Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Alice Irazari.
Speaker 2: And I'm Colin Lowva. Spotlight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: On August seventh, nineteen seventy nine, Kit Williams buried a
Speaker 1: piece of jewelry in Amphil, a small town in the
Speaker 1: south of England. There was only one other person there
Speaker 1: to see it happen. The jewelry was made from gold
Speaker 1: and valuable stones. It was shaped like a rabbit, an
Speaker 1: animal with large ears and long back legs. Williams put
Speaker 1: the rabbit in a special box so that no one
Speaker 1: could uncover it with devices that find metal. He buried
Speaker 1: it deep in the earth.
Speaker 2: Later that month, Williams released a picture book. It was
Speaker 2: called Masquerade. The book contained sixteen beautiful paintings. It told
Speaker 2: a story about a rabbit bringing a treasure from the
Speaker 2: moon to the sun. At the end of the book,
Speaker 2: the rabbit loses the treasure. The book asked readers to
Speaker 2: help the rabbit find this treasure. Its pages contained the
Speaker 2: information needed to find the treasure. People could study the
Speaker 2: pictures to find what Williams had buried at Ampt Hill.
Speaker 1: The reaction to William's book was massive. Masquerade sold over
Speaker 1: a million copies. People all over Great Britain tried to
Speaker 1: find William's treasure. When the hunt was over three years later,
Speaker 1: it had become a world wide event. Today's spotlight is
Speaker 1: on the hunt for William's golden Rabbit. It is also
Speaker 1: about the other treasure hunts that Masquerade set in motion.
Speaker 2: Before publishing Masquerade Kit, Williams was mostly known as an artist.
Speaker 2: He made paintings and statues, but in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: the publishing company Jonathan Cape called him. The publisher asked
Speaker 2: him to make a new kind of picture book. Williams
Speaker 2: decided he wanted to make a book that people would study.
Speaker 3: He said, I was to spend two years on the
Speaker 3: sixteen paintings for Masquerade. I wanted them to mean something.
Speaker 3: I remember how as a child I found treasure hunts,
Speaker 3: but they were not exciting. The treasure was not worth finding.
Speaker 3: So I decided to make a real treasure of gold,
Speaker 3: buried it in the ground, and I painted real pictures
Speaker 3: to lead people to it.
Speaker 1: The treasure that Masquerade promised was enough for some people
Speaker 1: to buy the book. But William's book was also interesting.
Speaker 1: No one knew where to begin, so readers spent a
Speaker 1: long time looking through its paintings. They spoke with each
Speaker 1: other and shared ideas. The search gave readers a sense
Speaker 1: of excitement. Ash Charlton was a student at the University
Speaker 1: of Glasgow. In twenty twenty, she wrote on the blog
Speaker 1: simply Archivists.
Speaker 4: The interesting thing about Masquerade is that it is a
Speaker 4: lovely object by itself. It has amazing artwork and storytelling.
Speaker 4: There is no longer treasure at the end of it,
Speaker 4: but there is still a desire to work through the pictures.
Speaker 4: You want to see how to solve it.
Speaker 2: It took treasure hunters three years to solve William's book.
Speaker 2: Mike Barker and John Russo were English teachers. These two
Speaker 2: were the first to put the pictures together, but they
Speaker 2: were not the ones to find the treasure. It was
Speaker 2: found by a man named Dougaled Thompson. But Thompson did
Speaker 2: not find the treasure fairly. He was friends with a
Speaker 2: woman who had once dated Williams. She remembered visiting a
Speaker 2: place with Williams. It was the same place where he
Speaker 2: buried the.
Speaker 1: Rabbit Williams was not happy that Thompson found the rabbit,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing he could do about it. Some
Speaker 1: readers felt that they had been cheated. They blamed Williams.
Speaker 1: The artist made one more book, he called it The
Speaker 1: Bee on the Comb, but after this he stopped writing.
Speaker 1: He still painted, but he did not want many people
Speaker 1: to see his work.
