Welcome to Wiki for The Secret 
 
 This is a wiki for solving the 12 puzzles contained inside The Secret, a puzzle book published in 1982 by Byron Preiss. To set up the puzzle, Preiss traveled to different locations in North America to secretly bury a dozen ceramic vases, or, as he called them, "casques." Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding each casque was to match one of the paintings in the book to one of the verses in the book, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the twelve casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1983 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues. 
 
 For more background on the book and the authors, see the history page on this wiki. If you would like to jump in and participate, visit the To Do page to see if you can help answer any of our big questions. (Other contributions are always welcome too, of course!) 
 
 The Rules - Site Summary - Tips for Puzzle Solving - Online Resources 
 
 (from page 219 in The Secret) 
 
 "The jewels collectively are worth over ten thousand dollars. The treasure casques themselves are of incalculable value, never having been owned by man or woman." 
 
 "Every treasure casque is buried underground, at a depth of no more than three to three and one-half feet. The casques are protected by lustrous transparent boxes, and are sealed." 
 
 "The following places do not hold any treasure: 
 
 (a) any life-threatening location, such as a dangerous highway embankment, a contaminated area or active railway track 
 
 (b) any cemetery 
 
 (c) any public or private flower bed 
 
 (d) any property owned by the contributors to the book, their families or friends." 
 
 A few other bits of wisdom about the treasure spots are well worth keeping in mind: 
 
 Preiss was obviously a responsible citizen and he wouldn't have wanted his treasure hunt to cause any harm or do any damage. Your solution shouldn't require you to tear up a lawn or disturb a natural area. The casques are only going to be in places that have already been disturbed by humans and where further digging wouldn't be a problem. 
 
 In every case that we know of, the burial site is beside some distinctive, man-made feature that is represented in the image or verse. (See the Solutions page for more info on the "Aha! icon.") The presence of the artificial feature within a few feet means that the casque can't be out in an open area or in some pristine natural preserve. There has to be a distinctive object (made by humans) very close to the burial spot. 
 
 Each of the 12 images in the book represents a groups of immigrants who came to North America from some foreign country. Each image is also linked to a particular month and contains that month's birth flower and that month's birth stone (which also the jewel for that casque). The text of the book includes twelve verses that describe (in varying detail) where a casque is hidden. The first step in solving the puzzle is to match up each image with the appropriate verse, month, stone, flower, and country of immigration. The table below gives the most likely connections, based on the work that has been done so far. 
 
 Only two of the 12 casques have been unearthed so far, but those experiences allow us to give some general advice to anyone who is interested in joining the hunt. 
 
 Broadly speaking, there are two types of puzzles in The Secret: 
 
 Journey Puzzles take us on a trip through some interesting area to reach a casque. These are the classic pirate treasure map routes that go winding and looping along indirect dotted lines until they lead us to the final spot. Chicago, Roanoke Island, San Francisco, Houston, Milwaukee, and Boston are all puzzles of this type. 
 
 
 
 
 
 take us on a trip through some interesting area to reach a casque. These are the classic pirate treasure map routes that go winding and looping along indirect dotted lines until they lead us to the final spot. Chicago, Roanoke Island, San Francisco, Houston, Milwaukee, and Boston are all puzzles of this type. Destination Puzzles , on the other hand, start us in the vicinity of the casque and give us a series of obscure clues to confirm the location and narrow down the spot. These puzzles may have been Preiss's way of letting people join in the hunt even if they didn't live near a spot. Many of the clues in these puzzles can only be solved by library research and obscure sources. Cleveland, Charleston, St. Augustine, New Orleans, Montreal, and New York are all puzzles of this type. 
 
 The key thing to keep in mind in solving a journey puzzle is that none of the clues after the initial starting point were meant to be interpreted by armchair enthusiasts (using 1980's tools). There would be no point in sending people on the walk if they could simply "jump ahead" by interpreting a later clue. What this means for searchers is that, after starting along the route, all of the clues are going to be for small, innocuous features that wouldn't be mentioned in any guidebook. There will be references to the number of steps in a staircase, or the name of a highway bridge, or the view across a lake, or the naming of paths in a community garden. What you won't see is any mention of a major tourist landmark that would have been on maps or brochures in 1980. The "compass" is not likely to be a well-known lighthouse. The "giant pole" is not likely to be a totem pole or other attraction. The "object of Twain's attention" is not likely to be on any list of the first hundred things one might think of after researching the life of Mark Twain. The whole point is to reward exploration and the discovery of the obscure features one can only see at "see-level." 
 
