tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49018150628342911872024-03-08T03:33:47.931-08:00Legacy of the Secret KeysDevoted to the lasting mystery of Byron Preiss' book, The Secret: A Treasure HuntJames Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-86455791260275107042018-10-17T05:43:00.000-07:002018-10-17T05:46:27.342-07:00Governors Island<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wanted to share some photos I took last week during a quick trip to Governors Island. One treasure hunter recently sent me some theories about the island but couldn't check in person. I took the ferry out on a dreary day and walked the island for a couple hours. It used to be a Coast Guard case and the guardsmen and their families stayed on the small island. Their homes still stand as well as an abandoned movie theater and library.<br />
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From the north end of the island you can see everything in the last painting - the onion domes, the statue of Liberty, Battery Park. You can hear the "whirring" of helicopters heading to Wall Street. A lot lines up but I was unable to find a suitable dig spot. In fact much of the north end has been landscaped in the last few years. There's a concrete cabin over there with some odd metal art on the ground behind it.<br />
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The most promising lead was this monument to the Wright Brothers, a propeller that seems to match part of the woman's dress in the painting.<br />
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What do you think?<br />
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<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-3530229135114184462018-08-01T15:08:00.002-07:002018-08-01T15:08:50.950-07:00The Documentary Is Finished and Heading to Festivals!After 4 years, my documentary, The Secret of Byron Preiss, is complete. We've already been accepted into a major documentary festival (details to come) and are submitting to many more. Hopefully we'll be screening in a town near you!<br />
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For now, check out the trailer:<br />
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<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-71126113510264920442018-02-08T14:28:00.002-08:002018-07-09T07:29:35.401-07:00The Secret Featured on Expedition UknownI had a blast adventuring with Josh Gates and the crew of Expedition Unknown in Milwaukee in hopes of finding the key Byron buried there 37 years ago. If you missed the episode, it is now available to purchase on YouTube.James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-86976216982687978822018-02-08T14:23:00.001-08:002018-02-08T14:23:38.972-08:00ABC 7 Revisits Chicago Treasuer<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="267" src="http://abc7chicago.com/video/embed/?pid=3045091" width="476"></iframe>James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-113580845218325782017-05-17T08:33:00.000-07:002017-05-17T08:34:32.831-07:00ABC13 News Features The Secret and the Houston Key!Houston is quickly becoming obsessed with Byron Preiss' <i>Secret</i> keys. Check out these two new videos!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="267" src="http://abc13.com/video/embed/?pid=1998645" width="476"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="no" height="267" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" mozallowfullscreen="" noresize="" scrolling="no" src="http://launch.newsinc.com/?type=VideoPlayer/Single&widgetId=1&trackingGroup=69016&playlistId=19132&siteSection=houstonchronstudio_hom_non_sec&videoId=30502978" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="476"></iframe>
James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-7876825689293194162017-05-03T07:12:00.001-07:002017-05-03T07:12:59.744-07:00New Video Teases Houston TreasureABC13's "Hidden Houston" series just put up this short video about the key buried somewhere around town.<br />
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James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-29397308030065122102017-04-05T07:02:00.003-07:002017-04-05T07:03:19.781-07:00Douglas Adams' Letter to Byron<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So this is kind of cool. <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/63i028/douglas_adams_the_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galaxy/">A Redditor found a fax sent from Douglas Adams' to Byron Preiss </a>in a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Apparently Byron edited a version of the book. I wonder if it was the version I fell in love with when I was a teen.<br />
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<b>Fax from Douglas Adams to US editor Byron Preiss</b><br />
<b>Monday, January 13th, 1992, 5:26pm</b><br />
Dear Byron, <br />
Thanks for the script of the novel… I’ll respond as quickly and briefly as possible.<br />
<br />
One general point. A thing I have had said to me over and over again
whenever I’ve done public appearances and readings and so on in the
States is this: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it! We like it the
way it is!<br />
<br />
There are some changes in the script that simply don’t make sense.
Arthur Dent is English, the setting is England, and has been in every
single manifestation of HHGG ever. The ‘Horse and Groom' pub that Arthur
and Ford go to is an English pub, the ‘pounds’ they pay with are
English (but make it twenty pounds rather than five – inflation). So why
suddenly ‘Newark’ instead of ‘Rickmansworth’? And ‘Bloomingdales’
instead of ‘Marks & Spencer’? The fact that Rickmansworth is not
within the continental United States doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist!
