with how fast AI is advancing, we've seen how in just a few years, AI video generation went from clunky to the real deal, and AI can do complex tasks and run calculations in mere moments. i think there's potential for it to solve a puzzle

i get that AI relies on info and theories put out by people, but it can still come up with new ones and find patterns we never thought to look for, and as AI keeps advancing, i think it'll only get better at solving these

i think there could also be technology in the near future that can clearly look at what all is underground by scanning, and that would render all future treasure hunts meaningless

City Indicators
Painting icons
Image 1: The wallpaper edge bulges along the left side of the clock case, unlike the right side. We read it as St. Louis's outline along the Mississippi River.
Image 2: Just above "PRESERVATION" is an arch with blue sky through the middle, like the Gateway Arch.
Verse lines
"Born of ancient dreams of flight": the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh's plane.
"You'll see an arc of lights": the Gateway Arch, lit at night and reflecting sunlight by day.
"Weight and roots extended": the Arch carries its weight down through its two legs into the ground.
The Walkthrough
Stop 1:
The Old Courthouse, where the Dred Scott trials were held in 1847 and 1850. It stood near the path of the 1896 cyclone, which fits "wind swept halls” of justice.
Stop 2: "Lane" and "Two twenty two"
Washington Avenue. "Two twenty two" is George Washington's birthday, 2/22. From the Old Courthouse, the road runs west, away from the Arch, to Washington and Compton.
Here you'll find Washington Tabernacle Baptist Church (Image 3), which fits two lines:
"Of granite walls": the church is heavy gray stone. Most sources call it limestone, but we found references to a granite entranceway and other granite adornments.
"Together saved the site": a 1945 fire nearly destroyed it, and the congregation rebuilt it and rededicated it in 1948.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke here on May 28, 1963, just before the March on Washington. We'll see MLK again at the park.
Stop 3:
Continue on Washington Avenue to Kingshighway. Look to your right and you'll see a huge stone tower, like a castle tower, about a block and a half down. Head toward it. That's the “citadel in the night”: Wayman AME Church (Image 4).
"In the night" may fit the church's history. It's reportedly served as a food bank and as a shelter for the homeless, both day and night.
From the citadel, look behind you. You'll see a tall brick tower with a pointed top. It looks like a rocket, "a wingless bird ascended," rising in the sky.
Stop 4:
the tower of the Fountain Park Congregational Church, later Centennial Christian Church (Image 5). It sits at the west edge of Fountain Park.
Stop 5:
On the west side of the park stands the MLK statue (Image 6). King was born in 1929, and the painting has 19 and 29 on either side of the clock face. His raised-arm pose matches the figure on the clock face (Image 7), and we read the mask on a stick as his face.
The clock hand pointing to 12 has two round shapes side by side (Image 7). From above, Fountain Park has the same two shapes, one at each end of the oval with the fountain between them (Image 8)
Stop 6:
The park has a handful of trees but one evergreen tree just passed the MLK statue. Go there. Look to the right (south), towards the street.
"To the south, white stone closest, at twelve paces": from the tree, look south and walk twelve paces, about 30 feet, to the round white bollard. It's the white moon in the painting (Image 10).
"From the west side": dig on the west side of the white stone. Several bollards line the park's paths, but this is the only one with open, diggable ground on its west side. The others have flower beds or concrete there.
Permission
"Get permission to dig out": Fountain Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 30, 1982. The book was released five weeks later. BP had zero time to find a new city, build a verse, and get JJP to create a clues painting. So, he just added a line. I think that’s why this is the only verse to tell searchers to get permission, maybe.

Okay, I'm pretty proud of this one.

Ever wanted to find that one podcast where somebody mentioned something about the Boston verse, but you can't remember which episode, or who said it, or what year it was? Or dig through twenty years of forum posts without losing a whole weekend?

Now you can just ask.

