In 2021 when Michel Becker obtained the solution to the Golden Owl hunt he quickly challenged commonly accepted beliefs about this hunt. His most important intervention was disputing the idea of a secret ’12th supersolution clue’.
It was widely accepted among Owlers that Max Valentin had crafted 11 clues to lead searchers to the general location of the owl, with a hidden 12th clue, something like “dig six metres from the statue’s right foot“, used to pinpoint the exact spot. Max said that once the correct location was identified, certain elements would remain leftover from the clues, he called these remnants. He suggested these remnants would help determine exactly where to dig.
Michel Becker challenged that narrative. He advised treasure hunters to disregard Max’s previous comments and suggested there are no remnants, and there is no 12th clue. According to Becker, once you solve the 9th riddle, you have your location. The final two clues (Clues 10 and 11) are not leftovers or summaries—they’re the precise instructions for where to dig.
We have the solution, so now what?
Now that we can read the full PDF of the Golden Owl solution, Becker’s insistence makes sense. There’s no mention of remnants anywhere in this document. So the solution has not gone down well within the Owler community. Many believe that Dabo as a final location is far too simplistic—four clues supposedly point there (overkill?!) Yet nothing was found for 31 years? Most damningly, when Becker dug at Dabo, he didn’t find the bronze owl marked with a number 1. He found a metal duck in a bag.
Becker replaced the rusty duck with a new bronze owl marked with a number 2. This meant the game could carry on as before. Though, of course, there were questions asked! Becker explains that owl 1 was removed by Max during a fraught period in the treasure hunt’s history. The book’s publisher went bankrupt in 2004, and the Golden Owl prize was seized by liquidators. Becker suggests Max removed the bronze owl from its hiding place to avoid being forced to hand over a prize he no longer legally owned. Max died unexpectedly in 2009, so perhaps owl 1 was never returned?
Another theory is that Max’s close collaborator and friend Phil D’Euck (yes, pronounced “duck”) may have taken the owl and left the duck in its place. Like many mysteries in this hunt, we may never know for sure.
So, are the published solutions real? There are many doubters but I think the explanations are right. For all the criticisms these solutions have faced, they do work in ways no previous answer I’ve read ever truly has. Dabo does contain a spiral, three ‘sentinel’ stones at just the right distance, a becalmed nave, a perched ship. Even the notoriously difficult ‘Tour de France’ clues fit.
Are the clues imperfect? Absolutely. They’re disappointingly imperfect. But is the internal logic sound? Yes.
So what about the ‘remnants’ and the supersolution?
Could it be that both Michel Becker and Max Valentin were right, each in their own way?
Let’s try to get inside Max’s head. He never explicitly said when we were supposed to move from the large 989 map, and when we zoom in on a local map to decode the precise dig spot. What we do know is that he wanted all 11 clues in play for identifying the correct region. That’s why so many Owlers spent years drawing lines using the number 71721075 on the 989 map, or treating Mother Nature as a hint towards a region of France, but not a place to land a shovel.
Max said, “Find an area, then work out exactly where to dig,” while deliberately keeping all 11 clues on the table. He didn’t want to make things easy by revealing when we switch from lines on the 989 to ‘supersolution’ mode. Isn’t it part of understanding all 11 clues to know exactly when to look for dig instructions? So I think the text of the last two clues can be seen as ‘supersolution’ by anyone who solves this thing right. I don’t think this is in any way a controversial thought, or that it contradicts anything Max said.
Max said, “When you work out the area, what remains will show you the exact place.” But of course, he couldn’t outright say, “Clues 10 and 11 are your dig instructions.” or “What remains is mostly the last two clues.” That would give the structure of the game away.
So now, years later, some Owlers are saying “there is no supersolution”—but many of them were already using basic elements of the last two clues to decide exactly where they’d dig. There’s some fuzzy logic going on where people now seem to be disputing whether the text of the last two clues can form any part of a supersolution at all.
Michel Becker, recalibrated this hunt, set the difficulty level to “easy” and said solve up to Clue 9 to find the general location, then the final two clues for precise dig instructions. Maybe the simplicity of this approach is part of why this ending feels unsatisfying?
I’ve looked at the Madits on the supersolution point. Max basically said, “The supersolution is composed of remnants from previous enigmas, which can originate from titles, texts, or visuals. Not all enigmas contain remainders; some have multiple, others none..” That leaves some room for interpretation.
