If you’re new to The Secret please check out this link, it’s a beginner’s guide to get you caught up on the history and major developments of this legendary treasure hunt from 1982 through today: A Beginner’s Guide to The Secret Armchair Treasure Hunt.

We learned about The Secret a few years ago when a family member sent us a link to a website dedicated to the hunt and we fell in love with it immediately.

The idea that there was a series of puzzles that had baffled treasure seekers for nearly four decades and had remained largely unsolved was something that really surprised us as we began researching the hunt. We consumed everything we could find about The Secret and the two casques that had been found (the first in Chicago in 1983 and the second in Cleveland in 2004). We became determined to figure out what happened to the rest of the treasures that were buried.

As anyone that has studied the puzzles that Byron Preiss and John Jude Palencar created for The Secret knows, trying to make sense of them is a daunting task. It was something we knew we needed to look into for ourselves to see if we could contribute anything new with a fresh perspective. Since we began looking at the twelve puzzles within the pages of The Secret we’ve poured thousands of hours of research into working on them.

Fast forward to January 2018 when The Secret was highlighted on an episode of “Expedition Unknown”. The airing of this episode brought new excitement and fresh eyes to a small committed community of seasoned ‘Secret’ searchers and completely re-energized the hunt.

During the same period we, like many casque searchers, listened to a podcast where the host, John Michaels, suggested that treasure hunters studying The Secret may want to look at the book as one puzzle and not as twelve individual riddles. We redoubled our own efforts on the quest after listening to that podcast and watching the first episode of “Expedition Unknown” about The Secret and we took John’s advice and we began thinking about the puzzle as a whole. Prior to that we saw no way to get a guaranteed “X marks the spot” from any of the painting and verse combinations and that was always something that bothered us.

A little over a month after the “Expedition Unknown” episode aired something clicked while we were researching the casque believed to be in San Francisco and we had what we consider to be the biggest breakthrough you could have in The Secret.

Over time, we discovered many elements of The Secret that support our theory including what we consider to be hidden instructions in the often overlooked story featured within the book. Those discoveries along with finding something specific hidden in the paintings that is again specifically hidden in the verse would give us an exact “X marks the spot”.

To verify if what we discovered could actually work, we tried the method on the dig sites in Chicago and Cleveland, where the only two casques and keys have ever been found. Our theory gave us a pinpoint “X marks the spot” right where those fairy treasure boxes were recovered. We believed we discovered “The Secret” of The Secret.

At the very end of the first “Expedition Unknown” episode about The Secret, the host Josh Gates says this:

“The Secret is maddeningly hard and I felt crushed that I couldn’t decipher it, but it’s also probably my favorite expedition of all time… Enter the maze with caution but be sure to call me if you happen to discover ”The Secret.””

Having just discovered what we believe to be “The Secret” of The Secret, we took Josh up on that offer and reached out to the “Expedition Unknown” team.

Over a year of friendly exchanges later, all of it ultimately led to a phone call where we explained what we call “The Secret” of The Secret to a producer from “Expedition Unknown”. This phone call was only supposed to last for about thirty minutes. The producer obviously loved what he was hearing because that initial call lasted for nearly three hours.

We probably didn’t explain it as well as it’s laid out below but it immediately made sense to him and immediately got the ball rolling for there to be a second edition of “Expedition Unknown” about The Secret.

THEORY: THE SECRET OF THE SECRET

THE STORY CONNECTION:

There is a specific date hidden in the text at the beginning of The Secret. It appears in the chapter titled: “The Passage to the New World”. Toward the end of the chapter it says:

“On the first morning of the first spring day, appeared, shining in the air, slender, golden people.”

Astronomers can calculate the first day of spring with more accuracy these days and it doesn’t always fall on the same date each year. However, growing up in the 80’s and the 90’s, March 21st was commonly known as the first day of spring. “Shining in the air” is referencing the sun. For our theory, the date March 21st and the sun itself are extremely important.

The very last paragraph in the story from the chapter titled “The Vanishing” tells you EXACTLY what “The Secret” is:

“In our land and in our time, the Fair People and their treasures yet wait to be discovered. If Man is good, and kind, and playful, he and she will find them. That is The Secret.”

We will explain what we think that means but first we need to put the other pieces in place that concern the paintings, the verses and what’s hidden inside of them.

BIRTHSTONES, BIRTH FLOWERS AND CLOCKS, OH MY!

