Metal Detecting Redux - Looking Back

Only a few days left of 2018 before we inexorably move into 2019 as we quickly approach the end of the second decade of the 21st Century. As I look back over the last 50 or so years of being in the metal detecting hobby, I realize the real riches I uncovered were not gold and silver, cash and relics, but friendships and comradeship with people from all walks of life. I've met many people I would never have met otherwise thru the articles I'd written, the events I attended and the clubs I'd belonged to. I've seen the good the bad and the ugly of this hobby from top to bottom, the newbies, the know-it-alls, the boasters, and the wannabes. One thing I've learned, though, is everyone has a dream, and treasure hunting fulfills that dream. And believe it or not, some are successful in finding that chest of gold, and while some are not, many finally realize that what they were really searching for was always theirs to begin with...good friends, a sense of adventure, and a grasp on the past.  Because in the end, all the amazing relics, artifacts, and numismatic specimens have one thing in common; they were touched by another human being at some point in the past, who lived a different and perhaps unimaginable life in a another time and place. When you examine a fresh-dug find in your hand, you erase all the miles and centuries and touch the hand of someone in the past. We humans are a despicable, good, horrible, caring, indifferent, friendly, idiotic, knowledgeable, warm, creative and trouble-making lot. But we are all in this together throughout time through our humanity and the touch of an ancient work of humanity is what links us all together and makes us remember. And that is the covalent bond that holds us all together in this hobby. Happy 2019!

Happy 2019 from Jim & Patti

Metal Detecting - Please No Looting & Pillaging PR!

I'm trying to figure this out, and I'm not putting anyone or organization down, but looking for a reason. I'm trying to understand a practice that is pretty much rife throughout the metal detecting community; clubs, metal detecting distributors and the like. Given that metal detecting, in general, is looked upon by the general public as a negative activity, and even more so day by day, and frowned upon by many cities, counties and states here in the U.S., you'd think a bit of thought might be given to improving our hobbies image. And the first place I'd always thought a good first impression would go a long way to promoting our hobby would be the logo, symbol, or club patch of a metal detecting organization, and as we all know, you never get to make another first impression; one is all you get! And with that, as Rod Serling of the Twilight Zone used to say, "...for your consideration...the Jolly Roger!"

Now, there is a bit of history associated with this symbol, and it's fairly involved, but the point of it was to strike terror in the hearts of all that saw it. It basically means, pillage, plunder, murder and death...mostly. Now, pirates were actually more democratic than most navies of the world in the 18th and early 19th Centuries, but not to their victims. So why would you use the skull and crossbones in a logo or design to represent your metal detecting club, organization or product??? Especially given the general negative feeling of the public and authorities on the hobby???

Well, I think it began as a simple segue from the search for "treasure," which was usually the end product of piracy; gold and silver buried in the ground, or sea, waiting to be found by a treasure hunter. Somewhere along the line, treasure hunters and their ilk got sidetracked into confusing the line between treasure hunting and pillaging and plundering. Not a good thing when you need all the good PR you can get. 

Here in Florida, the Spanish fleet was returning to Spain in 1715 when a hurricane literally tore it apart off the central coast, spraying silver and gold coins all up and down the treasure beaches over three centuries ago. As a matter of fact, the Spanish built a few make-shift warehouses, just to the north of the Cape Canaveral  bight, to store the salvaged specie off the wrecked fleet before returning to Spain. Several pirates actually showed up off the Florida coast, and looted the recovered treasure and made off with a large portion of it...their skull and crossbones merrily flying from the mainmast. Do we really want to associate our hobby with THAT?

Poor PR don't end there...social media has done a lot to promote making us detectorists look bad...I recently located a YouTube channel with the word "...Loot" in it, which embodies some of today's problems with the metal detecting image.  What exactly DOES loot mean?

 loot

/lo͞ot/

noun

1. 1.

   goods, especially private property, taken from an enemy in war.

   • 
     

     
     
   • 
     

verb

1. 1.

   steal goods from (a place), typically during a war or riot.

   
   

   
   

So putting this word in the name of your metal detecting social media channel is probably not doing the hobby any favors. Additionally, there are many metal-detecting social media channels and metal detecting Facebook pages plastered with pirate images, with the name "...Pirates" in there somewhere. My point is, the pirate characters, skulls, and the piles of sparkling loot plastered all over the metal detecting world in logos, patches and whatnot is a sure sign we are headed for the detecting exit real soon. 