Ingredients to dig for an owl
Here’s what you need:
- Consider the St. Léon Church as the DIRECTION
- Decode the numbers for the DISTANCE
- Identify the triangle centre of the three Borne Saint-Martin stones as the POINT TO START TO MEASURE
Remnants that show us the way
Here’s my thoughts on the aspects of all 11 clues that ‘remain’ and might tell us what to do.
- DIRECTION from the St Leon church
Back to the Ponant, seek the Sentinels. At 8000 measures from there…
We now know this instruction is nothing to do with the 989 map, we’ve correctly deduced that it must be part of the 12th enigma supersolution. So we work from the church.
The KEY is on the black perched ship.
There’s a key on a coat of arms at the Chapel of Saint-Léon in Dabo.
ETERNITY
Heaven, a church.
Where you want by the nag and the coachman.
A coach route is a prescribed path that’s followed again and again. The final answer involved keeping going along the route you were already told.
Hurry to find the arrow (to become the first to fully solve the hunt.)
The arrow falls at the chapel of Saint Leon.
- Decode the numbers for the DISTANCE
As has been commented he instruction to compare the numbers on the Borne Saint-Martin stones to the 71721075 number is just not there. All we have is…
You need to review them
We see this as ‘clue’ but not ‘remnant’, but in Max’s eyes you need to figure out that this is part of the dig instructions, not a clue that teleports you somewhere new on the 989 map.
The image of Durandel
Roland’s sword was never placed in a rock (that was Excalibur) so it’s incongruous. People had regularly noted the link between the shovel of the 650 and this sword. Should a treasure hunter be thinking ‘marks chiselled in rocks?’
Don’t ask for your rest
In French the word ‘reste’ suggests leftovers. This could be a hint to keep only the leftover numbers when you compare the numbers on the rocks to the numbers in the 650 clue.
‘Find my all’
This text in the 530 is, ‘To find my all, just be wise, because the truth, in truth, will not be an oracle’s affair.’ ‘Find my all’ could refer to adding up all the numbers. ‘The truth in truth’ could suggest taking one truth of etched numbers on three rocks, comparing them to another truth, which is the 71721075 numbers in the book.
- Find the triangle centre of the 3 Borne Saint-Martin stones as the POINT TO START TO MEASURE.
So what are the remnants suggesting triangle centres?
Between them, there would be only two intervals if they were aligned.But this would be too easy a game! Now that you have undone all the yarns…
We’re being made aware of a triangle formation. We need to use string to find the centre.
‘it is the rule of this cruel game‘
Cruel means acute, it suggests angles.
Alone, you have to find where to land your shovel.
I love this one. This is an instruction that tells us we’re not going to get an instruction! It suggests the ‘supersolution’ is not explicit.
This is only the right path if the arrow aims at the heart.
So place yourself at the heart of the three stones.
Bourges, the centre of France
There’s a hint to centres here.
The image for the 500 clue
There’s a pair of compasses in this clue but they aren’t needed anywhere in the game. This compass tool is often used to find a centre of a triangle. The set square also suggests triangles and isn’t used in the 500 clue. So this is an obvious ‘remnant’.
But by the Mega it is a million times less
The 500 clue references the idea of a ‘million times less’ which means using a map at a smaller scale than the Michelin 989. This might be a hint to look at this clue closely when we get to the supersolution stage. We might then start wondering about that compass and triangle.
So why no mention of ‘remnants’ in the solution we’ve been shown?
The solution, in its simplest form, was described in the floppy disc given to Michel Becker in 2021. Max seems to have kept things brief, unless there is more detail to be revealed by Becker soon. Max died tragically young, he would have expected to be around to write a detailed book explaining the solutions. No doubt, when he came to write up the solution in full then he would have explained all the remnants and the supersolution in detail.
A final thought, was this line a cruel joke?
The title of the very first clue is, ‘THERE IS NONE MORE BLIND THAN THE ONE WHO DOESN’T WANT TO SEE.’ Isn’t this an absolutely perfect summary of a treasure hunt that has the answers, Dabo, Dabo, Dabo, Dabo? We’re looking at something so absolutely obvious that we block it out as impossible. It can’t be Dabo because that would be way too easy. We were blind to something right under all our noses all along. I think this title is the ultimate ‘remnant’ line.
So, thank you Max, you made fools of us all, but I loved this treasure hunt journey all the same!
Michel Becker, the treasure hunt organiser, announced on October 3rd 2024 that the correct solution has been given to him. The longest running treasure hunt in the world* is finally over!
