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Comment by gryson | Hacker News Reader

As others have pointed out, the timing of this is a bit suspicious. Another searcher was just found dead in March of this year, and Fenn was also sued in Dec 2019 (links available on the Wikipedia page).

Without proof, it's impossible to know if Fenn is just trying to call the whole thing off to avoid future troubles (and impossible to know if the treasure ever existed).

Even if he posts pictures, I'm not sure that will be adequate proof.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure

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So what? A man says something. Then he says something else. What does it matter?

Folks chose to follow a dream. It was their legs that took them there; their imagination that motivated them. Their responsibility for their own lives.

In grown-up terms, there was no contract between the treasure-hider and the treasure-seekers.

IANAL but "18 U.S.C. 1038 - False information and hoaxes":

Whoever engages in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed... if death results, be fined under this title or imprisoned for any number of years up to life, or both

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/html...

Well, that one word "reasonably" covers it all. You paint a fairy-tale picture, and all reasonableness is right out the window.

Oh! Oh! You deliberately left out (those …'s) the part about it being information about a crime! What a troll that was.

For reference,

... may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute a violation of chapter 2 [aircraft & motor vehicles], 10 [biological weapons], 11B [chemical weapons], 39 [explosives & other dangerous articles], 40 [importation, manufacture, distribution & storage of explosive materials], 44 [firearms], 111 [shipping], or 113B [terrorism] of this title, section 236 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2284) [sabotage of nuclear facilities or fuel], or section 46502, the second sentence of section 46504, section 46505(b)(3) or (c), section 46506 if homicide or attempted homicide is involved, or section 60123(b) of title 49, shall...

IANAL, but these don't seem to be the "lying about treasure" types of statutes. Unless your treasure is plutonium.

You could have conveyed this information with casting aspersions about intent or using such a snarky tone.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry. I could have been nicer. But it seemed to me, to be a deliberate misrepresentation and I called it out.

Perhaps it was deliberate misrepresentation, that isn't the point. The point is that calling people out for deliberate misrepresentation tends to lead discussions away from the constructive, informative and civil ideal that HN aspires to.

Ha! There's something particularly ironic in gp eliding material facts from a post about 'false information and hoaxes!'

I am skeptical, but there is a (delayed) popup on his site that says we can look forward to more info and photos in the coming days. Hopefully he reveals the solution:

https://www.oldsantafetradingco.com

> Fenn was also sued in Dec 2019

No good deed goes unpunished.

While I quite like the spirit of it and think people take their own risks, I don't think it's entirely obvious that it was in fact a good deed.

Consider a more overt variation: declare a prize for an open-entry no-rules fighting tournament. Nobody's been forced to participate, but encouraging people to engage in a dangerous activity is at least morally dubious to my mind.

Hiking in the wilderness is recreational and fun and not inherently dangerous.

After five people die, an argument that there's no inherent danger rings a bit hollow.

People die from drinking too much water in water drinking competitions.

A water drinking competition seems inherently dangerous and unwise for exactly that reason. Most people who are not medical professionals will not realise that water is harmful in large amounts.

The analogy to this is that encouraging people to go out into the wilderness in search of treasure is going to encourage people to exceed what their comfort zone would be if there's no reward.

Hiking in remote parts of the southwest is an activity encouraged by all manner of government and private entities with a vested interest in the tourism industry. It's simply not an issue. People are still expected to be responsible for their own well being and it's still ok to advertise and promote things that have nonzero amounts of risk associated with them (like beer).

>treasure is going to encourage people to exceed what their comfort zone would be if there's no reward.

Any more than taking dumb selfies for "the "gram" encourages them to exceed their comfort zone?

Hiking in the woods is extremely dangerous if you have no map or navigation skills.

Anyway, these people were searching for hidden treasure, not "hiking". They were led to imagine that leaving the safety of a trail made them more likely to get rich.