These images and names are the sort of things that makes the general public much easier to convince we are all bad...and must be regulated out of existence or outlawed everywhere here in the U.S.? Archaeologists just love metal detecting operators, organizations, clubs and individuals that shoot themselves, and the rest of us, in the foot with this sort of thing. I've mentioned this to a few acquaintances who thought the subject was pretty funny in itself, and was convinced I was splitting hairs. They may be right, but I've sadly watched this hobby, over the last half-century go from a quiet and interesting low-key hobby, to a rapacious free-for all with some practitioners who could care less about honesty, integrity, or the hobby itself anymore...literally becoming modern pirates themselves. And it is NOT everyone in the hobby...far from it! But I think despite the sometimes-shady underbelly of this pastime, there are more of us that care and want to see our beloved pastime grow and prosper. I think making a good impression is important in our word, deeds and image. And most of us try everyday to do just that. I'm off my soapbox now. Hope ya'll had a Merry Christmas, and will have a fantastically prosperous upcoming New Year!

Ruining A Public Beach For Metal Detecting

We have this thing in Florida called beach "renourishment" that the powers-that-be seem to think is required every four or five years to keep soft sand under a tourists chair. It's been happening for a long time, since at least 1968 or earlier, where a special contractor comes in with an offshore dredge to suck tons of sea-bottom sand into humongous, horribly rusted, iron pipes, and spray it like an over-pressured lawn sprinkler all over the local beach. 

This can build up the sand from literally sea-level to almost 12-feet deep along a 15-mile stretch of Central Florida east coast, and literally puts targets more than out of reach as to make recoveries of previous days non-existent. On top of THAT, comes 3 or 4 months of the biggest bulldozers CAT makes, roaring up and down the public beach, spewing diesel fumes and leaving deep, oil-soaked tracks in the sand. 

As if THAT was not enough, the huge iron pipes from the offshore dredge scatters thousands, no, millions, of 1/4-inch to 1-inch ferrous fragments over 15-miles of beach and shallow water. This literally makes the coastal area dang near impossible to hunt. After a week in the wet sand and shallow ocean water, the fragments quickly develop an iron "aura" around them as the increasing rust causes a "deep rusted iron" effect by making the target react like silver or any other conductive signal of various values, so you cannot tune or discriminate them out. Today while detecting an effected beach, I ran into a guy using a like-new Minelab Excalibur, who was a pretty experienced beach detectorist, but was an out-of-town tourist going a a cruise to the Caribbean for the Thanksgiving holiday. He was complaining about how difficult it was to metal detect the beach with all the metal fragments, everywhere. The powers-that-be here in Florida always overlook the economic impact that being stupid about beach policies can bring, with the previous panic brought about by Florida Governor Rick Scott signing a law that lets water-front homeowners block off sections of the previously regularly-used-by-the-public beach; putting the public on the back burner over beach-use for the 9th time. I like to think there is no animosity toward practitioners of the metal detecting hobby by state and county officials, but a short conversation with a county employee makes me think otherwise. A little over a year ago, in late 2017, I was enjoying my solitude, swinging my coil over the wet sand on Cocoa Beach, when one of those stinky, gasoline-powered carts showed up carrying a smiling County guy. He says to me, over the lawn-mower whine of his giant roller-skate, "Enjoy metal detecting while you can...you got a week left before we cover this area with ten-feet of sand!" He waved evilly and departed in a cloud of powdered-sugar dust from the donut in his hand. I watched the guy vanish south down the beach, hoping a Great White would come bursting out of one of the rolling waves and yank the cart and passenger back to the depths, but apparently Great Whites are not as fond of powdered sugar as other monsters are...like Godzilla, or maybe Rodan...or....
Today, less than a year later, pens of restless bulldozers, and stacks of rusty iron pipes litter this same beach again. Some beach regulars, mostly surfers and a few fishermen, were obviously angry and yelling at the people inside the  dredging "compound" about their very unwelcome presence. The process screws up beach detecting, literally muddies the water for months and ruins fishing even longer. I'm off my soap-box now.  

Hassled Homeowners - Permission Or Else!

As I often write, metal detecting private property depends on getting permission, and then exercising great care excavating targets once you have that permission. I don't metal detect as much as I used to due to declining health, but depending on my blood pressure, the weather and heat index, I still do spend an occasional enjoyable morning or afternoon on a permission site, listening carefully for buried treasure. I also try to be an ambassador for the hobby, keeping an ear to the ground in the general public, keeping the conversation alive in daily encounters. What I DO hear does not bode well for the hobby. As an engineer, I used to work as as a medical auditor for a medical device company, validating other suppliers were in compliance with all FDA regulations required to produce a certain device, a bone drill, for example. I did this for many years, and the very best tool I had for determining FDA compliance was not a clipboard with a checklist, not a flashlight or a magnifier...it was Body Language that always revealed the truth of whatever matter was at the forefront of the discussion.

