Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/someone-found-the-1-million-t.html
…
6 Likes
The whole point was to get people outside and into the wilderness.
Brilliant. I wonder if those same treasure hunters who failed in finding the treasure are still hiking about as a result.
20 Likes
I don’t know, an unnamed finder from “Back east” seems awfully convenient. What if this guy was just playing a really long hoax game and this is how he wraps it up?
19 Likes
Go into the outdoors looking for treasure and find out the outdoors IS the treasure. Or like Dorothy, it was inside you all along.
28 Likes
The gold and diamonds were inside me all along?
25 Likes
Instead it sent them to online forums and into libraries and archives as they tried to solve the riddle.
18 Likes
I thought that once. Turned out to be kidney stones
58 Likes
Yeah, absolutely, whole thing sounds pretty suspicious… just skimming Wikipedia it all seems dodgy, what’s that about selling forged paintings in the first paragraph?
3 Likes
I imagine that’s probably true of any suitably sized bunch of random folk connected by some common purpose. In fact 5/350000 seems rather low, but obviously some enterprises are riskier than others.
15 Likes
David Harold Hanson of Colorado Springs, Colo., sued Fenn for $1.5 million, claiming he has deprived him of the treasure through fraudulent statements and misleading clues.
What are the laws and relevant cases when it comes to misleading clues in a treasure hunt? Imagine doing discovery on that case.
9 Likes
That exact phrase activated my bullshit radar.
4 Likes
this seems SUPER fishy. the evasive language (“back east?” why not at least say which state?), and he won’t even show the photo and blur out the person’s face… smells like it was a hoax all along.
3 Likes
Or that the “finder” has some connection with him, like the original modern treasure hunt organized for Kit Williams’ “Masquerade” in 1979.
9 Likes
Yeah, my bullshit flag went off. It was pretty much confirmed for me when he said “oh, someone just followed the clues in my poem and found it no problem”. If those clues were useful it would have been found years ago. The Internet is a giant renderfarm for clue solvers, there is no line between “impossible to solve using the given clues” and “solved within the week”.
This anonymous guy from “back east” is as real as my Canadian girlfriend.
My theory is that after the fifth person died looking for the “treasure” he felt the need to call it off.
10 Likes
Lots of people complaining and suing here. Not a good look for them.
3 Likes
And “Peace on Earth” was all it said.
16 Likes
So someone claims they had the solution then “a big boy stole it and ran away!” Aye, right. Settle the case by showing your working to the relevant judge alongside the solution for a judgement. “Can’t. Me dog ate it.”
7 Likes
A million dollars in gold and jewels says YES.
2 Likes
What are the laws and relevant cases when it comes to misleading clues in a treasure hunt?
I assume that there is some sort of parallel precedent in scavenger hunt law.
2 Likes
