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Heads or tails? All or nothing ? I hesitated for a long time and thought a lot before telling the following, because it seemed so simple and comfortable not to do so. I could easily allow the rumors to persist, from the most fanciful to the most conspiratorial, which have been circulating about the Chouette d'Or for years. I could have partially alleviated the delusions of some by publishing a few denials. But I considered it too unfair to disguise or hide the truth from the thousands of players who are looking for or have been looking for this treasure for so many years, as well as from all those who are passionate about the story. Furthermore, the facts that I report and their consequences are so intertwined and complex that it quickly becomes impossible to understand them if we conceal part of them. Here is what really happened and what unacknowledged issues led to the intrigues which, due to the treasure hunt, disrupted the progress of the game.
We were two co-authors, Régis Hauser and I, and we met about ten times at most, which did not allow me to know him well. Having never been close to him, I am not able to say who he really was in private or with his family, so none of my comments will concern his private life. But today I know the decisive role played in our history by the character he created under the pseudonym Max Valentin. I relate here what I was involved in or witnessed during our collaboration and the feelings I had about it. The facts mentioned are based on the numerous documents that I hold and explain the incredible adventures that punctuated the course of the game...next
Max Valentin, author of the treasure hunt riddles On the Trail of the Golden Owl, is no more; It's me who talks today with the players (the owls, as they call themselves). In doing so, I realize that nothing has really changed. Just like Max did on the Minitel, I speak, on networks and forums, to strangers who don't know me, so that our words juxtapose more than they respond to or complement each other. However, it seems that everyone who is interested in history enjoys it and sees the importance of contributing to writing the unimaginable saga of the Golden Owl.
Max was undoubtedly a precursor of what virtual communities are today. For almost nine years, from 1993 to 2001, he was the game leader of the Game on Minitel for exclusively written exchanges which gave birth to a corpus of nearly one hundred and twenty thousand questions and answers. Although he always claimed to have been the only one to write these thousands of responses, it seems likely today that a collaborator or a relative relayed or replaced him at times.
Circumstances mean that I communicate with players today, by voice, in writing or by videoconference, on the much more advanced server that is the Discord platform (https://www.discord.gg/chouette). Knowing the game's solutions, I can, for the first time, appreciate the content of Max's writings and measure how they are relevant or trivial, conducive to helping or, on the contrary, misleading the players. More than simple answers typed on Minitel, these texts constitute part of the genesis...next
of the myth of the Golden Owl. They give us an incredibly detailed self-portrait of Max Valentin, shed light on how he played a double game, sometimes going so far as to manipulate certain elements, and allow us to identify the key moment of the hunt. This period when everything changed, where Max himself became involved in the game of power that his authority gave him over the crowd of players.
Régis Hauser obviously had no experience of this type of situation and above all he feared being bothered, even threatened, since we had agreed that, to avoid any blunders during interviews, he would be the the only one to know the secret of the cache. To protect his anonymity, he chose Max Valentin as his pseudonym. If this alias-shield perfectly fulfilled its initial role, it also allowed Max, who had promised never to intervene publicly, to quickly become the main, then the only, interlocutor of the media.
Almost overnight, this character, supposed to protect him, found himself subjected to unprecedented media exposure for a game. If he had created the first large-scale treasure hunt in France and of course ardently wished that Although it works, he had not, however, anticipated the tremendous enthusiasm it would create. A tidal wave of questions would suddenly flood in, without him being able to prepare for it, taking Max completely off guard.
He spoke daily on Minitel, generously spreading his good words to players who, for some, swallowed up part of their savings, as the minute of connection was so expensive. The exchanges were recorded, shared, we repeated Max said this, Max said that, and his responses were soon baptized "madits", a term now associated with each of his writings or remarks. He devoted many hours to it and earned comfortable income, significantly greater than that generated by the sale of books, in which he lost interest quite quickly. Through the madits with which he filled the community and fed the press, he slowly established himself as a guru for the entire community of owls. His influence extended...next
outside the game, to the media who relayed his statements: press or television journalists, all begged for clues to expand their articles. We were only interested in Max's words, and Régis Hauser himself hid behind this alias acting like a protective armor. Gradually freeing himself from all restraint inside his chrysalis, he mutated into the mythical character who will forever remain the most intriguing and troubled entity in the history of the Golden Owl, the man who, after having hidden the treasure and initiated his quest, manipulated its history according to his desires. Added to the puzzles he created was his talent as a communicator combined with the commercial aims of his ambitions. Although I deplore the fact that he has often manifested himself in a questionable manner, I readily recognize Max as having a certain genius. Because this hunt, beyond all the vicissitudes that marked its progress, marked the lives of thousands of players. No doubt Max, while he was writing the puzzles, did not suspect what this game would cause, and the impact it would have (and still has, almost 30 years after its publication) on the owls. Thanks to him and his innovative idea, entire generations of researchers have succeeded one another, friendships have been created, other stories have been written. What began as a simple game of sagacity gradually became more complex, embellished, and metamorphosed to feed the public's imagination. It is, in my opinion, in this aspect of the game that Max's true prowess lies. His flair, his cheek, his chatter have, directly or indirectly, made it possible to forge the myth, and made our owl THE Golden Owl.
