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MIT Mystery Hunt Puzzle Index: Category Index

Hobbies and Arcane Knowledge

The following keywords are related to information from very specific fields, many of which may be considered hobbies by some people. But one man's hobby is another's arcane knowledge, so they are grouped together here.

abacus

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Blind Calculation

Advice Animal meme

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Exhibit of Colors

alchemy symbols

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Mixed Drink
MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Biological Garden
MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 The Central Science
MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Drafting Table
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Do You Want A
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Wizard's Escape
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Don't Get Eaten

American Girl dolls

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 American Icons

angelic hierarchy

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Holiness Meta

apocalypse dates

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Hunt-Life 3 Confirmed!

Ars Goetia

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 The Devil's in the Details

ashtamangala

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Witness 3 Meta

astrology

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Astrologer

Aztec calendar

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Altar (Meta)

Babylonian numerals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 A Scholarly Lesson

baby names database

The Social Security Administration in the United States has made available, from their database of every American born in about a century, a database that lets you look up the popularity of first names over time.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Thank Heaven for Little Girls

ballroom dancing

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Ballroom

Barbie dolls

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Princess of South Africa
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Day 2 meta

Beanie Babies

MIT Mystery Hunt 1999 New Orleans
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Warm and Fuzzy

bee waggle dance

A dance bees perform to indicate the location of a source of nectar to other bees.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Follow the Bees!

Bhavacakra (Buddhist Wheel of Life)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 12-Step Program

bird calls

MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Calling You from My Cell
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Birds
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 People Watching

blueprints

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Prints

calculatrivia

Long ago, back before the Internet made hard trivia easy and impossible trivia doable, Games magazine ran a series of contests which consisted of nothing but a zeries of trivia questions whose answers were all numbers and a complicated equation to plug all the numbers into.

MIT Mystery Hunt 1998 18.617 Number Theory
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Trivial Mathematics
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Exactly

cannabis

See marijuana

castrated animals

Did you know there are special names for castrated male animals?

MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Two Outs, Two Strikes, and...

celebrities' original names

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 A Rose By Any Other
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Soul-searching
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Chromesthesia
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Costume Change

celebrity deaths

MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 In Memoriam

ceramics

MIT Mystery Hunt 1982 Subclue #12

change ringing

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Method to the Madness

Chinese zodiac/calendar

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 A Pile of Pictures
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Mary Ka-Ching's
MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 March Madness
MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 20 Questions
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Tea Party Meta
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Trainer
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Bracketeering
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Dating Stars

circular periodic table

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 King Arthur Meta

coats of arms

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Nauseator

collective names for animals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 A Bunch of Boxes, a Collection of Clues
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Spades Meta
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Merriweather Post Pavilion
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Birds of a Feather
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Nature Hike

combination locks

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Locks
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Your Birthday Town

"Cooking with Dog" (YouTube show)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Dog Food

costumes

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Costume Ball
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Infinite Robot Parade

Crayola colors

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Tickle Me Pink
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Harold an dthe Purple Crayon

crocheting

See also knitting.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 What Do You Do With a Genteel Sailor?
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Uncharted Territory
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Arts and Witchcrafts
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Charlotte's Web

cross-stitch

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Uncharted Territory

crosswordese

This refers to words which often appear in American-style crosswords, while being rare in typical English. Usually these are words which start and end with vowels, or have many vowels, as grids often require such words and there are far fewer of these than other patterns.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Filler Puzzle

cures

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Doctor's Orders

currency ISO codes

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 People and Places
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Finsey Gillhone
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Coins
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Climate Change

dancing

These puzzles also appear under their specific dance names, for example, square dancing, ballroom dancing, and swing dancing.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Barn
MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Ballroom
MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Do Sa Do
MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 War Dances
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Now is the Time on Kronos When We Dance
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Where the Hell is Captain Blastoid?
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Lobster Quadrille
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Smart Moves
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Dance Party
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Torsion Twirl

demons

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Hell's Kitchen

dog food

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Paddywhack

dog hybrids

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Half and Half

dog shows

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Paddywhack
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Ribbons (Meta)
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Dog

drill sizes

MIT Mystery Hunt 1994 1
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Hole Wizard

DTMF dialing tones

See Touch Tone dialing tones (DTMF)

Ermahgerd! meme

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Graveyard Meta

etsy.com

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Trochees, Etc.