Paired birthstones and birth flowers are featured in each and every painting. Therefore each painting indicates a specific month. We figure that something standing out as such must be extremely important to figuring out how the puzzle works.

Five paintings in The Secret feature a clock. Each clock represents a specific time that correlates with the month indicated by the birthstone and the birth flower that are not-so-hidden in the paintings:

Painting one: San Francisco, California

June birthstone: Pearl
June birth flower: Rose
Time shown on the clock indicates June: 6 o’clock / 6th month of the year

Painting two: Charleston, South Carolina

April birthstone: Diamond
April birth flower: Daisy
Time shown on the clock indicates April: 4 o’clock / 4th month of the year

Painting three: Outer Banks, North Carolina

January birthstone: Garnet
January birth flower: Carnation
Time shown on the clock indicates January: 1 o’clock / 1st month of the year

Painting seven: New Orleans, Louisiana

December birthstone: Turquoise
December birth flower: Narcissus
Time shown on the clock indicates December: 12 o’clock / 12th month of the year

Painting twelve: New York, New York

November birthstone: Topaz
November birth flower: Chrysanthemum
Time shown on the clock indicates November: 11 o’clock / 11th month

The rest of the paintings do not feature a clock with hands and numbers but there appears to always be something else on the paintings without clocks that refer to a theoretical “missing clock”.

For example:

In the “Chicago painting” that led to a casque discovery way back in 1983 there’s a troll prominently featured with a miniature castle on his head he wears as a hat. This troll is wearing an expression on his face that is reminiscent of the 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant and his portrait on the $50 bill. President Grant has a notable wart under his right eye visible on his $50 bill portrait and our mirrored friend, the Chicago troll, has four warts near his left eye and one wart on his nose in the painting. These five warts are what a lot of searchers believe to represent a “missing clock” in this painting. Which in turn represents the month indicated by the painting. We’re among those searchers that believe in this. It has been confirmed after the fact that the “Chicago painting” was indeed tied to 5 o’clock due to the clock painted under the lid of the casque. The lid is super important and may confirm our complete theory, more on that later.

Painting five: Chicago, Illinois
May birthstone: Emerald
May birth flower: Lily of the Valley
Time shown on “missing clock” (warts) indicate May: 5 o’clock / 5th month

ZODIAC SYMBOLS, FAIRY SECRETS COME IN TWOS

We believe that most of the paintings and sometimes the verses themselves feature hidden zodiac symbols in them. These symbols appear to correspond with the month of the birthstone and birth flower featured in the same painting and/or verse.

Currently, we are undetermined if each paintings and verse combination all feature zodiac symbols hidden in them. John Jude Palencar looks to have hid them extremely well in the paintings and Byron Preiss may have hid a few in the verses too.

These astrological signs are something we’re continually researching but in reality, these symbols may be like the clocks and purposely excluded from some of the puzzles. We think the reason that may have been done is to increase the difficulty of the hunt. If every single painting had a clock, had zodiac symbols, had birthstones and had birth flowers in them then it might make discovering “The Secret” of The Secret a lot easier and thus ending the hunt much faster. We think that was probably something Byron Preiss wouldn’t have wanted when he launched the hunt back in 1982.

When we began refining our theory we wanted to figure out what the significance of the March 21st date we found in the chapter titled “The Passage to the New World” was for. We had already noticed a few potential zodiac symbols in some of the paintings so we continued researching the zodiac and we learned that Aries begins on March 21st. We also learned that Aries is the first zodiac that begins the order of the astrological signs. So naturally, we began there and we looked to the painting that represents the month of March. We looked at painting 4, the “Cleveland painting”, with it’s aquamarine March birthstone and noticed what looked like an Aries zodiac symbol in the tail of the Centaur. We were convinced that we found the Aries symbol stylistically hidden in the painting so we began to look for hidden zodiac symbols in the rest of the paintings.

Example of a puzzle that features zodiac symbols hidden in the paintings:

(Note: We’re continually refining and updating how we look at and interpret The Secret. On Expedition Unknown you’ll note that Josh Gates only mentions one zodiac symbol when explaining our theory but upon further research since we filmed the episode we re-evaluated our theory as follows.)

