. The only map we know of is the map of Ohio, and that seemed to take quite a while to surface in the first place. I'm not saying they aren't there, but a lot of time has been spent with almost zero results.

edit: Is there an outline in the Roanoke one? That's the painting I'm least familiar with.

Yes, there is an outline of the shape of Roanoke Island.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2013 03:39

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

xie posted:

The coastline thing comes up a lot but would be unprecedented. The only map we know of is the map of Ohio, and that seemed to take quite a while to surface in the first place. I'm not saying they aren't there, but a lot of time has been spent with almost zero results.

If you are a believer in the rough outline of Illinois in the Grant Park painting, then there's nothing wrong with the FL outline. I'm not sure that wasn't just a coincidence though, it's a very rough outline.

I also did a side-by-side of the image that went with the Grant Park/Illinois cask and an outline of Illinois and I think it's too close to be coincidence. It's not 100% perfect, but the artist was painting these by hand, without the use of Photoshop layers to make sure that he had everything 100%. One thing that I think is particularly convincing is the left "straight" edge of Illinois being created by a line with a hook running down to hold up the ear flap on the goblin dude's hat. There's not really any good reason as far as the illustration goes for him to have that weird pulley system attached to his hat, unless it's to create a boundary for the edge of Illinois.

I'm attaching the side-by-side image I made. Let me know if it doesn't show up. It's not overlaid because I haven't made an animated gif in a decade and I no longer remember how.

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# ¿ Jul 1, 2013 17:04

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Very Nice Eraser posted:

But the Litany of the Jewels says that Italy is associated with peridot and Celtic is associated with sapphire.

You mean Emerald (instead of sapphire).

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 01:38

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Deteriorata posted:

Well, now I'm all confused. Image 3 has a watch that clearly says 1 o'clock, which would make it January. That makes sense for a red garnet, and the birth flower is then the British style as a white carnation.

However, if image 11 is then a green peridot, the flower would have to be a poppy - and that doesn't look like any poppy I've ever seen. It clearly looks like a snowdrop, which is the American style flower for January.

I don't know what's up with Wikipedia saying that in America the Snowdrop is the flower for January. I always grew up (in America) with the tradition that it was the Carnation. Why yes I did have all the flowers and gemstones for each birth month memorized as a child. :colbert:

My grandmother was born in January, and she always used to complain that she didn't like her stone or flower because they were both "cheap," so she grew up with Carnation as the flower too.

The flower in image 11 looks like maybe some kind of orchid maybe? But not a very good representation of one. Wikipedia gives the alternate flower for August as a Gladiolus, and the picture looks like that's what it could be. GIS shows me that there must be a lot of variation among them, but a few of the pictures look like what's in that painting.

EDIT: Here's one that looks like the painting:
http://www.123rf.com/photo_11914127_vector-beautiful-colored-gladiolus-flower-with-drops.html

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 04:52

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Typh posted:

This would be interesting, but I'm almost certain that blurry picture is just a lamp with legs, not legeater legs. Are you certain? Looking forward to pictures.

Yeah, from that it looks like there's legs, but no "eater," and it looks like the legs end in either clawed feet or animal heads(?) instead of hooves. Still, can't ever have too much information.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 05:11

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Roanoke

Cosmik Debris posted:

Also my girlfriend is pretty interested in the Roanoke island puzzle and I think we're gonna go there and check out the elizabethan gardens when we have some time off week after next.

We will all love you if you take photos of the area for us. Especially anywhere around the gate that leads to the beach and the bench.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 16:01

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Montreal

Guuse posted:

I wonder who all the saints are up there. I'm trying to find out on the internet but amazingly I can't actually find a comprehensive list anywhere.

The Wikipedia page says "Instead of the statues of the twelve apostles on the fa�ade of St. Peter's, the front of the church is topped by statues of the patron saints of thirteen parishes of Montreal who donated them, including St. John the Baptist and St. Patrick."

