All of the pictures seem to be associated with two states. One is the state where the picture is located on the map, the other is associated with the picture itself. Taking the first and last letter of the picture into account, it gives a two-letter abbreviation of a different state. I am still uncertain as to the significance of the big black X on New Jersey, but all of the other pictures seem to work out too well to be coincidence.**correction, assuming that X is the Roman Numeral for 10, and the three wise men are really magi, it works out better.
Of note, I'm not sure Minnesota is correct, since it seems that there are 2 pics with MN (although I have identified the mountain as K2, which doesn't fair any better in the state scenario...or perhaps this is a significant clue). If no picture is listed, then that abbreviation was not associated with any pic.
STATE ABBREV PICTURE
(STATE LOCATED)
Alabama
AL AnthilL
(AR)
Alaska AK
AardvarK
(NY)
Arizona AZ AlcatraZ
(NC)
Arkansas AR AlligatoR
(IN)
California CA Coca-colA
(OR)
Colorado CO CappuccinO
(MA)
Connecticut CT CaT
(AZ)
Delaware DE DimE
(KS)
Florida FL FingernaiL
(MI)
Georgia GA GaneshA
(AL)
Hawaii HI HibachI
(MS)
Idaho ID IpoD
(MT)
Illinois IL IsraeL
(AK)
Indiana IN IroN
(CO)
Iowa IA
Kansas KS KoalaS
(FL)
Kentucky KY KeY
(NM)
Louisiana LA
Maine ME MousE
(LA)
Maryland MD
Massachusetts MA
MaracA (CA)
Michigan MI MagI (OK)
Minnesota MN MountaiN
(MO), MaddeN (NH)
Mississippi MS MatcheS
(OH)
Missouri MO MagnetO
(IL)
Montana MT Mr.
T (DE)
Nebraska NE NeptunE
(PA)
Nevada NV NureyeV
(HI)
New Hampshire NH
New Jersey NJ
New Mexico NM NorM
(IA)
New York NY NewsboY
(ND)
North Carolina NC NbC (CT)
North Dakota ND NerD
(MD)
Ohio OH
Oklahoma OK
Oregon OR OdometeR
(NV)
Pennsylvania PA PandA
(KY)
Rhode Island RI
South Carolina SC
South Dakota SD
Tennessee TN TeN (NJ)
Texas TX TampaX
(MN)
Utah UT
Vermont VT VesT
(GA)
Virginia VA
Washington WA WnbA
(RI)
West Virginia WV WebtV
(ID)
Wisconsin WI WasabI
(ME)
Wyoming WY WallabY
(NE)
Oh snap!
ReplyDeleteWow! You rule....
ReplyDeleteNew Jersey's big X will translate into a state abbreviation....
(hint: it's not Malcolm)
The pic of mountain, k2, in Missouri is confusing...????
it needs to translate into a state.... ???????
Oh yeah... I think the three wise men go by another name... it turns into a different state than what you have.
also, FEC just emailed me back about my Super Pac -- Howard Stern Fans for a Baba Booey Tomorrow, Tomorrow
:-)
So, the pictures form some additional state paths:
ReplyDeleteOH MS HI NV OR CA MA CO IN AR AL GA VT
OK MI FL KS DE MT ID WV
MD ND NY AK IL MO MN TX
.............. NH MN TX
IA NM KY PA NE WY
NC AZ CT NC (circular reference)
LA ME WI
RI WA
NJ TN
We already have the colored state paths:
KY TN MN AL AZ
AR CA NV WA NM
NY VA IL OR ID
AL WY
SC MD MT SD NJ
OK IN IA WI
MI GA TX MA
PA DE NC MI KS
And we have the order of the flags:
CA TX FL IL PA NC NJ VA IN AZ MO MD WI MN CO AL SC LA KY OR OK CT IA MS AR
KS UT NV NM WV NE ID HI ME NH RI MT DE SD AK ND VT WY MI NY WA OH MA TN GA
I'm guessing we need to find some way to asociate a letter with each state. I tried a few things like state capitals and using the order of the flags and the decoder ring, but I haven't found anything so far.
I've even checked the order of states admission to the union, but it didn't lead anywhere after state 26.
DeleteCan we think of any order to put the states in a grid or something where Utah is lower left and Massachusetts is upper left?
DeleteI don't think that will work. There is only one instance of each state, so you would only have A-Z without any repeating letters. It's hard to form words without duplicate letters.
DeleteAre you sure it's K2?
ReplyDeleteDo the paths of the states form letters?
Just a thought.
It's definitely K2. I took a pic of the mountain and put it through google search by image. I found the exact image online of K2. I thought it would work better if it were Mount Hood (MD), but it doesn't look the same.
DeleteI tried the path as letters too, but it does not look like it. Thanks for the brainstorm though.
We were saying Oklahoma is magi (MI) and New Jersey is ten (TN)...
ReplyDeleteThere are no repeats... so since Mountain (MN) is taken by Madden perhaps Madden is not correct.
IA India... but K2 not in India
SD Snow Covered
OH Oakland Coach
?????
Here's a thought...if you take John maddeN backwards, it is NJ, which is the location of the end of the black (and final) line in the launch clue, the location of the big X, and the location of a Utah and Massachusetts Streets. It's also close to NYC, which would be a convenient place to hide and watch over the turtle.
