The world’s longest treasure hunt is over following an announcement that a golden owl ‘worth £200,000’ has finally been found.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of owlgebra it’s taken to find this owl that’s been missing for 31 years in France.
It all began when Régis Hauser – the author of treasure hunt book On The Trail Of The Golden Owl – buried a replica of the owl somewhere in France in 1993.
Once the bronze replica is found, only then the treasure hunter will be rewarded with the real one, made up of gold, silver and diamonds.
Régis Hauser buried a replica of the owl somewhere in France in 1993 (Michel Becker/Golden Owl hunt)
Meanwhile, French broadcaster Canal+ estimates that the owl will be worth around €150,000 (£126,000).
In the book, which was written under the pseudonym Max Valentin, there are 11 riddles that need to be solved in order to locate the hidden treasure.
On Thursday morning (3 October), illustrator of the novel Michel Becker – who took over proceedings when Hauser died in 2009 – made several announcements on the hunt’s official chatline.
His first message read: “A potential winning solution is currently being verified. The verification system is currently locked and no longer allows you to submit your solutions.
“Further information will be communicated to you as soon as possible.”
Two hours later he added: “Don’t go digging! We confirm that the Golden Owl countermark was unearthed last night, simultaneously with a solution upload to the online verification system.
Illustrator of the novel Michel Becker took over proceedings when Hauser died in 2009 (Michel Becker)
“It is therefore useless to go digging on the location you assume to be the cache. As previously announced, we are verifying the validity of the proposed solution.”
Becker wrote: “We confirm that the replica of the golden owl was dug up last night, and that simultaneously a solution has been sent on the online verification system.
“It is therefore now pointless travelling to dig at any place you believe the cache might be situated.”
Last year, Becker made a major change to the rules to stop unnecessary money being spent by owlers checking for solutions around France.
Instead, he asked people to message him their solutions on a website.
The illustrator also wanted to discourage people from digging holes in the French countryside, sometimes breaching local bylaws.
However, the system was optional for people who still wanted to treasure hunt the old fashioned way.
But it’s more likely that your guesses are very, very wrong. Nope, it’s not the likes of Tom Cruise or Adam Sandler or even Julia Roberts.
Instead, the richest actor in the world has been pretty inactive in the industry recently.
Jami Gertz. (TM/Bauer-Griffin / Contributor via Getty Images)
The star with the most amount of money is actually The Lost Boys actor Jami Gertz.
With a crazy net worth of $3 billion, or £2.45 billion to us UK folks (estimated in 2023), Gertz is the richest actor across the globe.
Look, you might be asking ‘who on Earth is she?’ and you’re not alone.
There seems to be an abundance of people who are unable to put their finger on Gertz or any of her roles.
One person had to reach out to the internet for enlightenment: “I’m off to Google first cos this is giving I don’t know who this person is.”
And a fan of the actor wondered why she’s been out of the limelight: “How come I hardly see Jami Gertz in movies? Did she make it from acting, or does she have other incomes?”
Well, her notable film roles include Twister and Sixteen Candles. She’s also popped up on the small screen in Seinfeld, The Neighbours, Modern Family and This is Us. Most recently, she appeared in the 2022 film, I Want You Back.
All in all, she’s been active for decades, since 1981, but this alone isn’t enough to earn her a fortune dwarfing the likes of George Clooney, Robert De Niro and Sandler’s net worth.
Gertz has spent her money on some rather spectacular things. (Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
Yep, as far her impressive wealth is concerned though, it’s fair to say it didn’t all come from acting. She and her husband are part owners of NBA team the Atlanta Hawks and minority owners of the Milwaukee Beavers.
Some say Gertz married into money after wedding billionaire investor Tony Ressler.
But this is maybe beside the point, as Gertz and Ressler are also known for their charitable endeavours.
In 2012, the Giving Back Fund named Gertz and her husband as the number one donor to charity of any other celebrity after a record $10 million donation to the Ressler-Gertz Foundation, which primarily focuses on the arts, education, health and Jewish organizations.
So, while people claim to not know who she is and she has accumulated wealth beyond her acting gigs, her philanthropy is perhaps what sets her apart.
For over 20 years, experts have been researching to work out what the strange noise was that was recorded in 1997 from under water.
At the time it was heard, researchers were listening for underwater volcanic activity, but instead stumbled across a strange and very loud sound…that appeared to have no explanation.
Using hydrophones, which are basically underwater microphones, placed more than 3,219km apart across the pacific, they captured multiple hearings of the sound.
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ratpack223/Getty Images
It was unheard of, and had characteristics that scientists were just baffled by.
The sound became known as the ‘bloop’.
Since 95% of the ocean is undiscovered, theories ran wild.
Scientists’ suggestions included secret underwater military exercises, ship engines, fishing boat winches, giant squids, whales, or an undiscovered sea creature that biology had yet to uncover.
Over the last 20 years, hydrophones have been spread even closer to Antarctica in an ongoing attempt to study the sounds of seafloor volcanoes and earthquakes.
It was during these efforts, that they discovered the origin of the ‘bloop’!
It was on earth’s lonely southernmost land mass that researchers pinpointed that the noise was the sound of an icequake.
What exactly is an icequake, you may ask?
It is the cracking and breaking of an iceberg moving away from an Antarctic glacier. Pretty cool, right!
This seems to be as a result of global warming, with more and more icequakes occurring annually and eventually melting into the ocean.
The National Ocean Service’s website says: “PMEL’s Acoustics Program develops unique acoustics tools and technologies to acquire long-term data sets of the global ocean acoustics environment, and to identify and assess acoustic impacts from human activities and natural processes on the marine environment.”
