The children's book Masquerade was illustrated by Kit Williams, who had, unknown to the publisher, made puzzles out of his illustrations that gave clues to a buried treasure. That was in 1979. People went nuts trying to figure it out, but the story of the golden rabbit is crazier than any of those facts indicate. -via Kottke
I remember some of the hoopla about the treasure hunt. At the time, lots of people were just using brute force, i.e. digging up any piece of public land that someone said Williams once visited. Others theorized that Williams had not actually buried the rabbit but would give it as a prize to whomever solved where it should have been.
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