The De-Evolution Of The Hobby

I'm not going into the intricacies of body language, but, it does work, and I find it a great source of unrealized truthful communication in many situations. At any rate, Patti and I usually drop hints we practice the hobby among the general public at various times and encounters, and mention our organization, The Central Florida Metal Detecting Club, during the discussion. The reaction and facial expressions are priceless. We were is a antiques shop in Sanford, Florida one day, when Patti let the other shoe drop and mentioned we practiced metal detecting for police evidence hunts, lost and found issues within the general public, et al. The shop-owners face literally fell...then she frowned. "I got this guy who calls me all the time and constantly pleads with me to dig up my yard!" She sighed and looked at the floor in anger. "Why do they not understand the word NO!" She looked up again. "This guy calls me several times a week, same request, and I told him to lose my private number a few weeks ago...but he called again yesterday!" 

So here is a random member of the public who went from happy-talk to frowning and angry words in seconds after we mentioned the hobby of metal detecting.  The hobby I started practicing over 50-years ago, has become a contentious, greed-filled pastime in so many areas, the general public looks on people who do participate in the hobby as looters, criminals, trespassers and troublemakers. And we only have ourselves to blame. A large number of dishonest hobbyists nowadays engage themselves in deception; impersonating officials or workers, sneaking onto properties the back-way from waterways and lakes, submerged under someones private dock digging coins and valuables without permission and unknown to the actual property owners, metal detecting the dead of night using night-vision technologies, or just plain trespassing...hoping to liberate valuables before they are discovered and asked to leave...what I would term Day-Hawking  We also think there is a lot more Night-Hawking going on in Florida than was previously proposed.

All detrimental to those of us simply enjoying a harmless, and so far, legal hobby of metal detecting in the search of forgotten items of history, attempting to liberate them from the matrix of time back into the light of day and the public domain. We have had little success in turning this train-wreck of a hobby around because more and more are in it for the supposed profit ("I'm gonna quite my job and buy a METAL DETECTOR, that's what I'll do!") and easy income they think it will provide. Every day we see another comment "We are THINKING of getting into this GREAT hobby...what do you suggest?" Then the same old discussion of not having much money, and what would a good starter machine would cost and WHERE is the best place to find all that gold and silver? 

I've said this before and I'll say it again...I am not opposed to more individuals entering the metal detecting hobby, but I AM opposed to more taking and less giving by people entering the hobby. In other words, several thousand more people hunting the beach with metal detectors is not going to improve the hobby any more than several thousand more fisherman is going to improve the fishing in a small pond that's already been fished out. We need to add more voices to save this hobby and try and roll back legislation intended to limit or eliminate the hobby completely, but I don't see that happening here in the United States...what I do see is more of the general public grabbing a metal detector and digging like a dog in the nearest dune, then angrily walking away if no gold or silver is found, leaving a mess and looking for a fresh flower bed to rut in; one more black-eye on the hobby. The saddest thing is you know who you are...and you just don't care. I'm off my soapbox now.

Haunted Treasure Hunting - Supernatural VLF

Most metal detectorists have met the paranormal once or twice during a treasure hunt, or as a sideline to the search itself. I've recently blogged about a "ghost car" that tried passing me, while I was on a metal detecting run to Cocoa Beach, the driver waved at me, then the car simply vanished, much to my concern and annoyance. I later found the road I had been driving on was considered to be one of the most haunted roads in Central Florida because of the many fatal accidents that had occurred. One person told me that it was "...literally a graveyard from one end to the other!"

In conversation with other detectorists, I have found that they have admitted things can be a little off while hunting certain properties and driving late at night through "possessed" areas...highways and byways of many deaths, sorrows and loss which can take you life too if you are not careful. Beware! Here are several other stories of metal detecting the paranormal...throw another log on the fire!

I'm not going to name names, for obvious reasons...would you? But these are all true...happened as told to me. Our first story involves several friends with a permission to hunt a property in a small, Civil War era town. The house had been closed up for several years, after someone passed away inside. One of our intrepid crew had explored the interior of the property prior to the group...late at night...by herself. She had been live-streaming the video to me while she wandered around a dusty Christmas tree which had been set up for Christmas in 1996 and still stood silently in a musty living room 20-years later. There were unexplained noises, doors moving by themselves and a general aura of GET OUT even coming through the phone. I told her she needed to leave there right away and she finally agreed. When she returned with the group a few weeks later, as they were leaving a blast of wind from inside the house almost blew them out the door!

