July 6, 2023 • 28 mins
In 2010, an art collector named Forrest Fenn published a memoir called “The Thrill of the Chase,” in which he described hiding a treasure chest somewhere in the United States. His memoir inspired hundreds of thousands of treasure hunters to scour the country for it. Now, over a decade later, much about this chest still remains a mystery.
You can read Svati Kirsten Narula’s story “America’s Greatest Hidden Treasure Was Found—So Why Are People Still Looking?” here: https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/a43061508/forrest-fenn-treasure-hunt/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, I was Fati Kirsten a Rula, and I wrote
America's greatest hidden treasure was found? So why are people
still looking for popular mechanics? And it's the story of
the week.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This week's story is about a treasure hunt. So before
I did my interview, I immediately called my good friend
Chris Harris, who is a very successful TV writer, but
more importantly to me right now, is an expert at
treasure hunts. Chris Harris, thank you for taking the time.
I know you're very, very busy right now. This is
(00:52):
between pickating.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got my two to four pm
shift at the Fox Loot walking around carrying a sign.
This will be much more civilized.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We had the same job in college together, writing a
humor column. I continued that job, whereas you had an
incredibly successful career writing for Letterman. How I met your mother,
But most importantly, did a show called The good Win Games,
which is why I wanted to talk to you, And
it's based on this thing you love to do, which
I believe you're the one who got me to do this.
In college. I stayed up all night one night and
(01:21):
we drove around the Bay Area looking for clues. You know,
I'm realizing I drove my station, Mike, and I probably
you chose me because I could fit a lot of
people in my car.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
There is sometimes a utilitarian component to them. Yeah. It
was a twenty four hour, non stop hunt, driving around
trying to solve a clue that tells you where.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
To go next. You've taken me to like the modern
version of this, which is the escape room.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Escape room.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yes, I did with your family and my son, and
we felt so stupid. Would just walk up to something
on the wall and be like, oh, clearly Botswana and
we'd be like, what, it's a picture of a cow.
What is going on? And the good Win Games was
about a guy. I watched all of them, so I
know is a guy who died and for his will
(02:07):
he asked his kids to kind of do one of
these hunts.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, and it was about three adult siblings coming back
together after their father's death because he knew that they
were each broken in some way and he was hoping
that through these games and puzzles they would sort of
find their way, and instead it ended up breaking us.
Because the head of Fox at the time hated the
game affect of it hated it right, always told us guys,
(02:31):
I love the game, and then would go behind the
scenes and tell everyone else I hate the game. Literally,
the title is the Goodwin Games, and we were told
less games, less games, less games. Do you mean no
games because we can just turn it into something else.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Do you think he was right and that viewers weren't
interested in the game part?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Uh, It's hard to say how much interest there is
in solving puzzles among the general population. Every once in
a while, people will try to come up with them. Oh,
here's a book, and if you solve everything in it,
there's a million dollar prize. And no one ever seems
to really care.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Except for this one. You know, the forest thing. One
huge and went.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
On for a very long time and it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
All right, we're gonna go tell that story now.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Writing is hard.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Who's got that kind of time.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
When you're already busy trying to dijon stand So.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It turns on a mike.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Maybe the twiddles enough because a journalist trand.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Has got in that juble job out single story. Just
listen to smart people speak.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Conversation, Film and information is the story.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Of in twenty ten, a man named Forrest Fenn hit
a chest with more than a million dollars worth of
treasure inside. He gave clues about where the treasure might
be hidden in his memoir, which set off what has
(04:04):
been called by some the greatest treasure hunt in American history.
He Kirsten Rula wrote about it for Popular Mechanics. Suddie,
thank you for doing this. Your story is about so
many people, but to me, it's mostly about Forrest Fenn.
Who is that dude?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He is an eccentric art dealer. He really cultivated this
air of being like a swashbuckling, not rebel, but someone
who didn't necessarily follow the rules, and someone who was
very adventurous.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Which was true, right, kind of like Indiana Jones is
she always has that fedora on.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
For the most part. Yeah, he lived an adventurous life.
He was in the Air Force, He went to a
lot of different places when he was young, and.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Then he somehow became an art dealer. Yeah, but that's
kind of like Western art dealer. I'm picturing like, oh,
those statues of guys on horses.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah, is that kind of thing. Plus so
much more. Forrest Fen's house it was just like a museum.
There were artifacts in there from King kutz tomb, you know,
like a smoking pipe from Sitting Bull, all of this
crazy stuff. Fenn was investigated by the FBI in two
thousand and nine because they suspected that a lot of
it had been looted, but nothing came of it.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
And then so he gets cancer at some point.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, so he had cancer in the eighties and he
came up with this idea to hide this treasure chest
and it's a literal treasure chest in his favorite spot
out in the mountains. So the whole idea was that
he was going to lay down and die of this
cancer next to his treasure and then he wanted people
to come look for the treasure, but they'd essentially be
(05:44):
robbing his grave.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Why what motivates someone to do this?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I think wanting to leave a legacy. Because ultimately the
cancer did not kill him, and later he decided, you
know what, I'm not going to wait to die. I'm
going to go ahead and hide this now and I
want to be alive and watch people search for the treasure.
And when he did that, he said his motivation was
to get people outside, you know, forrest Fenn was someone
who loved the great outdoors, had a flung love of
(06:10):
fishing and hunting and things like that, and he wanted
to inspire more people to get off their couches and
go explore.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I like when you call it the great outdoors, not
just the outdoors, the great outdoors.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
They are great.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So he decides, even though it's not gonna be next
to his body, he's going to bury this treasure. And
it looks what does this thing look like? It's an
actual chest, right, it's.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
An actual chest. And he told one of his friends
at the time, Douglas Preston, that he thought what was
inside of it was worth about a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
What's inside of.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
It Ruby's other jewels, regular artifacts. He also had something
inside of it that was purported to be his autobiography.
