NH treasure found by local meteorologist

The search for hidden treasurer is over. 

Project Skydrop is a game created by New Hampshire’s Jason Roher and his partner Tom Bailey, of California—and its big prize was found last Tuesday in Wendell State Forest in Massachusetts. The winner was Dan Leonard, a senior meteorologist at The Weather Company in Andover, MA, the News Center Maine first reported.

The hunt for the treasure began Sept. 19, when the game designers hid a 24-karat gold statue valued at just over $25,000. The only initial clue? It was hidden somewhere within a 500-mile radius of New England. Each day, the game designers posted photographic clues. A photo on Sept. 29, for example, showed a squirrel with the treasure amidst a pile of fall leaves.

The game designers learned that a player had discovered the treasure last Tuesday, but the winner remained a mystery until Thursday, when Leonard revealed himself.

Leonard used his meteorological skills to track down the treasure. First, he looked at the trees.

 “This is the type of forest I was looking for—maples, oaks, ash,” he told News Center Maine.

Then, he turned his gaze toward the clouds.

“It was sunny where I was, and then I checked the webcam image, and it was cloudy. So, I just studied where the clouds were,” Leonard told the news station.

But the trophy Leonard takes home isn’t the only prize on the line. He now has a shot at claiming about $90,000 in bitcoin.

Roher and Baily made the bitcoin pot of gold by adding $10 from each entry fee during the hunt. With around 9,000 participants, the bitcoin prize pool skyrocketed to nearly $90,000.To unlock the coin, Leonard must solve a 12-word recovery phrase by 9 a.m. on Oct. 10.

It’s not too late to join in on the game. The project creators are giving gamers until Oct. 10 to claim a second place prize for guessing the exact coordinates of the treasure. The first 20 people who submit the closest guesses before 9 a.m. will receive $100 each.