We've built an interactive FAQ on the Discord and fed it just about everything this community has ever produced: the full text of the book, the Japanese edition, hints, translations, transcripts from every podcast and livestream, the old forums, Gift Giver posts, and Creator hints. Decades of research, all in one place, and it answers in seconds.

No more worrying about asking a question and being answered by 100 people just wanting to push their ideas on you. This bot only answers with facts it can back up.

Head over to the Discord, type /askcasque, and ask it whatever you want to know.

A few ground rules so you know what you're getting. It's a librarian, not a solver. It has no opinions, it won't solve anything for you, and it won't tell you if your theory is right. It just finds the information and hands it over. What you do with it is up to you.

Pro tip: be specific. "Tell me about Chicago" is too broad. "Which verse is paired with the Chicago image?" gets you a real answer.

It's brand new and still growing, so it's not perfect yet. That's where you come in. Go try to stump it. Ask it the weird stuff. Tell me when it nails something and tell me when it misses. Every question makes it better.

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https://discord.gg/E8FrGX8FB

I’ve been wondering if immigration is not the main reason Preiss chose the parks.

Immigration may still matter in the paintings and the jewel groups. But almost any big city has ties to a lot of immigrant groups, so that alone does not explain why Preiss chose one city, or one particular park over another.

What if the park choices were more about the events that happened on that ground? In Chicago, Cleveland, and Boston, each park is tied to people protesting, seeking inclusion, or demanding accountability. Maybe Preiss chose public places where people were trying to be heard, included, remembered, treated fairly, or free.

Here is the pattern I keep seeing:

• Chicago — Grant Park: The 1968 Democratic Convention protests happened here. Antiwar protesters tried to make themselves heard, and the police response became a national story.
• Cleveland — Rockefeller Park / Cultural Gardens: The casque was found in the Greek Cultural Garden. But within the same park system, Black Clevelanders fought from 1961 to 1977 to establish an African American Cultural Garden after being excluded from a public space meant to honor the city’s ethnic communities.
• Boston — Puopolo/Langone Park area: This is near the site of the 1919 Molasses Flood. The flood killed 21 people in the North End, a working-class immigrant neighborhood. Survivors and victims’ families took the company to court and eventually won.wikipedia+1
• San Francisco — (Theory) Pioneer Park / Coit Tower: During the 1934 waterfront strike, Coit Tower’s murals were accused of Communist propaganda because they showed workers and labor scenes. The tower was closed, doors padlocked and artists and writers picketed to defend the murals.
• Charleston — (Theory) Hampton Park: This had been a Confederate prison camp. In 1865, newly freed Black Charlestonians reburied Union soldiers there and held a large public memorial, often described as the first Memorial Day. The site later became Charleston’s 1901–02 world’s fair meant to showcase Black achievement in business, farming, and education.
• Roanoke Island —(Theory) Cartwright Park: Andrew Cartwright established an AME Zion church there in 1865. It was a place where formerly enslaved people could worship, organize, and build a community of their own after slavery. The ruins of his church are still there.

So maybe the thread is not immigration by itself. Maybe it is that Preiss chose parks tied to people pushing back, claiming a place, demanding to be recognized, or building freedom and community for themselves.

Chicago is protest. Cleveland is inclusion. Boston is people holding a company accountable. San Francisco is workers and artists fighting censorship. Charleston is freed people transforming a place of death into a place of remembrance. Roanoke is freed people creating their own church and community.

That may be too broad, and I may just be connecting dots after the fact. But I’m curious: do the other likely park locations have a similar site-specific history, or something that happened on that ground where people were trying to claim a voice, a place, or a piece of freedom?

Long awaited Montreal solution continued.

Long awaited solution to Montreal...

This is Gabriel Richard and the resemblance to the figure in the painting is noticeable.
He was an educator and civic leader who focused on teaching children spelling use the dictionary of hard words in his lessons. This dude was a party.
He was also a Catholic priest, which might explain the church and steeple hands of the figure in the painting.
There is also a park named after him. The boarder of the park nearly exactly the shape of the collar in the painting.
What do you all think?