 With destination puzzles the situation is reversed. Many of the clues can only be solved by poring over obscure sources in a library. There is nothing in White Point Garden in Charleston that explains the naming of the twins Edwin and Edwina. As far as we know, there is no public monument in New Orleans that includes the quotation about the St. Charles hotel. Armchair searchers have made great progress on these puzzles, but even the internet has its limits when dealing with Preiss's convoluted way of making connections. Phrases like "natives still speak of him of Hard word in 3 Vols" requires both some serious research and a willingness to make some jumps. 
 
 Other things to keep in mind: 
 
 Study the work that has already been done. This wiki collects several decades of work on solving these puzzles. You'll get a huge head start if you take the time to understand what has already been found (and what has already been ruled out). 
 
 This wiki collects several decades of work on solving these puzzles. You'll get a huge head start if you take the time to understand what has already been found (and what has already been ruled out). Start with the puzzle and work towards a place, rather than the other way around. The images in The Secret are so abstract that they can be creatively interpreted to fit almost anyplace on earth. If you start with a preferred destination and try to make one of the images fit, you're absolutely certain to find some "matches" but you won't really be making any progress. 
 
 Keep in mind that Preiss and Palencar didn't have access to Google Maps. There are definitely many overhead views represented in these images, but they all show roads and sidewalks that would have been readily available in road maps and park brochures. If your theory relies on knowing the overhead shape of a clump of trees or some natural feature, it's not likely to be right. 
 
 Move from the famous to the obscure and from the public to the secluded. Every image in The Secret includes at least one well-known landmark. The painting for Cleveland included the Cleveland Terminal Tower. The painting for Chicago included the Chicago Water Tower. Those references are only meant to get us to the right city or the right general area. The casque in Milwaukee isn't buried at City Hall, and the one in New York isn't buried at the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island. Start with the famous places referenced in the picture and then move from there to the hidden spots that even the locals have never noticed. 
 
 Beware of pareidolia. The human brain has a strong ability to pick out the faces in an image, but sometimes those circuits are a little overactive and we see faces in clouds and other random shapes. There may be "secret faces" hidden in some of the images of The Secret, but those faces may also be just our own imaginations. 
 
 Similarly, beware of apophenia. The human brain also has a tendency to see patterns in what are actually just random data. The artist who painted the images for The Secret was very clever about throwing in random brushstrokes. Sometimes they mean something and sometimes they don't. 
 
 Use your common sense. Preiss wasn't expecting you to dig through some nice lawn in the middle of a park or an athletic field. He dug his holes in bare or weedy areas where the soil was already loose and where he was protected from view by trees and walls. If your solution sends you to a well-maintained or heavily-trafficked area, it's almost certainly wrong. You shouldn't need to cut through grass (or any other plant roots) to get to the casque and you shouldn't need to be in a very public spot. 
 
 Don't mess things up for other searchers. Unearthing the remaining casques will very likely require getting cooperation and permissions from various public and private landowners. If you damage an area or leave holes for other people to fill, you'll only be giving the whole hunt a bad name. So - please - be responsible, do no harm, get permission first if possible, and be sure to clean up your mess! 
 
 Have fun! 
 
 More theories and discussions about the search are available at: 
 
 * The three sites at the start of the list all attempted to solve The Secret using discussions and all ran into the same problem. By posting new theories and new discoveries in a single, ever-lengthening thread, each forum created such a backlog of unorganized material that it was impossible for anyone to keep track of what had already been found. The thread at Something Awful, for example, started on May 31, 2013 and in less than a week had more than 1,200 entries. That thread now has more than 5,700 entries, making it very difficult for new people to join the search and get caught up. The goal of this wiki is to present all of the discoveries in an organized way, so that searchers can quickly and easily see what is already known about each image and each verse. 
 
 There are many photo albums on Flickr and PhotoBucket where people have posted images relevant to The Secret. Some of the better ones are: 
 
 Important: As of early 2019, Flickr is planning to change their terms of service. Free accounts will now be limited to only 1,000 photos, which means that many relevant photos from the albums listed above (and others) will soon be going away. Searchers may want to download copies of the most useful photos now, so that they aren't lost forever. 
 
 Some of the useful websites for doing research include: 
 
 Downloads: 
 
 In the Files Section - A pdf template for a plexiglas casque container. 
 
 Progress Map 
 
 Click on the map to see an enlargement. For more maps related to the casque locations in The Secret, go to the Maps Page. 
 
 
 
 All of the hunt locations so far involve waterfront cities and, in many cases, waterfront parks. Possibly it is coincidence or possibly there is a water-related theme that no one has fully explained yet. (Thanks to Austin for the updated map!) 
 
 Wiki Update (2/18/18) 
 
 It's been a month since the Travel Channel show aired on January 17th and thing are finally getting back to normal around here. Page views on the site are back down to under 10,000/day and hopefully property owners are feeling less besieged by requests to dig. But we've made some amazing progress over the past month and we've had some great contributions from new people who have joined the wiki and have quickly gotten up to speed. So to mark this anniversary of the "big surge," I'd like to recognize a few of our contributors who have really moved the search forwards. Here's my own personal assessment of the Top 10 Recent Discoveries on The Secret! 
 