American audiences do not need to feel disturbed by the notion that
places do exist outside the US or that people might suddenly refer to
them in works of fiction. You wouldn’t, presumably, replace Ursa Minor
Beta with ‘Des Moines’. There is no Bloomingdales in England, and
Bloomingdales is not a generic term for large department stores. If you
feel that referring to ‘Marks & Spencer’ might seriously freak out
Americans because they haven’t heard of it… we could either put warning
stickers on the label (‘The text of this book contains references to
places and institutions outside the continental United States and may
cause offence to people who haven’t heard of them’) or you could, I
suppose, put ‘Harrods’, which most people will have heard of. Or we
could even take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things
that people won’t have heard of and see if they survive the experience.
They probably will – when people are born they haven’t heard or anything
or anywhere, but seem to get through the first years of their lives
without ill-effects.<br />
<br />
Another point is something I’m less concerned about, but which I
thought I’d mention and then leave to your judgement. You’ve replaced
the joke about digital watches with a reference to ‘cellular phones’
instead. Obviously, I understand that this is an attempt to update the
joke, but there are two points to raise in defence of the original. One
is that it’s a very, very well known line in Hitch Hiker, and one that
is constantly quoted back at me on both sides of the Atlantic, but the
other is that there is something inherently ridiculous about digital
watches, and not about cellular phones. Now this is obviously a matter
of opinion, but I think it’s worth explaining. Digital watches came
along at a time that, in other areas, we were trying to find ways of
translating purely numeric data into graphic form so that the
information leapt easily to the eye. For instance, we noticed that pie
charts and bar graphs often told us more about the relationships between
things than tables of numbers did. So we worked hard to make our
computers capable of translating numbers into graphic displays. At the
same time, we each had the world’s most perfect pie chart machines
strapped to our wrists, which we could read at a glance, and we suddenly
got terribly excited at the idea of translating them <i>back</i> into
numeric data, simply because we suddenly had the technology to do it…
so digital watches were mere technological toys rather than significant
improvements on anything that went before. I don’t happen to think that
that’s true of cellular comms technology. So that’s why I think that
digital watches (which people still do wear) are inherently ridiculous,
whereas cell phones are steps along the way to more universal
communications. They may seem clumsy and old-fashioned in twenty years
time because they will have been replaced by far more sophisticated
pieces of technology that can do the job better, but they will not, I
think, seem inherently ridiculous.<br />
<br />
One other thing. I’d rather have characters say ‘What do you mean?’
rather than ‘Whadd’ya mean?’ which I would never, ever write myself,
even if you held me down on a table and threatened me with hot skewers.<br />
<br />
Otherwise it looks pretty good […]. James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-14003774316863103552017-03-15T11:50:00.000-07:002017-03-15T11:50:08.185-07:00Painting 3 Revealed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A couple years ago I got a tour of John Jude Palencar's studio. Brian Zinn, one of the men who found the Cleveland key, noticed Painting 3 in the background of some video I shot there and wondered if the original had more detail that what was printing in the book. He was right. As you can see from this screen shot, there is much more detail around the borders. I wonder if you might find some new clues there...James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-12962625014967299412017-03-08T14:39:00.000-08:002017-03-08T14:39:07.405-08:00The Secret on TV in 1983<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's some classic footage of Eric Gasiorowski, Rob Wrobel, and David James, from local WLS-TV in Chicago, after they dug up one of Byron's keys in Grant Park in 1983.<br />
<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-90434626154434703112017-02-27T14:14:00.004-08:002017-02-27T14:14:55.531-08:00The Chicago Key<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Check out this new clip from an earlier cut of The Secret of Byron Preiss!<br />
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Eric Gasiorowski and Rob Wrobel take us to Grant Park and reveal the location of the buried key they discovered in 1983.<br />
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<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-2542721417848144242017-02-20T09:36:00.004-08:002017-02-20T09:36:50.291-08:00New to the Adventure? Start With These Videos.YouTuber "DJ Keep Calm" has an excellent set of 4 videos dedicated to The Secret and the search for Byron's lost keys. You'll find links to the rest in the information posted on the first one, here.<br />
