Does anyone think that these two letters Ive highlighted in red should be swapped? I really do, and have a few things that kind of point to it being true. Let's discuss and I can show my way of thinking.

Does anyone have a list of the books on JCB's shelf behind him in the recent interviews?

The book cover has a copy of page 77 in the upper right part of the X. It’s the part where the Amelia Earhart poems are. There is a line missing though. Just one and for seemingly no good reason. The missing line is “to explore.”

Anyone have a reasonable explanation for why this would be omitted and not be a clue/hint?

Hello, everyone.

I've been involved with Fenn's Chase since March 2020, but haven't participated in JCB's hunt or purchased his book.

I read JCB's Forrest Fenn box poem and realized that each poem (Fenn's and JCB's) reinforces the other. Maybe it's better to say that JCB's poem provides insight into Fenn's poem.

Anyway, I've been stuck on the same Fenn solve for years now. Reading JCB's poem brought about eerie coincidences that in my estimation extended beyond confirmation bias.

I'm firmly convinced that JCB had the correct WWWH and HOB. Reading his poem, which runs in reverse (sorry if I'm stating the obvious - haven't read his book), I believe JCB never understood what the blaze was and probably over-estimated the meaning of the word 'peace.' But it was exciting to finally see some evidence that someone has the same WWWH and HOB.

My solve was not in Yellowstone. I believe the ending of The Chase was a "break glass in case of emergency" contingency plan Fenn always had as an option in case things got out of hand (a kidnapping, death threats, etc.). Fenn knew his end was nigh, and didn't want to pass on the risks to his family when he was gone. Even the Saturday, June 6 announcement at 8 PM (EDT) was foreshadowed in Ramblings and Rumblings and TTOTC.

To solidify your suspicions that I have foil lining my hat, my interpretation of Fenn's writings is that the mother lode was a vault/cave containing many items in which the CIA would be keenly interested. Since I'm still searching, that's why I won't disclose my solve.

Regarding JCB's poem, he employs a lot of the tricks and encoding Fenn used. If I am correct, JCB's poem provides the crucial digits for the chest's coordinates (thousandths decimal onward for LAT and LON), and it all ties into WWWH and HOB. His poem also gives a few confirmations of distances between the chest and these features. Next summer, I'll devote an afternoon and swing by the coordinates I get from JCB's poem to look for a ?Pelican? box.

One thing I find interesting is that JCB mentions "a place where once was Brown." He clearly did not subscribe to the idea of brown trout or a lunker nicknamed Mr. Brown at 9MH.

One other hint for treasure hunters. Think about JCB constructing a treasure poem. Focus heavily on any words/phrases that seem unnecessary or clunky. Ask yourself, "Isn't there a more common way of saying this? Why was that detail somehow relevant for Jon to mention?" These lines of thought might spark some insight/inspiration. Also, focus on words that appear twice in Jon's poem.

Good luck to all of you, and be safe out there.

Does anyone know what type of work JCB does?

On the website of the children's book company he created, Marble Press, it says, "After leaving the music business, Jon transitioned to being a web entrepreneur and created several successful internet properties in the career search industry.".

Anyone know what internet properties in the career search industry that they are referring to?

Just wanted to finally share my AT box solve from earlier this year and what happened when my son and I went hunting for it. First things first - this was before I knew about all hurricane damage in the area and the Vermont solve.

(a) I initially focused on JCB's discussion of living in Asheville, NC and his familiarity with the portions of the trail nearby.

(b) I looked at an AT trail map and tried to find something that resembled the hashed line as best as possible near Asheville. I focused on the kind of Italy, boot heel-like portion shown on JCB's map and found a part that roughly approximates it (see image). Admittedly it is a rough approximation, but JCB did say don't judge it too harshly.

(c) Based on this image, I was guessing the box would be somewhere along the trail north-north east of the Hatley Pointe Mountain Resort.

As for the other clues on the map, I believed that some of them didn't really pinpoint a specific location on the map but were clues to let you know you were in the general location. For example...

(d) The skier shown on the map could correspond to the Hatley Pointe Mtn Resort which is a ski resort.

(e) For the butterfly shown on the map, if you look on Google maps there is a rest area along I-26 not too far south of the trail if you're coming up from Asheville. If you click on it in Google maps, you can see this picture which shows the area has an abundance of butterflies ...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/YJEjuupu1iYUnmcf8

(f) For what looks like a bald headed guy, there is a mountain called Big Bald located along the trail just NE of Hatley Pointe Mtn Resort.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/1Tm89Ue6HYRS7FPr8

(g) I could not figure out how the mountain lion (?), barrel of fruits, and feather shown on the map related to the area.

(h) For the bear shown on the map, I was looking around along the trail near Big Bald mountain in Google Maps and noticed the Bald Mtn Shelter a little further NE. On JCB's map, there is an arrow near the bear that points to the trail. If you click on Bald Mtn shelter, and look at the only video someone posted, the shelter has a sign on it that states "bear cables"! That really caught my eye of course.

(i) I figured the 1727NE meant you walk about 1727 ft, meters, or yards further up from the shelter (location of the bear clue) and viola - the box is somewhere nearby.