We think the most obvious zodiac symbols are in the “Chicago painting”. On the first “Expedition Unknown” episode about The Secret, Josh Gates highlights the “upside down Taurus symbol or Chicago Bull” next to the troll’s head. The dates that the Taurus zodiac covers are April 20th through May 20th. There is also a potential Gemini zodiac symbol hidden in the troll’s neck area that looks like a large sideways Roman numeral two. Gemini begins on May 21st and ends on June 21st. Taurus ends in May and Gemini begins in May. We had already established that the “Chicago painting” verified that this puzzle was connected to the month of May. To further solidify this May connection, we find a zodiac symbol that ends in May and a zodiac symbol that begins in May hidden in the painting.

Example of a puzzle that features a zodiac symbol hidden in the painting and a zodiac symbol hidden in the verse:

We searched through the other paintings and discovered that the globe on the foremost pillar in painting eight, the “Houston painting”, looked almost like a yin yang with a curved line that separates the dark side from the light side. A yin yang looks a lot like the zodiac symbol for Cancer. The zodiac date for Cancer begins on June 21st and the zodiac date for Cancer ends on July 22nd.

We look through verse one, commonly thought to be the counterpart to the “Houston painting”, and read the following:

“Through the wood
No lion fears”

We understand that this could simply be referring to the Hermann Park Zoo that is nearby to many popular theories for this puzzle and in our opinion is likely to be correct. We also take it to be another zodiac reference. Leo is a lion. The zodiac date for Leo begins on July 23rd and the zodiac date for Leo ends on August 22nd. The “Houston painting” features a ruby on the ground, the birthstone for July and the birth flower of July hidden in the tree branches, the larkspur. Add to this the “missing clock” showing seven pillars that represent the seventh month: July. This confirms that the “Houston painting” and verse one are indeed tied to the month of July.

We felt we were onto something.

THE SECRET IS SHADOWS

So, we’ve got birthstones, birth flowers, clocks and zodiac symbols. What were we supposed to do with all of them?

In the middle of putting all those pieces together and while studying the painting and verse commonly associated with San Francisco, our attention is drawn directly to Mark Twain via verse seven:

“In jewels direction
Is an object
Of Twain’s attention”

Like so many before us we study Mark Twain’s published works. We came across “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876) and we finally had our “Aha!” moment. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are looking for buried treasure but they just can’t find it. Tom has an epiphany of his own in chapter 25:

“That afternoon, the boys dig in a number of places around the tree but find nothing. At first, Tom blames a witch, and he then realizes that they are going about it all wrong: they need to find where the shadow of the tree limb falls at midnight.”

We’re not sure how Tom planned on finding a specific shadow at midnight… what if they had a new moon that night? Did it have to be a full moon? We’re guessing that he must not have fully grasped that the moon’s position in the sky varied day by day and month by month.

However, there is another celestial body that can be counted upon to be in the exact same place at the exact same time each year, “shining in the air”: The Sun.

An object blocking sunlight can be counted upon to cast a shadow that is the same length and width onto the same piece of land on the ground at the same time and date each year.

“IN OUR LAND AND IN OUR TIME the Fair People and their treasures yet wait to be discovered. If Man is good, and kind, and playful, he and she will find them. THAT IS THE SECRET.”

Land and time.
Use their land and use their time.
That is The Secret.

The Secret is shadows.

Treasures have been hidden using shadows for a very long time in fiction and in real life. Here’s are some more examples of finding buried treasure using a shadow to find the “X marks the spot” in addition to the previously mentioned “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain:

“Buried Treasures of the Rocky Mountain West” (1993 publication of a legend from the 1700’s) – W.C. Jameson
Chapter 7: Treasure Mountain Millions
“He interpreted some of the cryptic graphics on the old deerskin to mean that at a certain hour of a certain day during a specific month, a shadow cast by one of three large spruce trees passed directly over the shaft which held the buried treasure.”

“Encyclopedia of Superstition” (1903) – Cora Linn Daniels
Chapter 19: Page 1430
“There is an old belief that wherever treasure is hidden it is guarded by spirits.
There is a certain mosaic moon which will enable the owner to find hidden treasure.
In hunting for a treasure, go to a place where the shadow falls at midnight under the end of a limb of an old tree; there you will find a treasure.”

“The Hardy Boys: The Crisscross Shadow” (1953) – Franklin W. Dixon
Chapter 5: Buried Treasure
“Buried treasure!” The Hardys whistled in amazement.
“Where?” Joe inquired.
“No one knows.”
“But there must be some clue,” Frank insisted.
“Yes,” Chet assented. “The legend says the treasure is buried in a crisscross shadow!”

