Once upon a time, a small child might have been obsessed with Masquerade, Kit Williams’ illustrated book that was also a puzzle: If a person could solve it, they would discover where to dig up the golden hare. For a time, Masquerade was so popular that there’s a whole book about it. (Jess Zimmerman has a great Hazlitt piece about Masquerade, if you’re curious but don’t want to hunt down an out of print book.)
Masquerade spawned more puzzle books, including The Secret (the prize for which has never been found) and the French Sur la trace de la chouette d’or (On the Trail of the Golden Owl), which was published in 1993. Eleven riddles in the book must be solved in order for a reader to discover the location in France where a brass replica of the actual golden owl was hidden. To earn the real owl—made of gold and silver and diamonds—they would have to submit the replica and their solutions to the riddles.
The owl has finally been found. According to the BBC, the book’s illustrator, Michael Becker, has verified that the owl was located, posting, “We confirm that the replica of the golden owl was dug up last night, and that simultaneously a solution has been sent on the online verification system.”
The website Golden Owl Hunt notes that there is, in some quarters, a bit of a conspiracy theory afoot. The original book was written by Max Valentin (the pen name of Régis Hauser), but he died in 2009. In the early 2020s, EuroNews says, Becker got his hands on the solutions to the riddles, and then set up a Discord and revitalized the hunt. But apparently, when Becker dug up the original brass owl (to update its paperwork), it had been replaced by an iron version of the bird. Because of this, one fan site contends that the original brass bird has still not been found.
Presumably, at some point the masterful puzzle-solver will come forward and bring all this mystery to a close. According to CNN, the solver’s solutions are “currently being vetted.”
