The clues "O'er the land of the free" and "The Answer You Are Seeking is Written in the Stars" point to the use of the Star Spangled banner (American Flag) as a decoder. Since Massachusetts is upper right and Utah is lower left, he found that if you let each star represent a state based on the date of admission to the union, you get a grid where MA is upper right and UT is lower left.
Red: MI GA TX MA
Yellow: OK IN IA WI
Orange: AL WY
Green: PA DE NC MO KS
Blue: AR CA NV WA NM
Purple: KY TN MN AK AZ
Light Blue: NY VA IL OR ID
Black: SC MD MT SD NJ
Now, connecting the dots for all 8 paths....
Starting with Alabama (GA), Alaska (IL), Arizona (CT), Arkansas (AL), California (MA [circled]) we get the following:
1: GA IL CT AL MA
2: IN NC MT KS VT
3: NV WV MO AR NM
4: DE PA ME WI
5: ND CO FL TX HI
6: MN ID WY OR MN
7: TN KY AK AZ NY
8: MS MI CA NE WA
This leads to Lowell Park in Dixon, IL, the home of Ronald Reagan...hmm. The coordinates are near the Reagan bathhouse as well...hmm.
Finally, the Rules page has state flags. Thanks to everyone here, it was determined that they are arranged in order of population CA (1), TX (2)...which goes along with the "We the people" code in Braille to the right. The key was people in the population. They are in order except for the last 7 states, next to the Braille. These are out of order.
MI NY WA OH MA TN GA, which the numerical rank of the population, respectively:
8 3 13 7 14 17 9
When put through the ring decoder reads: FAKE LOG
So, after work yesterday, I took a 4 hour trip to Dixon, IL to locate the coordinates with a GPS. We found a small area next to a path in the woods. It seemed quite suspicious...some bark was placed over an area with fallen trees...but alas, we did not discover any fake log in the woods after 2 hours of searching.
I can only assume that someone has found it and has not claimed that they have found it yet, or it is in La Moille, IL. If the coordinates are written as +41.53358, -89.29083, the location is in someones backyard off of Railroad St in La Moille, IL. It makes much more sense to have a public park with a relation to Ronald Reagan for Colbert, but we came up empty handed.
If anyone wants to search the area...feel free. You can use my SuperPAC to claim the reward if you don't have your own. If you have other suggestions, let me know. After an 8 hour drive last night, I'm not sure I'm up for it again. Please comment to let me know I'm not alone in the disappointment.
Holy Mackerel!!!!
ReplyDeleteThat looks pretty conclusive to me! Congrats on a solve!
ReplyDeleteWow. If googleEarth gave me the right directions without + or - I might have had it a while ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5mjvavBHA1qzzpk8o1_1280.jpg
Seth,
ReplyDeleteWay cool treasure hunt road trip!
Just wondering: Did Alan figure out the dot to dot idea or was that you?
And as far as we know the silver turtle is still out there???
if someone has already found the turtle statue, can anyone answer some question about the movie, prometheus, everyone here seems to be super keen, spoiler alert
ReplyDeletespoiler alert
spoiler alert
did the dead bald white alien crew create the aliens in the jars? and were they going to infect earth? for invasion reasons? and was there a sculpture of a queen alien above the giant head statue? and why did the guy drink that gunk at the beginning of the movie? and if the rest of the white bald aliens got killed by the aliens in the jars, was that an accident or if not why did that guy hit the earthlings when he woke up?, or did they not build that base? and was that alien that came out at the end the first of it's kind?
Congrats to Alan!
ReplyDeleteI actually wondered at one point if matching each star on the flag with a state would lead anywhere, but obviously did not follow through with the idea.
Hope Alan gets to share in the prize, he deserves it!
And thanks Seth for keeping us all informed.
Well, that was fun. Now what?
http://www.welostourgold.com/
Delete$10k hidden somewhere in NYC
We live in west lafayette, IN home of Purdue University. With all of the college students out of town for the summer, I've taken the reigns of the SuperPAC treasure hunt. I'm a grad of Indiana University, so I made the Hoosiers and Boilers for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Feel free to check it out at iupurdue.org.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think your comment tipped them off to the J2RY error.
ADDITIONAL INFO: So instead of driving another 4 hours back to the alternate location at 41.53358, -89.29083, which corresponds to 310 w Railroad St in La Moille, IL, I decided to call the home owner. She was very nice, but she said that no one had been searching for anything in her backyard, nor was she aware of any fake log or turtle in her yard.
