Thread: The Clock Without a Face

Thanks, Sara.

I was composing that previous message while you posted.

Found a pair of magnets in Ohio, but they seem like they were left by someone (and not a clue). Elohir, can you confirm with me that they were left by you?

(FYI, I would have PMed, but I'm new and the system won't let me)

Indeed, they were a pair of calling cards left by my daughters and I when we went on a quick dig in that location. We didn't dig very deeply, as the ground seemed undisturbed when we arrived.

Originally Posted by Doc

Welcome aboard, Red! I'm way down south, so I can't help, or I would.

Does anybody have a good feel about What's Going On inside this puzzle they'd like to share?

I'm starting work on the main body of the puzzle, and I admit to being in the dark.

I see the makings of a 'vertical maze', but there appears to be a SHM clue at EVERY stop!

Why?

On their web site, the authors state the clues to find the precise digging location can be found in the book.

Here's the problem: if you're digging a hole according to a state/highway/mile clue and your hole is one foot away, you'll miss the target. I would think SOMETHING has to give an exact spot. Either you figure it out once you arrive on the scene--something like a rock or a stake, etc.--or the SHM is somehow 'converted' to HMS (hour/minute/second) which is awfully close to GPS.

Here's my question to myself: If we are collecting SHM's along a path, are they red herrings or do they somehow combine to create a precise spot?

I'm interested in listening to some different ideas....

Doc

Doc,
HMS makes absolutely a more precise location to stick the shovel in the ground than does SHM. They may BOTH be in play but I suspect that there is a "constant" at each of the 12 sites and a formula for figuring out where to strike the blade in the dirt from the SHM, a probable HMS AND on-location hints that go along with the constant. A TREE is the most likely thing to be a constant at all locations. There is clearly a chalkboard drawing of a tree on floor 1 with, though not excatly an "X marks the spot" at the bottom, if I saw this on a crude treasure map at a family picnic, I'd take it to somewhat mean a description of where to dig.

As I have thought before, the chalk boards may simply describe what to do once you have narrowed down your loactions. There has to be a blueprint for each location on where and how to dig. The Earth is small, but not that small. Those that have dug for hours, stood at a supposed location scratching their heads or ever worked on The Secret and been "on location" know just how formidable a general area in a park can be and how needed specifics must be.

After everything is said and done, it could be that the authors thought they were giving something obvious and specific all along but the vagueness may go forever unnoticed. OR, as in the case of Masquerade, if there is a constant that reveals the location of the dig spot, such as a "shadow" from an object at a day and TIME or some other mechanism, then that is what needs to be discovered. There is a chance, but highly unlikely, that there are "instructions" placed at a site; like an engraved tag on a tree or something (some high-end geocaches have such things). Again, unlikely.

If we all had hand-held GPR we could work with generalities but I doubt that was the what the authors intended. Some of you may have already been at the correct location. If two or more have been, and came about that location from the same clues but without collaboration, then I would rate that area HIGH on the likelihood scale and start working on the mechanism for the precise dig location.

Hunt Happily.
Domino

Originally Posted by MayorSara

I'm going to make a few separate posts today because they're too lengthy to do all at once.

As I mentioned earlier, the foundation of my current line of thinking is that there are groupings of three that will point to clues. Some of these groupings relate to colors, but the puzzles would be too easy if there were only one method for identifying threesomes and trios. In addition to colors, I have also been looking at:

2. Anagrams pointing to trios
I began by plugging all kinds of phrases from the book into an anagram website. Since I had only a means, and no certainty about the end of my efforts, it's hard to know what might be significant. Based on key words that came up in the anagrams, some phrases seemed more promising than others. Example of what seems to be a promising phrase:

Ladies Home Journal (Dodge sits down and reads one on the 11th Floor).
Linoleum Ajar Hosed
Linoleum A Jar Shoed
Linoleum Ad Jar Shoe
Linoleum Soda Jar He
Mullions A Jade Hero
A Haled Mile Sojourn
A Jailed Lemon Hours
Ursine head all mojo
A Ad Holler Emu Joins
Emerald Halo Join Us
Hello Name is jar duo
Ordinal Jam Eel Oh Us
Ladle Jam Noise Hour
Radio shoe Jam Ell Nu

While not 100% clear, lots of these combinations seem likely to relate to the visual clues in the illustrations.

From the Ladies Home Journal group, this anagram particularly intrigued me: Lemonade Silo Jars + uh. The lemonade machine on the 12th floor has always struck me as being "out of place": it seems as if it should be on the 7th floor with all the carnival food. You can use the G-Y-R trio approach and draw a line from the jars near Quello's fireplace to the lemonade, and from there to the silo (= a mini cooling tower as would be seen at a nuclear power plant). The "lines" from this grouping go through the upside-down U-shaped fireplace opening and the T-shirts. Together with the leftover letters from the clue, this could give us U, T, U and H. Wait a minute - that fireplace opening is an ARCH. So it's not a U, it's an A. Are we being directed to Utah? (Or, at least, to that four-letter word?)

Hey! Don't these trios connected on two-sides look kind of like the hands of a clock? Curiouser and curiouser. If some of the anagrams direct us to groups of three, it seems as if finding letters or other clues connected to the trios -- whether the "hands of the clock" pass through them, or by another method -- is one approach to reaching the next "layer" of clues.