So there's two, and one looks to be St Francis of Assisi (trying to find clearer photos), but I guess there's probably some way to find out the patron saint of each of the parishes.

EDIT: Found this elsewhere "Various parishes and interest groups sponsored the statues which include such non-apostolic saints as Patrick, Joseph, Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas."

Mnemosyne fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jul 10, 2013

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 04:50

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Montreal

Urban Smurf posted:

St. Dennis is up there, he's the decapitated one. He's holding his head, creepy like Ichabod Crane's headless horseman or a footballer carrying the ball (that funky hat is shaped just like a football).

I don't see St Dennis. I checked for him since Montreal is all French and stuff and St Dennis is the patron saint of France and I see nobody lacking a head.

EDIT: Here we go, there's a close up photo and identification for each statue.
http://www.dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0008300.htm

Kind of weird that there's no statue of Mary up there, given that the cathedral is "Mary, Queen of the World." The Catholic churches around here rarely seem to have a statue of anyone but Mary.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 05:00

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Roanoke

Sham I Am posted:

I think that is not a spoon, but a lever. If you look at the end of the "handle" it looks like it curved and actually coming out of the wall. Ad the pea is not a pea but a post that is sticking out of the wall and is being used to hold the lever in place.

A friend of mine ordered a copy of the book and I looked particularly hard at this part of the image since I wasn't 100% sold that it was a spoon. In the real copy of the book, it's pretty unmistakably a spoon. It's hanging from a thread that goes back up to the arm of the armor, just like the way the bells are hanging.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2013 01:45

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

So this guy claims the gems aren't lost? I'm not sure how you think you lost $10k worth of gems and be wrong about it.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 16:49

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Jack Gladney posted:

It's somewhere in this thread: he left instructions for his attorney to handle the jewels if he died. People have contacted the attorney, and he refuses to give any clues but knows where everything is, I guess.

I thought earlier in the thread the claim was that the gems had been taken as part of the author's estate when he died?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 17:43

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

BigFactory posted:

idk, the GBS weirdos who come in here mad about nobody digging are the odd ones imo.

Never been banned said he posted in this thread specifically because he wanted goons to pressure him into action. Yelling at him for not digging is exactly what he asked for.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 22:21

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Do Not Resuscitate posted:

What's up with not telling us what image you're working with? Do you seriously think someone is going to swoop in like Indiana Jones to steal a plaster shoebox that no one has located in over 30 years? I don't get why you're being such a retarded weirdo about this most basic info.

Maybe I'm missing what you're complaining about, but a PDF explaining his solution, with the image and verse and all. Are you talking about some other image?

# ¿ Nov 12, 2014 07:30

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

BigBadSteve posted:

I haven't got time to read all the pages I missed in this topic, so someone pls tell me: (1) Have any unequivocal leads been found? (2) Did anyone have a brain embolism trying?

While it might not be an embolism, I think it's safe to assume that Urban Smurf has some sort of brain injury.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 08:28

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Urban Smurf posted:

So are you back or are you still calling it quits on this hunt?

I moved to the opposite side of the county since this thread started, so I'm no longer near any of the locations, unfortunately.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2015 08:17

Mnemosyne: Jun 11, 2002; There's no safe way to put a cat in a paper bag!!

Urban Smurf posted:

I'd like to think you're secretly pursuing my Vancouver B.C. or San Juan Island theories.

Heh, I'm in a dead zone as far as casks are concerned. San Francisco is about the closest, and even that's 400+ miles away. Unfortunately, I think because SF is so dense and has changed so much over time that it's going to require someone who lives there and is really familiar with the city.

On top of that, all my mystery-solving time has been routed to another project; I'm trying to figure out who my unknown father is using nothing but the results of a couple DNA tests. It's time consuming and doesn't leave much room for working on other stuff like this. I keep thinking I should make an ask/tell thread about it, but I'm not sure I have time to do the thread justice.