A “childish and derisory solution”: why do players of the golden owl file a complaint against the organizer?

So was it so simple? A form of disappointment won the public at the end of this cinema, one of the 400 in France which, Friday May 2, projected the documentary film revealing the cache of the golden owl, a few months after being found on October 3, 2024. The owl, ensures the hunting co-designer, Michel Becker, was therefore buried in a place known from any “Choi-Owner”, ” Spot »Yet ratified since the beginnings of hunting in 1993.

For thirty years, thousands of players and players have been scouring in fact the surroundings of the Dabo rock on which a church is perched, and precisely the “Saint Martin terminals”, almost three kilometers from the rock. A set of three stone terminals, engraved with dates, from which the discoverer – which to date remains anonymous – has been able to dig a few meters away to find the number 2 copy of the original bronze countermark, and exchange it for the real gold in gold.

Square complaint

How as many players, equipped with shovels at the beginning and, more recently, cutting-edge equipment such as these metal detectors nicknamed “Youpala”, capable of detecting large masses several meters deep, were they able to miss a few pounds of bronze buried at 80 cm deep, all just meters away from the famous terminals? The film reveals that the winner, by digging, was very close to giving up by falling on a large stone, which he ended up clearing to raise any doubt. Well took him.

In addition to the mystery of a cache that would have escaped everyone, a certain number of inconsistencies in the solutions revealed on Friday make owners tick. To the point that the association which represents them, the A2CO, took the lead by files a complaint with constitution of civil party on April 30 against the organizer of the hunting, Michel Becker, for “false and use of false, false and use of false in authentic writing by person custody of public authority, fraud in organized gang, breach of organized band, deceived commercial practices, ». Just that … “The terms used are strong, but they are legal, chosen by our council after its examination of the documents that we provided to it, in complete control of the laws in force”defends the association, whose annual “owl festival” is held next we in Vézelay.

Among historical players, the solutions unveiled via this documentary provoke dismay. “I do not see why Max Valentin would have given himself so much trouble if it was really a question of making us lead to a” solution “as childish and derisory as that which is suggested in the film, and which could be found in the first months of hunting”is thus laments “Don Luis”.

AC20 and its president, known as the pseudonym of Garp, began to compile the inconsistencies of this solution. “” Max Valentin has strongly insisted, at least 1,689 times (in his online answers, on a minitel server, to players’ questions – editor’s note) On the existence of reliquats », That is to say elements of the previous puzzles, to be assembled again to lead to the landfill site. A sort of 12^e Hidden enigma, a “super solution” in the jargon of players, which can only be resolved at the end of the first 11. However, in the solution exposed by the organizer Michel Becker, 5 puzzles out of the 11 in total become unnecessary, points to a forum the owl of always Marvinclay.

Too beautiful to be true?

Supporting screenshots, players are also exhusing messages from Michel Becker who, in 2023, a year so before the owl number 2 was found, dissuaded from digging on the side of Dabo, or wanting to hang on to this track. Others turn back on the problem, explaining that puzzles were in fact only false tracks, to hide the – good – solution presented on Friday.

Solutions “Plausible for the media, the general public and anyone who does not know hunting”, said another. The British hunting solution masquerade, which Hauser/Valentin was inspired to design the great gold, assumed, to find the treasure, to dig in the shade range of a Calvary cross, a specific day and an hour, deduced from an enigma. None of this with the owl, whose final resolution turns out to be built on a series of intuitions, deductions without any other verification. On the visual of the last enigma, however, appear a series of figures which correspond to those of the dates registered on the famous Saint-Martin terminals. Chance, correctness, how to know?

Noters, however, note that this outcome has nothing to do with the other hunts designed by Max Valentin, those entitled Th2001, Malbrouck or Orval, which in comparison offered much more elegant intellectually resolutions. “In his book of hunting solutions the treasure of Orval, Max said that it was certainly difficult, but less than the great gold! »» thus notes the president of the A2CO, “Garp”. No, for many active players, which has been presented as the solution is only the illustration of one of these false tracks that dot the game, according to its designer Régis Hauser, under the pseudonym Max Valentin.

“It’s as if you were on a highway and forget to go out at the right strap. In this case you continue on the high pot highway, ignoring that you have just missed the exit you are looking for ”he warned. Michel Becker intends to extend the vein, however, and immediately launches a new “golden owl”. A “book of solutions” is scheduled for June, and many hope to find satisfactory answers. For all those that the documentary film has not convinced, the real hunting, the number one countermark they always think buried somewhere, remains open.