Speaker 2: The reaction to Masquerade was difficult for Williams, but he
Speaker 2: had created a new kind of book, and in the
Speaker 2: years since, hundreds of authors have made books like Masquerade.
Speaker 2: Experts call these books armchair treasure hunts. They are called
Speaker 2: this because people can find their treasure without leaving their chairs.
Speaker 1: One of the most difficult of these armchair treasure hunts
Speaker 1: was On the Trail of the Golden Owl, written by
Speaker 1: French author Reggie Hauser. The Golden Owl was a lot
Speaker 1: like Masquerade, but it was even more difficult. Hauser took
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty hours to make his book. To
Speaker 1: find the treasure, a person would need to understand music, numbers,
Speaker 1: and the way planets moved through space. Houser also used
Speaker 1: special languages and pictures.
Speaker 2: On the Trail of the Golden Owl was not as
Speaker 2: successful as Masquerade, in one way. It did not sell
Speaker 2: as many books, but The Golden Owl was more successful
Speaker 2: at fooling its readers. Hunters took over thirty years to
Speaker 2: find its treasure. By the time people solved its mystery,
Speaker 2: Houser had died. Many people thought that the solution would
Speaker 2: die with him, but in twenty twenty four, one treasure
Speaker 2: hunter dug up The Golden Bird.
Speaker 1: Only one treasure hunt has gone on longer than on
Speaker 1: the trail of the Golden Owl. It is called The Secret.
Speaker 1: This book was written by a man named Byron Price
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two. Instead of just one treasure, Price
Speaker 1: hid twelve boxes across North America and Canada. Anyone who
Speaker 1: found one of these boxes could exchange it for a
Speaker 1: valuable stone.
Speaker 2: Price book was also very difficult. Hunters found the first
Speaker 2: box quickly, but the remaining boxes were far more complex.
Speaker 2: Price's writing also became more difficult to understand over time.
Speaker 2: Often the book spoke about different trees or buildings. Hunters
Speaker 2: were supposed to use these landmarks to find the treasure,
Speaker 2: but many no longer exist. Some buildings were torn down
Speaker 2: over the years. The trees the book pointed to may
Speaker 2: have died.
Speaker 1: Hunters found the second of the Secret's treasure boxes in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, but in two thousand and five
Speaker 1: Price died. He did not write down the place where
Speaker 1: any of his boxes could be found, so no one
Speaker 1: now knows exactly where they are. Hunters found a third
Speaker 1: box in twenty nineteen, and people believe they know where
Speaker 1: other boxes are. But some now have buildings on top
Speaker 1: of them. Others may be in private property. The ground
Speaker 1: may have shifted, the boxes may have been destroyed. It
Speaker 1: may be that the secret of the secret has been
Speaker 1: lost forever.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of arm chair treasure hunts have been published since Masquerade.
Speaker 2: These hunts may not have the same appeal as the
Speaker 2: first one. Masquerade was a worldwide event. It was the
Speaker 2: first of its kind, so it felt special. Today, only
Speaker 2: a special group of treasure hunters work on these hunts,
Speaker 2: but this does not make these hunts any less interesting.
Speaker 2: Shane Richardson is a treasure hunt writer. He spoke to
Speaker 2: the website Mysterious Writings.
Speaker 5: The real prize comes from the excitement, It comes from
Speaker 5: the questions. It comes from the sense of community you
Speaker 5: build along the way. There are small victories you solve something,
Speaker 5: make friendships and share the experience. These bring great value
Speaker 5: that cancels out the cost of entry. In these hunts.
Speaker 5: The experience is just as important as the treasure itself.
Speaker 1: Do you have a special hobby that you enjoy?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 1: You can leave a comment on our website at www
Speaker 1: dot Spotlight English dot com. You can also find us
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Speaker 1: our free official Spotlight English app.
Speaker 2: The writer and producer of this program was Dan Christman.
Speaker 2: The voices you heard were from the United States and
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program
Speaker 2: and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called Finding Treasure
Speaker 2: from Your Chair.
Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 1: Spotlight program. Goodbye,