Massachusetts is home to some strange laws. Many of the laws were passed years, and years ago so they don’t hold up or are enforced today, yet they are still on the books.

There’s One Bedroom Activity That’s Technically Illegal in Massachusetts

One particular Massachusetts law I found interesting is something that people do every day in the privacy of theirhomes: snoring. Believe it or not, there’s a law in Massachusetts (according to multiple sources) that prohibits snoring in your home unless all bedroom windows are closed and securely locked.

Is There Any Logic Behind This Massachusetts Law? 

Okay, in one small way I get that you don’t want to disturb the peace hence, the closing of the windows, but does one snore so loudly that neighbors throughout the neighborhood are disturbed by it? I find that hard to believe but then again maybe it has happened. Laws are formed for a reason. Furthermore, is the locking of windows really going to make that big of a difference?

Another question I have about this is what if I fall asleep in my kitchen, living room and/or basement and those windows are open but the bedroom windows are closed and locked? Is the act of snoring still illegal? Technically the state of the bedroom windows would be following the law.

This is a lot of silliness but it is fun to examine these strange Massachusetts laws and poke holes in them. Residents of Boston, Worcester, the Berkshires, and everywhere in between better take note and keep the snoring to a low roar.

Could you imagine if this Massachusetts snoring law was strictly enforced? Oh, my word. Many of my family members would be paying a fine or spending a night in the big house. This includes me. I wonder if it would be illegal for them/us to snore in jail…lol.

A California man is charged with threatening to shoot up Massachusetts companies over five extremely explicit phone calls.

Originally Published: October 5, 2024 at 8:18 p.m.

We now know the identity of the clever treasure hunter who tracked down a gold statue worth more than $25,000 — though whether he gets to keep tens of thousands more in bounty money apparently remains up in the air.

Dan Leonard, a meteorologist in Andover, Massachusetts, was identified as the winner, not by the founders of Project Skydrop, but by NBC affiliate News Center Maine, which actually introduced Leonard and the people whose puzzle he solved in the woods of Wendell State Forest.

Leonard described the moment to founders Jason Rohrer and Tom Bailey like this: “I’m kind of in disbelief that this is happening. I see the camera so expertly hidden in that stump, and I think, ‘Oh my god.’”

The digital treasure hunt for the gold statue whose value was appraised at $26,536.25 sparked widespread speculation from puzzle enthusiasts and more. The founders created clues to make the search hard, but not too hard, specifying an area where the 10-ounce, 24-karat gold statue could be that shrank every day. People could also pay $20 to receive a daily clue, which helped fund the bounty.

People are searching for a golden statue worth more than $25,000.

The circle was centered roughly on Greenfield, Massachusetts, north along the Connecticut River from Springfield.

The person who tracked the statue down was seen on cameras grabbing the puzzle off the floor, but the Skydrop organizers didn’t hear from him until News Center Maine reached out. Leonard explained that he narrowed down where the treasure could be based on the temperature recorded in the camera, plus the cloud cover and plant life seen in the stream.

When they did meet, Leonard learned there was a catch to claiming the bounty, as News Center Maine reported: the prize could only be accessed by solving clues written onto the trophy itself, which technically meant that anyone with access to the statue could crack the code and claim the money.

Leonard was surprised, but not particularly bothered, saying, “Let’s say I don’t get it: I still had a really good time and got a treasure out of it.”

Rohrer shared more about the circumstances around Leonard’s victory in a message to the game’s official Discord server, a social media chat site where players were able to get more information about what happened.

The winner’s name is Dan Leonard. A news channel up in Maine figured out who he was, based on their meteorologist connections. They connected us with him, and we got to talk to him on camera yesterday. That encounter should appear on the news soon.

Dan joined Project Skydrop for $20 on October 25. He explained how he solved it. Along with weather patterns, temperature data, and cloud cover stuff from the trail cameras, he also depended heavily on the aerial image clues. He said it would have been impossible to solve if:

1. He had no aerial clues
   or
2. We had cropped the temperature sensor data off the camera images.

The aerial clues helped him in two ways. First, they showed him that the treasure was in a large, deciduous beech grove, and there aren’t many large beech groves in the Erving area. Second, they showed him a “map” of what the scene looked like around the treasure (the logs, etc.)

He never had an exact GPS coordinate figured out. He was simply walking the (few) large beech groves in Wendell, looking for the distinctive logs that he saw in the clues.

The temperature sensor data and weather patterns just helped him narrow down the area.

Also, he actually stared right at the treasure and didn’t see it. He walked away, thinking he had found the wrong logs. He was about to leave (he walked off-camera for 1 min and 30 seconds), and then he came back to take one more look, because those logs looked like such a close match. Then, staring at the leaves in the spot he had already checked, he suddenly saw that the treasure was there after all. He said it was almost impossible to see.