That was something that people really seized on and we're
looking forward to seeing.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But he published, which is like unpublished autobiography. Yes, oh,
so this would be like the only copy of it. Yeah,
like the Wu Tang album that Martin Schrikelly bought. Yeah,
oh okay, So he's got his autobiography plus a bunch
of and it looks like one of those like dungeons
and dragons like metal chests totally. But I would imagine
(07:15):
that if some art dealer in New Mexico buried a chest,
no would care. I mean, how do you get people
interested in this? Well?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
He wrote a memoir about it. He wrote a book
called The.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thrill of Not the one in the Chest.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
No, this is a different one. He self published a
book called The Thrill of the Chase, and that was
like the map to the treasure. Basically there was a
poem in it, and the poem had all the clues.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
We have a recording of this poem read by Forrest
Bend himself. I'm excited to hear it.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Are you going to play it now?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, we've got the technology.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
If you've been wise and found the blaze, look quickly
down your quest to cease. But Terry scant with marble gaze.
Just take the chest and go in peace. So why
is it that I must go and leave my troll
for all to seek the answers already? No, I've done it, tired,
and now I'm weak. So here me all and lesson good.
(08:10):
Your effort will be worth the cold. If you've been
brave and in the wood, I give you a title
to the Gold.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Okay, I think I got it. I think it's in
the Misty Mountains.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh well, wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
He sounds like Gollum a little bit, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I don't know what he sounds like.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Is that considered a good poem or that's not even
the point?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I haven't even thought about it. It's a fine poem,
I suppose.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Okay, it's fine. Rhymes rhyme.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And so why do people even believe he really hid
this thing?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
One thing you have to remember about this whole thing
is that Forrest was extremely credible. It was not hard
to believe that a He actually owned all this treasure
and put it in a chest, and b that he
actually hid it somewhere in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I'm just realizing, is if a wife and kids who
are like not getting their like inheritance because it's all
being buried somewhere.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I don't think this is even like a tenth of
Forest's fortune.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh really?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay, yeah, I think he had so much else if.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Your parents took a tenth of what they have and
buried it somewhere, you'd be cool with that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
They Yeah, I would. It's just a tax I would
do right.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, right, yeah, it's like tax yeah. And so he
writes this mediocre at best poem in a self published memoir.
How many people wind up looking for this treasure?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The psychology professor named Alan King estimated it was four
hundred thousand people.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
No way, four hundred. It's more than the population of Cincinnati.
There's no way four hundred thousand people were looking for this.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I believe it. Think about it. I mean this went
on for about ten years, and in that time, I mean,
especially with all the media attention, it got one of
this people I spoke to this for the story. He
found out about it reading an airline magazine. Imagine if
you in twenty fifteen, we're on an airplane and you
read about this and you realize, huh, people have been
(10:13):
looking for this for half a decade. It's treasure. It
could change my life, and it's just out there in
the wilderness for anyone to find.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Here's here's a hole in your theory. When have you
ever read an airline magazine article and it caused you
to do something?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I don't know. Probably a lot of times. Southwest used
to have a great airline magazine.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I miss them so much.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Okay, so what is going on a hunt for forest
fens treasure look like for most people?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
For most people, it's a lot of time online. They're
on message boards, they're on Reddit forums.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh so it's collaborative, it'sople working together.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, and that was kind of an interesting part of this.
I think it was really important for people to get
info on where others have looked already, because once you
made the decision to actually go search physically for the
it was an investment. So it was really important for
them to learn from each other. And you know, hear
(11:14):
someone say, yeah, I went to this river, I went
to this fishing hole. I didn't see any sign of it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
But after you parse all the clues and look things
up online, you still have to go on an adventure
physically in the world. They're going in canoes, They're like
going helicopters. What are people doing?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
No helicopters that I know of a lot of rental
cars being abused. They would learn after a couple of
trips like, oh, we need to spring for the rental
car with four wheel drive. Yeah. Some people were just
going out for essentially day hikes. Other people found themselves
hiking sixteen miles at a time. Other people found themselves
(11:51):
nearly drowning in rivers and needing to call search and
rescue services. Yeah, there was one guy. He got so
committed to it. I mean he ended up in jail
one night after searching over the treasure because there are
certain things you're not allowed to do in national parks,
and he got in big t you can't go in
certain places, and you know they told him at a
(12:13):
certain point, like, don't come back here, and he came
back and that's how I think he ended up in jail.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
So, Okay, of all these searchers, what's their relationship like
with Forrest Vent. It's weird to have someone alive who
knows the answer, like to the end. They must be bothering.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Him, Yeah, totally. You know, Forrest was willing to communicate
with people about this. He used to sort of hold
court in this bookstore in Santa Fe and people would
come visit him and talk to him, and you know,
he really seemed to relish having people come. You know,
he was a celebrity. He was like a little local
celebrity and then a national celebrity, and people would come
visit him and try and talk to him about the hunt.
(12:51):
You know, you would say something like I'm going to
go look here to look for the treasure, and he
would just like wink at you. And then people would think, Oh,
he's confirming my suspicions.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Oh, he becomes like an oracle for his own prediction.
