What is ‘The Secret’ as featured on Expedition Unknown?

This week Josh Gates and the Expedition Unknown go after some of the remaining treasure from the 1982 book The Secret.

The book was published by Byron Preiss in 1982 and uses a tale and series of paintings to describe the location of certain valuable treasures.

The story starts over 300 years ago and tells of a time when all the fair people, dragons, goblins, fairies and other mythical creatures fled the old world and headed for the new, looking to escape humanities spread. They brought with them all their treasures and jewels, including twelve very special ones.

However, one day they vanished and so did the treasures with only the book containing the secret to their location. The clues are in the form of color paintings that have to be matched up to the verses in the book.

He buried 12 ceramic casques and in each one was a key that could be swapped for a precious jewel. They were hidden in various parks across the USA and only two have ever been discovered.

Josh explains that the reason for more not being found becomes all too clear when you start reading the book, with the puzzles being very hard to solve.

Remarkably three teenage friends found one of them in 1983 and two of them join Josh to relate the story of how they solved one of the puzzles. The casque they found was valued at about $500 and the emerald they exchanged the key for was worth double that.

Preiss died in a car accident back in 2005 so location of the other casques could remain a mystery for decades of nobody manages to crack the remaining puzzles.

Worth noting The Secret is also a film and book that promotes the concept known as The Law of Attraction.

Expedition Unknown airs on Wednesdays at 9:00 PM on Travel Channel.