expired facts

Things that were true at one time, but which are no longer true.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 This Puzzle Has No Errata
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Unraveling the Mystery

eye chart

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Sightseeing

fashion designers

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Blue Steel (floppy disk)
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 On the A Line
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Bad Air Day

fictional dogs

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Something for Everyone

fictional weapons

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Excalibur

flower meanings

Historically, specific flower types and in particular giving one to someone carried specific meanings. These meaninsg have varied across cultures and over time, but whole books have been written about the subject.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Pluck the Petals

four horsemen of the apocalypse

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Atlantis Meta Meta

full moon names

See moon names from Farmers' Almanac

Garbage Pail Kids

MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 You Don't Need No Stinkin' Cue Cards

Gen Con

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 A Most Congenial Odyssey

geomancy

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 4D Geo

ghost leg

An Asian lottery system in which a number of prizes are distributed among as many people by means of a "ladder" diagram with one vertical line per person/prize and irregularly spacd horizontal rungs connecting two adjacent lines. The rungs are hidden and the prizes are assigned to the lines at one end, while people pick positions at the other end, and they determine who gets what by tracing a path through the lines.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Tikki Tikki Tembo
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Conjuri's Request

ghosts

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 The Graveyard

G.I. Joe

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Knots and Crosswords

guns

MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 Choose Your Weapon

haunted places

MIT Mystery Hunt 2001 CPPC

Hebrew numerals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Once is Happenstance
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Head for the Kitchen

heraldry

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Charges
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Cruciform Heraldry
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 A Vexing Puzzle
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Breakfast Menu
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Shields

hexagon dancing

Variation on square dancing for 6 couples arranged in a hexagon.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Everybody Dance Now

high school CEEB codes

These codes are used to identify your high school when taking the SAT and in college applications.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Senior Superlatives

hillside letters

These are giant letters commonly build on hillsides in the American west., visible in satellite maps and from the ground in the surrounding area.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Art of the game.such.fame!

hobbies

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 The Deadly Hobby of Murder

Icelandic Yule Lads

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Rotten Little Scamps

invisible ink

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Final Runaround
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Get Smart (Meta)
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Watch Your Back
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Treasure Chest Meta

Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 The Dogged Pursuit of Justice, AKA: Caught Red-Handed

juggling

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Recombination

knitting

See also crocheting and knitting patterns.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Whoa-I Know Knitting
MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Do You Know Where Your Needles Are?
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 Quick Paws
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Uncharted Territory
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Knit Square
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Worrying Ziggurats
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Arsenic
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Don't Look
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Diplomatic Cables
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Charlotte's Web

knitting patterns

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Arsenic

Konami code

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start, a code for activating Easter eggs in many video games.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Gaming the System
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 FedEx

The Language of Flowers: An Alphabet of Floral Emblems

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Pluck the Petals

Lao numerals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Numeracy
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Pictocryptolists

Latke vs. Hamentaschen debates

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Provision

Lego

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Assembly Line
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Growth Involves Reconstructing Legos
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Master Pieces
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Tricks with Bricks
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 A Block Party

lip reading

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Temple of Macuilxochitl

magic tricks

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 Twosquare

marching band drill sheets

Instructions that tell performers in a marching band how to move in order to create the formations typically seen in halftime shows of college football games.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Football Team on the Marching Field

marijuana

MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Potlines
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Fine Dining

Marvel alternate Earths

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Harmony

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Wolf

medical names for conditions

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Doctor's Orders

military pay grades

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 A Puzzle with the Answer EIGHT DAYS A WEEK
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Above Your Pay Grade

military ranks

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Above Your Pay Grade
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Is There a Draft in Here?

MIT named rooms

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Prints

moon names from Farmers' Almanac

In the 1930s, the Maine Farmers' Almanac started labeling full moons with names supposedly derived from Native American traditions, and the Farmers' Almanac (a different publication) does so today. These names have become a feature of American folklore.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Tea Party Meta
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 What a Mesh!

musical instruments

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 A Puzzle with the Answer LOVE ME DO
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 It's Play Time
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Keeping Tabs
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Playing A Round
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Football Team on the Marching Field

mustaches

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Headshots

My Little Pony

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 The Sport of Princesses
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Missing the Mark
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Fashionable Friends

mythical beasts

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Monty Minotaur's Magical Menagerie
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Wizard's Escape

nail polish colors

MIT Mystery Hunt 2001 Blood of the Creatures
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 I Came Across a Japanese Rose Garden