Oh that's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
And he kept publishing things on his own website where
he would say, you know, hi everyone, just here's a
you know, a story from my childhood about fishing. People
would think that there were clues in that.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Wait, were there were those clues?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I don't think so, but people thought they were.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Of course they would. Yeah, so she is just loving
his fan.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I think so. I mean, it's a little bit twisted,
and one of the reasons why when I was reporting
on this it was frustrating. I think the whole thing
is frustrating. I think Forrest just like drove people crazy,
and it was something that was hard for me to
relate to. You know, when you think about all the
searchers who are hanging on his every word and trying
(13:53):
to draw connections between the cinnamon and his spice cabinet,
and the fact that maybe one of them had emailed
him that they were going to look and simmer on
New Mexico, you know, and they thought, oh, that's a clue. Like,
I can't relate to that.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
What seems so weird to you?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
The obsessiveness and the like grasping for things that aren't really.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
There, Uh like a conspiracy theory kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, Okay, this is gonna sound silly. But one thing
I thought about a lot while I was working on
this story is how similar Forced Fen is to Taylor Swift.
Do you know how like Taylor Swift's fans are sort
of obsessed with finding like secret clues whenever she like
paints her nails a certain color or she like, no,
you don't know about this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I don't know about that. This is what I'm supposed
to know about. This is what I'm getting judged for. Sorry,
I don't know what happens when Taylor Swift paints her fingernails. Honey,
I'm a fifty one year old man. I barely know
who she is. Is she a country singer?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I have no wag Taylor Swift fan, but I can't
stand Taylor Swift's fandom. Millions of people will try to
decode the fact that her nail Polish was purple and
say it means that her next album is going to
be this. People just making crazy pret out of nothing,
and she plays into it. I don't understand why people
(15:13):
are reading things that don't exist.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
They're so desperate for more information about the future. So
these four hundred thousand people, you think they have a
very specific psychology.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know, they're persistent, they enjoy problem solving, they enjoy
riddles and puzzles. I mean one of the guys that
I talked to a lot for this story was soone
named Ryan Bavetta.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Okay, what's Ryan like.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
I mean, he's a pretty normal guy. I would say
he has a wife and kids. He lives in California.
He's an MIT graduate. He worked for Google at one
point in.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
His life, like an engineer type.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yep, he's an engineer. And you know when he started
working on this treasure hunt. By that point, by twenty eighteen,
some people had sort of devoted their lives to searching
for this treasure full.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Time wait, full time, Yeah, like a job.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah. And Ryan Bavetta was like, I'm not the type
of guy who's going to start doing this full time.
So I'm just gonna look at it. I'm gonna see
what I can do. I'm gonna maybe take one or
two trips to search once I feel like I have
a good idea of where it could be, and that's it.
I'm going to be chill about it.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So what were these trips like that he took.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It sounds like they were really fun. Actually, oh, he
went to Yellowstone twice and then he went to New
Mexico once. You know, he, like many other searchers, had
read about these places in Fenn's books. And I think
even without the forest Fence story, the first time you
go to Yellowstone National Park, you're gonna be impressed. You're
(16:47):
gonna have fun. And then to have a purpose that
is driving you to go into a part of the
park that maybe other people haven't explored, that's just exciting.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah. So it can be fun, But is it dangerous
for other people or is it always just a good time?
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I mean it can be dangerous. Five people died.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Five people died looking for this strategy.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, how ah. You know, this stuff happens going out
in the back country, especially by yourself, right.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Like drowning or frostbite.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Or drowning frostbite, getting off dehydration.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, so five people died. Does far as men think
about calling this whole thing off when that did?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yes, So in twenty nineteen, he seriously considered calling it off.
He was getting pleased from law enforcement in various states,
including New Mexico, to call it off. Wait, why they
were sick of people dying and looking for people who
were in danger?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, and then people are getting more intense about bothering
him too, write for answers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, someone had sent him a letter deorizing that his
granddaughter was the treasure, and so that person was sort
of threatening to kidnap his granddaughter. Oh, multiple people broke
into house.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Multip people broke into his house.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, this is directly from the email that Forrest wrote.
He says, I quote another searcher kicked a door down
to gain access to my property. He then shattered a
glass door with an axe and was removing a wooden
chest when my daughter and I held him at gunpoint
until the SWAT team arrived.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
My daughter and I. This whole family's badass. My god. Wait,
my favorite part of the email is there's another chest
in his house?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Oh yeah, sure there.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
You just got chests everywhere yeah, so did anyone ever
come close to finding this treasure?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
People did, and at one point Forrest even wrote, I
know someone has been within five hundred feet of the chest.