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<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-86577488509177308552017-02-17T08:06:00.002-08:002017-02-17T08:06:56.072-08:00What the Casques look like.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIRtsDUKSgCl-3bXaUYXlQA873z7rF4Tns1fa85CPi4RkBx9_qJ_7TZu5EE4xYJwauxLxpvD3wtS8T18hKIqv7no6Z_Ij7a6Ne-r4bBIY8RwFBCdW5T_ACnDPHLZjOsrraMKW70YWNbH6F/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-02-05+at+11.35.46+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIRtsDUKSgCl-3bXaUYXlQA873z7rF4Tns1fa85CPi4RkBx9_qJ_7TZu5EE4xYJwauxLxpvD3wtS8T18hKIqv7no6Z_Ij7a6Ne-r4bBIY8RwFBCdW5T_ACnDPHLZjOsrraMKW70YWNbH6F/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-02-05+at+11.35.46+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here's a nice shot of the casque found in Grant Park, in 1983. There are 10 more out there, waiting to be found!<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-18190538539430596592017-02-13T06:25:00.003-08:002017-02-13T06:26:40.012-08:00The Original Goonies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It took a year for the first of Byron's keys to be found. <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1983/08/09/page/23/article/chicago-pals-unearth-secret-treasure">But in 1983, three kids from Chicago - Eric Gasiorowski, Rob Wrobel, and David James - dug a big hole in Grant Park</a> and unearthed a plexiglas cube, inside which was an ornate casque with a ceramic key, inside.<br />
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I met with Eric and Rob, in Chicago, in 2014. Along for the adventure was my friend, Charles Moore (who was with me back in 2005, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6CWty68PQ">when we knocked on J.D. Salinger's door</a>). After we poked around Grant Park, Eric and Rob took us to Milwaukee in search of another key.<br />
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This is a clip from an early cut of our documentary, The Secret of Byron Preiss.<br />
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<br />James Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4901815062834291187.post-91272298992087309422017-02-03T05:39:00.002-08:002017-02-03T06:02:09.679-08:00A Grand Adventure Awaits!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Somewhere out there, right this minute, in some dark corner of a public park within the borders of the contiguous United States and Canada, are 10 ceramic keys that were buried in 1982. Each key, when found, can be turned in for a real gemstone worth about $1,000. The clues to finding the keys are hidden in the details of 12 paintings and 12 verses that appear inside an old book, <i>The Secret: A Treasure Hunt.</i> Do you have what it takes to find one?<br />
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I was eight years old when I found a copy of <i>The Secret: A Treasure Hunt</i> at the Bedford library, outside Cleveland. This would have been in 1986, in the dark days before the Internet, when it was impossible to simply Google the book to see if the keys had been found. I figured they'd all been dug up, already - or would, before I turned 16 and could drive off in search of them, myself. And so I forgot about it for many years.<br />
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Flash forward to 2014. I was working as a crime writer, finishing up research for a book called <i>True Crime Addict</i>, about my obsession trying to solve the Maura Murray case. I desperately wanted to leave true crime behind forever and so I began looking for an unsolved mystery that might be fun to explore for once. Maybe even something I could share with my son. And then I remembered the book I found when I was his age.<br />
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I learned that the hunt was still on! In fact, only two of the keys had ever been found. The only person who knew the exact location of the buried keys was Byron Preiss, who died in a tragic car accident, in 2005.<br />
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Since then, I've traveled across the country in search of these damned keys. I've dug holes beside the Fountain of Youth, poked around the lost colony of Roanoke, explored San Francisco and Milwaukee, and got lost on Staten Island. I've also gotten to know some of the people close to Byron - the artist, John Jude Palencar, for one - as well as Byron's family. Learning about Byron's legacy has made me a better father. And the adventure has opened my eyes to great, beautiful world around us.<br />
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I have much to share with you, in 2017. I have completed a documentary, <i>The Secret of Byron Preiss</i>, with Low Spark Films, which we will submit to festivals later this year. And there are plans for a sequel to Byron's book, as well.<br />
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Check out the trailer!<br />
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For now, I wanted to share the basics with you. On this site you can explore the puzzle paintings and verses. You can also learn about the history of the book and find links to messageboards devoted to theories about where the keys might be found. The book is available in Kindle format as well.<br />
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Feel free to share your own theories in the comments sections.<br />
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If you have a possible solution you would like to share with the community, please contact me at jameswrenner@gmail.com so that we can Skype about it. <br />
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In the coming weeks, I will post interviews and clips that will shed more light on the story and reveal new clues that lead to the locations of the buried treasures.<br />
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For those who have obsessed over this book for years, we look to you for guidance and help. Please remember, this website is a fresh start for people new to this mystery, so be kind when we throw out some bone-headed new theories.<br />
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Good luck, everyone! And have fun out there!<br />
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-James RennerJames Rennerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271823029268858339noreply@blogger.com10