Below you can find 5 observation puzzles, which means that the answers may be more obvious than you think.

The asterisks (*) indicate the difficulty of each puzzle. If you manage to find the answers, write them in the comments at the bottom of the page! Good luck!

Puzzle 1 “Names” (*)

Anna’s mother has three other sons. Since she is passionate about money, she has christened her eldest son “Pound”, the middle one – “Franc” and the minor one – “Dollar”.

How has she christened her daughter?

Puzzle 2 “Old Testament” (*)

How many animals of every kind did Moses take on the ark with him?

Puzzle 3 “The French Revolution” (***)

I am a servant of a wealthy noble couple (husband and wife) in France just before the outbreak of the French Revolution. Every day, I am with them and know them well. Listen to a story about them and then I will explain what I want:

The couple had a strange tradition. When they went somewhere in a carriage and it was pulled by white horses, the lady wore black gloves. Respectively, when it was pulled by black horses, the lady wore white gloves.

One Sunday, they wake up and decide to go to Notre Dame. Having arrived at the church, the lady goes off the carriage and sees that she is wearing white gloves while the carriage has white horses! Feeling a bit puzzled, she says to her husband:

– Can you go and get me my black gloves from home? I will be waiting inside the church.

– Okay, he says and leaves.

She enters the church and takes a pew. Sitting there, she falls asleep and dreams that the rebels captured and killed her husband. At that moment, someone touches her and she dies of a heart attack.”

There is something absurd in this story, something that cannot be true. Can you find it?

Puzzle 4 “The Spy” (***)

Once an American spy went to a Russian military camp seeking to obtain information on behalf of America. But to succeed, first, he had to get into the camp. So he hid near the entrance to see the way the Russian soldiers get in. At some point, a Russian soldier appears and the guard stops him and says “six”, the soldier answers “three” and passes inside.

The spy notes it and continues waiting. After a few minutes, another soldier comes and the guard says “twelve”, the soldier answers “six” and also passes. Now the spy is sure about how to enter the camp, so he wears a Russian uniform and heads to the entrance.

The guard stops him and says “four”, the spy answers “two” and then the guard raises his gun and kills him.

What mistake did the spy do so that it led to this outcome?

Puzzle 5 “The ungrateful collector” (****)

A wealthy art collector has planned a plane trip abroad for an important auction. On the morning of the same day but a few hours before the departure, his night watchman calls him and says that the night before he had had a very bad dream: The plane falls and all passengers are dead.

The collector tries to reassure him but he is so insistent that the dream seemed very real, which finally persuades him to cancel the flight. And indeed a few hours later, the flight crashes with tragic consequences for all passengers. The collector gets upset and immediately calls the watchman and tells him that he is very grateful for saving his life, but unfortunately, he has to fire him!

Why did the collector fire the watchman?

How many of these observation puzzles did you manage to solve?

P.S. The answers will be published soon in another post or in the comments below. In order not to miss them, you can subscribe to the comment feed for this post or to the blog category Brain Power.


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This Post Has 31 Comments

  1. Aquas

    1:Anna
    2:None, it was Noah on the arc
    3:Not sure but I think she would have seen the horses when she left the house.
    4:He should have said “twelve” repeating the last thing the amarican guard said.
    5:The watchman saved his life but he was still sleeping on the job.

  2. Chris

    1. Anna

    2. Two

    3. There are no rebels yet, as this is before the revolution.

    4. Four and two don’t add to a multiple of nine.

    5. The night watchman had to be sleeping on the job in order to have his dream at night.

  3. Anna

    Well done guys!! You are absolutely right about the 1st and the 5th puzzles. Aquas is also right about the 2d one. What about the 3th and the 4th puzzles, I will publish the answers soon.

    1. NO

      “Anna’s mother has three other sons.” This would imply that Anna is a son and there is no comment about how many daughter’s Anna’s mother had.

  4. Logan

    3: Since when saw the horses prior to getting on the carriage in the first place, the horses were switched

    4: should have counted the letters in the numbers instead of doing the math

  5. sandro

    3. ???
    4. the right answer is “four” as it is the count of letter of the number the guard say.

  6. Ferretash

    is the answer to #4. 4?