Oh and you can guess how crazy people went when
they saw that, you know. Yeah, they were like, who
was it? There's just a lot a lot of speculation there,
and then someone finally found it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
When we return, we'll find out why the search didn't
end even though the treasure had been found. But first
our advertisers are going to offer you great treasure. You
don't even have to leave your house for God, we're soft.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So is June of twenty twenty when someone finally found
it and then released a photo of the chest.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Is it like a huge ceremony like at the end
of Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
No, that would have been great.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So people must be disappointed. There's so many people doing
this full time.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, incredibly disappointed. People described like crushing grief,
like they couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Right, the whole purpose of your life has been looking
for this thing. Yeah, and now it's over.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It's like if they just got rid of the NFL,
like the whole country would be lost.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Some of us would celebrate.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, so who finds this chest?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So it took a long time for everyone to know
who this person was. Came out that it was an
anonymous person from back East, and everyone was like, who
who is this? And what Ryan Bavetta told me, the
Google engineer guy, he actually was relieved. Ryan was someone
who more just wanted to solve the puzzle, and so
(20:25):
when he found out that someone had found it, he
was like, great, We're gonna get the answer soon. This
is gonna like soothe my brain.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
It right exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Exactly. So he was like great, and then he started
to get a little impatient because all they knew was
it was an anonymous person from back East. Apparently Forrest
Fan kept saying all will come out in due time,
and they kept thinking, we're going to find out, We're
going to find out. And then Forest Fen died.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Oh before he announced where the chest had been. M
Do you suspect foul play?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I've not heard anyone speculate that he was murdered. This
is a podcast, so we have to talk about murder
on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
It would help, it would help. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
The most popular conspiracy theory seemed to be more along
the lines of Forrest knew he was going to die,
and he wanted it to be found before he died,
and so he chose someone to help.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Do you buy that? Not really, So no one knows
who found it, so we do now.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So the person met with Forest Fenn, But then I
think he decided to stay anonymous. Unfortunately for this anonymous finder,
someone else in the search community filed a lawsuit asserting
that you know, whoever found it must have hacked into
her computer and stole her solution to the poem.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
This is a stupid law This is stupider than the
Gwyneth Paltrow skiing lot.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
It.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, it does sound stupider than that. For whatever reason,
something about the lawsuit made it clear to the person
who found the chest that his identity was going to
come out, and so to sort of head that off,
in December, he reveals himself on medium dot com. Who
is Well, he doesn't. He doesn't give his name at
(22:17):
the time, so he's trying to stay anonymous, which really
upset people. He said, I'm aware some people hope this
lawsuit will reveal what the clues and the poe meant
and where the treasure was located. But I feel a
responsibility to keep that a secret. So people were like,
what the heck?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, why would he not want to tell people where
it was?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
At that point, it wasn't quite clear. His name did
come out. His name is Jack Stuff and he is
from Pennsylvania. Ryan Bavetta actually was one of the people
who sort of helped figure out who Jack Stuff was
based on, you know, some Reddit posts that matched up.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
There was like a little separate treasure hunt to figure
out who found the treasure hunt exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
This became its own thing.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, was there treasure in there?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Oh? Yeah, the treasure was real. And this past November
Stuff put it up for auction and he said, I've
never told anyone where I searched, other than someone whose
job requires them to know, and I never planned to
do so.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Wait, so people are still searching for the treasure spot
even though the treasure is gone. Yes, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
People want to know if they were close to figuring
this out. I've got to go see for myself.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So Ryan about the Google engineer is still searching, still
using the poem, but he has other clues now I
assume since it's been found.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, he feels like he's honed in on a location
pretty well based on things that Jack Stuff has said. Now,
because Jack Stuff has done a couple more medium posts,
he's answered some questions from people.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But Ryan's also filed some FOYA reports to get more information.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Right, Yes he has. I think what he got was
emails between Yellowstow National Park officials which confirmed that the
treasure had been found in the park.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Is that cheating or is that just like another angle,
like a meta search.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I don't think there's any cheating at this point. If
it's not there anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Right, you just want the answer, it's just bugging you.
So it doesn't even matter what way you find out.
You just need to know where this spot is totally. Oh,
how many people are still searching for the treasure?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I don't know, but a fair number yet.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Maybe maybe the real treasure with the friendships these people
made along the way.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Now, that was the idea I was going for with
this whole story. Really, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I was making fun of you.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
No, really, really people found community. People really did make
solid connections with each other just from these online forums
where they were talking about the treasure.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I mean there are stories of like guys who are
now playing dungeons and dragons together after searching together.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Of course these are my people. Yep.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You know. Ryan Bavetta has since like linked up with
other treasure hunters who are looking for other things, and
he's just realized that this is something he enjoys doing.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
What kind of treasure hunt has he moved on to?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
You know?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
What Ryan Bavetta moved on to recently is in San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park. They think there's one of twelve
ceramic boxes hidden in this park. Apparently there are twelve
of them hidden across the US from a writer named
Byron Price. When Ryan Bavetta told me about this, he
was like, you know about the Price boxes? And I
was like, no, I don't know about the Price boxes.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
You got your next story right there. You're gonna be
this is your beat for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Please know?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Do you think you know where the treasure was hidden?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I feel around nine Mile Hole in Yellowstone Park. I
think that's what everyone who has really been devoted to
this has landed on.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
But how will the searchers ever know if they're right
now that there's no X to mark the spot anymore?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, I mean my best guess is like someone has
to kidnap jack Stuff and force.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Him to tell let's do it. Let's do it. That's journalism.
This is bullshit what we're doing. Let's just that's what
you do. You grab the guy.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, it's the only optional. Let's do this.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Okay, Okay, this is an adventure. The other stuff I'm hiking,
I'm taking a boat out. That's not an adventure. Us
finding Jack stuff, tying them up and we make them talk.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Okay, let's do it. Okay, you can do it, and
I'll write about it.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Ugh Svadi Kirstindrula, you wrote America's greatest hidden treasure was found,
So why are people still looking for popular mechanics? And
it's inspired me to commit crimes. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
You're very welcome.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
In each of the thirty previous episodes of Story of
the Week, I've dropped a clue that leads to a treasure.
To find these clues, you'll probably have to download each
episodisode several times. Giving each episode five stars unlocks further clues.
I can't say more, but still download this stuff again.
Just do it.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
At the end of the show, what's next for joel Stein?
Maybe you'll take a naper Poker Round online.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Our show is produced by Joey fish Ground and nishaven Cut.
It was edited by Lydia Jan Kopp. Our engineer is
a Manda kay Wang and our executive producer is cath
Ronald cher Ado. Our theme song was produced by Jonathan Colton.
A special thanks to my voice coach Vicky Merrick and
my consulting producer Laurence elast Night. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
(27:49):
listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein and this is
story of the Week. I don't know any chess. Do
you own any chess?