The idea of using shadows to find a buried treasure is definitely not new and certainly not an invention of Kit Williams for his legendary arm-chair treasure hunt, Masquerade. It is this hunt that treasure seekers reading this theory are likely to be most familiar with that uses a shadow to pinpoint a “X marks the spot” that would enable someone to dig up a real buried treasure. Kit Williams’ treasure hunt launched the genre of armchair treasure hunting when it was released in 1979.

Is it possible that Byron Preiss copied Kit Williams methods to hide buried treasures using a shadow? In our research, we believe that is impossible. Byron Preiss may have been inspired by the financial success of Masquerade but that treasure hunt was not solved until March of 1982, well after it is believed that Byron Preiss buried his casques and there’s no way he could’ve known the solution to Masquerade. If he did, surely he would’ve sent in his solution to Kit Williams and claim the prize for himself.

Of course, Byron Preiss could’ve suspected that the solution to Masquerade involved the use of shadows if he studied it hard enough. He could have noticed that the second painting in the book featuring a man holding a sun mask and and a woman holding a moon mask bordered by a calendar and the longest finger of the man’s hand was pointing directly at March 21st, the spring equinox. That’s the date that the Masquerade hare could be dug up using the tip of the shadow of Catharine of Aragon’s monument in Ampthill Park in England. March 21st should seem familiar to us by now, it is “the first spring morning of the first spring day” after all.

We think it more likely that Byron Preiss was extremely well read and maybe knew of stories like these and others of the past as a way to hide and recover a buried treasure using a shadow that appears on the exact same spot at the exact same time each year.

Searchers of The Secret have attempted to use shadows in their theories before. And it makes sense to do so because two of the verses specifically mention shadows in them:

Verse six, commonly linked to Charleston, South Carolina and painting two:

“Between two arms extended
Below the bar that binds
Beside the long palm’s shadow”

Verse ten, commonly linked to New York, New York and painting twelve:

“In the shadow
Of the grey giant”

If “the shadow of the grey giant” is the concrete jungle of Manhattan or the statue of George Washington standing in front of Federal Hall, how does that help anyone find out exactly where to dig?

If you were to use an actual shadow of an actual “grey giant”, something very tall and very grey, using what we’ve discovered in the paintings related to the month (birthstone and birth flower), the day (zodiac dates) and the hour (clock or “missing clock”), it could literally put the searcher within “twice as many east steps as the hour” away from the casque and key buried in the ground if you’re in whatever the “shadow of the grey giant” is at the right time.

So, how does all of this information come together to actually work within The Secret? We’re glad you asked! We’ll again use the “Chicago painting” as our example:

Chicago, Illinois – Painting 5 Verse 12

Fair people immigration – Irish and Scottish (Ulysses S. Grant’s had an Irish great-grandfather, the casque was found in Grant Park)

Emerald birthstone – May

Lily of the Valley birth flower – May

Clock (five warts) 5 o’clock – May

Taurus – ends on May 20th

Gemini – begins on May 21st

We’ve determined the month, days, and hour that can be used to find the casque: May 20-21 at 5 o’clock pm.

In our theory, you must find the shadow caster to find the casque. To do this, you must find a real physical object that is hidden in the painting. You must also find the same object hidden in the verse.

In the 12th verse that belongs to the Chicago puzzle it says:

“Fence and fixture
Central too
Finding jewel casque”

Nearly right in the center of the “Chicago painting” there is an arch with one horizontal object intersecting three vertical objects. That arch and the objects within it have been identified as a series of haloed fence posts that lined the western edge of Grant Park near the railroad tracks.

If a searcher was standing at the most northwestern fence post (fence) with a halo (fixture) and stand “central too” it (center) on May 20-21 at 5 o’clock pm you can find the casque buried under the tip of its shadow.

Eric Gastorowski and Rob Wrobel showed Josh Gates on the first Expedition Unknown episode exactly where they dug up their casque in Grant Park back in 1983, they were lined up directly east of the fence and fixture and on May 20th or 21st at 5 o’clock, the shadow of the halo would’ve fallen right at their feet.

Remember the clock under the lid of the casque found in Chicago? It says 5 o’clock. You’ll notice that the color blue is on the upper left side of the lid. That blue color represents the sky. The white color that surrounds the face on the lid represents clouds. The completely round face on the center of the underside of the lid that is shining through the clouds represents the sun. We believe that the lid confirms the finder was intended to dig up the casque using the sun at 5 o’clock.

