In August of 2018, Armchair Treasure Hunts by Jenny Kile, was published and released. Besides having summaries of over 20 armchair treasure hunts, the foreword being written by Forrest Fenn, and most of the Featured Questions and Answers with Forrest Fenn and other Thrill of the Chase material included, it was filled with various fun codes to solve.
One of these codes were special words from Forrest Fenn to searchers.
They were solved within a few months, and publicly shared. They are:
“If you are in the right spot, something you probably haven’t thought about, should be obvious to you.”
The solution for the coded words in the book involved a multilayer process.
- 1)Scattered Puzzle Pieces (which included an images of Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest) were used as a Book Code and provided Letters.
- 2)The ‘Thrill of the Chase’ Magic Square confirmed the definite order for those letters from the Puzzle Pieces
- 3)The Vigenere Cipher was applied to the Puzzle Piece Letters
- 4)The Final Message was found by the numbers on the Back Page applied to the letters of the Vigenere Cipher’s solution string.
(Simple as that! Full solution posted below)
Now in a second book, Introduction to Codes and Ciphers: Plus 20 Famous Unsolved Codes, Ciphers, and Mysterious Writings comes another set of Coded Words from Forrest Fenn.
The first person to solve this set of Coded Words, and forwards a successful claim will receive a limited edition and very special Forrest Fenn Gold Medallion!
Who will be the first to solve this new set of words?
The book, Introduction to Codes and Ciphers, describing over 20 various codes and ciphers and how to use them, prepares your mind to find the solution! The Forrest Fenn Coded Words are again found at the end of the book, next to the MW Treasure Hunt: Hidden in Time’s Past worth $500!
The book is available on Amazon or Signed Copies here on MW!
Get your copy today and join the adventures! Best of luck to all! Who will receive the Forrest Fenn Gold Medallion?!
Below is the the Solution to Forrest Fenn’s Coded Special Words Inside the Book of Armchair Treasure Hunts:
The Code began/or ended with the back page.
On the back page were numbers from 1-80, mixed.
41 10 73 22 80 28 76 6 32 53 61 19 1 36 56 23 65 40 13 67 29 2 21 45 39 3 79 51 49 24 27 11 17 69 4 71 50 5 30 57 25 7 60 35 12 20 8 70 52 26 62 42 14 54 31 9 33 72 55 37 15 58 75 66 43 74 68 59 16 46 34 18 77 63 44 64 78 38 47 48
For anyone who worked on the A Treasure’s Trove in 2005, this method was used and could have been easily recognized. The numbers immediately suggested a string of letters would need reordered according to the sequence of numbers.
For instance, the following sequence of numbers of 1-20 would suggest the reordering of a 20 letter jumbled phrase of letters: 10, 4, 14, 3, 11, 2, 17, 5, 6, 1, 12, 9, 13, 16, 19, 7, 20, 18, 15, 9
They can be used to reorder the following 20 letters:
H U A R E T N A E T S E D E R V R U E T
The first letter of H replaces the 1. The second letter of U replaces the 2. And so on to reveal:
Treasure the Adventure.
All through the book, the first being seen on page 1, can be noticed Puzzle Pieces with 5 groups of numbers. Also it can be noticed the puzzle pieces have an image of Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest on them.
There are 16 puzzle pieces throughout the book. 16 x 5 = 80. It can be assumed these puzzle pieces, with their group of numbers and connection to the Forrest Fenn Treasure, can provide 80 letters.
The numbers are on the last page. The first puzzle piece is on the first page where the Foreword is by Forrest Fenn. It can be assumed the puzzle pieces will be used in the Foreword. The end and the beginning.
Each puzzle piece gives 5 letters by the book code method- meaning by counting words and letters. In this case, the first number is the word and the second number is the letter in that word. All second numbers were of smaller nature suggesting such.
A mix of 80 letters would be provided. Applying these to the numbers in the back of the book would not have yielded a coherent phrase however. More needs to be done.
On page 62 is a 4×4 square, 16 spots, that are used to correctly order the letters. Not by Random. The Square is a Magic Square, providing the correct and definite order for the 16 puzzle piece and their letters.
Searchers would now have the following string of letters:
SVRWYULOKKOZMIEAYULFUTIITYWBLBHKAVCAZUAUMWXCLLQFRMJMYPJLSVLCUSOKLLICTXBXACUHRBVG
This String of letters needed placed through the Vigenere Cipher using a Key Word.
The Clue, and a few other clues, hinting to the Key Word and the process to follow for solving the Coded Words in the book, were not found by searchers in the book, and so a clue was given to searchers to indicate what the Key Word was.
The Clue was:
“March has ended and the jokers can go too
Play with a standard deck that is your clue
The first word is seen hidden and so is the fifth
The message revealed? The final location goes with”
The Key Word was revealed to be:
Hidden Somewhere In The Mountains North Of Santa Fe New Mexico
(Basically the clue said the Key Word is 52 letters and that Hidden is the first word, and Rocky (the fifth word of the phrase found in the book) is also ‘hidden’- and not used) The Phrase ‘Hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains North of Santa Fe New Mexico’ was in the book.’ As mentioned, clues towards this, and the process, were in the book, but searchers were having difficulty in recognizing or connecting them- Such the clue above was given.
The string of letters after being placed through the Vigenere Cipher yielded:
LNOTUHTAYGSSIRASLBEBIFOVAYOOTOTTHOOVHUNBMRTPHPEBUEHYRHGIOITOIOSDHUEUGEUTOOAUYBNT
Reordering this string by the numbers on the back page provided the Special Words from Forrest Fenn to searchers:
Again they were:
“If you are in the right spot, something you probably haven’t thought about, should be obvious to you.”
It was as simple as that! Use the Puzzle Pieces, order them by the Magic Square, place string through Vigenere Cipher and apply to the numbers on the back.
Congrats to those clever searchers who solved the Words all on their own! There were a good many.
What do you think the new coded words are? Can you solve them and claim a Forrest Fenn Gold Medallion? More importantly, will they help you discover where the Forrest Fenn Treasure is hidden?
They might!
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Best of luck and Always Treasure the Adventure!
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Great stuff, Jenny. I love your enthusiasm for all things puzzling. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much, Spoon….