In Search of the Roanoke Island Casque of The Secret Armchair Treasure Hunt: Six Questions with Dustin and Deidra White

This is the tenth 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 of Roanoke Island in North Carolina with searchers, Dustin and Deidra White. As you notice at the end of the Six Questions, they offer an excellent outline of where the North Carolina Casque might be buried. You have to love their way of thinking to suggest that while the Verse leads you to Roanoke Island, the Casque might actually be buried from a place only seen from there! It is possible these kind of new perspectives, and keeping all options open, might bring the remaining casques to surface! Thanks for sharing Dustin and Deidra! Enjoy!

It is believed Image 3 matches with Verse 11 leading to North Carolina

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

Deidra: I discovered The Secret nearly three years ago. After Dustin won the 2016 Rose Festival Medalion Treasure Hunt and my cousin saw all of our excitement on Facebook, she shared a post with us about The Secret because the Rose Festival hunt reminded her of it. At that moment we began researching the puzzles in the book and the history of the hunt. From that point forward we knew there was no looking back, we had to find these Casques!

Dustin: Yep! Deidra introduced me to The Secret and I thought it was so crazy that only two of the twelve Casques had been found in this thirty-plus year long hunt. We began consuming every piece of information we could find about The Secret. I read that much of the treasure hunt had been solved and it was pointless to even try to solve some of the puzzles because they were irretrievable or lost to time. This included the casque thought to be on Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I stopped looking at The Secret for a little bit because of this, which was unfortunate. Shortly thereafter, I picked the book back up and began trying to work out the puzzles of The Secret with Deidra (she never stopped researching).

We discovered that some of the things we had read might be and probably were wrong (of course, there is a lot of research out there that is very solid as well and extremely valuable) and we wanted to do what we could to try to help others move the quest forward. Personally, we believe that all ten remaining Casques are still retrievable and we think they can all be found. Especially considering the valuable new information being discovered all the time. For example, the Japanese edition of The Secret found by Quest4Treasure user Goldengate last year that provides legitimate hints for the hunt, things like this make me feel that we’re closer than ever to getting another Casque pulled out of the ground.

• 2Q) What inspired you to look for the Outer Banks Casque?

Dustin: While researching the various painting and verse pairings of The Secret, the Outer Banks riddle really stood out to us. It is one of the only puzzles that has an undeniable link between painting and verse: “Ride the man of oz | To the land near the window”. We didn’t discover this connection ourselves but when we saw the side by side comparison on the PBworks wiki site showcasing the shape of Roanoke Island and the shape painted near the window in Painting 3 and how similar they looked to each other (shown below), our opinion became that this was something that just can’t be disputed. The fact that the Washington Baum Bridge (L. Frank Baum wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, therefore “Baum” is the “man of oz”) connects Roanoke Island to the rest of the Outer Banks sealed the deal.

Deidra: Yes and in addition to that, the rich history we learned about the Outer Banks has been fascinating! Did you know that local kids were paid a penny per bucket of dirt that they brought up to the area that eventually became the hill where the Wright Brothers National Memorial now stands to stabilize the sand the monument was going to be built upon? Did you know that sea captain Samuel Mace was hired by Sir Walter Ralegh to look for the missing colonists of Roanoke Island but instead spent his time in the New World harvesting sassafras because he could sell it for a high price in England? We didn’t either! These pieces of information don’t help us formulate our theory of where the Casque is buried but we are richer for gaining hundreds of tidbits of knowledge like this while studying this puzzle and it’s been extremely enlightening and fun!

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

Deidra: Sure! At the end of our “6 Questions” is our step by step interpretation of Painting 3 / Verse 11 and how they lead a searcher to the Wright Brothers National Memorial. We sent this document to the National Park Service well over a year ago hoping to get permission to dig (more on that later!). We hope you enjoy it!

Dustin: What she said!