Name of the Year

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 How To Install a Handle

navigation way points (fixes)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Travel Planning

nerdy pastimes

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Stuff Nerd People Like

nicknames

MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 AKA
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Playing Bootsie
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 It's a Clown Puzzle, Bro

nicknames for playing cards

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 The Dogged Pursuit of Justice, AKA: Caught Red-Handed

non-water floods

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 H2No

novelty architecture

Buildings built in unusual shapes, sometimes intentionally shaped like something else, but still usable as buildings.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Cupid's Guide to Building Long-Distance Relationships

numerology

MIT Mystery Hunt 1982 Subclue #10

paper airplanes

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Rhino

paper dolls

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 American Icons
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Flat Stanley

parts with unusual names

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Things

phone phreaking

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Making the Possible Impossible
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Drive-Thru Dilemma

picking locks

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Final Runaround
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 The Queen of Hearts
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Locks
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Crack Some Crypts

Piet programming language

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Sleeping Gypsy Meta

Popy Chogokin robot toys

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 The Unutterable, Antediluvian Robots in Disguise

pot

See marijuana

punch cards

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 The Gibbous, Non-Euclidean Program

Queen Elizabeth's corgis

MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Family Tree

quilting

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Metrology
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Uncharted Territory

quipu

Quipu was a native South American record keeping system in which numbers are recorded in a base-ten system using groups of knots in a string as the digits.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Ropes

Rainbow Serpent

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Aborigine Dream Fragment

rescue and salvage ships

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Captain

ribbons (substitute military medals)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Stripes

rigged dice

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Game

ring sizes

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Tree Ring Circus

roadside attractions

MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Roadside America

Roscolux lighting filters

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 New Year's Town/Holi Town Meta

Rube Goldberg machines

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 The Cat's Combobulation

scouting

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Badges, Badges, Badges
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Cubs Scout

selfies

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Friendship
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Peter is the bomb!

sephiroth (tree of life)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Biological Garden
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Safer Sephiroth

soil types

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Wolf

Sporcle (trivia web site)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Mentally Stimulating Diversion
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Badges, Badges, Badges

square dancing

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Barn
MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Do Sa Do
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Square Routes
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Lead Right
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Everybody Dance Now

stages of grief

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 The Maniacal Merchants

state superme court seals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Museum Rules

Strava (cycling and running app)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Swedish Strivers

swing dancing

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Ballroom

the Taco Bell $2 bill story

This is an old story, perhaps an urban legend, about a guy who got a free taco because the employees of a Taco Bell didn't know there was really such a thing as a $2 bill.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Pippi Långstrump/Pippi Longstocking

Tamil numerals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Pictocryptolists

tarot cards

Most often, this refers to the Major Arcana, 22 uniquely named, numbered cards which represented a trump suit in the game this deck was originally designed for. But the suits and ranks of the non-trump cards are also sometimes used.

MIT Mystery Hunt 1999 Taipei
MIT Mystery Hunt 2001 Runaround
MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Dealing With Change
MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 Rite Awaits Myth
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Quest for the Truth
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 The Treehouse of Crossed Destinies
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Anima Oratorio
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Heart of the Cards
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Homemade Photography
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Diced Turkey Hash

Thai numerals

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Numeracy
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Pictocryptolists
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Once is Happenstance

The Happy Squirrel (tarot card introduced by The Simpsons)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 The Treehouse of Crossed Destinies

Touch Tone dialing tones (DTMF)

MIT Mystery Hunt 1998 6.551J/HST.714J DEF TUV TUV OPER OPER
MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 Rant
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Calling You from My Cell
MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Redundant Obsolescence
MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Making the Possible Impossible

Transformers

Toy line with cartoon series and movies depicting the robots who transform into vehicles and some other things.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Altered Beasts

tree of life (cabbala)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Biological Garden

turkeys pardoned by the U.S. President

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Thanksgiving Town/President's Day Town Meta

Vikings

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Epic Raft Battles of History

voting systems

MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Voter Fraud

Voyager Golden Record

the golden records sent into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Golden Images

Wacky Packages trading cards

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 Collect Them All

Webby awards speeches

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Don't Cross an Alpha Bitch!

weird laws

MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Museum Rules

West Coast Swing Dancing

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Ballroom

Westminster Kennel Club

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Ribbons (Meta)

Whitman coin folders

These are a common series of coin holders for collectors trying to collect every year and mint mark variety of a particular coin.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Wishing Fountain

yoga poses (asanas)

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Delightful

zodiac

This refers to the western zodiac. For the Chinese version, see Chinese zodiac/calendar

MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 The Maniacal Merchants
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Pestered
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 To Numbers and Back Again
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Dating Stars

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