The Hunt Year was...

2009 Post Hunt

Your online guide to the zaniness of the 2009 Post Hunt!

When: 5/17/2009

Where: Freedom Plaza

(This space intentionally left blank)

(For now)

The Initial Puzzles
NOTE: The puzzle answers are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!

1. There are four brown dogs and five black dogs in the park. If each brown dog sniffs each other dog�s butt three times, and each black dog sniffs each other dog�s butt four times, what is the total number of butt-sniffings that will occur?
B. 18
D. 46
H. It was my understanding that there would be no math.

Answer: H

2. One day Congressman Bob decides to actually read a bill before voting on it. Assuming the bill contains 36,300 words, and he can read 220 words per minute, which of the following statements is most likely true?
J. It will take Congressman Bob one hour to read the bill.
N. It will take Congressman Bob two hours to read the bill.
O. Congressman Bob is imaginary.

Answer: O

3. For years the New York Yankees have had by far the largest payroll in baseball, yet they have been unable to win a World Series since 2000. Why is this?
E. They suck.

Answer: E (Yankees fans may have arrived at a different answer, which possibly explains why no one from New York has won a Hunt in recent memory)

4. What can the letters in "Adrian M. Fenty" be rearranged to spell?
A. "Darn Yam Feint"
C. "Damn Fiery Ant"
F. "Fanny Am Tired"
K. All of the above, as well as "May End In Fart"

Answer: K

5. Why is the National Aquarium located in the basement of the Department of Commerce?
I. It was placed there as a prank by the Department of the Interior.
L. It was delivered there by mistake, but when workers tried to remove it, they were attacked by the National Octopus.
S. Beats me.

Answer: S

Main Puzzles (i.e. the puzzle sites)
NOTE: Puzzle answers and their descriptions are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!

Puzzle: The Airport Security Puzzle
Location: In plaza outside the Ronald Reagan Building
Description:
Hunters arrived at this puzzle to find a gentleman handing out a small piece of green paper. However, in order to get the paper, Hunters had to walk, single file, through a special roped off line. Also, the man handing out the paper was wearing a glove on one hand, and he did not say a word. He also looked a tad peculiar...and familiar...as if you had seen him somewhere recently. The slip of paper that he was giving out said, "Find the missing letters in what I said."
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 6
How to get the answer:
Hunters who had familiarized themselves with the magazine recognized the man immediately as the one featured in the Hunt magazine's "First Person Singular" on page 8 of the Washington Post Magazine. That was the first part of what you had to realize. But reading the column...everything was spelled correctly. What missing letters were they talking about?

The trick here was to realize that the "missing letters" that you were looking for...were not in the article at all. If you looked through the article and crossed off all the letters that were not used, you were left with I, S and X...or, rearranged, SIX. The answer was 6.

Puzzle: The Debate Puzzle
Location: One block west of Freedom Plaza
Description:
Hunters arrived at at this small site located just one block west of the Hunt main stage and saw a man and woman standing at podiums, urging people to read the "Text of House Bill 98999" and to talk to all "435 members of the House" about it, because the "key word is accountability".
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 218
How to get the answer:
Hunters had to realize that they had to send a text message on their cell phones to 98999. But, they also had to send the key word...'accountability'. If the wrong word was used, you received the reply, "Please check your response & try again.". If Hunters correctly sent 'accountability' to 98999, they received the following reply: "The solution is a simple majority." A simple majority of Congress...the 435 members...would be just one person over half of the members...in this case 218.

Puzzle: The Human Statues Puzzle
Location: Outside the Old Post Office, and in various other locations
Description:
Upon arriving outside the entrance of the Old Post Office building, Hunters encountered two human statues. Every so often they would move and pose in a different fashion, and at times, they would take someone's Hunt map and point to it as they posed. Behind them, a Hunt volunteer gave out slips of paper which had the following printed on them:
According to ancient Native American legend,
the Earth was originally pooped out of an eagle.

PLUS

It is believed to be the world's largest freestanding polyp.

MINUS

Little Alice loved hanging out with Uncle Henry, but she kept a sledge hammer ready in case he got frisky.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 580
How to get the answer:
Observant Hunters noticed that in various spots on the Hunt map, there were statues that looked very similar to the human statues that stood before them. Realizing this, they trekked to each of the statues, where they found Hunt volunteers wearing numbered signs that had arrows pointing to the statues they stood next to. The trick now was to find which statues matched the clues on the handout. Roughly, the statues that matched each of the clues are as follows:

According to ancient Native American legend, the Earth was originally pooped out of an eagle. (F6 on the map, volunteer wearing number 424)

It is believed to be the world's largest freestanding polyp. (N11 on the map, volunteer wearing number 313)

Little Alice loved hanging out with Uncle Henry, but she kept a sledge hammer ready in case he got frisky. (J11 on the map, volunteer wearing number 157)

So taking the numbers from each of the statues and applying them to the formula:
424 + 313 - 157

Or 580.