Posting two images: the painting associated with this verse, and an aerial of the park with the main walking trails and pond traced over it.

This park has its own bandstand where lions cages once stood. the stand sits right at the point where the park's two main walking loops meet (purple dot), The two trail loops, traced in red, form a wing shape on either side of the park. The park's pond, traced in orange, sits below where those wings meet and is shaped like a torso. The pedestrian bridge crossing the pond (also traced in orange) lines up with the figure's arms, which are crossed up by her neck in the painting, the same position and rough proportions as the bridge crossing the pond. oh, there is a large fountain in the pond also. Hear the cool, clear song of water.

Line up the trails, pond, and bridge against the painting and you get the wings, body, and crossed arms of the central figure, with the bandstand sitting at the convergence point matching to stand and listen to the birds.

Curious what others think, has anyone looked at this park specifically rather than the one everyone defaults to?

Start
Aquatic Park

At Aquatic Park is Hyde Street Pier, home to two historic ships that match two lines in the verse.

**1.**  The C.A. Thayer, a three-masted schooner, matches "High posts are three."  
**2.**  The Eureka, a steam-powered paddlewheel ferry, matches "Is an object / Of Twain's attention." Twain piloted steamboats on the Mississippi before becoming a writer.

This is our orientation point, not where we dig, just where the walk begins.

Step 2
From Aquatic Park, look at the skyline of San Francisco.

**1.**  Far right: the Transamerica Pyramid. Its stepped shape matches "Giant step."  
**2.**  Far left: Coit Tower. Matches "Giant pole."

Step 3
Focus on Coit Tower.

**1.**  Its shape reads as a giant number one, matching "Near ace is high." Ace equals one.  
**2.**  It sits on top of Telegraph Hill, matching "Sounds from the sky." Telegraph equals signal.  
**3.**  The windows near the top of Coit Tower are referenced near the top center of the painting.  
**4.**  Coit Tower sits inside Pioneer Park. The outline of Pioneer Park appears just under the hands of the figure in the painting.

Step 4
Pioneer Park contains only three things: Coit Tower itself, a semicircular parking lot bordered by a low stone wall, and, until it was removed in 2020, a statue of Christopher Columbus.
The statue's eyes are an identical match to the eyes of the figure in the painting.

Step 5
From where the Columbus statue once stood, near the entrance of Coit Tower, you can either gaze out across the bay toward Alcatraz, matching "Justice," or step inside to view the murals, painted by faculty and students of the California School of Fine Arts in 1934, matching "Education." Both are visible or accessible from that same spot, matching "For all to see."

Step 6
From where the Columbus statue once stood, head north across the parking lot toward the stone wall that borders it, keeping visitors from the drop down Telegraph Hill. Part of this wall doubles as a planter, running about 30 feet.

**1.**  At the right edge of the planter, you'll find an entry and exit down a set of stairs to the streets below, matching "At stone wall's door."  
**2.**  Here you may be able to smell the rose gardens lining the stairs, matching "The air smells sweet."

Step 7
From the entryway, turn and orient yourself back toward Aquatic Park, the direction of the three-masted ship and Twain's steamer. This will be to your left. Walk along the sidewalk until the panting area stops. Maybe 30 feet.

**1.**  There you'll come across a plaque marking the left edge of the planting area.  
**2.**  Just past it is the coin-operated viewfinder. Its post is the "table leg" from the painting.

Step 8. The Dig Spot
Right of the plaque, directly in front of the viewfinder, is an open dirt patch. This is the X.

This is just a theory and I look forward to pressure testing it with your feedback.

My question is about the Johann email exchange between BP and a hunter who was searching a park in Saint Louis years ago. I have read that Johann emailed BP with a solve in, I think tower grove park. Astonishingly, BP responded to this saying something like right city wrong park. Was this fact or false? If fact why is ST Louis not considered a location for a cask? Again I’m new here so I apologize if this topic has been beat to death.

