That gold statue hidden in the woods has been found in Mass.

A treasure hunt that spanned across northwest Massachusetts ended on Tuesday after a man discovered the tiny trophy, worth more than $26,000, somewhere in Wendell State Forest.

A livestream set up by the hunt organizers shows someone reaching down to pick up the statue at 5:19 p.m. Jon and Liz Flis told Boston.com they ran into the winner right as he left the area, trophy in hand.

“He was very genuine, super nice, and calm,” Jon said of the winner, who has not publicly identified himself. The couple own and operate a general store, Flis Market, which is near where the winner found the prize. 

“He was just super excited he had the trophy,” Jon said. 

Video game designers Jason Rohrer and Tom Bailey started the treasure hunt, called Project Skydrop, in late September, according to its website. Rohrer made a gold statue about four inches in height, valued at $26,626.35, and hid it somewhere in the woods, according to a video he posted.

A circle on a map showed the location of the prize on the Project Skydrop website. The catch? The circle started out 500 miles wide, covering land from Washington, DC to much of Vermont.

Its area decreased more and more each day, as broadcasted on the website. The circle was 27 miles wide when the winner found the treasure, according to the live map. Participants paid $20 to enter into the competition and receive exclusive aerial photographs of the prize every day, the Skydrop website said.

One man’s hike is another man’s elaborate treasure hunt

Rohrer did not respond to a request for comment from Bostonn.com. However, he told The Boston Globe on Wednesday that the winner had yet to reach out to him. 

“It’s surreal that it was found so quickly,” Rohrer said to the Globe. “Especially with how mysterious the man is being. He hasn’t reached out to us, which is driving us nuts because we want to know how he could possibly have solved it given the 13 clues that were out.”

Liz said the winner told the couple he was a meteorologist in Boston. She said he used weather tools, local temperature, aerial footage, detailed maps, and cloud coverage to determine the exact location of the statue. He told them he was about to give up, but saw some clouds overhead. He then used the shade patterns from the cloud coverage, cross referenced them with the live stream of the prize, and raced back into the woods to find it.

The statue wasn’t the only prize, according to a video from game creators. Rohrer hid a code for a bitcoin wallet valued at $87,600.00 on the bottom of the statue. However, Liz said the winner told her and Jon that he didn’t want the second bounty. 

“We saw so many reactions about the hunt. I think depending on what was driving you, it changed the experience,” Liz said. “It seemed like he was really driven by the curiosity of finding the treasure.”

Liz said she and her husband started to see a “handful” of cars around the trails as the search went on, with some treasure hunters stopping into the store.

“It was authentic in the best way,” Liz said. “There was such a great spirit about it that I feel gets lost as we grow up in life.” 

According to the Project Skydrop website, the game isn’t over. The website said the circle will continue to shrink. Members will have the chance to make one guess as to the correct longitude and latitude of the prize. The first 20 people to guess correctly will receive a $100 prize, according to new game rules.