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ERVING, Mass. — If you were hoping to find the gold treasure that was hidden in a New England forest by a pair of video game designers, you’re time is up.
“Project Skydrop,” created by New Hampshire’s Jason Rohrer and California-based Tom Bailey, invited players to compete to find a 24-karat gold statue valued at $26,000 that the duo hid somewhere within a 500-mile radius in New England.
Those who registered to play the game got an email each day featuring an aerial photo of the statue on a forest floor where Rohrer and Bailey placed the gold statue.
The clues then progressively started to reveal more and more about where the treasure was hidden.
Earlier this week, a new map indicated that the treasure was hidden within a 21-mile diameter somewhere in western Massachusetts or near Vermont’s southern border.
In the latest series of updates, a message posted on Projectskydrop.com read, “THE TREASURE HAS BEEN FOUND.”
In a statement shared with Boston 25 News, Rohrer said Wednesday, “I was shocked last night at around 6 p.m. when I checked the live camera feed and saw that the treasure was gone. My wife was shouting from the other room, ‘Oh my god! It’s gone! Jason, it’s gone!’”
While the identity of the winner is not yet known, Jon Flis, the owner of Flis Market in Erving, Massachusetts, encountered the victor while on a hike and photographed him, according to Rohrer.
Rohrer added that he was shocked that someone was able to track down the treasure less than two weeks after the game went live.
“For the time being, the winner is mysterious, and it was pretty hard to sleep last night thinking about this, wondering how he solved it. From what we’ve been able to gather from the people who met him, he seems like a scientist who used lots of data to narrow down the locations, including weather patterns and tree habitat maps,” Rohrer added. “Very impressive! I was pretty sure it would be impossible to solve for a few more days, but then again, there are very smart people out there. I was prepared to be surprised by an early find. Thirteen days in, though, it was a long and amazing hunt. It’s cool that the mystery continues, at least for the time being.”
Rohrer on Wednesday planned to return to the woods where the statue was found to retrieve the camera gear that was used during the game.
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