 
 
 10) The concrete slab under the Moultrie monument in Charleston. 
 
 Wiki user Chris Andrews did some careful investigations in Charleston and documented that a concrete slab was installed below ground level when the Maine monument was removed (which is great to know but probably ends all chances of recovering the casque for Image 2). 
 
 
 
 9) Sash-hattan 
 
 Wiki user Drumman spotted the shape of Manhattan that was staring us right in the face, hidden in plain view in Image 12. 
 
 
 
 8) A tree grows in New York Harbor. 
 
 Amazingly, there is also a large and fairly clear tree trunk hidden (sideways) in Image 12, but no one spotted it until wiki user Pizzoli pointed it out. 
 
 
 
 7) "Dryades Street and Cours de Naides (now St Charles Avenue) in New Orleans were named after wood and water sprites respectively." 
 
 We don’t get a lot of new input related to the verses, but wiki user Jess made a potentially big discovery related to Verse 2. 
 
 
 
 6) Watch out for the alligator! 
 
 We knew that Image 6 had lots of clues for Florida, but wiki user Halla4 was apparently the first person to point out that there is a very clear alligator lurking along the edge of the big stone. 
 
 
 
 5) It’s not a scythe - it’s Albemarle Sound! 
 
 People have struggled for years to understand the weird objects on the right arm of the knight in Image 3, but it took wiki user Drumman to point out that they form the shape of the North Carolina coastline. 
 
 
 
 4) That old pine tree? It’s still there. 
 
 This wiki had a solution for Image 6 that required a large pine tree in a certain place, but we didn’t realize that the pine was still there until wiki users Marvin Calhoun, Zteam, and Andy Hafler nailed down the evidence. 
 
 
 
 3) Even more amazing? Palencar painted a picture of the spot with the pine tree. 
 
 This wiki has always promoted the idea that each image includes an “Aha Moment” of recognition at the burial spot, but it took wiki user Kang to point out the hidden depiction of the FOY hiding spot in Image 6. 
 
 
 
 2) Those blocks by the park are… blocks by the park. 
 
 People have almost certainly pointed it out before over the years, but it it didn’t really register until wiki user Kimberley posted about it: The squares on either side of the Golden Gate Park map in Image 1 are city blocks and the fingers are pointing at streets. 
 
 
 
 1) If the dragon head is on the left, the map is flipped from left-to-right 
 
 The single biggest discovery was the observation by wiki user Goonie68 that the head of the dragon in Image 1 matches the dragon above the entrance to the Golden Gate Park Senior Center. For years now people have been saying that the backwards “Gh” at the top of the map must mean that the map itself is flipped, and the response has always been to point out that the “flare” in the bottom right corner where Fulton bends is in the right place. But if there are only two objects above the crossed arms, and both of them are shown in a way that clearly indicates a flip, then it seems very clear that we are meant to flip the upper half of the image from left to right. And that's what makes the solution finally clear. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thanks to everyone for these and all the other insights on the wiki over the past month. I've tried to give credit where it's due in the above list, but if I got anything wrong, please let me know and I'll try to set it right. Keep up the good work! 
 
 - Oregonian (wiki administrator) 
 
 Interested in Contributing to this Wiki? 
 
 Careful and substantive contributions are always welcome! Your contributions can explain a theory, but you should avoid lecturing the readers or putting down other approaches. Be sure your contributions are always professional, courteous, and helpful to the search. And, of course, remember that what you add may end up getting changed or removed by another wiki editor. That's how the wiki process works. 
 
 If you want to add to this wiki, but you aren't sure where to start, please check our To Do List. 
 
 If you want to add to this wiki, but you're nervous about using the wiki editing system, feel free to play around and experiment in the sandbox page. ||||| In 1982, author and publisher Byron Preiss traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues. If you find one, be sure to visit The Secret forum at www.quest4treasure.co.uk and let us know! ||||| The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... 
 
 
 
 Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. 
 
 
 
 Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. 
 
 
 
 Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues. ||||| The quest to find 12 hidden treasures from a 1982 treasure hunt book 
 
 The 1982 treasure hunt book, The Secret, has clues to 12 hidden gems. Only two have been found. James Renner is on a quest to discover the others, and he invites you to join the hunt. 
 
 The Secret: A Treasure Hunt! first set its hooks in me when I was eight years old. My mother had taken me to the little library in Bedford, outside Cleveland, and in the stacks there, I discovered this small bound book with a strange painting on the cover that hinted at some fantastic mystery. I took the book home with me and read about the twelve keys Byron Preiss had buried in cities across North America. I tried to decode the paintings and poems that held the locations of these keys. And I fretted that, by the time I was sixteen and had the freedom a driver’s license could afford, all the keys would be found. 
 
