Take Five

 

The poem continues:

Take five steps 

In the area of his direction

We must, of course, somehow find our way to the Puopolo ball field. Krupat’s proposed path from the Boston Public Library to Columbus Park, and from there counting five “steps” (wharfs) north, is as good as any theory that you might find online, but Palencar confirmed on Expectation Unknown that the woman in the image was not Columbus, not by design anyway—and even if it were, that’s not what the poem says! The steps are not taken in the direction of north, but “in the area of” north. “The area of his direction” then refers to the area of north in Boston, in other words, Boston’s North End. Therefore, interpreting the whole sentence we get: Take five steps in the North End. Instead of taking five steps to the North End from Columbus Park, we start in the North End looking for a place where we can “take five steps.”

Let’s see if we can confirm in the image that Boston’s North End is part of the puzzle. Remember the number 112 near the flower? If you look a little to the left, you’ll see a 3 hidden there. To the right of 112 there is a circular indentation in the wall resembling a zero. Writing these numbers in reverse order we get 02113, one of the zipcodes of Boston’s North End. 

The term steps, when outdoors, can refer to a flight of steps, as in the sentence, “Take the steps to the garden.” The phrase, “Take five steps,” therefore, could refer to five flights of steps. The question then becomes—Where in the North End can you take five flights of steps? If you know the North End well, then you know exactly where I’m going with this. If you descend from the south edge of Copp Hill Terrace, heading north, you will take exactly five flights of steps (ignoring a couple very small landings) as you descend to Commercial Street and the Puopolo baseball fields just east of Langone Park. To verify these five flights of steps using Google Earth, you will have to go into 3D mode and pan around a little to be able to see the top flight of steps. There are some trees directly above it obscuring the view. 

A green tower of lights

Most people think, as did I, that this refers to one of the floodlight towers illuminating the Puopolo baseball fields, just west of Langone Park. In the Secret Podcast episode about Boston, George Ward said in passing that someone told him that the floodlight towers were at one time painted a pale green. Hearing this sealed the deal for me. Case closed. 

When typing up my notes for this clue, I had trouble determining which tower of floodlights the puzzle referenced. The poem clearly states that there’s “A tower…,” just one tower—but which one? I also had trouble reconciling the floodlights with the good puzzle principle—it’s not interesting. I carefully ignored these red flags.

Again I turned to my online acquaintance Renovator to review my interpretation. Unsurprisingly, he found a crucial flaw in my interpretation of the line “A green tower of lights.” He had researched this clue and had determined that these floodlight towers were never painted green, that they had always been white. I then had multiple problems with my interpretation and no viable alternative. I could argue the Tobin Bridge fits the description as Krupat had, but a bridge is not a tower. It has towers, but isn’t one. I had to concede that my interpretation was wrong, and I was back at square one. 

Welcome to Level 3.

Witch Questions

 

Here are a few items that jump out from the Boston image:

• John Palencar, in a recent interview with George Ward, said that the woman in the image is a Salem witch. Why include a character from just outside of Boston? Why not paint someone from Boston proper?

• Why are there light beams emanating from the box?

• The strange square symbols, per John Palencar in the same interview, represent alphanumeric naval signal flags. What do they spell, if anything?

• The gem is a peridot, the birthstone for August, which can be cut to many different shapes—but square is unusual. Why this shape?

• Why is there a leg stepping onto home plate depicted on her sleeve?

• The flower is a gladiolus, the birth flower for August, which contains dozens of petals, but here only four are in focus. Why?

• What is the meaning of the number 112 just to the upper right of the flower.

• In the upper right of the ring surrounding the witch’s head, there appears to be a number four. What does it mean?

The poem begins:

If Thucydides is

North of Xenophon

As mentioned earlier, these two names, Thucydides and Xenophon (Ancient Greek historians), appear in a 1774 letter from Horace Walpole, a member of British Parliament, to his friend, Horace Mann, regarding the brewing American rebellion in which he says,  “the next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and an Isaac Newton at Peru.”

Not only does this confirm that we’re in the right city, but because the names of these two men appear on the front of the Boston Public Library, this gives us a logical starting point—or does it? Though the presence of these names is likely a clue, it could be that the library holds some other meaning having little to do with its location. 

