The Beacon Star is an armchair treasure hunt that was published in 2017 by Randy Pischel. It is available on Amazon in either Print or Kindle Versions. The Prize of the hunt was initially a mystery, but it has been discovered to be $5,000 dollars, a gold coin, and an additional $1 for each book sold. This was revealed via a puzzle released by the Author. This valuable Treasure will go to the first person who solves the complete puzzle of the book. To date, The Beacon Star treasure remains to be claimed.
Lots of discussion is happening on the MW Forum. It was realized through these discussions that those who purchased the Kindle Version of the book did not have a ‘back cover’. There is an interesting and fun puzzle to solve on the back. The solution has been publicly shared, but here today, MW will only go over ‘How’ to solve it.
It makes for a perfect introduction, and example, to not only Codes and Ciphers in Armchair Treasure Hunts, but The Beacon Star.
Above is an image of the back cover, which can also be seen on Amazon’s listing of the book. As you can see there is a bit of text in one square, and numbers in another.
Although it is not an actual Ottendorf Cipher, as seen used in the National Treasure Movie, it is somewhat of a ‘book/number’ code.
A searcher might notice the highest number is 112 in the group of numbers on the back cover, and not counting the question mark, comma and apostrophe, there are 113 characters/letters in the text. So it can be surmised that quite possibly the numbers relate to the letters of text. If you number the text, similar to how the words were in The Beale Ciphers, a message could be revealed.
The only way to ‘know’ if this works or not is to try it. That’s one thing about working on Armchair Treasure Hunts, it takes a bit of trial and error. While there may be clues given for how to break a code, it still requires time to test and know for sure.
If a searcher does try this Number to Text method, though, on the back cover, it reveals a message. There is a ‘mistake’, however. And it could be just that, a mistake, or it could be a clue towards something else. No one knows for sure (or at least isn’t sharing publicly yet).
So have fun discovering the message!
Here are the letters of the text- without the punctuation.. Following the text are the numbers to apply….. (all on the back cover, shown above)
What the hell is this strange book Its more than a short story about doors if you look close enough you will find something extraordinary…
18 95 105 59 70 37 62 106 48 70 10 78 7 60 63 57 54 88 33 78 90 56 62 85 112 13 103 77 22 101
The first decoded letter is S. S is the 18th letter in the text (first number in the code). The second decoded is the letter E (E is the 95th letter in the text). And so forth.
Tip: Count every 10 letters and mark with a /. Place the 10, 20, 30, 40, etc above it. Then when a number appears you can go right to that section and find the letter.
What the hel/ l is this str/ ange book It/ s more than a / short story / about doors/ if you look c/ lose enough / you will fin/ d something / extraordin/ ary
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