But this isn’t the only strange noise that scientists are working to uncover under the sea.
The ‘boing’ was another mystery sound that was originally heard in the 1950s.
Despite receiving public attention for years after, the Southwest Fisheries Science Center acoustics team followed the sound in 2002, and identified its source as minke whales offshore the Hawaiian Islands.
Another peculiar sound known as the ‘slow down’ was recorded in 1997, which was clearly the year of strange underwater noises!
It was likened to a distant wailing or something falling from the sky, and researchers believe that it may be an iceberg that has hit the seafloor and has slowed to a halt.
One Michigan man was shocked when he found out that a rock he’d been using as a doorstop for decades was worth a whopping $100,000 (£76,000).
The man, who was given the rock back in 1988 by a farmer when he moved into his home, was told that it was a meteorite.
The man bought his farm in Edmore, Michigan, and as the farmer was showing him around the property, he asked about the large rock in the shed, which was being used as a door stop.
The rock fell out of the sky. (Central Michigan University)
The farmer explained that it was a meteorite he found which ‘made a heck of a noise when it hit’ Earth.
He then told the man that it was part of the property, and he could have it.
According to the farmer, he had seen it coming down one night in the 1930s and went on a hunt to find it.
When he did, he decided to dig it out of the crater while it was still warm and kept it all of those years, until he then gifted it to the man in ’88.
After the transfer of ownership, it remained as a handy little tool to keep his door open, and he didn’t think much about its origins until now.
Recently, he thought about how much it would be worth today and took it down to have it valued.
That was when Monaliza Sirbescu, a geology faculty member specialising in Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Central Michigan University, took a peek.
She examined it under x-ray fluorescence and admitted to Daily Mail she ‘could tell right away that this was something special’.
That’s because the meteorite was an iron-nickel combination, with 88 percent iron and 12 percent nickel.
Now, nickel isn’t something you typically find on Earth, making it a brilliant discovery.
Normally, when you find iron meteorites, they generally are made up of about 95 percent iron, and the rest will be heavy metals and nickel like gallium or gold.
But this was 12 percent pure nickel.
Sirbescu said: “It’s the most valuable specimen I have ever held in my life, monetarily and scientifically.
Researcher Monaliza Sirbescu with the rock (Central Michigan University)
“Just think, what I was holding is a piece of the early solar system that literally fell into our hands.”
The owner not only used it as a door stop for 30 years, but he also allowed his children to take it to school for show and tell.
Since being evaluated, it has been named the Edmore meteorite, thanks to the area it fell.
The 45-year-old pulled off the staggering £53 million Securitas raid 17 years ago back in 2006, and is currently serving a 25-year sentence in Morocco.
Murray is now speaking up about the record-breaking money heist from behind bars in Salé prison in a new documentary, Catching Lightning. Check out the trailer here:
Murray had long-been dubbed the ‘mastermind’ behind the notorious money heist mission but he has, for the first time, given his version of events from that fateful day.
The 2006 Securitas depot robbery took place in Tonbridge and was the UK’s largest cash heist.
It began with a kidnapping on the evening of 21st February and came to an end in the early hours of the following day, where seven criminals stole almost £53 million from the bank.
The septet also ended up leaving behind another £154 million because they did not have the means to transport it.
Other convictions included Stuart Royle, Lea Rusha, Jetmir Buçpapa and Roger Coutts, who all received 30-year sentences. And accomplices Emir Hysenaj also landed 20 years, Paul Allen got 18 years, and Ian Bowrem received 3 years and 9 months.
Murray got lumped with a quarter of century behind bars and had fled to Morocco with accomplice Allen, where he successfully fought extradition to the UK and was imprisoned there for the robbery instead.
However, Murray is putting all those allegations to bed after appearing in a new four-part Showtime documentary called Catching Lightning.
Speaking about the specifics of his role in the robbery, the martial artist shot down the claims that he was the driving force behind the gang raid.
Speaking from his Moroccan jail cell, the former cage fighter said: “I didn’t have control over it. I weren’t the one to come up with the idea, I weren’t the one who knew where the depot manager lived.
“I weren’t the one who knew what car he drove. I wasn’t the one who had someone who worked on the inside. You know?”
He insisted: “How can I be the mastermind? It was never my idea.
“This robbery was happening whether I was involved or not. It was going down. My role was no more than anybody else’s.”
Murray went on to explain exactly how the gang conned Colin Dixon, the depot manager they’d kidnapped in the heist.
“We flashed him with blue lights like police lights fitted into the grill of the car.
“Once he pulled over, we got out the car, and I went to his window and said to him, ‘Listen, there’s been a problem. I ran your number plate and it’s come back there’s a problem with it. Can you step out the car?'”
Dixon, under the impression that he was talking to real police officers, did as instructed and was subsequently put into a pair of handcuffs.
Murray continued: “Then we said to him ‘Listen, we’re not real police. Just do as you’re told, do as we say’. Obviously, we showed him we had a gun with us.”
Looking back on the situation, the convict admitted: “If I could turn back the clock and change what I done, I wouldn’t.
“Back then, I was a wild man. I didn’t think of the future… I think being in prison, you know, I’m learning from my mistakes. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I made a mistake. A big mistake.”
While Murray is not due to be released from the Salé prison until 2023, he is still holding onto his dream of achieving UFC glory.
“Fighting’s my life. Fighting is in my blood,” he said, “my story isn’t finished. This isn’t the end.”
