Abstract. Accurate numerical solution of the five-body Schrödinger equation is effected via variational Monte Carlo in a correlated quark model. The spectrum is assumed to exhibit a narrow resonance with strangeness S = +1. A fully antisymmetrized and pair-correlated five-quark wave function is obtained for the assumed non-relativistic Hamiltonian which has spin, isospin, and color dependent pair interactions and many-body confining terms which are fixed by the non-exotic spectra. Gauge field dynamics are modeled via flux tube exchange factors. The energy determined for the ground states with J π = 1 2 − ( 1 2 + ) is 2.22 GeV (2.50 GeV). A lower energy negative parity state is consistent with recent lattice results.A system of interacting, non-relativistic constituent quarks is the most simple, realistic model of hadronic systems. Solving the many-body Schrödinger equation to determine wave functions within this simple model is still a formidable task owing to the strong flavor, spin, and color dependence of the quark-quark interaction and traditionally requires some array of approximate methods to solve it. The controversial status of the recent evidence of a flavor exotic five-quark state warrants a careful treatment of this strongly interacting system. We have determined the wave function of five interacting constituent quarks in the flavor-exotic multiquark hadronic sector is solved using the variational Monte Carlo (VMC) technique [1]. This technique is known to yield upper bounds on the ground state energy accurate to the level of a few percent in light nuclei with the number of nucleons A ≤ 6 [2].Recent experimental evidence (for reviews see [3,4]) has revived interest in the multiquark flavor-exotic sector of the hadronic spectrum. Various model calculations have been reported (an overview is given in [5]) which study the existence of a strangeness S = +1 resonance, dubbed θ + , about 100 MeV above threshold to nucleon-kaon decay with low mass of 1540(2) MeV and possibly extremely narrow width of 0.9(3) MeV [6]. Lattice results are available, including Refs. [7,8]. High statistics photoproduction data of the reaction γ p →K 0 K + n from the CLAS collaboration [9] sets an upper limit on the yield of the θ + relative to the Λ * (1520) yield at 0.2%. No definitive structure in the nK-invariant mass spectrum is observed at 1540 MeV in this experiment. No experimental information is available on the spin or parity of the state in any experiment done to date.We study the θ + in the non-relativistic flux tube quark model with one-gluon exchange (OGE) and one-pion exchange (OPE) (between the light quarks). We take seriously the possibility that θ + is a narrow resonance and calculate its mass as a stable