On The Trail Of The Golden Owl () is a French armchair treasure hunt book created by communications expert Régis Hauser under the pseudonym "Max Valentin" and illustrated by artist Michel Becker. The book was first published in 1993. It provides clues to the location of a buried statuette of an owl, created by Becker. The puzzle contained within the book remains officially unsolved as of 2023, making it the second longest-running contest in the armchair treasure hunt genre. Hauser/Valentin died in 2009. A new edition of On The Trail Of The Golden Owl written by Michel Becker was published in December 2019, called The Secret Notebooks (4th edition 2019). In 2021 Michel Becker became the official organiser of the treasure hunt, obtaining the sealed envelope containing the hunt solution from the family of Régis Hauser. Becker journeyed with a legal bailiff to check that the owl prize was still buried at the location revealed in the solution. He reported that when he dug at the spot he found the owl missing and instead found a rusty iron bird. He replaced this rusty bird with a new bronze owl so that the treasure hunt could continue. Becker has published clarified game rules and published a 5th edition of the clue book, 'On the trail of the Golden Owl - Under the seal of secrecy' in August 2022. Origins On The Trail Of The Golden Owl was Max Valentin's first treasure hunt. He came up with the idea for the puzzle in the late 1970s, and spent 450 hours designing eleven textual riddles, which together hold the clues to a final location and a cache, hidden somewhere in France. Michel Becker created eleven paintings for the book, as well as the final prize, the Golden Owl statuette. The statuette is 10 inches (25 cm) high and 20 inches (50 cm) wide, and weighs 33 lbs (15 kg). It is entirely made of gold and silver, with diamonds on the head. In 1993, the owl was estimated at 150,000 euro. A legal protector holds it in Paris. Becker also created a replica made of bronze, which was buried somewhere in France by Hauser on the night of 23 April 1993. The treasure hunt was launched on 15 May 1993. Valentin designed the hunt to last for a few months and to be solvable by experts or amateurs, insisting that "If all the