Congrats to Jeff R. who successfully claimed the Forrest Fenn Gold Medallion #7. The treasure hunt was released on April 10th on DalNeitzel.com and was solved by April 13th. We received word the coded Treasure Hunt Stone, used to claim the Medallion, was found late Saturday night! Jeff took his Flashlight….I wonder if he had a sandwich? 🙂
Dal and I are so happy they are being found and claimed. That is what we want! We thank everyone for participating in the hunts and making them fun to offer! The next one will be released on April 24, right here on MysteriousWritings. Only 3 more to go in this first series of FFGM Treasure Hunts. (Released 4/24, 5/8, and 5/22)
So you might be wondering, what was FFGM #7’s solution? How did Jeff R. know right where to go to retrieve his prize?
All that was needed to solve FFGM #7 was in the image below. (The accompanying video just helped confirm the exact location by providing more images of the precise spot the Coded Treasure Stone was waiting to be found.)
The Coded Forrest Fenn Treasure Stone was found where X Marks the Spot in the background image, at the General Store of Pine Grove Furnace State Park in PA. The solution is as follows.
It should be noticed X is in Center of the image. X marks the spot. Besides marking the exact spot the stone is hidden in the background image, the idea that X is center of something is given.
One of the biggest confirmers of location is recognizing the sequence of numbers and letters in the bottom right to be a move in Chess. This move is called the Center GAME. State abbreviations can be noticed: GA is Georgia and ME is Maine. We know these initial Medallions are all being hid in the Appalachian Mountains, and that the Appalachian Trail goes from Georgia to Maine. It is AT center… Center GA (X) ME. The center of the Appalachian Trail is at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in PA.
AT is also the abbreviation for the Appalachian Trail.
There were multiple clues, of various methods, given to hint to the center of the AT/Appalachian Trail or for the AT.
One of the first is using the Compass image where X is at center. N points to A (med-A-llion) and S to the number 18, which when 18 is decoded, is a T. X is center of AT- center of the Appalachian Trail.
The number code along the bottom works out to be General Store.
With some googling, it is found Pine Grove Furnace State Park has a General Store which offers hikers the ‘Half Gallon Ice Cream Challenge’. If they can eat it, they win a wooden Victory Spoon.
Victory Spoon is hinted at in the text on the left.
The 18th word in the text on the left is AT. The clue of 1×8 in the upper right hinted to center of AT (or X is center of AT (18th word)—the Appalachian Trail.
HA is code for 81 (H 8th letter, A 1st letter). Pine Grove Furnace State Park is 8 miles from Route 81 in PA (PA given on the utensils in the Bacon Cipher). The text hints to this too. Start at 81, go 8, have desert (ice cream- victory spoon). This is at the General Store where the Treasure Stone was hidden.
The Morse Code revealed: Laugh Often Love beyond words Live Every Moment
The text on the left also can hint to a ‘skip code’ of 8 and beginning with a Laugh. Taking every 8th letter of the phrase, beginning with laugh, the word TENET is found. X is 10/Ten, and this clue hints to X being at center again. (Ten forward/backward)
There’s also an image of A Tea cup…. Or sound it out— A T —cup… hints to AT/Appalachian Trail.
The code on the right in the middle is the Vigenere cipher, but is not needed. If you reversed the title, where the key is located at the end, it would reveal: If you’ve been wise and found the blaze, look under it to claim your prize.
The White Coded Treasure Stone was hidden under the rock with the ‘white blaze’ shown in the video/image at the General Store of Pine Grove Furnace State Park in PA, where the Appalachian Trail passes through and marks center.
I think that is it.
As you can see there were many ways clues for where this coded treasure stone was located were given. Any ONE Of them could have taken someone to the correct location.
Congrats again to Jeff R.! He will receive one of the limited and very special Gold Medallions!
Best of luck with all that you seek! Always Treasure the Adventure!
Congrats, Jeff.