I received an email early this morning indicating the following:
Greetings Super PAC Treasure Huntsmen and Huntswomen,
Congratulations on the recent purchase of the Colbert Super PAC Super Fun Pack – or the successful hacking into the email of somebody who has purchased one. If you've properly filed your Super PAC paperwork with the FEC and opened a XXL Bank Account, soon you'll be rolling in cash.
I assume you've abandoned all of your classes, family, friends, and personal hygiene habits to focus on the Colbert Super PAC treasure hunt. So far the treasure remains antedelopean – which is a word I assume means “not found.” I can't be sure about that, though, since my dictionary is antedelopean. Still, a personal appearance by Stephen Colbert at your campus is still within your grasp - especially if you're currently holding your treasure map!
It has come to my attention that the Official Treasure Hunt rules contain a typo: In the very last paragraph, the word "JURY" is spelled "J2RY." This is a misprint, and is not part of the puzzle. It's an understandable mistake; the 2 is very close to the U on the solid gold Executive Power Keyboard that you all will soon be able to afford with your Super PAC money. As an extremely malleable metal, gold makes for a very poor computer peripheral, but on the plus side: it's shiny!
But if you've become stuck in your treasure hunting, take heart! Solving the enclosed word search will help you find the ultimate treasure – self confidence. And also, the real ultimate treasure: actual treasure.
Good luck, and remember, if in your hunt you meet an old crone deep in the forest who offers to cast a spell to help your quest in exchange for your Facebook login name and password - don't do it! She is not authorized support staff!
Yours Tr2ly,
Alberto Rèalnamè
Communication Director and Chief Treasure-er
Colbert Super PAC
After the puzzle is solved, the remaining letters spell:
ReplyDelete"THE ANSWER YOU ARE SEEKING IS WRITTEN IN THE STARS"
This may be a reference to the Star-Spangled Banner clue:
DeleteOE'R THE LAND OF THE FREE
Or it might be a reference to the actual Star-Spangled Banner. Some sort of grid overlaying the stars on the US flag.
DeleteI have a bunch of ideas.... all of which led to nowhere. I'll wait and share them in a few days so as to not put you on my horrible path.
ReplyDeletebtw, they said nothing about K2...which means we must have said something correct about it at at one point.
I assume they've found us here discussing the treasure hunt.
Hi Stephen's writers :bigwave:
Aloha!
ReplyDeleteThank you for providing this blog! We are Colbert fans and puzzle lovers, but since we are all the way out here in Hawaii, have no hope of actually finding the treasure. Thanks to your blog, we can at least enjoy the hunt.
Here's our 2 cents on the puzzles. Can't hurt, might help?
As far as the 'written in the stars' part, we thought maybe the state flags could be looked at for their stars. There are 22 states that have stars on their state flags (23 in you count DC). The number count:
One star: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, and Texas
Three stars: Tennessee (and DC)
Eight stars: Alaska
Nine stars: New Hampshire
13 stars: Illinois, Mississippi, and Rhode Island
17 stars: Ohio
19 stars: Indiana and Minnesota
20 stars: Utah
26 stars: North Dakota
29 stars: Arkansas
33 stars: Oregon
34 stars: Kansas
48 stars: Missouri
Have tried all kinds of number manipulation with these and the order the flags appear around the margin, but nothing yet.
Random thoughts:
We the People: from the Constitution which is housed in the National Archive Building off Constitution Ave, which is running an exhibit called 'We the People'.
Ikea wrench: Would they have hidden it in an IKEA? That way it would be open to the public, but could have someone easily watching over it at all times.
Because I geocache, I keep looking for lat/long coordinates in the numbers. Nothing yet.
Mountain: Could it be Mount Everest, giving you ME for Maine or MT for Montana?
Once again, a huge mahalo, for letting us participate!
Trust me, if we find this thing, everyone who participated is getting a shout out.
DeleteAloha MRK,
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for sharing the stars on flags info... I started compiling that yesterday but got bored.... just curious, was there a single site with all that info or did you look up each state flag like I was doing?
-Rex
Venice, CA
Hi Rex,
DeleteI used this site:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/geography/flags/star.shtml
to answer the question about which state flags have stars and how many.
~ MRK
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe following cipher and this treasure hunt have wasted the last week of my life:
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-square_cipher
I feel like "Utah is lower left" and "Massachusetts is upper right" could be used in this cipher.
I got nowhere with it so will leave you with just the bare bones idea.
Tried the 4 Square Cipher. The Utah/Mass clue does seem to suggest it, but got nowhere. What letter did you leave out to make the 25 letter grid work?
DeleteYesterday, I decided that 'written in the stars' means words made up of state abbr.s, since the states are the stars in the flag. You can make...NEW YORK'S, MEMORIAL, LANE, LAND, MAIN... and more. Still working on it.
Also, could the 'X' in NJ represent a kiss? So the state abbr. from NJ would be KS or Kansas?
~ MRK
Already got KS as KoalaS from the Florida pic.
DeleteAgain, more seemingly useless info:
ReplyDeleteThe page with the state flags on it are arranged by the number of state representatives (descending) with the left column followed by the right column. The states next to the braille text-clue (7 states) are the only ones out of order.
There is probably a reason these 7 states were singled out but I haven't found anything yet.
I just want to point out the anagram that these 7 states form: I AM GOTHAM WAYNN
Delete(so close...)
Wow, Adam. Never would have thought of the state reps. Clever!
ReplyDeleteWe started to think about the whole thing from the other end. If you were Colbert and you wanted to hide something for your Super PAC fans to find, where would you hide it? Some major publicly accessible site, like the Statue of Liberty?
Well, the letters from the 7 state abbrs can spell: AH, MY GIANT WOMAN. (Statue of Liberty?)
Also: GIANT MAN WHO MAY (a stretch, but maybe Lincoln Memorial?)
Any ideas on if/how the encrypted 'We the People' next to the 7 state flags is related?
Using this anagram solver (http://anagram-solver.net/) that includes place names, those letters also spell:
Whitman, MA, Wantagh, NY, Wyoming, MN, and others, but always with letters left over that don't spell anything. But maybe they can be turned into numbers, like a zip code?
Just added the letters of 'We the People' to the 7 states abbr.s and ran them through the anagram solver. Got back a looong list including place names and people 's full names. Maybe one of those people is on Forbes List?
DeleteAlso, you can use all the letters to make this: Who I? Wealth(y) Management Pope
Just thought it was funny.
And all the letters also spell: AM IN THE NEW POMPAGE WAY HOTEL
DeleteNow to find this Wealth Management Pope...
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete"THE ANSWER YOU ARE SEEKING IS WRITTEN IN THE STARS"
ReplyDeleteI think this refers to the capitals... which on most maps are represented by a circled star.
I've gotten nowhere though with it....
(MRK, with the four square cipher I used both the i/j and the sans q. I also did MA and UT as keys in addition to them spelled out. I also forced all those in unconventional top right corner and bottom left corner as well as the keys starting with a central swirl. I tried each path.. for example Red gave me many possibilities like talahasee, montpellier, austin, denver.... so i tried te mr an dr.... i also tried lots of other things... that one just seemed the simplest and most logical if you were to explain it to someone like Dr. Stephen T. Colbert...)