ReplyDeleteShe did indicate that her house was not at the end of the lane though, as it appears on google maps. I'm not sure what that address is, but it still looks like private property. I would assume that they would not want any trespassing on private land, so I suspect this is not the hiding spot.
The only other thought is that the land belongs to a writer from the show's parents or something, so they could keep an eye on it, but still the trespassing issue would be there.
What you may need here is a geocacher from the area, especially one with lots of 'finds' or one who has hidden caches themselves. (www.geocaching.com) Maybe worth checking the forums?
ReplyDeleteThey know where all the likely places are to hide something and have uncanny senses for spotting fake logs.
Since the show doesn't want people trespassing, the turtle probably is in the park.
I have half my family coming to visit for 2 weeks tomorrow, so unfortunately can't devote anymore time to the cause right now.
Good luck!
Seth, I'm an IU grad student in Terre Haute and I'm willing to help out. You can get in touch with me on Twitter (@SeanFromIT), Facebook, or the baron lands of Google+.
ReplyDeleteSo I made the trek up there. Nice gas prices in Dixon. I agree that the coordinates seem to make sense. The turtle is purportedly the same age as Reagan would be if he was still alive and Reagan did once starred in "The Voice of the Turtle." They land you right on a trail behind the Reagan bath house. But I also came up empty handed. Either someone has already collected it, or they weren't really meant to be exact coordinates. There's a lot more to Lowell Park than just that trail. And there are a lot of Reagan-related landmarks in Dixon. I surveyed the outside of his boyhood home (closed past 4pm), the fake Berlin wall, and around the courthouse and courts building. No good clues.
ReplyDeleteI also checked out the alternate decimal interpretation coordinates which land you at the end of a dead end street in La Moille, IL. Nothing useful. I think DD, MM.MMM is the best interpretation based on convention. The only other way I can think of is DD, MM, SSS which would put you at 41.9828, -89.5064 in the middle of a farm north of Dixon. I did not have time to check out this position.
Some thoughts:
*You actually found it, and the included instructions said to pretend you didn't but lead other people to the location to boost tourism for Dixon. Nicely done.
*If that's not the case, someone with more time should further investigate:
-The rest of the park. There was a wedding reception in the Reagan bath house today so I couldn't go in and look around. There are numerous suspicious areas of fallen trees near the trails just like Seth said. There are also several logs down by the river. Every part of the park seems to have logs. Behind the bath house I did find a strange trail of uninflated red and purple balloons going from the rear of the bath house into the woods. But nothing in that area looked fake either. I snagged a park map while I was there and will upload it shortly.
-The interior of the Reagan boyhood home for clues.
-The Reagan birthplace museum in Tampico, given that the turtle's age is 101.
-Any other places along Reagan Way (Boyhood home to First Baptist) that we can come up with clues leading to.
-Any other places along The Ronald Reagan Trail that we can come up with clues leading to.
Sean
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, major shoutout to you. If we find this thing, we'll have to shunt some superpac funds your way for gas (I mean political investigation services). I'm glad you went back up there, because I kept having thoughts in my head of where I should have checked. I wish the instructions told me to keep quiet, but alas, I have no turtle in my possession. You probably saw the are where we trampled the vegetation off the trail. The GPS gets a little crazy in the woods, so we were checking everywhere around those coordinates.
My theories are as follows:
1) Someone has found the turtle, but are waiting to get their superpac together so they can claim the prize
2) Someone outside of the contest altogether has found it and doesn't know what it is, and they are just going to try to sell it on eBay (I'm not sure if the show has a mechanism in place to prevent this [ie, a lock that requires some knowledge of the Super Fun Pack contents to unlock, or someone checking it every so often to confirm it is still there])
3) The show has been contacted by the treasure hunter and will make an announcement next week
4) The coordinates are just a starting point for a future clue
5) The coordinates are wrong. If one of the final numbers is off in the longitude, it would still put us in Lowell Park, but somewhere completely different. (which isn't too crazy, because I'm still a little unconvinced by the X in NJ being TeN, or the NewsboY...they could be something different, which may yield a different number, but I can't work anything different out yet. We know that they can duplicate MountaiN/MaddeN...just a thought)
I am convinced that the turtle is or was in that park. Only time will tell now.