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Puzzles 101 #1 - Throw Everything at Google Mystery Cache

Hidden : 8/26/2018
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:



Rules for this puzzle: No intentional red herrings, no oddball (fishiness) methods of presenting coordinates (UTM, for example, or also having coordinates read backwards), and no leaving off the N32 and W97 just to make it more difficult. There may be more than one layer on this puzzle. Collaboration is allowed and you may ask me for hints after there has been a FTF.


One of the first things I do with a new puzzle is throw everything I know at Google and see what sticks. You see, Google is very good about making sense of what might be seemingly random information. Thus, take what you know from this puzzle, type (or copy/paste) into a Google search bar, and then see what Google makes out of the information.

When working with puzzles, and if you don't know where to start, I would try to block everything into 14 or 15 segments (number of digits in a set of coordinates). In this situation, there are 15 pictures between the start and finish. I'd suspect each picture represents a digit in the coordinates. Since you know I specified a starting location, you know the first picture (Elvis) is probably a 3 and the second picture (America) is probably a 2. Now, you might be able to solve the rest with guesswork, but I assure you, there is a logical method for the picture assignment - you just have to figure it out.

If you have trouble identifying any pictures, I can also recommend Google Image search. Just provide the URL to an image (or in this case, you will have to upload segments of the image since I only made one image for this cache) and Google will take a guess at what it happens to be. I'm hoping most of these won't require that technique.

One interesting thing about solving puzzles of this type/nature, is that there are sometimes multiple ways to come up with good coordinates. I call that an unintentional red herring. This puzzle has one, so I'll tell you now to consider two alternatives with the below list of 10 unique words. It isn't row line number (although I wish I had used that because everyone jumps to that assumption first).

Oh, and click on the image for a larger version - some of that text could be difficult to read.

Things she likes...

Puzzle Solving Tools - If I don't discuss a particular tool below in the paragraphs above, you may assume I did not use it for this puzzle; however, it may be useful for puzzles of similar style.

Description Website URL
Google https://www.google.com
Google Image Search https://images.google.com
Wikipedia https://www.wikipedia.org/
Gimp is what I use to make all of my pictures https://www.gimp.org/



You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.


A NOTE TO PUZZLE COs: When creating a puzzle of this type, I find it useful to make sure I find coordinates where I use every digit from 0 through 9. That way the solver doesn’t have to make any assumptions about what digits I used. I also recommend using a source of material that isn't likely going to change. I consider Wikipedia a fairly reliable source despite its ease of change. Just remember to base your puzzle of the content of Wikipedia, and not necessarily what row or column a piece of information appears in (because, depending on your subject material, that could change).

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

[Cache:] Zntargvp uvqr-n-xrl haqre Abegu-Jrfg fvqr. Ba gbc bs terra one. [Puzzle:] Vg jbhyq or Crggl bs zr abg gb yrnir n uvag - Gurer ner ab Onq Oblf be Tbbq Tveyf va guvf cvpgher. [Puzzle#2:] Chmmyr xrl vf abg yvar ahzore ohg vf jbeq frdhrapr.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)