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Hm?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yes you do? Yeah, well kind of chest?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Do you a little wooden chest that I have sweaters
and blankets in yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh yeah, you know, they're probably chests in my house
I have that sounds familiar, like a thing of scarf somewhere.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Maybe right. I didn't buy any of this stuff.
Pushkin, I was Fati Kirsten a Rula, and I wrote
America's greatest hidden treasure was found? So why are people
still looking for popular mechanics? And it's the story of
the week.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This week's story is about a treasure hunt. So before
I did my interview, I immediately called my good friend
Chris Harris, who is a very successful TV writer, but
more importantly to me right now, is an expert at
treasure hunts. Chris Harris, thank you for taking the time.
I know you're very, very busy right now. This is
(00:52):
between pickating.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got my two to four pm
shift at the Fox Loot walking around carrying a sign.
This will be much more civilized.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We had the same job in college together, writing a
humor column. I continued that job, whereas you had an
incredibly successful career writing for Letterman. How I met your mother,
But most importantly, did a show called The good Win Games,
which is why I wanted to talk to you, And
it's based on this thing you love to do, which
I believe you're the one who got me to do this.
In college. I stayed up all night one night and
(01:21):
we drove around the Bay Area looking for clues. You know,
I'm realizing I drove my station, Mike, and I probably
you chose me because I could fit a lot of
people in my car.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
There is sometimes a utilitarian component to them. Yeah. It
was a twenty four hour, non stop hunt, driving around
trying to solve a clue that tells you where.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
To go next. You've taken me to like the modern
version of this, which is the escape room.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Escape room.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yes, I did with your family and my son, and
we felt so stupid. Would just walk up to something
on the wall and be like, oh, clearly Botswana and
we'd be like, what, it's a picture of a cow.
What is going on? And the good Win Games was
about a guy. I watched all of them, so I
know is a guy who died and for his will
(02:07):
he asked his kids to kind of do one of
these hunts.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, and it was about three adult siblings coming back
together after their father's death because he knew that they
were each broken in some way and he was hoping
that through these games and puzzles they would sort of
find their way, and instead it ended up breaking us.
Because the head of Fox at the time hated the
game affect of it hated it right, always told us guys,
(02:31):
I love the game, and then would go behind the
scenes and tell everyone else I hate the game. Literally,
the title is the Goodwin Games, and we were told
less games, less games, less games. Do you mean no
games because we can just turn it into something else.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Do you think he was right and that viewers weren't
interested in the game part?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Uh, It's hard to say how much interest there is
in solving puzzles among the general population. Every once in
a while, people will try to come up with them. Oh,
here's a book, and if you solve everything in it,
there's a million dollar prize. And no one ever seems
to really care.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Except for this one. You know, the forest thing. One
huge and went.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
On for a very long time and it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
All right, we're gonna go tell that story now.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Writing is hard.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Who's got that kind of time.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
When you're already busy trying to dijon stand So.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It turns on a mike.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Maybe the twiddles enough because a journalist trand.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Has got in that juble job out single story. Just
listen to smart people speak.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Conversation, Film and information is the story.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Of in twenty ten, a man named Forrest Fenn hit
a chest with more than a million dollars worth of
treasure inside. He gave clues about where the treasure might
be hidden in his memoir, which set off what has
(04:04):
been called by some the greatest treasure hunt in American history.
He Kirsten Rula wrote about it for Popular Mechanics. Suddie,
thank you for doing this. Your story is about so
many people, but to me, it's mostly about Forrest Fenn.
Who is that dude?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He is an eccentric art dealer. He really cultivated this
air of being like a swashbuckling, not rebel, but someone
who didn't necessarily follow the rules, and someone who was
very adventurous.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Which was true, right, kind of like Indiana Jones is
she always has that fedora on.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
For the most part. Yeah, he lived an adventurous life.
He was in the Air Force, He went to a
lot of different places when he was young, and.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Then he somehow became an art dealer. Yeah, but that's
kind of like Western art dealer. I'm picturing like, oh,
those statues of guys on horses.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah, is that kind of thing. Plus so
much more. Forrest Fen's house it was just like a museum.
There were artifacts in there from King kutz tomb, you know,
like a smoking pipe from Sitting Bull, all of this
crazy stuff. Fenn was investigated by the FBI in two
thousand and nine because they suspected that a lot of
it had been looted, but nothing came of it.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
And then so he gets cancer at some point.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, so he had cancer in the eighties and he
came up with this idea to hide this treasure chest
and it's a literal treasure chest in his favorite spot
out in the mountains. So the whole idea was that
he was going to lay down and die of this
cancer next to his treasure and then he wanted people
to come look for the treasure, but they'd essentially be
(05:44):
robbing his grave.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Why what motivates someone to do this?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I think wanting to leave a legacy. Because ultimately the
cancer did not kill him, and later he decided, you
know what, I'm not going to wait to die. I'm
going to go ahead and hide this now and I
want to be alive and watch people search for the treasure.
And when he did that, he said his motivation was
to get people outside, you know, forrest Fenn was someone
who loved the great outdoors, had a flung love of
(06:10):
fishing and hunting and things like that, and he wanted
to inspire more people to get off their couches and
go explore.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I like when you call it the great outdoors, not
just the outdoors, the great outdoors.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
They are great.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So he decides, even though it's not gonna be next
to his body, he's going to bury this treasure. And
it looks what does this thing look like? It's an
actual chest, right, it's.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
An actual chest. And he told one of his friends
at the time, Douglas Preston, that he thought what was
inside of it was worth about a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
What's inside of.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
It Ruby's other jewels, regular artifacts. He also had something
inside of it that was purported to be his autobiography.