Puzzle: The Bailout Puzzle
Location: At the Hunt main stage
Description:
Right at the Hunt main stage, two men dressed up as Uncle Sam were flinging out small $100 bills to everyone. They looked normal (except smaller than a regular bill) upon initial review. Along with the Uncle Sams, there was a large sign with commodity prices on it:
Oil - $50 per barrel
Corn - $5 per bushel
Kobe Beef - $102 per lb.
Gold - $893 per ounce
Steel - $1,000 per ton
Caviar - $90 per ounce
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 893
How to get the answer:
Looking closely at the bill, on the back, instead of "In God We Trust" it was "In Gold We Trust". The answer was 893.

Puzzle: The Failed Monuments Puzzle
Location: In the green space near the corner of 15th St NW and Constitution Ave NW
Description:
In a large green space across the street from the Washington Monument, Hunters arrived to see three groupings of strange monuments. Hunt staffers indicated that they only needed to be viewed from one side. Looking at them from the correct direction, you had the following:
- A ghost with a cartoon "word bubble" above him, as if it were saying something, and then a cannon (which, according to Dave Barry, was pointed towards the White House)
- An old vacuum cleaner
- A stack of 4 eyeballs next to an hourglass
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 153134
How to get the answer:
Each one of the monument sets was referring to a former President of the United States:
The first set had a ghost which Hunters figured out was saying "Boo" and then you had a cannon next to it. "Boo" + "Cannon" = James Buchanan.
The second monument, the vacuum cleaner, was for Hoover...or Herbert Hoover.
The last set was "Eyes" + "Hour" or Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Near the Hunt stage, Hunters were directed to get their Hunt handout bag, which included a pencil with all the presidents listed. While the pencil indicated the years that spanned when they were president, Hunters couldn't make any sense of that, nor counting the total years they served. What Hunters needed to do was put which number president each was together...
James Buchanan - the 15th President
Herbert Hoover - the 31st President
Dwight D. Eisenhower - the 34th President

Putting all those numbers together, Hunters arrived at the solution: 153134.

The Clues
6. At 3 p.m. we will give you the end.
218. It starts five-three.
580. For cinematic realism, madam, you will be tied to a four-poster bed and compelled to squeal as we tickle your feet with an emu feather.
893. "Do not foreclose on this home, Snidely!" "Indeed I shall not - for two thousand dollars, your daughter�s virginity and 24 toy poodles!"
153,134. Let it (picture of a bee)

The Final Puzzle
NOTE: The final puzzle description is hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!

The Final Puzzle:
At 3pm, Dave strapped on an electric guitar and started to play Old MacDonald, singing:
"Old MacDonald had a farm..."
Dave, Tom and Gene then motioned for the crowd to sing the next line:
"E I E I O!" shouted the crowd back.
Dave then stopped playing and said, "Now turn that over in your minds."
Final puzzle photos and materials...

Solving the Hunt:
When the clues from the puzzle sites were placed in ascending order, all Hunters had to do is follow the order in which they were presented:

The first clue:
6 - At 3 p.m. we will give you the end.

At 3pm, Dave gave the final clue, so this clue's 'purpose' was complete.

The next clue:
218 - It starts five-three.

This tells you that you have 53 as the beginning to whatever Dave gave at the final clue. Dave instructed the crowd to turn "E I E I O" over in their minds...which, if written and flipped over on a piece of paper would look like 0 1 3 1 3. Put those numbers after 53 and you had 5301313...which looked a lot like a phone number. Put the 202 area code on the front and dialing it got Hunters the following recording:
"Look for an important message immediately after four."

This told hunters what to do with the rest of their clues. Look for the words immediate after four...or any variation of it..for...fore...4...
580 - For cinematic realism, madam, you will be tied to a four-poster bed and compelled to squeal as we tickle your feet with an emu feather.
893 - "Do not foreclose on this home, Snidely!" "Indeed I shall not - for two thousand dollars, your daughter�s virginity and 24 toy poodles!"
153,134 - Let it (picture of a bee)

This left Hunters with:
"Cinematic poster close two toy let"
or
"Cinematic poster close to toilet"

On the map there was a toilet at K3. Hunters who raced there found three posters in a store window, but only one of them had a movie connection: it was a poster of R2D2 and C3PO. Alert Hunters realized that these were map coordinates. Looking at the map at those coordinates, Hunters found the following objects:
R2 - A hand
D2 - A jail cell
C3 - "#2"
P0 - A boxer (from the sport of boxing)

Putting these clues together, they meant to convey the following:
"Hand cell number to boxer"

The boxer on the map was at P0, and teams that raced there...didn't find a boxer. They did, however, find a person walking a dog, which was a boxer breed. If they handed their cell phone number to the person with the dog, they had solved the Hunt.
Who won (Congratulations!):
1st place team from D.C.
2nd place team from South Florida, "Daved and Confused"
3rd place team from South Florida, "Weapons of Mass Confusion"

Photos & related materials for the winners...

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Page last updated: Monday, April 29, 2024 2:35:42 AM