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

Dustin: A renewed relationship with my wife! I love that my wife and I get to do these things together. Working on treasure hunts such as Breakfast Tea and Bourbon, Map of the Dead and of course, The Secret has brought us closer together like nothing else has. It’s weird but, before I won the Rose Festival Medallion Treasure Hunt in 2016 we didn’t do a whole lot together that didn’t involve our kids except watch a few TV shows and movies together. We’ve always had a great and happy relationship but now that we have these treasure hunts in our lives we’re always thinking about them and brainstorming with each other and our communication is so much better than it used to be. It has simply brought us closer together. These hunts actually encourage us to go do more together and that’s priceless! We’ve taken vacations together scouting and sometimes digging for buried treasure. I mean, come on! How cool is that?! That’s just something we didn’t dream of at all before.

Deidra: Definitely! To everybody reading this, try to get the people you love into these treasure hunts as well! I can’t think of a better family activity in an age where we’re all so wrapped up in our digital lives than having a hobby that requires you to get out and search for treasure, enjoy nature and being aware of the things that surround us. It’s a real joy to work on these puzzles with Dustin and our kids really love the road trips we’ve gone on looking for treasures. To me, real treasure is more than just a physical item to be found. I feel like we often find treasures that we didn’t initially set out to look for.

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

Deidra: The number one obstacle in preventing searchers from getting this particular Casque out of the ground is the ability to get permission to dig from the parks departments. The National Park Service is very protective of their lands and they truly have every right to be! The National Parks in America are beautiful and don’t need to be torn apart by treasure hunters. Although, we feel it would be very beneficial to searchers and to the National Park Service themselves if they could form a kind of partnership with treasurer hunters where we could submit a potential “solution” to them. Option one, if they deem the theory as worthy to look into and they can arrange for small supervised dig to take place like they do in San Francisco. Or, for option two they can offer to do the dig themselves for a small fee where they could send photos of before, during and after the dig to the person that submitted the theory for them to further investigate or possibly to celebrate! We would all prefer option one and the ability to do the digging ourselves but in reality this isn’t really an option because one of the requirements to gain permission to dig in these parks is you have to have a degree in anthropology or archaeology to even have your application be considered, we know this because we applied for a permit and got denied because of it!

Dustin: I agree with Deidra. It would be really great if the National Park Service would set up a program like she suggested in her “option two” because there would be the possibility that the Casque would finally be unearthed and end all unauthorized digging in the area. The popular dig sites on Roanoke Island and other dig targets in the Outer Banks were hit hard by unauthorized digging during the recent government shutdown which caused a lot of grief for the National Park Service. These areas are archaeologically sensitive and deserve to be treated with respect. A result of these unauthorized digs is that they’re less tolerant to treasure hunters now than they ever have been before. Please be respectful to the land and please be patient. Who knows, there may be an opportunity in the future to get the chance to dig in the area but those chances will decrease if unauthorized digging and destruction continue to occur.

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

Dustin: Research is key. It’s great to collaborate and the 15+ years of researched information available on forums like Quest 4 Treasure is really valuable! However, some of that information needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Don’t take someone else on their word for their findings and discoveries, research it to death and figure out for yourself if it’s right. Deidra challenges me on just about everything I find. A lot of times I have to eat my words because she was right to challenge the idea. Doing this really helps us find what is actually important in figuring these things out. Last thing from me, don’t be afraid to be creative and try new things. It’s been a long time since Brian Zinn and Andy Abrams found their Casque in Cleveland and the ideas and methods people have been using since then haven’t located another Casque. It doesn’t mean they are wrong but it doesn’t hurt to have new ideas and methods introduced into the hunt and I hope some of the veterans will be open to some fresh takes on these things because it might be exactly what The Secret needs at this point.

Deidra: For once I completely agree with Dustin! Research, research, research! Also, if you want to help get the ball rolling you can write letters to the National Park Service asking them to set up a program to assist all of us in getting this Casque out of the ground in a safe and legal way that protects the archeological sensitive sites and would end the unauthorized digging going on all over the place. The National Park Service can be reached by mail at:

Attn: Jami Lanier
Cultural Resource Manager
Cape Hatteras NS/Fort Raleigh NHS/Wright Brothers NM
1401 National Park Drive
Manteo, NC 27954

Thank you to Jenny Kile and Mysterious Writings for this opportunity! We both truly appreciate it!

The proposed solution to Image 3 with Verse 11 outlined by Dustin and Deidra:

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