 That was nearly thirty years ago. 
 
 Only two keys have ever been found. 
 
 This summer, I’m setting out to finally claim one for myself. I challenge you to do the same. 
 
 The Secret: A Treasure Hunt! was published in 1982. It’s creator, Byron Preiss, was inspired by the book, Masquerade, which was published in the U.K. in 1979. Written and illustrated by Kit Williams, Masquerade contained fifteen paintings that pointed to the location of a buried treasure, in this case, a rabbit pendant made of gold and jewels. That book sold hundreds of thousands of copies around the world. That year, much of Great Britain was full of shallow, empty holes. 
 
 For his book, Preiss commissioned a young artist named John Jude Palencar (who went on to design the covers for the Eragon series) to create a dozen paintings. Each painting was paired with a poem. Used together, they pointed an armchair sleuth to a specific location. There, three feet underground, one could find a buried casque. Inside the casque was a ceramic key. And each key could be turned into the publisher, who would hand over a gem worth around $1,000. 
 
 Unfortunately, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt! was never as popular as Masquerade. And the clues proved harder to solve than Preiss imagined. There was no way to cheat, either, as metal detectors would never pick up the ceramic casque or keys. 
 
 In 1984, three kids unearthed a key in Chicago. Then, nothing much happened until 2004, when a pair of lawyers found one in Cleveland. 
 
 Preiss, alone, buried the keys. He never told anyone else the precise locations. And the secrets died with him in a tragic car accident, in 2005. The gems, too, were said to have been lost. 
 
 However, fans of the mystery continue to mine the Palencar paintings and Preiss’s poems for clues. A Reddit post six months ago introduced the book to a new generation of web-savvy puzzlers. If you want to travel deeply into the rabbit hole, an old message board called Quest4Treasure goes into greater detail. 
 
 For the last few years, I’ve written about unsolved crimes, hunting down serial killers and crooked politicians in Cleveland (we have more than our fair share of both). But I wanted to find a new mystery I could really enjoy digging into. And this summer, I got to thinking about Byron Preiss’s book again. 
 
 My first call was to Preiss’s widow and what she said got my heart racing again, the way I felt when I first saw that book in the Bedford library so many years ago. She had just seen the gems, again. They weren’t lost. As far as she was concerned, the game was still on! 
 
 On Friday, I leave for Chicago to interview the Goonies who found the treasure there, back in 1984. Along with me for the trip is Charles Moore, who helped me track down J.D. Salinger a few years back. And then it’s on to New York, and Florida, and locations to be determined. A crew is coming along to film a documentary, produced by Tyler Davidson and his gang at Low Spark Films (Take Shelter, The Signal). 
 
 We challenge the Boing Boing community to race us. Can you solve Preiss’s puzzles and find a key before we do? 
 
 If so, please remember to document your dig and to share it with us. 
 
 The game is afoot! May the odds be ever in your favor! Avast ye mateys and all of that.
– In the early 1980s, Byron Preiss buried 12 keys underground in North America that, when found, can be turned in for gems worth $1,000 each. He and a number of collaborators created a book called The Secret: A Treasure Hunt!, published in 1982, that contains a dozen paintings and poems, each of which leads the way to the location of one key—as long as the finder is willing to dig three feet and unearth one of the ceramic casques that holds each key. Preiss was inspired by a wildly popular book with the same idea, Masquerade, that was published in the UK in 1979—but The Secret wasn't nearly so popular, the clues are difficult, and just two keys have been found in the ensuing 32 years. Preiss, the only person who knew exactly where the keys are buried, died in 2005. But thanks to the book's resurgence on the Internet, James Renner is determined to unearth one of the keys, almost 30 years after he first became enchanted with the book as an 8-year-old boy at an Ohio library, he writes in Boing Boing. A Reddit post introduced the book to a new generation of treasure seekers late last year, and it includes links to all sorts of resources, including a comprehensive wiki about the book, high-resolution digital versions of the paintings, a map of the presumed locations of the keys, and much, much more. Or you can do things the hard way, buy the Amazon Kindle version of the book yourself, and try to decode it. As for the two keys found so far, the first was dug up by three kids in Chicago in 1984, and the second was found by two lawyers in Cleveland in 2004. The rest are still up for grabs—and, Preiss' widow confirms to Renner, the gems are, too, so anyone who finds a key will be rewarded. Renner is set to interview the three kids from 1984 and then travel to various locations to search for more keys—all with a documentary crew in tow to film the hunt. (Click to read about seven more lost treasures you can search for.)