It’s over. Thirty-one years after its launch, the quest for the golden owl ends. “We confirm that the Golden Owl countermark was unearthed last night, simultaneously with a solution being sent to the online verification system. There is therefore no point in moving to dig on the location you assume to be the cache.” It was with this mysterious message that Michel Becker put an end this Thursday, October 3, to a gigantic treasure hunt launched in 1993 throughout France. Over the years, thousands of “owlers” have attempted to solve the puzzles of the game’s creator, Max Valentin, to locate the replica of the reward, a gold, silver and diamond owl estimated at 150,000 euros.
“I was scared of my life”
In the living room of his house, in Plouzané, near Brest, Pierre Blouch leafs through the puzzle books. There were 11 to find to find the treasure, he had solved six and had even risked excavations: “There were some crazy moments.”he admits. “I thought the owl was near Bourges and I went into a wood one moonless night and I heard dogs running. I was there with my spade, I was scared of my life“, says the enthusiast, laughing. Initially, like many others, it was the reward that interested him. “But from a certain point, I told myself that I had no chance of finding it. On the other hand, it enriched my knowledge in an extraordinary way in lots of areas, I learned things about the Freemasons, about literature, about astronomy. And that’s ultimately the beauty of the game“The Breton was sure of one thing: the treasure was not in Brittany.”There is an indication that the owl is more than 100 km from the coast“, he explains.
In the East of France?
It was during the summer of 1993 that Pierre Blouch and one of his work colleagues embarked on the adventure. “While visiting family in the Paris region, my brother-in-law had L’Express (weekly news magazine, editor’s note) in which there was advertising for this game and some additional information. And so I got into the game. With a colleague, we started, we said to ourselves that we had no chance because we were four months behind the first ones. And then it lasted, it lasted, it lasted“. And his passion too: “We broke up. Then I teamed up with other people, then I searched alone. There were years when I searched a lot, others less. There was work and then, when I retired, I got back into it a little“.
The treasure hunter now impatiently awaits the solutions, to check if he was on the right track. For him, there is no doubt, the owl is found in the North-East of France.
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