This is the ninth of a series of Six Questions with dedicated searchers of The Secret (A Treasure Hunt) published in 1982 by Byron Preiss. Each Six Questions of the series takes a look into a proposed location for a buried Casque of The Secret Armchair Treasure Hunt. There were 12 buried casques of which only two have ever been found. When will the next one be brought to surface?

The following takes a look at the believed location for the casque in New Orleans. Brett Zingler, who currently helps with The Secret Podcast and Facebook Pages, shares the adventures of digging for the casque and coming up with ? Still undetermined! How exciting! Read on for more!

It is believed Image 7 matches with Verse 2 leading to New Orleans

1Q) When did you first hear about The Secret?

About 3 years ago I ran into a user named Burnstyle on Reddit (who we all know as George Ward) while participating in and eventually running a bunch of the geocaching and other puzzles on Reddit. He seemed like an affable guy and we became fast friends, eventually meeting up in person in St. Augustine FL. He mentioned this book from the 80’s called The Secret, and thought I may want to join his group who was collaborating to try to dig up buried treasure. “Um, yes of course” was my answer, and immediately I was hooked. Fast forward a few years later and we are hosting The Secret podcast and moderate a handful of the pages on FB.

2Q) What inspired you to look for the New Orleans Casque?

As a San Francisco native I was immediately drawn to the SF pairing. So most of my time has been spent on that. Eventually I started reading through the forums and began to feel that the NOLA casque was in or around Lafayette Square as I’ll explain below. And I’m also a big fan of NOLA. George, his fiancé Rachel King, John Michaels and I went there for a weekend and searched and actually dug. We found pieces of ceramic and plexiglass in the spot we thought it might be, but beyond that I am not sure if we have pieces of the casque.

What struck me immediately about New Orleans which I haven’t really found much of in the other pairings was that BOTH the verse and the image independently seem like a concrete fit for NOLA.

First in the image: the clock has the word Preservation written on it! Dead ringer for Preservation Hall in NOLA.

Then the verse: it includes the line

“Here is a sovereign people

Who build palaces to shelter

Their heads for a night!”

Which, I agree, is a very strong call out to the Sarmiento book ‘Travels in the US’ (1847) referring to the St. Charles Hotel near Lafayette Square “Here is the sovereign people who build palaces to shelter their heads for a night!”.

Both very compelling, right? I feel that’s about as solid as anything we have in The Secret besides the two found casques. Not to mention, the lat/long of Lafayette Square in NOLA is 29/90 which are the numbers in the edges of the clock in the image.

Nothing up to this point is my original thought; this is all taken from the hard work of other puzzle solvers over the years. So I want to reiterate that I’m merely piecing elements of this together in a way that makes sense to me personally, and that this information is all very public and available on the various forums.

3Q) What makes you believe the Casque is in New Orleans? Would you mind sharing some of the highlights of your solution?

So because of the above, we run under the presumption that Image 7, and Verse 2 are tied to NOLA. The way I approach these is that JJP painted both city and dig site clues into the Images, and the verse gives you directions/instructions on how to get to the dig site, and you are looking for visual confirmers from the Image once you’re there. There is, of course, much more in the Images, but for simplicity sake, and based on what we know today, my point is that we know it’s in NOLA- and most likely near the St. Charles Hotel according to the Verse.

So here’s the Verse and how I group the lines:

1)At the place where jewels abound

Fifteen rows down to the ground

2)In the middle of twenty-one

From end to end

3)Only three stand watch

4) As the sound of friends

Fills the afternoon hours

5) Here is a sovereign people

Who build palaces to shelter

Their heads for a night!

6) Gnomes admire

Fays delight

7) The namesakes meeting

Near this site.

I started at the end for one reason: The namesakes meeting, with the word Fays before it. This to me meant where Lafayette Avenue meets Lafayette Square.

Note: there are two intersections of the “Fays” at the Square. There wasn’t much of a dig spot on the east intersection so we focused on the west intersection of where Gallier Hall is. It happens to be where the King and Queen of Mardi Gras sit while judging the floats that pass by during the event. Especially compelling here is that Gallier Hall is on St. Charles Ave (same street as the Hotel).

Both George and I thought the dig site was at or near Gallier Hall but in the Square somewhere, perhaps near the John McDonogh statue which faces the Hall:

Note: the boy climbing to the top of the column. Nearly spot on image match for the ‘flying boy’ in the clock face of the Image, just vertical instead of horizontal.

George received a ‘solve’ from someone who pointed out that the base of the clock just below the clock face, when flipped upside down, is a match for the base of the columns in front of Gallier Hall.

…. And that there is a patch of grass in front of it as seen above (column to the left of the window, grass below it). And the big ‘aha moment’ was that there are 21 metal posts around the grass area (now they are gone, but the holes for the posts remain).

So now we go back to the verse –

1) At the place where jewels abound

Fifteen rows down to the ground

2) In the middle of twenty-one

From end to end

3) Only three stand watch

Where the jewels abound – where the Mardi Gras royalty sits and judges the floats.

Fifteen rows down to the ground – the 15 steps in front of Gallier Hall (depends on how you count them, this is debatable – could be 16 if you’re counting the top step, or perhaps BP miscounted, or maybe this is just wrong).

In the middle of 21 from end to end – in the middle of the 21 post holes surrounding the lawn area.

Only three stand watch – there are three figures looking down from the very top of Gallier Hall.

Also interesting – maybe if you’re turning the image upside down, the mask in the image may now be your shovel. So the person who sent the ‘solve’ thought we should dig in front of the column, but George put the ’21 posts’ together and figured we need to find the middle of the 21 poles in that grass plot and dig there.

We ended up digging several holes after going out a few evenings, and then Sunday just before our flight George, Rachel, and myself dug again and ran into a metal pipe, underneath which we found plexiglass and ceramic. We have yet to test the pieces – none of us is sure what we have. I suspect it’s not part of the casque, but at the end of the day we found a spot that made sense, we dug, and we found some stuff so it was pretty exciting.

4Q) What is the most unique thing you found while searching or what did you enjoy most about your search?

As I referenced above, we ended up digging the spot we surmised and ran into a length of pipe. Just below that – plexi and ceramic! It very well could have been nothing, of course, but it’s exciting, nonetheless.

5Q) What would you say is the major obstacle preventing a successful unearthing of the Casque?

I do believe that the casque is either where we looked or right around the Lafayette Square. It’s difficult if not impossible to dig there. It’s not safe at night and it’s full of government buildings, cameras, security and just a heck of a lot of people at all hours. Dig at your own risk.

6Q) Do you have any advice for someone else looking for this treasure or is there something more you would like to add?

I’m fairly new to all of this and have only dug on a few occasions. I always say on the podcast to take a giant step back and look at this thing as a puzzle and not a scavenger hunt. But I’m not really one to be doling out advice!

Thanks for the opportunity!