Somewhere in the woods of New England sits a real-life treasure — undisturbed and waiting to be found.
"It is a real-world adventure," said Tom Bailey, co-founder of Project Skydrop.
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Bailey and co-founder Jason Rohrer spent three years working on Project Skydrop, unveiling it recently. The two designed the treasure, made up of 10 troy ounces of 24k gold, and created clues to make this treasure hunt hard, but not too hard.
"We are really trying to control the dramatic arc," said Rohrer. "A lot of these treasure hunts either go on for way too long and no one ever solves it, or gets solved and broken by someone right away, which spoils the whole thing."
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Each day, the diameter of the search area shrinks, from 500 miles to start, to 121 miles on Wednesday. By the end of the three-week hunt, the diameter will be down to a foot. Members can also pay $20 to receive a daily clue emailed to them. That clue started with a photo at ground-level and got higher and higher each day, revealing more details about the surrounding area.
Every day, the value of the treasure grows too. Half of the $20 fee goes into a pot, and on the side of the treasure are clues to a bitcoin account. So if you find the treasure, worth about $27,000 at Wednesday's gold prices, you can keep that and the bounty, which is over $30,000 and growing.
"We are just trying to get people out, out from behind their screens and into the world," Rohrer said. "Every time we go hiking or out to do something outside, we never regret it, so just trying to bring that experience to people who might not get it otherwise."
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Adding to the thrill of it all, a live trail camera is focused on the treasure. It has caught some wildlife, but no humans yet.
"Everyone also is very concerned about what if a hunter or somebody hiking just walks along and finds it — it is pretty much impossible," Rohrer said.
The treasure hunt is hoping to generate golden inspiration to explore New England's backyard.
"My goal as a designer was to essentially design a better treasure hunt, build a better mousetrap, and make the world's greatest treasure hunt," said Rohrer. "Project Skydrop can really run over this three-week period, which is a nice, solid chunk of time for people to get involved and get excited, but not go on forever and ever."