That was something that people really seized on and we're
looking forward to seeing.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But he published, which is like unpublished autobiography. Yes, oh,
so this would be like the only copy of it. Yeah,
like the Wu Tang album that Martin Schrikelly bought. Yeah,
oh okay, So he's got his autobiography plus a bunch
of and it looks like one of those like dungeons
and dragons like metal chests totally. But I would imagine
(07:15):
that if some art dealer in New Mexico buried a chest,
no would care. I mean, how do you get people
interested in this? Well?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
He wrote a memoir about it. He wrote a book
called The.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thrill of Not the one in the Chest.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
No, this is a different one. He self published a
book called The Thrill of the Chase, and that was
like the map to the treasure. Basically there was a
poem in it, and the poem had all the clues.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
We have a recording of this poem read by Forrest
Bend himself. I'm excited to hear it.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Are you going to play it now?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, we've got the technology.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
If you've been wise and found the blaze, look quickly
down your quest to cease. But Terry scant with marble gaze.
Just take the chest and go in peace. So why
is it that I must go and leave my troll
for all to seek the answers already? No, I've done it, tired,
and now I'm weak. So here me all and lesson good.
(08:10):
Your effort will be worth the cold. If you've been
brave and in the wood, I give you a title
to the Gold.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Okay, I think I got it. I think it's in
the Misty Mountains.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh well, wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
He sounds like Gollum a little bit, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I don't know what he sounds like.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Is that considered a good poem or that's not even
the point?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I haven't even thought about it. It's a fine poem,
I suppose.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Okay, it's fine. Rhymes rhyme.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And so why do people even believe he really hid
this thing?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
One thing you have to remember about this whole thing
is that Forrest was extremely credible. It was not hard
to believe that a He actually owned all this treasure
and put it in a chest, and b that he
actually hid it somewhere in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I'm just realizing, is if a wife and kids who
are like not getting their like inheritance because it's all
being buried somewhere.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I don't think this is even like a tenth of
Forest's fortune.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh really?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay, yeah, I think he had so much else if.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Your parents took a tenth of what they have and
buried it somewhere, you'd be cool with that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
They Yeah, I would. It's just a tax I would
do right.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, right, yeah, it's like tax yeah. And so he
writes this mediocre at best poem in a self published memoir.
How many people wind up looking for this treasure?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The psychology professor named Alan King estimated it was four
hundred thousand people.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
No way, four hundred. It's more than the population of Cincinnati.
There's no way four hundred thousand people were looking for this.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I believe it. Think about it. I mean this went
on for about ten years, and in that time, I mean,
especially with all the media attention, it got one of
this people I spoke to this for the story. He
found out about it reading an airline magazine. Imagine if
you in twenty fifteen, we're on an airplane and you
read about this and you realize, huh, people have been
(10:13):
looking for this for half a decade. It's treasure. It
could change my life, and it's just out there in
the wilderness for anyone to find.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Here's here's a hole in your theory. When have you
ever read an airline magazine article and it caused you
to do something?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I don't know. Probably a lot of times. Southwest used
to have a great airline magazine.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I miss them so much.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Okay, so what is going on a hunt for forest
fens treasure look like for most people?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
For most people, it's a lot of time online. They're
on message boards, they're on Reddit forums.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh so it's collaborative, it'sople working together.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, and that was kind of an interesting part of this.
I think it was really important for people to get
info on where others have looked already, because once you
made the decision to actually go search physically for the
it was an investment. So it was really important for
them to learn from each other. And you know, hear
(11:14):
someone say, yeah, I went to this river, I went
to this fishing hole. I didn't see any sign of it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
But after you parse all the clues and look things
up online, you still have to go on an adventure
physically in the world. They're going in canoes, They're like
going helicopters. What are people doing?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
No helicopters that I know of a lot of rental
cars being abused. They would learn after a couple of
trips like, oh, we need to spring for the rental
car with four wheel drive. Yeah. Some people were just
going out for essentially day hikes. Other people found themselves
hiking sixteen miles at a time. Other people found themselves
(11:51):
nearly drowning in rivers and needing to call search and
rescue services. Yeah, there was one guy. He got so
committed to it. I mean he ended up in jail
one night after searching over the treasure because there are
certain things you're not allowed to do in national parks,
and he got in big t you can't go in
certain places, and you know they told him at a
(12:13):
certain point, like, don't come back here, and he came
back and that's how I think he ended up in jail.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
So, Okay, of all these searchers, what's their relationship like
with Forrest Vent. It's weird to have someone alive who
knows the answer, like to the end. They must be bothering.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Him, Yeah, totally. You know, Forrest was willing to communicate
with people about this. He used to sort of hold
court in this bookstore in Santa Fe and people would
come visit him and talk to him, and you know,
he really seemed to relish having people come. You know,
he was a celebrity. He was like a little local
celebrity and then a national celebrity, and people would come
visit him and try and talk to him about the hunt.
(12:51):
You know, you would say something like I'm going to
go look here to look for the treasure, and he
would just like wink at you. And then people would think, Oh,
he's confirming my suspicions.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Oh, he becomes like an oracle for his own prediction.
