$100,000 Challenge
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Blaine's $100,000 Challenge is an armchair treasure hunt hidden throughout the pages of Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic by street magician David Blaine.
Blaine commissioned a gold orb engraved with the words: Magic, Enchantment, Conjure, Charm, Astonish, Spirit, Prestige, Endure, Legerdemain; and then concealed the gold orb inside a hollow rock along with a private telephone number. He then hid his treasure somewhere in the continental United States.
On March 20, 2004, sixteen months after the book was published, Sherri Skanes from Ventura, California solved the treasure hunt and claimed the $100,000 prize.
The hunt was designed by game designer Cliff Johnson, creator of The Fool's Errand.
[edit] Solution
Throughout the book, hidden in plain sight, were visual ciphers that decoded into forty-one key sentences. These sentences were then reduced to twenty-one key words: cherubim metropolis, numbered arm, remove sevens, double the first, mountain shrub chasm, concrete timbers, seventy ascents, south thirty east, solitary stone. These words, correctly interpreted, provided the precise location of the treasure.
[edit] See also
- Masquerade (1979) by Kit Williams, the illustrated quest for the golden hare.
- A Treasure's Trove (2004) by Michael Stadther, an illustrated children's book which gives clues on the whereabouts of 12 bejeweled insect brooches.