Off the Cuff

Let’s look at how Image 11 pairs with the city of Boston. On the woman’s left cuff (our right), there is a number 42. This latitude passes to the south of Boston. Below the left cuff is a metal strip displaying a number of symbols. The two illuminated ones (lit by lamp light) are a square and a triangle, having four and three sides respectively. This common escape room encoding gives us 43, the latitude passing to the north of Boston. On her right elbow there is a backward 71, a longitude that intersects with the easternmost portion of Boston, by the airport. 

Per John Palencar, the name Boston is spelled out in the image. My best guess regarding this is as follows: “B” is the globe stand. “O” is one of the globes. A backward “S” is hidden in the mess of squiggles beneath the box. “T” is the bird stand. “O” is the other globe. An “N” is in the symbol just to the left of the smaller bubble. 

Finally, the falcon popping the bubble, per John Palencar, alludes to the Boston Pops Orchestra.

In Poem 3, as mentioned earlier, the following is a reference to Paul Revere’s midnight ride through Boston on April 18, 1775: 

Eighteenth day

Twelfth hour

Lit by lamplight

Here’s part of Henry Waddsworth Longfellow’s famous poem describing the ride:

He said to his friend, "If the British march 

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light,— 

One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm 

Through every Middlesex village and farm, 

For the country folk to be up and to arm."

And with that, we have our city: Boston. The month is August. The flower is gladiolus. The gem is a peridot, which is usually associated with Italy (as noted by Krupat).

Welcome to Level 2.

Boston

 

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

—John 8:32

The Boston casque was found in October 2019 by an excavator operator as he worked the area in front of home plate during a renovation of the Puopolo baseball fields adjacent to Langone Park. Prior to this, Jason Krupat, a local game designer, informed the foreman at the site that a treasure might be buried in the ball field near home plate, telling him what to look for and leaving his phone number. When pieces were found matching the description, Krupat was called. The finding of additional pieces including the key is documented in the 2019 Expedition Unknown episode “‘The Secret’ Treasure Found in Boston.” The following account is taken from that episode. Do keep in mind that prior to the discovery Krupat participated in social media related to the hunt and his interpretations were at least in part affected by the information and opinions available in these public discussions.

Based on a number of clues, Krupat deduced that Image 11 and Poem 3 relate to the city of Boston. He found the letters “BOS” in the woman’s left sleeve, a globe and a stand that looks like the letter B (for Boston Globe), and the likeness of the Trinity Church on the box in the woman’s hands. He matched Poem 3 to Boston via the obscure references to the Ancient Greek historians “Thucydides” and “Xenophon” in Horace Walpole’s 1774 letter to Horace Mann where he mentions both names in reference to Boston and New York, and the partial date and time of Paul Revere’s midnight ride through Boston, “Eighteenth day, Twelfth hour, Lit by lamplight.” Krupat started his trek to the treasure at the Boston Public Library where the two Ancient Greek names are carved into the front of the building. From there, Krupat felt the trail led to Columbus Park because a statue of Columbus there bears a strong resemblance to the woman in Image 11. 

Take five steps

In the area of his direction

Krupat took these words to mean that he should then travel north five clusters of wharfs in order to “Take five steps in the area of his direction.” This took him to the Puopolo Baseball Fields adjacent to Langone Park. 

A green tower of lights

He took these lines to refer to the Tobin bridge, which could be seen in the distance, is painted green, and lit at night.

In the middle section

He interpreted this line to direct us to the middle of the three adjacent baseball fields. 

Near those

Who pass the coliseum

With metal walls

Krupat then looked for something that resembled a coliseum with metal walls. He took this to refer to a nearby ice skating rink. 

Face the water

Your back to the stairs

Krupat noticed that from the middle field he could face the water of the harbor with his back to the stairs of Copp Hill Terrace. 

Feel at home

He took this to mean that the casque was buried under or near home plate. 

All the letters

Are here to see

Krupat felt that this referred to the naval signal letters that once were displayed on the rigging of the USS Constitution moored across the harbor. 