ReplyDeleteThen again, maybe I'm just going mad.
Hey guys. I googled "magneto (IL) stephen colbert" and found you. Looks like we're in the same boat. The only ideas I had that I haven't seen here yet are to use the A-Z state idea like you had, only without an X (x=0 on the ring), so you have 25 letters, and X isn't a common letter. Then you have 2 sets of 25 state flags on the rules. So maybe it's something like, CA and KS are A, and AR and GA are Z. (the top 2 and bottom 2).
ReplyDeleteIdk just a crazy theory I had...
Good thoughts...Have you had any luck with the MN quandary (MaddeN, MountaiN)? Also, cool username.
DeleteAOL "accidentally" deleted my account and this is what happens til it gets fixed I guess. I don't know what to call the K2 but I also will add NorthfacE and Mount chogorI. Both HUGE stretches and both are already taken.
DeleteMy new theory is using morse code. The rectangle square pix don't work well since only numbers like 9 and 8 have lots of rectangles and a few circles. But maybe the left state flags are dots and the right ones are dashes. I haven't managed to get anything promising though.
You all know each other? Where you from?
Most of us are Tanga folk, puzzle solvers from tanga.com, but I'm based in Indiana (or is it AR).
DeleteSeth, as the previous poster alluded to, this blog is accessible from general Google searches.
ReplyDelete...Wasn't sure if that was your intention or not, since you may or may not want to share your findings with the rest of the world. :-)
Yep...I thought about that when I started the blog. But, figured it's more fun to risk it and work together as a community, rather than go mad staring at it by myself. And, we've gotten a lot of contributions from the people who are in the hunt themselves, so hopefully it works out.
DeleteOh, I understand wanting to start a blog that friends, tanganites, etc. can look at, but I wasn't sure if you knew that you could make these blogs non-Google-able with a mere check/uncheck in your blog preferences.
DeleteSo, it turns out that it was just a check/uncheck. We'll keep this Tanga strong.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that some of the state pictures are circles and some are rectangles. It could be a red herring though....
ReplyDeleteSo far, we have a bunch of different orderings/associations of the US states. Here's my summary...
ReplyDelete• Ordering by flags.
Thanks to Duck, we have an ordering of all 50 states according to flags on the margins of the Super PAC materials. The order seems deliberate, so this is likely a clue (and not random). One thought I had was to use 1=A, 2=B, etc. for each column to get the 50 states corresponding to the 25 letters (remember X was disallowed).
• Alphabetical ordering (by full state name).
Perhaps this is a "duh", but it appears that the treasure hunt creators *must* have had this ordering in mind at one state or another ... I say this because if you order the 50 states alphabetically, the first 39 have pictures, and the final 11 do not ... that cannot be a coincidence.
• Date entered union
This is a commonly used ordering of states, so it may come into play. However, nothing yet seems to suggest it being pertinent to the hunt.
• Launch order.
Using the colored launch order with the color-coded arrows that point around the map, we can get an order that involves 35 states. Since the number is 35, I would guess assigning letters A-Z via this ordering would not be fruitful.
• Use Seth's First/Last picture letters.
Seth noticed that if you take the first/last letter of the picture (39 of the 50 states have pictures) you get the 2-letter abbreviation of another state. Since I suspect a 1-25,26-50 to A-Z,A-Z association, I would welcome an association that had some overlap (because using each letters A-Z [except X] exactly twice seems unlikely). Seth did find an overlap here, as two different states seem to point to MN/Minnesota, but the fact that this only happens once leads one to believe maybe this is an error.
NOTE: this last ordering could likely go either way in my opinion ... state's pic to pic's state, or the reverse.
I created an Excel file that lists each states order via all of the above orderings in a different column, then also converting 1-25 to A-Z and 26-50 to A-Z ... then I took turns sorting all columns by each column individually to see if any words popped out using the 1-A, 2-B, 3-C cipher ... no dice.
FYI: dudebag = AdamMcD (tanga)
Not sure if this is what you tried also but it didn't work for me....
ReplyDeleteI let the 1 -25 and 26 - 50 state flags each represent A-Y (no z).
Then I looked at the colored paths with translation...
For example red would be:
Florida, Vermont, (Texas), Colorado
is
3,17,(2),15
using a=1, b=2, etc...
it turns into CQ(B)O or CQO without Texas
using decoder ring a=3, b=4, etc...
AOYM
I set up an Excel sheet and tried every shift... ie a=4, b=5, ... then a = 5, b=6, ... and so on...
I omitted "z" since only 25 flags per column... i figure had it been x or q omitted I still would have noticed words.
hm... ????
We need Seth to stare at all info again for three hours...
ElRexican,
DeleteThat's the sort of stuff I tried, yes.
However, you should realize that the Super PAC super pack came with a "decoder" that says you should associate numbers/letters as 1=a, 2=b, 3=c, etc, except to skip over x, so that 24=y and 25=z.
I think playing around the the different ordering of the states is the right idea, but I do *not* think that starting with 4=a, 5=b, etc. (via some sort of "shift") will be fruitful, because of the given info.
Not sure if anyone brought this up yet (and I may be going down a weird path), but remember the typo of "j2ry"? Could that be related to K2? For example, could K2 really mean KU or Kansas University.
ReplyDelete