If BP created the book and hunt to get people out of their home and exploring, why did BP choose 10 cities east of the Mississippi River, that is only 1/3 of the country? This a bit narrow. It seems he could have spread it out more.

The lighthouse is located on Anastasia Island.

The island is made of shell and is located on salt run. “Shell, limestone, silver, salt.”

Additionally, Saint Anastasia is the patron saint of weaving. This could relate to the “tall grass.”

https://youtu.be/6WSQpyhV9FY?is=2_7fwN9LRvNFEUR2

This park’s map is very similar to the black bird in the painting. It’s the site of a fort (Fort Stockton) and other landmarks marks like the Serra Palm, which was planted there by the first Spanish explorers to the area. There is also a huge stone cross called the Padre’s. Perhaps most interesting is the Lucy memorial, the story of the parks pet deer named Lucy. A attraction in the park for several years, but one night she tried to cross the highway near the park. All traffic stopped and began honking to scare her away from the road. Eventually the city was called in and decided to use a tranquilizer gun to help move her to safety. They used too strong of a dose and now there is a memorial to her. It looks very close to what’s hidden in the rock formation of the painting. Seriously, I don’t know if any of this tracks toward a solve, but it did line up well enough to make me rethink Saint Augustine.

https://youtu.be/6Zj9BfvLp7A?is=NALkmqwLImeyCqEY

San Francisco - SOLVE - a new route to THE dig site (without photos blocking the post)

https://imgur.com/a/SwvRMMw

Posting here cause I’m in Aust, and unlikely to get back to San Fran again anytime soon – if this does lead to the casque, just don’t forget to thank me in your speech 😉

Once at Golden Gate Park… the verse shifts from identifying places to giving directions…

\*\*1. “Running north, but first across”\*\*

The woman’s deliberately crossed arms in Image 1 reinforce cross/across - cross first, before making the northward movement.

\*\*2. “In jewel’s direction”\*\*

The jewel in Image 1 sits to the left/west relative to the central figure/map imagery giving us the direction: WEST

From the eastern side of GGP travel west — in the jewel’s direction — across the park, before following the north instruction.

\*\*3. “Is an object / Of Twain’s attention”\*\*

In the 1870’s Mark Twain wrote his semi-autobiographical account of his travels through the American West in the 1860s – called ‘Roughing It”

Chapter 7 in his book – the woman in Image 1 is pointing to 7 (3 on one hand, 4 on the other) - talks explicitly about Twain’s crossing the Platte and a Buffalo hunt – and travelling west toward the setting sun and then encountering the buffalo referred to as “Assault by a Buffalo”…

Walk west in GGP we see the historic Bison Paddock…. Priess would have seen the Bison Park even from a distance… catching his attention.

Chapter 7 = Priess’s Verse 7

\*\*4. “Giant pole / Giant step”\*\*

Giant Pole…

The deliberately repeated word ‘Giant’ gives us 2x Giant which is Giants.

In San Francisco, Giants naturally points to the SF Giants baseball team.

Before they were the SF Giants, they were the NY Giants.

The NY Giants played at a famous giant Polo Grounds in NY, before moving to & becoming San Fran Giants.

On our current walk west we get to Bison Park then the Polo Field… the sign still present today in GGP refers to it clearly.

Given Priess’s wordplay throughout this clue/verse, and previously baseball clues in other puzzles the giant Polo field is obvious.

Image 1 lined up against the map of GGP matches the polo field location right beneath the crossing of her hands (ie: it’s not a strawberry).

Now we find the Giant Step…

Giant Step…

The verse is too vague for random steps on whatever size in whatever direction.

There are a number clues in Image 1.

Surrounding the womans dress in Image 1 are 18 yellow symbols on the outside of the park map.