Eighteenth day

Twelfth hour

Lit by lamplight

As noted earlier, Krupat thought this a reference to Paul Revere’s famous ride, Copp Hill Terrace being the place where he observed the lamplight. 

In truth, be free

Krupat had no explanation for this last line. He knew the correct ball field, and he knew the casque was buried somewhere near home plate—but where exactly he didn’t know. Now let’s start from the beginning and re-evaluate using our own methods. 

Welcome to Level 1. 

Bouldering

 

I liken these puzzles to bouldering, a type of rock climbing that pits you against a large natural stone, usually ten to fifteen feet high, no ropes, just you and a good pair of shoes versus a massive rock, which is completely different from the paint-by-numbers climbing you find in a gym. 

When you first see the boulder, what goes through your mind is typically, there’s no way I can scale that thing. It looks completely sheer, unclimbable. But upon closer inspection, imperfections appear—small protrusions, cracks, little ledges. In your mind you begin to construct a route, visualizing handholds and footholds, and the transitions between them. After many attempts and failures, ultimately you succeed, surprised that you actually did it. 

Similarly, we should start each puzzle looking for imperfections—a repeated word, an awkward phrase, a hidden number, anything out of place, anything that might be a clue. I like to ask a lot of questions. I find that having questions hanging out there eventually leads to answers when you least expect it. That’s the fun part, that feeling of, that’s it! There’s nothing quite like figuring out a ridiculously complex clue, knowing beyond a reasonable doubt that you’ve solved it. It’s fantastic. 

The Spock Conundrum

 

One of the trickiest aspects of problem solving is the role of our emotions. Every detective or scientist is, to some degree, like the Star Trek character Mr. Spock, half Vulcun, devoid of emotion, and half human, seemingly dominated by it. Spock was always suppressing his human side so as to be completely logical and unbiased. However, it always seemed that Spock was at his best when he allowed his human side, his emotions, to be expressed just a little bit. Science is like that. Enthusiasm is what drives us, allows us to stay up late into the night when we’re onto something, makes us press on when others tell us to quit. 

All of the processes associated with science—peer review, reproducibility, statistical standards—are part of our acceptance that we make mistakes, that we’re human. The danger of suppressing emotions is that, in truth, they’re still there. They still affect us even when we suppress them, but then we’re blind to them. To deny your feelings is to deny reality. 

One of the many things I learned in Toastmasters, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving public speaking skills, was that emotions are not to be suppressed, they are to be focused. We were taught to use our nervous energy, to let it enhance our presentations. Science and problem solving are like this as well. Focused enthusiasm goes a long way to finding breakthroughs. It is a balancing act. By the way, I highly recommend Toastmasters. I learned many important public speaking and leadership skills: How to find my loud voice, how to move eye contact throughout the room so as to engage everyone, how to use body movement and pauses to emphasis transitions, how to get back on track when you forget your lines, and some really advanced stuff like the ancient Chinese art of Tai Ming.

Birch

 

We are all familiar with the noun birch, meaning birch tree, but birch can also be a verb. That was news to me. It's a historical term that refers to a type of ancient Italian punishment where a bundle of birch branches were used to beat or whip someone. In other words, birch refers to being beaten with a fasces. I neglected to mention earlier that a fasces was typically made from birch branches. I left that bit out to mirror my own experience. The initial reference I found didn’t include that detail. 

Amazingly, the verb birch refers to being beaten with the very item from which the term fascism was derived. Birch isn’t just another clue. It strikes to the very heart of what fascism means, government by force, government by violence, government that is invasive, controlling of freedom of speech and thought; and it confirms the secret of The Secret for Cleveland. 

For your information, there is a quirky and entertaining 2022 film titled Amsterdam that uses this foiled fascist coup as the basis of the movie plot.

All of the unused clues are now accounted for and align with the secret of The Secret—our foiled American coup, our couplet. If you doubt my interpretations, I’ll be the first to admit that I could be wrong. (I’m not!) After all, I did begin this Cleveland adventure expecting a boring and simple puzzle. I was wrong about that! Regardless, it’s been quite a journey, ranging from ancient Greeks, to fence post errors, to foil Fascist plots. Next we get to analyze a puzzle that was “solved” by an excavator.