Back in 2015, Forrest sent out arrowheads and portions of a mammoth's tusk to treasure searchers who would send him a self address, stamped, padded envelope. I was lucky enough to get both. I even made a nice display for the mammoth tusk based on the scrapbook post I saw on Dal's site. It's still hanging in my living room.
Like many others, I also received a short handwritten note from Forrest. On each note I noticed a little scribble under the first letter of my name. At first I thought it was just one of those scribbles we all do to get the ink flowing from the pen. But then I noticed the scribbles were strikingly similar. They seemed to have structure or purpose. Of course, after a solid two years of being on the Chase, everything was a clue. I take that back. Everything was a hint. There were only nine clues. That's something else I had learned after two years of following the discussions.
Anyway, gold fever had led me to develop SchizoFennia (skit-suh-fe-nee-uh: a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally as a result of searching for Forrest Fenn's treasure. SchizoFennia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that causes one to interpret anything Forrest Fenn says, writes or does as potential hints or clues that point to the location of his treasure).
And so, I thought Forrest was trying to tell me something. The scribbles must have been some sort of code, some sort of direction, some sort of HINT. I did all sorts of research. I even looked for Native American symbols that might have a similar look. Sure enough, I found one (kind of): water. Well, that would be related to my solve so I made it fit. Needless to say I was pretty excited to have such an inside track to the treasure.
In early 2017, Dal posted Forrest Gets Mail 15. I've shared the image here for reference. "Obviously," this mail was a creation of Forrest. The "email" was in composition mode. Forrest was trying to send a message, I thought. It was often debated in the blogosphere whether Forrest was trying to send messages to those who knew what to look for. Well, in my SchizoFennia, I received this one. As I looked at this image on Dal's site, I saw the scribble again. But this time, it was in the form of a creek. And in the creek was a rock. And on the rock was an X. It just doesn't get much more exciting than this! I mean just look at the shape of the scribbles again. And then look at that creek. They have the same number of bendy points. It must be intentional, right?
Anyway, time went by. I went out West and did a couple more searches. We had a great time exploring and seeing the sights. I would do my searches every morning from 4am to about 7am. Because I had to. But that's another story. I came home empty-handed, but full-hearted. Such grand adventures and great memories for the whole family. I settled into a bit of complacency. Gold fever was gone. It only took about 5 years for my perspective to shift. There were times, though, when the Scribbler would reappear. Someone posted this photo of Forrest signing a copy of his book. I found the X interesting because the whole arrangement was similar to the "Forrest Gets Mail" post. So it got me thinking.
On my last trip searching for the treasure in 2019, before it was found, I tried to get a new perspective of my search area. Imagine my surprise when I looked at my search area from above and saw this: a little bendy creek with a rock that had an X on the top.
Now that the veil has lowered a bit, searchers have begun to share their stories and their coincidences a bit more openly. Some of us have even started coming to terms with our SchizoFennia. So I was wondering, who else has that mysterious little scribble in a note from Forrest? What do you think it means? Why does he do it? I think maybe that might be the question I'd submit if there's ever another six questions or featured question. 😉