You can get injured or killed if you are foolish or unlucky. The term "inherently dangerous" is generally reserved for those situations where even a skilled and knowledgable person is facing a significant risk; the term would be meaningless if expanded in the way you are trying here.

The only way in which hiking is "inherently dangerous" is if you equate that term to include "situations in which I may have to depend solely upon myself."

In an objective appraisal of risk, actual danger is negligible with: (1) water, (2) compass, (3) mylar blanket, (4) rudimentary knowledge of surrounding topography, roads, and settled areas, (5) first aid kit equipped to stop blood loss, & (6) bear spray.

I’m not a hiker, but I miss (0) telling people where you’re going and when you expect to report back.

Without it, even a sprained ankle can be deadly.

Skilled hikers do die all of the time.

Here's a random example from the top of my head.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obje...

tl;dr woman who had walked the Appalachian trail multiple times leaves the trail to pee, never finds her way back to the trail.

I'm pretty sure that's covered by 'unlucky': it's not the sort of thing that should give any reasonably prepared hiker cause for considering abandoning the practice as too risky. And 'all the time' is a considerable exaggeration when we consider how many times people set off on a hike in any given year.

Some hiking trails are inherently dangerous for those ill-prepared. The Grand Escalante Staircase in Utah comes to mind. There is no cell signal and water sources are scarce. Beautiful slot canyon hiking and loads of fun, but it does carry an element of risk.

Going out into wilderness is encouraging a dangerous behavior comparable with no-rules fighting? It ain't even remotely comparable. If hundreds of thousands will participate, somebody will get injured even if it would be about crossing the street.

The sad truth is, some folks ain't completely right in their head, become obsessive over these kind of things (and other aspects of their lives), and then eventually bad things start happening.

Life is supposed to be adventure, not a safe walk in the park, shying away from any potential danger. Clearly Fenn thinks this way, and I can't agree more.

Shouldn’t we ban national parks from advertising and shut down National Geographic, then? I went to the Grand Canyon and a couple of other parks, and there were plenty of opportunities to die. If I had I wouldn’t want the parks shut down.

It’s a good deed to send hundreds off searching the wilderness based on a fake story about a treasure chest that never existed?

The article mentions people quit their jobs and died to find that treasure; he's caused a dangerous gold rush on his own.

I like the idea, but it's caused too much loss of life. I think it'd be better if he had spread out the 'treasure' over much more smaller packages, for example. Of course, there'd still be people that try to find everything.

I'd rather live in a world with hidden treasure, but where the idea of hidden treasure causes some people to torpedo their lives and kill themselves, than one without hidden treasure.

If it weren't the treasure hunt, anyone that unstable would have joined the closest cult anyway.

He didn't force those people to make foolish decisions, that's on them.

Sure he did. He lied about the existence of a treasure chest, just as he’s lying about its discovery now.

If people quit their jobs to go on an incredibly uncertain treasure hunt - that is on them.

We cannot legislate to the lowest common denominator of society.

Could be an awkward situation. If Fenn refuses to disclose where the treasure was buried, he'll go down as one of history's biggest douchebags, at least in the minds of the many people he inspired to search for it.

If he does disclose a location, and the treasure never actually existed, then he risks someone calling BS. ("I searched in that exact spot last summer and here's the GPS history on my phone to prove it.") He would also have to make his way out to the stated location at the spry young age of 89 and dig a plausible-looking hole.

So people are really going to resent him unless the treasure was real and he discloses where it was. It's understandable if the finder remains anonymous, but the burial location had better not.

>He would also have to make his way out to the stated location at the spry young age of 89 and dig a plausible-looking hole.

Outsourcing ain't just for IT, y'know.

But then he'd have to hire someone to kill the hole digger...

As one who read the poem and was caught away by the sense of adventure it instilled and dreams of treasure, I read up on the chase. Turns out, the chest was not buried. If you were in the right spot from the poem, you could see it was just placed on the ground.

Where did you read this? As far as I know the only information about the location of the chest and how it was hidden comes directly from Fenn.

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