Treasure hunters close in on 10-ounce, 24-karat gold statue valued at $26,000 as map shows potential location

A New Hampshire game designer announced on September 19 that he'd hidden a 10 troy ounce, 24-karat gold statue valued at $26,000 on the forest floor, but now the shrinking map location has treasure hunters closing in.

Jason Rohrer of Dover is one of the co-creators of Project Skydrop - a real life treasure hunt for a gold statue hidden somewhere on public land in the Northeast. 

When the game was rolled out, the map showed the potential search area was a 500-mile radius circle that encompassed New England to Washington D.C.

But on Monday, the map release had limited the area to a 35-mile radius, with the circle closing in on Massachusetts and a tiny sliver of Vermont. 

It's centered on the I-91 corridor in the Pioneer Valley that includes the cities of Amherst, Northampton, South Hadley and miles of thick forest. 

For those players heavily invested in finding the treasures whereabouts, they can pay a $20 registration fee which gives access to a changing aerial map of the forest floor.

The first photo sent out was just a foot off the ground, but by this past Monday, the image rose above the tree canopy, the Boston Globe reported. 

Rohrer said that towards the end of the hunt, the photo will reach a height where players can identify geographic details that will be a major clue for the treasures location. 

Subscribers also have access to clues that are sent out between 9am and 3pm every day.

But clues are sent out in 'first-joined, first-sent order' meaning those who join earlier get their clues first. If someone joins later, they still will have access to clues released from previous days. 

There's also a discord server for subscribers where they can chat about their findings that has a whopping 10,613 members.

For the winner, it isn't just the value of the gold statue they'll be walking away with - the prize bounty is currently valued at $76,372 and steadily rising by the second, as shown on the project's website. 

Internet sleuths are putting their heads together online to figure out the treasure's location - even Rohrer has been participating in threads on his Reddit account. 

On the GeoPuzzle Reddit thread a post, which features a photo from the trail camera that oversees the gold statue, one user commented: 'Also, no visible moss growth. So most likely the camera is facing north.'

Rohrer was seemingly impressed by this find and wrote back: 'Actually, I think you're right. A clever tin can you are!'

Users are also joking about the trail camera photo of a squirrel next to the trophy - as a homage to the original promo video which featured an animated squirrel with the treasure. 

One user posted a picture of a squirrel in the woods and wrote 'found,' that had one Redditor commenting: 'That squirrel knows where the treasure is. If we find the squirrel we find the treasure.'

Rohrer and Tom Bailey collaborated on Project Skydrop over a three year period. Bailey helped to create the game, design the statue and created the music for the impressive announcement video. 

Rohrer has a robust reputation in the world of gaming for his creation of Passage, Inside a Star Filled Sky and A Game for Someone - a game meant to be played 2,000 years in the future that's buried somewhere in the Nevada desert. 

Rohrer told the Boston Globe that his most recent project is his attempt to improve the treasure hunt as a game genre. 

If successful, Rohrer wrote on Reddit that he'd like to make a treasure hunt somewhere in Europe. 

Project Skydrop is expected to be solved by October 10, when the map will shrink to only a single square foot.