There’s a free opener on a French treasure hunt, with more detail than I found in any other news piece. But do you want to stay up to date on the weirder news and tech, not to mention all the AI video news the past 2 weeks? Upgrade to stay up to date, a lot happens in 2 weeks! TITAA #59.5: The Owl Treasure HuntChouetteurs - AI Video - Real-time - Time & Space - Uncooperative Poets - Fun & Sad Databases
Because it’s the weird mid-month issue, let’s cover the French treasure hunt news! And then a banger of a creative AI tools update, plus the mid-month weird links—I got my enthusiasm back. Running for 31 years without a winner, a treasure hunt for a buried golden owl in France baffled hunters so much that some thought it was a hoax. Started by pseudonymous “Max Valentin” who died before anyone solved it, Sur La Trace de la Chouette d’Or (wikipedia) was an “armchair treasure hunt” book inspired by England’s Masquerade (Kit Williams). To win it, the player was required to solve 12 puzzles correctly. The final 12th puzzle was hidden by the 11th puzzle, pointing to the location of a buried owl statue. Last week the hunt ended with a verified winner. There is a French video with details verifying the solution’s registration here. Evidently the winner wants to be kept anonymous and the details will be revealed in a documentary in the spring—a bit disappointing! Perhaps surprisingly, the winner also seems not to be French. This page is full of the best info/drama:
The most entertaining hunt history article I found (in English) appeared in the Guardian two years ago. Evidently the hunt had gone on for so long that original community discourse occurred over Minitel, France’s pioneering early chat system. After the death of Valentin, when illustrator Michel Becker took over the puzzle admin, the hunt was plagued by controversy and legal challenges. Becker also seemed a bit unreliable as a grandmaster:
(*Chouetteurs is a nickname for the owl hunters.) Becker says “says he put the owl up for sale during a period when he was ‘fed up’ with the game.” Ah, okay. The 11 known puzzles can be seen on the Golden Owl Hunt site, along with various discussion and speculation about each. “Madits” are clues from Max Valentin via Minitel (short for “Max dits,” “Max says”). For instance, the 530 puzzle puts the start of the game in Bourges, center of France — the art is the original book art, a part of the puzzle:
The “generally accepted” solution explication can be read here, and for the others likewise. A number of other cities are mentioned, and there were alignment theories too:
But spirals enter the picture and make it seem less simple: analysis of puzzle 500 “Gives the town of Carignan, where we must take a right angle to find a four-centred Spiral at 185km.” That actual puzzle page: All told, I can see why it took 31 years. I can’t wait for the final documentary explanation in the spring. If you want a roundup of French coverage of the end of the puzzle, the wiki has a good set of links. I mentioned another treasure hunt in my issue 2 weeks ago — the Skydrop treasure was found! It was not as difficult to solve. Onto the new news! And apologies for using some embedded video links instead of just gifs, it was too much weight otherwise. TOC (links on Substack page):
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