In a quote from the Chicago Tribune in the November 16th, 1982 issue it says something very interesting that may have been a hint to the fact that the casques were tied to a thirty day cycle, or a month:

“Preiss says some of the puzzles are easy, and some are hard. He expects at least one treasure to be unearthed within 30 days. Others, of course, may never be found.”

Why would he expect at least one puzzle to be solved within thirty days? We believe that’s because one casque could be found roughly every thirty days, using the dates of the corresponding astrological sign.

That is our theory of “The Secret” of The Secret.

It works the same way in Cleveland with the Grecian urn on the right hand side of the planter box casting a shadow onto the digsite on either March 20th or 21st at 3 o’clock pm.

THE SEARCH CONTINUES

This theory is what we were attempting to prove in Golden Gate Park with Josh Gates and the Expedition Unknown crew. Using the “San Francisco painting” and verse seven to determine that we needed to be beside the right “Giant pole” and “Giant step” on June 20-21 at 6 o’clock pm. Then we get transported to that date (in 1980) and time via augmented reality.

The real reality is this: The totem pole we consider to be the “Giant pole” in our theory is named The Goddess of the Forest and she began her life in 1940 at thirty feet tall. She was carved from a single redwood log (redwoods are known as the giants of the forest) and was likely very close to that height when she was moved into Lindley Meadow at Golden Gate Park shortly after the Golden Gate International Expedition of 1939-40, where she was crafted by Dudley Carter.

The Goddess of the Forest now stands at about fifteen feet tall and is located in the Diego Rivera Theater on the campus of City College of San Francisco and is literally a shell of her former self.

Fellow “The Secret” treasure hunter Matt Sparks, whom was the first person to identify The Goddess of the Forest as the potential “Giant pole” of verse 7, told us that over its lifetime in Golden Gate Park The Goddess of the Forest had deteriorated over the decades while on display in Lindley Meadow. He told us that he has seen images of multiple instances where the totem pole was lifted into the air by a crane to remove rotting sections of wood, damaged by water. Records do not appear to have been kept or have been lost regarding how large the sections were that got removed and how many times it was done.

Most documents state that The Goddess of the Forest was twenty-four or twenty-six feet tall. In 1980 its very possible the totem pole could’ve been twenty-eight feet tall or twenty-two feet tall or anywhere in between. We made our best guess for the augmented reality version of The Goddess of the Forest that was created for us (the AR Goddess was really great by the way) at 26 feet and four inches tall. If you watched the episode then you’ve seen the results: educated guesses and empty holes.

We still believe that the San Francisco casque is buried in Lindley Meadow east of the pedestal (Giant step) that The Goddess of the Forest sat upon for her many decades in the park until her removal in 1986. If it was buried there it probably never crossed Byron Preiss’ mind that she’d be chopped down little by little and eventually taken away completely from the site.

If you’re wondering how all this information was supposed to fit on the small form in the back of The Secret to claim a gem by mail, it’s easy! Someone could’ve just written something like this:

“The end of the shadow of the totem pole in Lindley Meadow in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on June 20th or 21st at 6 o’clock pm.”

If our theory is correct, that’s all Byron Preiss would’ve needed because he already knew the rest.

So, now you all know our secret. If you plan on trying it out for yourself, here’s a handy link to a website that can give you a really good estimation of where a shadow will fall by inputting the height of an object using any date or the zodiac dates that are connected to the puzzle you’re researching: https://www.suncalc.org/

Please only attempt to dig your shadow if you have permission from whomever is in charge of the location you’re pursuing.

Please dig responsibly and fill your holes. Leaving the area looking as close to the way you found it is extremely important.

Thank you for reading our theory of “The Secret” of The Secret!

A special thank you to:
The community of The Secret
Josh Gates and the crews of Expedition Unknown and the Discovery Channel for believing in us and for giving us the chance to share this with so many people.
The entire San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.
And a big thank you to Brian DeWitt and Keith Roberts at Golden Gate Park.

Thank you to Jenny Kile for providing this platform for us to tell our secrets to the world.

If you love The Secret feel free to join the Facebook group managed by Deidra and Dustin White that is dedicated to the hunt, just follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thesecretatreasurehunt/

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Get Your Quest on with MW!

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