Oh that's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
And he kept publishing things on his own website where
he would say, you know, hi everyone, just here's a
you know, a story from my childhood about fishing. People
would think that there were clues in that.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Wait, were there were those clues?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I don't think so, but people thought they were.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Of course they would. Yeah, so she is just loving
his fan.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I think so. I mean, it's a little bit twisted,
and one of the reasons why when I was reporting
on this it was frustrating. I think the whole thing
is frustrating. I think Forrest just like drove people crazy,
and it was something that was hard for me to
relate to. You know, when you think about all the
searchers who are hanging on his every word and trying
(13:53):
to draw connections between the cinnamon and his spice cabinet,
and the fact that maybe one of them had emailed
him that they were going to look and simmer on
New Mexico, you know, and they thought, oh, that's a clue. Like,
I can't relate to that.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
What seems so weird to you?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
The obsessiveness and the like grasping for things that aren't really.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
There, Uh like a conspiracy theory kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, Okay, this is gonna sound silly. But one thing
I thought about a lot while I was working on
this story is how similar Forced Fen is to Taylor Swift.
Do you know how like Taylor Swift's fans are sort
of obsessed with finding like secret clues whenever she like
paints her nails a certain color or she like, no,
you don't know about this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I don't know about that. This is what I'm supposed
to know about. This is what I'm getting judged for. Sorry,
I don't know what happens when Taylor Swift paints her fingernails. Honey,
I'm a fifty one year old man. I barely know
who she is. Is she a country singer?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I have no wag Taylor Swift fan, but I can't
stand Taylor Swift's fandom. Millions of people will try to
decode the fact that her nail Polish was purple and
say it means that her next album is going to
be this. People just making crazy pret out of nothing,
and she plays into it. I don't understand why people
(15:13):
are reading things that don't exist.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
They're so desperate for more information about the future. So
these four hundred thousand people, you think they have a
very specific psychology.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know, they're persistent, they enjoy problem solving, they enjoy
riddles and puzzles. I mean one of the guys that
I talked to a lot for this story was soone
named Ryan Bavetta.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Okay, what's Ryan like.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
I mean, he's a pretty normal guy. I would say
he has a wife and kids. He lives in California.
He's an MIT graduate. He worked for Google at one
point in.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
His life, like an engineer type.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yep, he's an engineer. And you know when he started
working on this treasure hunt. By that point, by twenty eighteen,
some people had sort of devoted their lives to searching
for this treasure full.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Time wait, full time, Yeah, like a job.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah. And Ryan Bavetta was like, I'm not the type
of guy who's going to start doing this full time.
So I'm just gonna look at it. I'm gonna see
what I can do. I'm gonna maybe take one or
two trips to search once I feel like I have
a good idea of where it could be, and that's it.
I'm going to be chill about it.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So what were these trips like that he took.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It sounds like they were really fun. Actually, oh, he
went to Yellowstone twice and then he went to New
Mexico once. You know, he, like many other searchers, had
read about these places in Fenn's books. And I think
even without the forest Fence story, the first time you
go to Yellowstone National Park, you're gonna be impressed. You're
(16:47):
gonna have fun. And then to have a purpose that
is driving you to go into a part of the
park that maybe other people haven't explored, that's just exciting.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah. So it can be fun, But is it dangerous
for other people or is it always just a good time?
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I mean it can be dangerous. Five people died.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Five people died looking for this strategy.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, how ah. You know, this stuff happens going out
in the back country, especially by yourself, right.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Like drowning or frostbite.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Or drowning frostbite, getting off dehydration.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, so five people died. Does far as men think
about calling this whole thing off when that did?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yes, So in twenty nineteen, he seriously considered calling it off.
He was getting pleased from law enforcement in various states,
including New Mexico, to call it off. Wait, why they
were sick of people dying and looking for people who
were in danger?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, and then people are getting more intense about bothering
him too, write for answers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, someone had sent him a letter deorizing that his
granddaughter was the treasure, and so that person was sort
of threatening to kidnap his granddaughter. Oh, multiple people broke
into house.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Multip people broke into his house.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, this is directly from the email that Forrest wrote.
He says, I quote another searcher kicked a door down
to gain access to my property. He then shattered a
glass door with an axe and was removing a wooden
chest when my daughter and I held him at gunpoint
until the SWAT team arrived.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
My daughter and I. This whole family's badass. My god. Wait,
my favorite part of the email is there's another chest
in his house?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Oh yeah, sure there.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
You just got chests everywhere yeah, so did anyone ever
come close to finding this treasure?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
People did, and at one point Forrest even wrote, I
know someone has been within five hundred feet of the chest.
