Disney is taunting me and testing my knowledge. It’s ON!
Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland
There’s something new coming from Walt Disney Imagineering, and no one knows what it is…yet. For the past several weeks, the Walt Disney Imagineering Instagram account has been sharing mysterious riddles to help us uncover the identity of a thief, and now, yet another pair of riddles has joined the collection. Want to know what it all means? We’re breaking it down!
This whole kit and kaboodle started back at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event. Walt Disney Imagineering hosted a presentation to unveil a new artifact that had been discovered in the S.E.A. (Society of Adventurers and Explorers, a fictional society that has ties to a variety of Disney attraction backstories) archives. But when they went to open the box, the artifact had been stolen!
Where did it go?!
A letter was left in its place, noting that the thief would reveal themselves through a series of riddles. Each subsequent riddle has been posted to the Imagineering Instagram in the weeks following D23. These riddles have led us virtually all over Disneyland, looking for letters that will be in the thief’s name.
Disneyland entrance
Now, the final two riddles have been posted on Instagram! Once you have all the letters uncovered, you can unscramble them to reveal the name of the thief. Check out the latest riddles below.
So who could it be? Let’s see what we can figure out! WARNING: Stop reading here if you want to avoid spoilers or solve the riddles for yourself!
©Disney
The good news here is that we can check our work up to a point. Back on October 6th, Disney Imagineering posted a confirmation of all the letters that had been revealed so far. This list included T, L, A, R, O, E, E, and Z. Then, last week, two more riddles were shared, and we were fairly confident that we decoded them to get letters W and G.
©Disney
So what are the answers to the final two riddles? Well, we ended up getting “I” in regards two the father’s portrait clue — it led us to the portrait of Harrison Hightower III, holding a statue with glowing eyes (eyes = ‘I’). And the final clue? It led us to the plaque of the petrified tree at Disneyland, a certified “time traveler.” In that plaque, there are 14 H‘s.
Society of Explorers and Adventurers Crest
And with the knowledge that Harrison Hightower III is the father, it was easy to unscramble Hightower as the last name, leaving us with the letters Z A L E H. That’s right folks, our mysterious character’s name is HAZEL HIGHTOWER! Her father is connected to Tower of Terror at Tokyo DisneySea.
©Disney
UPDATE: We were RIGHT! Disney has dropped another new post on Instagram formally introducing Hazel Hightower. She left one last letter, saying that she has returned the Rainbow Ridge Jewel. The letter also seems to note that you can pick up a special souvenir at a ticket booth in Disneyland.
Now I can finally sleep peacefully knowing the weeks of riddle-solving have been complete. We’ll keep you in the loop with more Disney news and updates, so subscribe to our newsletter for the latest.
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What did you think of the riddles? Tell us in the comments!
