the treasure went abroad, the winner wants to remain anonymous – Libération

The owls, who were impatiently awaiting the solutions of the game, will have to wait again. In a video published on Sunday October 13, Michel Becker, the surviving organizer of the oldest treasure hunt in France – the Golden Owl, solved on October 2 after thirty-one years – shared some information about the outcome of the hunt. But without alleviating the deep frustration of researchers.

First point: the winner(s) require to keep “absolute anonymity”. A first disappointment for the community which, since the discovery of the treasure, has been trying to identify the “inventor” among its members.

“Flight far from France”

Second – very big – disappointment: the location of the cache, just like the solutions to the eleven enigmas, which will be the subject of a film, will not be known before the 32nd anniversary of the hunt, April 23 and 24, 2025 . Another six months of endless waiting for researchers. Six months during which they will therefore continue to try to solve the game, despite the digging up of the owl.

Michel Becker also specified that the owl had “flight […] far from France”, without us knowing if the person who found it is foreign or if it is a French person residing outside our borders.

This person, in addition to wanting to remain anonymous, would also have given up the 300,000 euros that a patron would have offered for the purchase of the bird, so that it would remain at the Chouette d’or museum, in Rochefort (Corrèze). This individual would not, however, close the door to a subsequent sale, in the event of a more generous offer made by April 2025.

“We can wait a few more months”

Becker, finally, who announced refusing interviews before “all be revealed”, confirmed that a “new golden owl will fly away” from April 24, 2025, from where the first was buried.

On the hunting Discord, Sunday October 13, the owlers did not hide their bitterness, frustrated at not being able to know the solutions and the location of the discovery for six months. “Some are in the process of being confused, and would like to have the resolutions to the enigmas,” alerted a researcher, when others argued that after thirty years, «on [pouvait] well wait a few more months.” Before debating, incorrigibly, on possible clues left by Becker in Sunday’s video. A way to extend this game, definitely endless.