“The thing that interested me about painting Masquerade was, how could you make people look at those paintings…and look…and look…and look again. The puzzle–that was the way to do that.”
– Kit Williams

The children’s book Masquerade, published in 1979, tells the story of Jack Hare, commissioned by the Moon to carry a treasure to her love, the Sun. When Jack finally arrives at the Sun, he finds that he has lost the treasure.

The book is more than just a beautifully-illustrated children’s fairy tale – it is one of the most elaborate and elegant puzzles ever created. Kit Williams created the puzzle, the artwork, and the treasure itself – an 18-karat gold amulet encrusted with jewels and shaped like a hare.

The public was told that amulet was buried in a clay casket somewhere in the United Kingdom and that it was buried on public property which could be easily accessed. The book’s publication set off one of the most famous puzzle-solving contests in history – it sold more than one million copies.

In March 1982, Kit Williams announced that Ken Thomas had solved the puzzle, found the hare, and won the contest. (Despite announcement and accompanying news stories and photographs, puzzleheads in denial continued to search and to dig throughout the summer of 1982!)

But Williams had reservations about the find, which eventually proved to be correct. In 1988, the story broke that the real name of Ken Thomas was Dugald Thompson, who was a business associate of a man named John Guard. Guard’s girlfriend at the time was Veronica Robertson – a former live-in girlfriend of Kit Williams. Williams had told Robertson the general location of where he had hidden the treasure and how to find it.

Robertson pointed Guard in the right direction – she, Guard, and Thompson combed the area at night with metal detectors and shovels looking for it. Eventually, Guard drew a sketch of the final “solution” and prodded Thompson into sending it to Williams to verify, which he did. Thompson, disguised as Ken Thomas, went with Williams to unearth the golden hare.

After claiming the prize, Thompson placed the hare in a bank vault. In 1985, the hare was put up as collateral to fund a software company called Haresoft that ultimately went bankrupt. In December 1988, the hare was placed for auction by Sotheby’s where it sold to an anonymous private collector for £31,900 (approx US$60,000) – Williams himself bid on it to win it back but had to drop out at £6,000.

The whereabouts of the hare remained unknown for over 20 years. After hearing a radio interview with Williams, the owner of the hare agreed to be interviewed for a TV program produced by BBC Four in 2009. For the first time since the hare was unearthed, Williams was reunited with the hare (if only temporarily).

Masquerade was the forerunner of the armchair treasure hunt, which includes David Blaine’s Mysterious Stranger.

I have not spoiled any part of the Masquerade puzzles in this blog entry. But many descriptions of the solution exist on the internet. My favorite one is at bunnyears.net, which also includes links to all of the artwork in the book. Enjoy!

In October each year, the Miami Herald hosts an all day “Herald Hunt” (formerly the Tropic Hunt) made up of various brain teasers. The hunt is usually held in Miami, but has been hosted in other local cities (such as Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and Hollywood). It was originally designed and is hosted by Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry.

The hunt begins with an easy opening question. After that, you have to find and solve the five hunt puzzles. The answers will give you clues to the final puzzle (or endgame). At 3PM, the final (and most difficult) puzzle is revealed. Using the clues you have obtained throughout the day, you must solve the puzzle and accomplish a task. This can be a telephone number or a certain place you must go to do something.

You can look at last year’s results here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/heraldhunt/story/742724.html

There is an archive of past hunts here:
http://www.vwtech.com/tropichunt/

There is also a geocache (GCCA54) set up as a tribute to the hunt.

If anyone is interested in setting up a team for this year’s hunt, I think it would be fun!!

Most of you are probably familiar with edgy street magician and endurance stunt perpetrator David Blaine. But did you know that he hid one of the most difficult puzzle caches ever?

On October 29, 2002, David Blaine published the book Mysterious Stranger which contained a $100,000 challenge: solve the puzzles in the book to reveal the location of a treasure hidden somewhere in America. The puzzle had been created by Cliff Johnson, noted puzzle constructor and author of the legendary computer game The Fool’s Errand.

On November 4, 2003, the treasure still had not been found. That evening, David was interviewed on Larry King Live and offered this cryptic hint: If my tattoo is fearless, then climb ten weeks to find the route, and “route” is spelled “r-o-u-t-e”.

On March 24, 2004, retired schoolteacher Sherri Skanes solved the puzzle and found the treasure after working on it for only six weeks.

The tale of the puzzle’s construction and solution is amazing reading. There are two parts to the solution: deciphering and interpreting the hidden clues. This puzzle was so complex that its solution managed to elude the entire collective intelligence of every puzzlehead on the internet for nearly 18 months.

Fortunately for us, Sherri Skanes kept a diary of her adventure to recover the treasure. It’s the best “Found It” log I’ve ever read. It’s got all of the important elements: hard work, research, analysis, trespassing, giving up and going home, encounters with homeless people, “ah-hah!” moments, vomiting, spectacular views, injuries, deer sightings, Frank Zappa, weird coincidences, night caching, ticks, begging your family and ex-spouse to be involved in your nerdy hobby, and – most importantly – “coyote crap”, and all of that in a single day.

The solution to the challenge was an homage to one of my favorite movies of all time and probably the greatest treasure hunt film ever made: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

What’s almost as good as Sherri’s story are the folks who developed highly elaborate and completely incorrect theories about the solution. Cliff Johnson refers to these crackpot theories as Just Blaine Crazy. I doubt anyone has ever been as far off in the weeds as those folks were.

The puzzle published in the book wasn’t Cliff’s first attempt to create a puzzle for David. The Harry Green Shuffle and the San Dimas Prototype provide an interesting insight into how puzzles are constructed and evolve.

Some people just responded in outright silly ways. One woman played a lovely April Fool’s Day prank, and others … well, it’s kinda hard to describe.

A few years ago, Games Magazine ran an article on a puzzlehunt called Jackpot. Imagine the The Amazing Race with bigger teams, smarter contestants, and much harder puzzles. I would *sooo* have loved to have been a contestant … *sigh*

Amazingly enough, the folks that put on the Jackpot event managed to turn their preoccupation with puzzles into a full-time occupation.

I once helped a friend who’s an Amazing Race fan put together something similar for a corporate team-building event. He and I did the overall race design, and I did some of the puzzle construction – including setting up a geocaching-style event.

If anyone is interested in doing something like this together in the future, let me know. My free time between family and work is limited, but I’d love to be involved somehow.