Brain Teasers
Beach Murder
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
'I was walking along the beach,' said Sid Shady, 'Watching my kite soar over the ocean when I came upon this body washed up on shore. I immediately phoned the police.' Shadow noted the nearby tracks of a seagull that lead out toward the ocean. 'The gull must have run across the sand in a take-off within the last 20 minutes or else the receding high tide would have washed its print away,' said Shadow. When Shadow inquired about the whereabouts of the kite, Shady said that in his excitement he must have let it go. 'It's probably over the ocean somewhere.' 'It's perfectly calm now,' noted Shadow. 'Yes, the wind suddenly died moments before you arrived,' replied Shady. 'I don't know what you're mixed up in,' said Shadow, 'but your story has a gaping hole.' What is it?
Answer
The seagull's footprints proved that the wind blew from the ocean and not from the land. A seagull, like an aeroplane, will always take off into the wind. Consequently, Shadow knew that Shady was lying about flying his kite over the ocean and quite likely the rest of the story.Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
Yup, i knew there was something not constant about the 2 elements, but didn't know exactly what. Could have been something about wind not blowing in a direction during high tide or something...
This is word for word from a book I had when I was a kid. The names haven't even been changed.
Clearly stolen like several other "Sid Shady", "Sid Ex" stories but a fun puzzle nevertheless.
This is also word for word from a game called Mindtrap. Nice steal, loser.
I think it may be a VERY long time before someone reads this teaser, let alone the comments, but I think credit needs to be given where credit is due. This teaser is written, word for word, off of a playing card from the game Mindtrap. The submitter didn't even change the names or the wording of the solution, so although it may be wrong, it is also copyright infringement and plagerism. FYI-I have this game, which is how I recognized it, and it is a blast!
While everyone was going on about plagiarism, did anyone notice the thing about airplanes? Not all of them need to take off into the wind. That's mostly for the little ones with less powerful engines. The additional airspeed the wind gives it helps with lift.
see i'm confused 'coz it looks like the bird has run towards the ocean in order to fly, and as far as i can work out from the answer, they'll fly the way the wind is blowing, which means the wind is blowing towards the ocean, so it's entirely plausible that the kite went out that way too. if i've misread it, feel free to correct me.
SO HOW DO WE SAY THE TEASER IS OFFENSIVE?
HOW MANY BAD KARMA POINTS DOES THE SUBMITTER GET?
HOW MANY BAD KARMA POINTS DOES THE SUBMITTER GET?
Sweetime, I think it says that seagulls fly AGAINST the wind not with it when they take off.
I love the game Mindtrap, as you can see from my name, but you still shouldn't plagiarize it word for word. You could have at least changed some of the names and worded it differently. Lowest ratings for the teaser, hope you do better next time.
I don't know if I'm the only person that realized this or not, or if I'm wrong, but aren't the winds on a beach a current, with the higher winds moving in the opposite direction, thus pushing the kite in the opposite direction?
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