Oh and you can guess how crazy people went when
they saw that, you know. Yeah, they were like, who
was it? There's just a lot a lot of speculation there,
and then someone finally found it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
When we return, we'll find out why the search didn't
end even though the treasure had been found. But first
our advertisers are going to offer you great treasure. You
don't even have to leave your house for God, we're soft.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So is June of twenty twenty when someone finally found
it and then released a photo of the chest.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Is it like a huge ceremony like at the end
of Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
No, that would have been great.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So people must be disappointed. There's so many people doing
this full time.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, incredibly disappointed. People described like crushing grief,
like they couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Right, the whole purpose of your life has been looking
for this thing. Yeah, and now it's over.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It's like if they just got rid of the NFL,
like the whole country would be lost.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Some of us would celebrate.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, so who finds this chest?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So it took a long time for everyone to know
who this person was. Came out that it was an
anonymous person from back East, and everyone was like, who
who is this? And what Ryan Bavetta told me, the
Google engineer guy, he actually was relieved. Ryan was someone
who more just wanted to solve the puzzle, and so
(20:25):
when he found out that someone had found it, he
was like, great, We're gonna get the answer soon. This
is gonna like soothe my brain.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
It right exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Exactly. So he was like great, and then he started
to get a little impatient because all they knew was
it was an anonymous person from back East. Apparently Forrest
Fan kept saying all will come out in due time,
and they kept thinking, we're going to find out, We're
going to find out. And then Forest Fen died.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Oh before he announced where the chest had been. M
Do you suspect foul play?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I've not heard anyone speculate that he was murdered. This
is a podcast, so we have to talk about murder
on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
It would help, it would help. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
The most popular conspiracy theory seemed to be more along
the lines of Forrest knew he was going to die,
and he wanted it to be found before he died,
and so he chose someone to help.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Do you buy that? Not really, So no one knows
who found it, so we do now.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So the person met with Forest Fenn, But then I
think he decided to stay anonymous. Unfortunately for this anonymous finder,
someone else in the search community filed a lawsuit asserting
that you know, whoever found it must have hacked into
her computer and stole her solution to the poem.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
This is a stupid law This is stupider than the
Gwyneth Paltrow skiing lot.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
It.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, it does sound stupider than that. For whatever reason,
something about the lawsuit made it clear to the person
who found the chest that his identity was going to
come out, and so to sort of head that off,
in December, he reveals himself on medium dot com. Who
is Well, he doesn't. He doesn't give his name at
(22:17):
the time, so he's trying to stay anonymous, which really
upset people. He said, I'm aware some people hope this
lawsuit will reveal what the clues and the poe meant
and where the treasure was located. But I feel a
responsibility to keep that a secret. So people were like,
what the heck?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, why would he not want to tell people where
it was?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
At that point, it wasn't quite clear. His name did
come out. His name is Jack Stuff and he is
from Pennsylvania. Ryan Bavetta actually was one of the people
who sort of helped figure out who Jack Stuff was
based on, you know, some Reddit posts that matched up.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
There was like a little separate treasure hunt to figure
out who found the treasure hunt exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
This became its own thing.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, was there treasure in there?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Oh? Yeah, the treasure was real. And this past November
Stuff put it up for auction and he said, I've
never told anyone where I searched, other than someone whose
job requires them to know, and I never planned to
do so.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Wait, so people are still searching for the treasure spot
even though the treasure is gone. Yes, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
People want to know if they were close to figuring
this out. I've got to go see for myself.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So Ryan about the Google engineer is still searching, still
using the poem, but he has other clues now I
assume since it's been found.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, he feels like he's honed in on a location
pretty well based on things that Jack Stuff has said. Now,
because Jack Stuff has done a couple more medium posts,
he's answered some questions from people.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But Ryan's also filed some FOYA reports to get more information.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Right, Yes he has. I think what he got was
emails between Yellowstow National Park officials which confirmed that the
treasure had been found in the park.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Is that cheating or is that just like another angle,
like a meta search.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I don't think there's any cheating at this point. If
it's not there anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Right, you just want the answer, it's just bugging you.
So it doesn't even matter what way you find out.
You just need to know where this spot is totally. Oh,
how many people are still searching for the treasure?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I don't know, but a fair number yet.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Maybe maybe the real treasure with the friendships these people
made along the way.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Now, that was the idea I was going for with
this whole story. Really, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I was making fun of you.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
No, really, really people found community. People really did make
solid connections with each other just from these online forums
where they were talking about the treasure.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I mean there are stories of like guys who are
now playing dungeons and dragons together after searching together.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Of course these are my people. Yep.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You know. Ryan Bavetta has since like linked up with
other treasure hunters who are looking for other things, and
he's just realized that this is something he enjoys doing.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
What kind of treasure hunt has he moved on to?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
You know?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
What Ryan Bavetta moved on to recently is in San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park. They think there's one of twelve
ceramic boxes hidden in this park. Apparently there are twelve
of them hidden across the US from a writer named
Byron Price. When Ryan Bavetta told me about this, he
was like, you know about the Price boxes? And I
was like, no, I don't know about the Price boxes.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
You got your next story right there. You're gonna be
this is your beat for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Please know?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Do you think you know where the treasure was hidden?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I feel around nine Mile Hole in Yellowstone Park. I
think that's what everyone who has really been devoted to
this has landed on.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
But how will the searchers ever know if they're right
now that there's no X to mark the spot anymore?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, I mean my best guess is like someone has
to kidnap jack Stuff and force.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Him to tell let's do it. Let's do it. That's journalism.
This is bullshit what we're doing. Let's just that's what
you do. You grab the guy.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, it's the only optional. Let's do this.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Okay, Okay, this is an adventure. The other stuff I'm hiking,
I'm taking a boat out. That's not an adventure. Us
finding Jack stuff, tying them up and we make them talk.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Okay, let's do it. Okay, you can do it, and
I'll write about it.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Ugh Svadi Kirstindrula, you wrote America's greatest hidden treasure was found,
So why are people still looking for popular mechanics? And
it's inspired me to commit crimes. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
You're very welcome.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
In each of the thirty previous episodes of Story of
the Week, I've dropped a clue that leads to a treasure.
To find these clues, you'll probably have to download each
episodisode several times. Giving each episode five stars unlocks further clues.
I can't say more, but still download this stuff again.
Just do it.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
At the end of the show, what's next for joel Stein?
Maybe you'll take a naper Poker Round online.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Our show is produced by Joey fish Ground and nishaven Cut.
It was edited by Lydia Jan Kopp. Our engineer is
a Manda kay Wang and our executive producer is cath
Ronald cher Ado. Our theme song was produced by Jonathan Colton.
A special thanks to my voice coach Vicky Merrick and
my consulting producer Laurence elast Night. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
(27:49):
listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein and this is
story of the Week. I don't know any chess. Do
you own any chess?
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Hm?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yes you do? Yeah, well kind of chest?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Do you a little wooden chest that I have sweaters
and blankets in yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh yeah, you know, they're probably chests in my house
I have that sounds familiar, like a thing of scarf somewhere.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Maybe right. I didn't buy any of this stuff.
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