Yesterday, Valleywag offered up to $100,000 cash as part of a scavenger hunt to turn up clues to the existence of Apple’s fabled tablet. Today, Apple fired back with a cease & desist notice from their attorneys, which has fueled speculation that, yes Virginia, there really is an Apple tablet.

In a tongue-in-cheek column earlier today, Valleywag’s Gabriel Snyder announced that Apple themselves had won the first prize in the “Tablet Scavenger Hunt” by unleashing attorney Michael C. Spillner of Menlo Park-based law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe on the popular tech blog. The legal firm wrote, on Apple’s behalf, a letter requesting that the Scavenger Hunt be stopped immediately, citing that “Apple has maintained the types of information and things you are soliciting…in strict confidence.”

But is Spillner’s letter an acknowledgment that an Apple tablet actually exists? The buzz says yes, and history has shown that when rumors get a little too real for Apple’s liking, they send out the attack dogs in the form of such cease & desist letters.

For example, there’s the case of Nick Ciarelli, the former publisher of Apple rumor site Think Secret. After publishing details about an unreleased music product codenamed “Asteroid” in January, 2005, Ciarelli was slapped with a civil lawsuit that eventually got the site shut down for good after a three-year court battle. According to a Wired interview with Ciarelli, it’s believed that Apple’s ultimate goal wasn’t to shut down the site but rather to “hunt down the mole(s) feeding Think Secret information.”

Valleywag had good intentions: They were simply tired of the tablet speculation and rumors and wanted to turn up something legit. According to AppleInsider, the publication offered $10,000 for pictures of the long-rumored tablet, $20,000 for a video of it in action, $50,000 for pictures or video of Apple CEO Steve Jobs actually holding one and a whopping $100,000 if someone could actually produce one that the staff could use for up to an hour.

Apple’s C&D letter makes it clear that by just offering such a bounty in the first place, the website is asking anyone with actual tablet knowledge to break their non-disclosure agreements by revealing the company’s trade secrets. The letter gives Valleywag until 6:00 PM PST today to comply with the request or face whatever legal retribution Jobs. & Co. decide to throw at them.

We’ll keep an eye on this breaking story -- like everyone else, we’d certainly like to see some real proof of an Apple tablet before it’s rumored to be introduced in San Francisco on January 27th.

"Item removed" image courtesy of AppleInsider