Cover of 1982 book The Secret

The Secret is a treasure hunt created by Byron Preiss. The hunt involves a search for twelve treasure boxes, the clues to which were provided in a book written by Preiss in 1982, also called The Secret. These boxes were buried at secret locations in cities across the United States and Canada that symbolically represent events and peoples that played significant roles in North American history. Anyone who uncovered one of the treasure boxes was entitled to exchange it with Preiss for a precious gem; after Preiss died in 2005, his estate assumed the responsibility of honoring the terms of the treasure hunt. As of 2023, only three of the twelve boxes have been found. Preiss kept no record of the treasure boxes' exact locations before his death, leaving it a possibility that the remaining boxes may never be recovered.

Book

Clues for where the treasures were buried are provided in a puzzle book named The Secret produced by Byron Preiss and first published by Bantam in 1982.[1] The book was authored by Sean Kelly and Ted Mann and illustrated by John Jude Palencar, John Pierard, and Overton Loyd; JoEllen Trilling, Ben Asen, and Alex Jay also contributed to the book.[2] A Japanese version was published in 1983, and the English version was re-issued in 2014.[1] The book contains 12 images and 12 verses; an image must be linked to a verse, with the information they contain used to locate a buried "treasure casque".[3]

The Secret book variants
YearISBNLanguageFormatPublisher
1982ISBN 0-553-01408-0EnglishPaperbackBantam
Hardcover[1]
19830276-831122-7339JapanesePaperbackFutami-shobo
2014ISBN 978-1-59687-444-2EnglishHardcoveribooks.com
ISBN 978-1-59687-401-5Paperback

Treasure boxes

As of 2024, three of the treasure boxes have been recovered.[4][5] The first was found in Chicago, Illinois; the second in Cleveland, Ohio; and the most recent treasure box was found in Boston, Massachusetts.[5] The remaining nine treasure boxes have not yet been recovered.[4] The Boston treasure box's recovery was filmed for Discovery Channel's television show Expedition Unknown and aired on Wednesday, October 30, 2019, a recovery which only occurred due to the puzzle being featured in two previous episodes of the series.[6][7][8]

With the passage of time, some of the cached casques may have been destroyed, or been built over, as was happening with the Boston casque, which was buried in Langone Park, in Boston’s North End which was undergoing renovation, resulting in the casque being dug up in an excavator. Clues would no longer match in cases where the surrounding area has changed since the book was originally published.[8]

Note: This table is the consensus from the majority of searchers.

Image No.[9] Verse No.[9] Verse opening Status Location (solved, or likely) Ref.
17At stone wall's doorUnsolvedSan Francisco, California[10][11]
26Of all the romance retoldUnsolvedCharleston, South Carolina[12]
311Pass two friends of octaveUnsolvedElizabethan Garden, Roanoke Island, North Carolina[13]
44Beneath two countriesSolved (2004)Greek Garden, Cleveland, Ohio[14][15]
512Where M and B are set in stoneSolved (1983)Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois[16][17]
69The first chapterUnsolvedSt. Augustine, Florida
108View the three stories of MitchellUnsolvedHermann Park, Houston, Texas[18][19]
81Fortress North' UnsolvedMilwaukee, Wisconsin[20]
95LaneSolvedMontreal but now in Laval
72At the place where jewels aboundUnsolvedFrench Quarter/Lafayette, New Orleans, Louisiana
113If Thucydides is North of XenophonSolved (2019)Puopolo Field, Boston, Massachusetts[5][21]
1210In the shadow Of the grey giantUnsolvedQueens/Coney, New York, New York[22]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Book Variants". 12treasures.com. Retrieved November 9, 2019.
  2. ↑ "The History Behind 'The Secret'". Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  3. ↑ The Secret (1982), pp. 7–8
  4. 1 2 "Shhh! The Secret Podcast". 12treasures.com. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  5. 1 2 3 Baker, Billy (October 25, 2019). "Hidden treasure, a family's quest, and 'The Secret'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  6. ↑ "EPIC SEASON FINALE OF DISCOVERY CHANNEL'S 'EXPEDITION UNKNOWN' STARRING JOSH GATES UNCOVERS FAMED HIDDEN TREASURE". discovery.com (Press release). October 28, 2019. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Expedition Unknown: 'The Secret' Treasure Found in Boston". Discovery Com. Retrieved 2020-03-24.
  8. 1 2 "The Secret Solved". Expedition: Unknown. 2019.
  9. 1 2 "The Secret (a treasure hunt)". Retrieved November 9, 2019 – via pbworks.com.
  10. ↑ Walker, Wilson (March 4, 2019). "Treasure Hunters May Be Closing In On Prize In Golden Gate Park". KPIX-TV. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  11. ↑ Parks, Shoshi (September 20, 2019). "S.F. Marks the Spot for Buried Treasure". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved November 10, 2019. A fantasy author's 37-year-old cache may soon be unearthed in one of the city's 220 parks. But which one?
  12. ↑ Behre, Robert (April 22, 2019). "Discovery Channel team to dig up Charleston's White Point Garden in search of buried key". The Post and Courier. San Francisco, California. Retrieved November 9, 2019.
  13. ↑ Kile, Jenny (June 9, 2019). "In Search of the Roanoke Island Casque of The Secret Armchair Treasure Hunt: Six Questions with Dustin and Deidra White". Mysterious Writings. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  14. ↑ Firschein, Merry (July 18, 2004). "Treasure hunter strikes pay dirt". The Record. Bergen County, New Jersey. p. 1. Retrieved November 9, 2019 – via newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ Firschein, Merry (July 18, 2004). "Treasure: A 22-year quest ends in a park in Cleveland". The Record. Bergen County, New Jersey. p. 12. Retrieved November 9, 2019 – via newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ Swartz, Tracy (January 17, 2018). "Travel Channel show revisits '80s treasure find in Grant Park". Chicago Tribune. p. 1-3. Retrieved November 10, 2019 – via newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "The Secret of Byron Preiss: How they found the Chicago key". Retrieved November 9, 2019 – via YouTube.
  18. ↑ Brasted, Chelsea (April 9, 2019). "There's a secret treasure in New Orleans. We may have found it". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved November 11, 2019 – via nola.com.
  19. ↑ Truong, Thanh (May 18, 2018). "The Secret: There's a treasure buried in New Orleans". WWL-TV. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
  20. ↑ "Milwaukee Solve". Retrieved January 30, 2023.
  21. ↑ Conti, Matt (October 30, 2019). "Treasure Hunt Leads to North End Baseball Field". North End Waterfront. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  22. ↑ Kile, Jenny (April 18, 2019). "Six Questions with James Renner: In Search for the New York City Casque of The Secret (A Treasure Hunt)". Mysterious Writings. Retrieved November 11, 2019.

Further reading

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