  7. Gizmo

    1 The daughter’s name is Anna
    2 Moses didn’t have an ark. Noah did
    3 The butler couldn’t know what she was dreaming
    4 He spoke english?
    5 NIghtwatch guard fell asleep iin duty

  8. meh

    4) The code is you have to say the number of letters in the number. Six has 3 letters. Twelve has 6 letters. When told four, the American should have said 4

  9. Sam

    3. The husband wouldn’t need to fetch her gloves if they have a servant?

  10. Varro

    Number 4 is about the number of letters in the word the guard shouts. ‘Six’ has three letters, ‘twelve’ has six, so the spy should’ve said “four” since ‘four’ has four letters.

    Number 3: maybe it’s that the servant say s/he is servant of a husband and wife and is with them all the time, even though the wife presumably is dead? Or the other way round: the wife can’t be dead if the servant is with them every day.

  11. Morgan

    The spy is easy. Six has 3 letters and twelve has 6. The answer to Four is 4.

    As for the French noble one, the most absurd thing in the story seems to be that the Woman sends the husband to fetch her gloves rather than the servant who is always with them, but I assume that is incorrect.

  12. Chris

    In puzzle 3, why would the husband be running the errand if the servant was present?

  13. Kim

    Puzzle 4 he should have replied with four, the number of letters in the word.

  14. Ashley

    In puzzle 4, he should have said four. They are saying how many letters are in the word. Three letters in “six,” six letters in “twelve,” and four letters in “four.”

  15. Alex Wojtak

    3. If she died in her sleep, no-one could know what the dream was about.
    4. He should have replied “four”, as that’s how many letters were in the word the guard said. Not sure why they’re speaking english in a russian military camp though!

  16. dBaker

    3. It was Sunday at Notre Dame – she couldn’t sleep there during service.

  17. Chris

    In Puzzle 4, the spy’s mistake was to derive a rule (the answer is the guard’s number divided by two) from making only two observations. He should have tested his hypothesis by watching the guard stop more soldiers.

  18. Hammer

    The Russians had to answer how many letters long the number was the guard said. Six is Three letters long, Twelve is Six, he should have answered Four.

  19. Anna

    You are right guys!
    The answer to the 3d puzzle is: she died in her sleep so no one could know what she was dreaming about.
    The answer to the 4th puzzle is: the spy should have said how many letters there were in the word the guard said so the answer is four. Of course they were speaking Russian I guess, but the puzzle is in English so what to do :mrgreen:

  20. Waitwat

    In puzzle 4, why are the guards and soldiers worried about how many letters are in the English words for the numbers?

    1. Anna

      yes, you are right!

  21. Erd

    The spy’s mistake was not waiting for a third person to establish a pattern. Any number of ‘trends’ can fit two data points.

  22. sergeant flynn

    N0.3 How do we know what her dream was if it killed her ??

    1. Anna

      that’s right!

  23. Jack

    Well, really there are many answers to number 3.
    Firstly, she would have seen the horses before they had departed, or the horses had been switched during the journey.
    Secondly, they were nobles, and their servant was present, so she would have sent him/her instead of her husband.
    Thirdly, it was a Sunday, and Notre Dame is a cathedral, so the service would have prevented her from sleeping there.
    Fourthly, she had died from a heart attack before she could tell of her dream to anyone.
    Lastly, the French Revolution hadn’t even started yet, so even if she had been able to tell someone her dream, why would it have been of rebels murdering her husband?

  24. bored intellectual

    What the woman’s dream was of bothers me more than the fact that others knew if she dreamt it before the french revolution what rebels would she have been afraid of?

  25. Lurch666

    Puzzle 4).The correct answer is how many letters are there in the word the guard says.
    puzzle 5)The watchman was asleep on duty.(night watchman had a dream the night before)

  26. Shubham

    1. Anna (Observe the question carefully again).

    2. Moses and ark hahaha

    3. She died so how the dream is known to the servant.

    4. Guard was asking how much letters there are in the word he is speaking six has 3 words and twelve has 6 words.

    5. Night watch man sleeps during the night

  27. Hitesh

    Quite interesting puzzles…specially the 4th one…

  28. jarcher

    There’s a flaw in the thinking concerning Puzzle #4. I think the intended correct answer is as people have said above. The guard is asking for the number of letters in the word so “twelve” is “six” and “six” is “three”. But, if you think about the scenario, this would only work if the Russian guard were speaking English which he likely would not have been. It doesn’t work for the Russian number words. Just food for thought. I like the puzzles!

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