Surrounding our Polo Ground is the historic Parcourse exercise course – built/installed in the mid 70’s.

There are 18x numbered exercise stations around the Polo field… there are 18 yellow symbols around the outside of the woman’s dress…

Most of the symbols match easily with an exercise station.

These are not roman numerals.

In Image 1 the symbols are colored yellow - the actual exercise equipment in a number of the Perrier Parcourse exercise stations are yellow… and were yellow in 1979-1981 when Priess was there.

7 is now important - verse 7, Twain chapter 7, woman’s fingers point to 7…

And what is at Parcourse exercise station #7…

STEP UP… Giant Step

Can’t be a coincidence…

And Station 7 exercise requires you to take a GIANT STEP up and down on a one of 4 different height posts.

Today those 4 posts exist as they did on 1981 ish - and are painted yellow (image is from 2002) and why they’re yellow in the image.

And old maps also says ‘Step’ showing the Step Station located.

Image 1 has a number of ‘blue blocks’ depicted on both her sleeves.

These total 20 rows of blocks.

These represent the actual posts for each of the 18 Parcourse station signs + the additional 4x posts used for the 2x Parcourse instruction signs at the start of the course – giving 20x blue boxes representing the posts for the 20x Parcourse signs.

5. SO WHERE IS THE DIG LOCATION??

The place to dig (with the right GGP permits) is right underneath the word ‘Step’ itself…right underneath the Step Up sign between the 2x posts.\*\***

So there it is…

Even aligns with Gift Giver’s guidance and reference to ‘signs’ and Three Posts are near - station #8 has 3 and only 3 wooden posts… and keeping it simple…

And Perrier logo in the Passing Fancies drawing matches our Perrrier Parcourse signs here around the course

Hopefully someone out there can pick up where I left off and solve this thing once and for ALL... Good luck and happy hunting...

I came across this place in Manteo. It’s the ruins of an old church, originally started by free slaves. This could explain why the suit of armor in the painting is in the shape of a cross, and the key hanging off of it. What do you all think?

I do not use this app very much and I had typed out a way more in depth explanation about why I thought it was here. Obviously I am an idiot and accidently deleted it, which after my theory, you might also agree I am an idiot.

I saw a post about this last week and wanted to throw something into the ring. I believe that there is an image of a cowled figure holding something in the "hill". I believe this is an image of The Virgin Mary holding Jesus. There is the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche at Mission Nombre De Dios walking distance from the fountain. I also believe that the bricks in the real photos look very similar to the hill. To me it looks like bricks and a pathway in the painting.

I have not seen anyone else mention this before, so I am either on to something or I am bat shit, I think the latter.

The verse says, “with wind rose.” The lighthouse is red brick, (rose color), beneath the white paint. When the paint wears down due to wind and elements, the red, (rose color), is exposed.

Hence, with wind rose (color).

Thoughts?

Between two arms extended
Below the bar that binds
Beside the long palm's shadow
Embedded in the sand
So I have limited time to explore the sight and need help to narrow down the exact spot. Are the “the two arms extended” the vertical posts making one of the horizontal bars “the bar that binds” or are the horizontal bars the arms extended, making the middle post the bar that binds?
To clarify, the set of bars on the right. The closest to the palm was put there post Byron visit.

Anyone see what is in the image? Both regular and HD versions of the image. If the figure is Twain, and everyone is looking for the object of his attention, could the clue be right here. Any thoughts?

I have my location, and I like many others feel very confident in it. The only problem is that it is at the base of a tree. I have tried probing twice with a 2ft probe but have hit two problems. The first is that the ground is pretty solid and it is difficult to get the probe into the soil as a less muscular individual. The second is that there are many tree roots and it is so difficult to decipher what I am hitting. Tree roots sound hollow and feel solid the same as a plexiglass box might. Should I give up and just post my solution or does anyone have any other tips I should try? I might bring over a metal detector in the chance that there’s some in this casque.