Telling this story leads to revealing part of what goes on behind the scenes and of course, in the face of supporters of highlighting, others, worshipers of Max, would prefer that the motivations and actions of the protagonists remain in the shadows. This results, among the owls, in inevitable divisions which are expressed on the forums and reflect the enthusiasm and the degree of passion generated by the game. What can I say? What to write? How can we talk about what we created with Max, how can we tell our story which has gone around the world and surpasses us today, without explaining how it really happened? Naturally, I can't reveal everything, but when it comes to an end, our treasure hunt will turn out to be even more extraordinary than ever before...next
could imagine it the most daring and will undoubtedly find its place among those that make you dream even after their conclusion. Buried treasure, ambiguous hero, cryptic language, rivalries... Everything in this hunt evokes the stories we devoured in our childhood. It is for this reason, I think, that it has caused so much ink to flow and has been able to bring together, in thirty years, such a large community.
The owls.... They are full-fledged characters in this extraordinary story. A community of dreamers, crazy people, adults with a child's soul, unconditional fans... But also skeptics, complainers, some of whom sometimes turn into fierce, even quarrelsome opponents, joined by conspiracists who peddle all kinds of rumors, or even proselytizers who develop theories in a professorial tone that are so seductive that we almost come to forget that they lead nowhere. As the years have passed, let us not forget to cite the Elders, those who have been searching or have searched since the last century, present from the very first hour, those who miss the good old days and regularly commemorate key dates in history. . Beyond the smile that their stories inevitably provoke, it is often poignant to hear them talk about their hearts tired of beating wildly to the rhythm of the shovel blows, their nails damaged by these nasty pebbles hard torn from the earth, who the various sensations that each expedition generates in the field. Where some claim medals, the “Ancients” evaluate themselves in number of holes, depending on whether they dug a little, a lot, passionately or madly. They are the memory of this fabulous treasure story and many of them enjoy being able to share their experiences more with the youngest thanks to the new forums. It would be sad if the adventures of the owls were forgotten, as they constitute the very substance of this adventure. Hunting, beyond its playful dimension, has accompanied players at various moments in their lives, and each remembers the most significant stages of “their” game: the first months of research, the excitement during the discovery of an element of solution, the preparations for an expedition... The little stories of the owls build the great story of the Golden Owl. next
The story of L'Œuf du père Méhus, a fiction initially imagined by Régis Hauser at the end of the 1970s to serve as a setting for his treasure hunt, waited around fifteen years in a drawer before becoming On the Trail of the Golden Owl. Finally the book, whose enigmas I illustrated, appeared in May 1993. The Owl and Max were born as twins on the night of April 23 to 24, 1993, at the very moment when Régis Hauser finished filling the hole at the bottom of which he had just buried the number one bronze print of the Golden Owl.
The character of Max lived sixteen years, day for day, night for night, and suddenly disappeared without having revealed his secrets or revealed the location of the treasure. It then took me thirteen years of effort to have access to the solutions, to finally discover the short and mysterious life of Max Valentin and to understand the various adventures that the game had experienced.
The autopsy of Max that I undertook, the necessary research, the months spent in the Owl archives brought me absolute certainty: the hunt never stopped. The cache has not been found, and no owler has ever unearthed its contents. Today, a countermark still awaits its winner there.
If the story has turned into an incredible epic, to the point of seeming incredibly complicated today, it is because Max, a few months after the first publication of the book, began to act alone and in the shadows unbeknownst to everyone. It thus seems that the fever for gold took hold of him very early in history, making him a sort of modern buccaneer seeking to enjoy what he quickly came to consider as his own treasure. The Minitel had made him the leader of the game and he quickly became intoxicated with it. Alone, he plotted his intrigues, formed secret alliances, embroidered numerous anecdotes and patiently weaved the demiurge's outfit that he dreamed of donning. According to him, he had thought of everything, calculated all the possibilities, wanted every false lead followed by the players and had brilliantly directed me down to the smallest detail of my paintings. Magnificent Max was there! more coming