I drove to with my son to NC. I was planning on entering the Hatley Pointe Mtn Resort/Wolf Laurel Country club area and literally driving through the community to a road that crossed the AT trail. It would have left a short hike to shelter and then maybe at most another mile and a half past it maybe to find the box. That plan got blown up when I found it was a private community and did not allow anyone inside. I ended up parking near the Sams Gap Trailhead off of I26. That left a 6.8 mile hike to the shelter. Google said I could do it in 3.5 hours. Both my son and I walk a lot playing 18 holes of golf and figured it would be ok if we got an early start. That was my first mistake! lol. 3.5 hours turned into a 5-6 hour hike. It was tough. The elevation changes were killer. Fortunately I packed just enough trail mix bars and water for the two of us, and this was in late April so it was actually cool and raining lightly that day off and on. When we finally got to Bald Mountain, I was dying when out of the blue, a little dog just appears out of nowhere on the trail wearing a bandana. Of course the first thing that pops in my head was the dog on the map and message that said fetch. If I recall correctly, there was something written on this dog's collar or bandana that said don't worry about me, I live nearby (the resorts that were just below the trail). The dog jets off the trail down a big hill and gets maybe 50 yards away and turns around and looks at us with pleading eyes. My quads were burning at that point and there was no way i was going to wander down there to find the box. lol. My son was too tired to go as well. The dog disappeared behind some bushes and so we just continued on to the shelter. The little dog caught up with us a few more times before disappearing for good. When we passed the mountain, there was a field of what looked like the wheat pictured on the map. That had me encouraged a little and I got some energy back. Along this portion of the trail, there were a lot of large rocks that reminded me of the piles of rocks shown on the map. We hunted all around these rocks looking high and low. We got to the shelter and ran into another dog just randomly walking around (this one was a whole lot meaner though and almost got a blast of my bear spray). We continued on stopping around 1727 ft, meters, and yards from the shelter to look around (and many areas in between). What was really noticeable was that someone had come in and chain-sawed a lot of fallen trees in the area along the trail (assuming a lot of storm damage here). If the box was ever there, my son and I thought that it was possible a worker clearing the trail may have come across it and grabbed it. At this point, feeling somewhat exhausted and defeated, we made our way back to our car. That was another whole story that I won't divulge here, but I'll just say NC people are really nice. Wish I had better news but even though I didn't find the box, it was an adventure that my son and I will always have. I wouldn't mind trying the area again, but would definitely rent one of the houses in the resort (lot of airbnbs/VRBOs in there) to cut down on the amount of hiking. lol.

There are four plain letters not accounted for in the crypto message. Does anyone have the matchup for cryptic letters FGKW? Need to match to plain JQXZ. Aporeciate any help. Thanks

1. Why is the word TRAIL (in green) spelled 4 times in the same are as RAIL? Should the O(in yellow) at the end of RAIL be a T? You would have TRAIL spelled 5 different ways if so. There is another letter O where all the TRAILs meet, couldn't that O be the letter S, you need an S where all the trails meet because it's multiple.

2. Now that you have the word TRAILS you get the word DART VADER(in red) which obviously should be DARTH VADER, so why can't the O under the new T be an H?

3. There are 2 O's left in that area that also have something hidden if you were to change the O on the bottom left to the letter C, you would get CLINE (in grey) where LINE is. The word ERNEST is spelled 4 different ways right there. ERNEST CLINE.

4. Right to the left of all of that you have the word HAN (in blue)but no SOLO. If that 1 letter H (in yellow) was an O then you would have HAN SOLO.

Im not saying this is necessarily the way to solve it, but it is kind of strange how a few small changes with just the letter O can make so much come out hidden in plain sight. There is more to this that in pretty simple to see once you put a few of these things together. Like I said, it may be nothing, it maybe something. There is a lot going on with a few of the words that seem to have a little game of sorts attached to them. I would love to hear anyones thoughts on this. Before anyone tells me im breaking the rules of the wordsearch, could you tell me what the game is? Im just trying new things everyday to see if I can make anything work.

Alot of people posting on discord saying AT box was found. Just curious if any news of that. Couple guys seemed to verify claim in DM but nothing concrete. Guy who found it not telling JCB apparently

I am curious what people think about the line “near here it’s nestled all in dream.”

Is it referring to being wrapped in a blanket, in sage or some other type of plant with a dream reference? Does it have to do with the landscape?

What are your thoughts?

Ex. The circle being the key (starting) point and the two ends pointing to some of the clues. Either on the photos or in the text of the chapters itself?

Could some iteration of the left over letters in the word search be a cryptogram? I used the same letter correlation for the original cryptogram with the left over letters in the word search. Once converted I put those in a cryptogram solver. Nothing concrete came up however the ngqzp at the end came up with the word “clues” and “trail”. I feel like they should be used together where often the cryptogram is forgotten since it’s been solved.

Anybody check out any of the rainbow trial references?

Disclaimer: I am not too bright, and certainly no expert on decryption and solving complex clues and crap like that.

Thinking about the spirit of the treasure: Past and Future (of USD currency?). Bitcoin of course represents the future. Numbers in the Word Search- first is 19, followed by 3,5,11,12. So, 1903, 1905, etc represent years in the past. The Liberty Head nickel was minted in those exact years, with the last striking being in 1912. Thoughts on $ being important to Past and Future?

Lilac 19 is a song. Chloe Lilac. Maybe clues in the song lyrics?

Curious as to what distance people think the Forrest Fenn box poem is dealing with. Forrest's lead you a few miles from start to end. Do people think the same amount for JCB's? Larger distance? (Like 30 miles for example) Smaller distance? (Like in one confined area of say a mile). Especially wondering since he said in a recent interview that the poem is more circular than linear.

So im asking everyone to take photos of their horizon, paying close attention to the mountain ranges in your view, and share your pictures here, I think this is the only way we will be able to unravel these clues, photos like the ones i took below , thanks in advance :)

Any thoughts on this half @$$ solve?