Ah, that clears things up a bit. When we found them (and saw dig marks), we thought we were on to something. Since we didn't know anything about ATT at the time, the clue seemed oddly tempting. When we got home we burned down the Internet trying to decipher these mysterious magnets and eventually found ATT and read about your exploits. At that point, my friend Kelly predicted that they might by your calling card, which was surprisingly accurate.

Since we didn't know what they were, we took the magnets (a consolation prize now on my fridge).

As you probably did, we spent a good amount of time combing the entire area and didn't find anything (though we did dig in a few suspicious spots).

Which leads me to another interesting side-effect of the "buried treasure" nature of this puzzle: "hole pollution". It seems that we saw your dig marks in the ground (did you use a post-holer or something? One of the holes was quite deep) and thought we had found something, so we dug those holes even further. Additionally, we dug in a few other spots nearby. Of course, when another person gets there, they will see all of our digging spots and try to dig there again, and they may possibly add new digging spots. Thus, if the "real" spot is there somewhere it will be concealed by dozens of misleading digging spots.

Originally Posted by Elrohir

Indeed, they were a pair of calling cards left by my daughters and I when we went on a quick dig in that location. We didn't dig very deeply, as the ground seemed undisturbed when we arrived.

Hi, Doc! Yes, you and I must have hit our own personal walls at about the same time. I hope you can do something with this material, or use it as a jumping-off point for your own insight. My thinking always benefits when you post something new.

Here's the third installment of my current theories, closely related to my earlier post.

Originally Posted by MayorSara

A key item for me in Doc's thinking was the idea of finding clues in triangular groups.

1. Colors and a giant Clock
On the first inside page of the book is a smallish illustration showing what appears to be some informal sketches made by our hero Gus. I interpret the right-hand side of that illustration as a direction to look for groupings of things that are green, yellow and red....

3. Word puzzles and other color clues
Although the illustrated "key" on the inside first page seems to focus us on green, yellow and red clues, another item on the pages from Gus' sketchbook started me thinking about colors in a different way. The name "Friendly Jerome" is written in small letters. I googled these words and found a wikipedia link describing a tv show I had watched as a kid, "The Friendly Giant". The TRIO of main characters on that show were named Friendly, RUSTY and Jerome. In other words, completion of the "Friendly Jerome" threesome (?) requires the name Rusty.

I didn't think too much about this until an anagram seemed to direct me toward something Rusty. I remembered that the sculpture on Floor 3 is rust colored. I started to look for rust-colored items on other floors and generally found one thing that is rusty (and/or possibly terra cotta) colored.

Using the same logic and an anagram for "Answering Machine" - referred to in the text for Floor 9 - I started looking for SIENNA colored things on each floor. Jigsy's sienna-colored books and Quello's sienna-colored chairs had already caught my eye, so finding the clue was starting to confirm my hunch that some of these oddball colors (or items painted in these colors) might be parts of clues.

I am not certain yet that the items are parts of the trios and threesomes I was finding helpful before. Once you start looking for one-of-a-kind colored items, you do start to notice that there is one prominent rusty or sienna or purple or pink or rainbow-colored item on each floor - many of these items don't stand out and seem to have no purpose other than to be colorful.

On the wiki site, I posted a list of potential color-related clues coming from the names of building residents. I am particularly intrigued by the Paul K. Quello connection to yellow: using the two "U"s in his name (double U), only a Y is missing to create the word YELLOW. Another anagram makes me think that the element Yttrium, symbolized by the letter Y on the Periodic Table, could be part of a solution. I would love to connect Quello and Yttrium, but can't quite fill in the blanks.

Further examination of word puzzles such as "Friendly Jerome" and anagrams that can lead to color-related clues may help to clarify the purpose of these things. I hope this Tweleve group can find answers, as I have lost the energy to do this alone at this point.

I have some nascent ideas about front/back, in/out, the Periodic Table and clockwork but they will wait for another day.

SonofShantyTown-

Glad you kept the magnets, we were hoping they wouldn't hang in those precarious places too long!

Funny you mention the post-digger. We didn't have one, but one spot had some dried post-hole castings lying on the ground next to our spot. And then when we dug, there was empty space in the hole. I couldn't tell if it was a post-digger, or perhaps the sign itself had been pulled and reset recently, as the castings were in that shape (?). But we couldn't find anything in that empty space, regardless.

But I am definitely of the opinion (along with Doc and MajorSara) that there are some additional location-specific clues to be found that will help us narrow this down!

-Elrohir

I've been thinking a bit about Floor Ten and the tags on the Lion, Tiger, and Bear. Some have said that this is a rather simple riddle leading to Kansas -- and it may be -- but then why chose these particular numbers.

I think 24, 25, and 26 are X, Y, and Z. Possibly for a substitution cipher, or coordinates of some kind. My books at home so I'll have to wait until tonight to explore further.

Very clever of the authors if they thought to hide a more complicated riddle in a seemingly easier one. We should look to see where else this might have occurred. O-Hi-O comes to mind immediately.

There's a lot of great threads out there, and I cannot wait to see how they all come together.

Elrohir,

We agree 100% that there is more to this than simply State, Highway, Mile. Our working assumption is that S/H/M gets you in the ballpark and the remaining (unknown) clues take you to the exact spot. We were just hoping to "cheat" by carefully looking around for recently dug spots. Regardless, I still feel like that area is a very likely location. But you guys are the pros here...

As to the post hole, one of our motivated diggers went down quite a distance (3 feet, maybe) but didn't find anything (actually, we got chased away by a cop).

In other news, one of our folks is headed to Minneapolis (for other reasons) and will check out the Plumpjack/Skyway possibility.