Although Boston meteorologist Dan Leonard beat out nearly 9,000 registered treasure hunters to locate a 24-karat gold statue valued at $26,725 in the Wendell State Forest, it was ultimately a dark-horse treasure hunter who cracked the code to the subsequent prize.

In lieu of a $87,600 prize being paid in Bitcoin once the finder of the 4-inch-tall gold statue decoded its symbols, Project Skydrop organizers altered the hunt after photos of the code became widely circulated online. To add a level of difficulty, organizers left a jar of gold coins in the woods of New England that could be found using a puzzle of secret words — and was ultimately located by Boston resident Chris Passmore.

Project Skydrop, created by New Hampshire video game designer Jason Rohrer and creative partner Tom Bailey, took the internet by storm in September and early October, as thousands of registered treasure hunters paid a $20 fee that allowed them to receive exclusive hints in the form of daily aerial photos of the gold statue’s location. A map was also posted at projectskydrop.com, with an initial 500-mile diameter circle revealing the treasure’s location growing smaller every day.

After 11 days, Leonard found the statue in the Wendell State Forest at 5:19 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 1, by monitoring the temperature from the treasure’s trail camera, which was livestreamed at projectskydrop.com, and comparing it to data from weather stations across the region. Additionally, he recognized trees on the trail cam and aerial photos as being beech trees. With a map of beech trees on public land, and a pretty good idea of a quarter-mile site in which the treasure could be hidden, he began combing the woods and found the statue.

He later posted a video recounting how he found the treasure at youtube.com/watch?v=btFEDIAQvAc.

Although Leonard then set to work trying to decode the secret symbols etched into the gold statue, which would help him access the $87,600 Bitcoin prize, Bailey said he and Rohrer had to switch gears when Leonard began showing off the statue online and in interviews with the media.

Bailey said when they came up with the idea for Project Skydrop and began planning, they thought Bitcoin would be a convenient way to pay out the prize. However, they reasoned that people other than Leonard may be able to decode the Bitcoin phrase on the statue once it was in the public eye. To test this, they put a few dollars in the Bitcoin wallet and it was quickly snatched up by individuals other than Leonard.

“We never wanted to just write a check and hand it over,” Bailey said.

So, over the course of three days, Bailey and Rohrer came up with a puzzle using the four secret words Leonard was assigned when he signed up for the exclusive member clues, that when solved would unveil GPS coordinates to a jar containing gold coins.

According to Bailey, Leonard was contacted by Passmore, who offered to help him decode the puzzle, and eventually convinced Leonard to reveal his four secret words. However, Passmore was working with a pair of professional codebreakers to solve the puzzle. Four days after the coins were hidden in the woods, Passmore claimed them.

During a YouTube livestream Leonard said when he watched Passmore take the gold on the trail cam he was devastated. He had solved the cipher giving the GPS coordinates earlier that night, but was talked out of going to collect it by his wife, who said it would be dangerous to go searching the woods in the dark. 

After a few days and sleepless nights, Passmore said he couldn’t handle the guilt of stealing Leonard’s gold and returned it in its entirety. He put the jar in Leonard’s backyard allowing it to be picked up and claimed by Leonard’s son. 

Leonard said he and Passmore are on better terms now, and the gold would go to a college fund for his son. He added that despite the drama he still thinks the treasure hunt was a fun adventure and he is glad he participated, but doesn’t think he will be signing up for any more in the near future. 

“I think I’ve had enough adventures for this year,” Leonard said.

Making of the game

Online commenters have expressed anger with the Project Skydrop organizers, saying they kept changing the rules, including the guidelines for how the prize was meant to be found and claimed.

Rohrer has dismissed the allegations, saying he and his partner spent three years and $70,000 trying to create a fun game that would get people excited to be outside.

While Rohrer said he had set out to create “the perfect treasure hunt,” he said the treasure was found a few days before he anticipated and before the project broke even.

By the end of the hunt, a total of 8,654 people signed up for member-only clues. At $20 each, that gave Project Skydrop a revenue of $173,080. After paying credit card processing fees and setting aside half of the funds for the bounty, Rohrer and Bailey were left with $71,634 in revenue.

But they still had expenses to pay, which included $629 for jewelry-grade wax, $21,633 in gold, $1,000 in wax casting equipment, $28,024 for an animator, $2,051 in soundtrack development, $500 for a voice actor to create an introduction video, $3,943 for professional-grade Reconyx trail cameras, $394 for camera mounts, $1,356 to text daily clues to treasure hunters, $8,000 for a publicist, $2,262 for a press release and $8,102 for an interactive online map, according to Rohrer. He said this came to $77,893 in expenses and a net loss of $6,259.

Rohrer said by the end of the game, people were signing up at a rate of one treasure hunter per minute, and if the hunt had gone on a few more days, he would have made back his investment.

He said it will be a while before he is ready to put together a different treasure hunt, but based on interest expressed by people around the globe, Rohrer may hide a Project Skydrop treasure on either the West Coast, southern United States or Australia.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.