Back in 1984, one of my regular detecting buddies had joined me metal detecting an old farm near the everglades, west of Ft. Lauderdale...a permission property that the new owner was going to raze before a new condominium was to be built later in the year. It was around 3 p.m. when we finally made it to the decaying farm. The old farmhouse was from the 1890's and was a sad sight...windows broken or no windows at all. The roof had collapsed, and timbers reached skyward like broken teeth. Green mold covered much of the rotting walls. We found a few iron relics, square nails and a few V-Nickles. We were metal detecting on the west side of the house, and it was around 7 p.m. and night was falling...it was getting hard to see. My buddy suddenly started staring behind me, and said "She does not look very happy!" I swung around and in the broken window behind me, stood an elderly woman with white hair in a bun, an old fashioned white apron, and what looked like a gingham blue dress under it. A pale blue glow surrounded her, and she glared at us with disapproval. My buddy yelled at her, "What are you doing in there? It's unsafe...!!!" I looked back and the woman and the glow were gone!
We tiptoed across the rotting porch and pushed open what was left of the sagging water-logged door. My buddy switched on his big seven-cell flashlight and aimed it inside...most of the floorboards inside had collapsed, leaving gaping holes in the floor. A huge spider of some kind, the size of my hand, skittered across the bent wood. We both backed away, but I grabbed the light and pointed it toward the window where we had both seen the woman looking at us. The floor had completely caved in and there would have been no place to stand in the first place...she had been standing in mid-air!!!  A few weeks later, the place was completely bulldozed, and the remains burned. I wonder if she had looked out at the heavy equipment operator with disapproval as the huge steel blade made contact with the rotting porch? 

The last story, which happened just a few months ago, was quite a surprise to another friend who had experienced it. Coming back after midnight, along the famous "Dead Zone" on RT 4, in Sanford, Florida, my friend saw what was initially perceived as a deer trying to cross the deserted highway, but getting closer turned out to be a man wearing an old-fashioned hat riding a farm horse of some kind. My friend said it looked like a TV image...kind of grayish or bluish...and if my friend had not been going well below highway speeds, it could have resulted in a bad accident. As my friend passed this apparition, a glance in the rear-view mirror showed nothing but empty asphalt behind the vehicle.

Of course, these kind of incidents are few and far between, but as treasure hunters, many times we go to deserted places, now lifeless in many ways, but once teeming with people and good times and bad times and every other emotional flavor humans can have. It has been surmised that very strong human emotions, which are basically electromagnetic brain waves, can somehow "imprint" themselves on the surrounding environment; houses, roads, rocks, cars and the like. Maybe the electromagnetic signature of our machines have a disturbing effect on that element...and we see what we see...or maybe not. Happy Halloween!

Cache Hunting Part 1 - A Lost Art

Modern metal detector users...those who hit the beach, the park, and the schoolyard regularly...have one thing in common; they rarely, if ever, search out a lost cache. Many have never even heard of a cache in the first place. Simply put, a cache is a hidden stash of cash, coin, jewelry or anything of value to the person hiding it. Children are known, from an early age, to bury toys and keepsakes in their yard for future retrieval. Schools, at least in my day, would occasionally bury "time-capsules" in concrete, consisting of the many trappings of our daily American life in the early 1960's; Beatles albums, Teen magazine, (prehistoric) 4 or 8-track tapes, newspapers, 1963 school lunch menus, and the like. However, "time-capsules" were usually meant to be opened at a specific time in the future, and were rarely hidden, so they exist on the edge of the definition of a "cache." Nineteenth Century citizens hid caches regularly, as they didn't trust bankers, and wanted their stuff within easy reach and easy to recover if they needed to leave in a hurry...and without a metal detector! The basic assumption is that one in five old homes have a hidden cache somewhere...but they can be hidden literally anywhere. With that in mind I actually have searched out caches, and have friends who have also. I've found some, missed some, and I've stupidly ignored some.

An approximation of Big Chief Demolition's logo, as I remember it

Way back in 1985, my friend and fellow treasure hunter, Kevin Reilly (founder of Reilly's Treasured Gold metal detecting shop in Pompano Beach, Florida) had a good thing going with his friends at Big Chief Demolition, Inc, a now long-defunct demolition company out of Ft. Lauderdale. The cities' popular "Holiday Park" was surrounded by 1930's and 40's era homes that were falling apart, and city of Ft. Lauderdale wanted to reclaim all that land for new condominiums. Big Chief got the contract, and would pull out all appliances and anything else left in these houses, having big salvage sales to the public, before they were torn-down. That short reprieve was metal-detecting time for Kevin and I, with full permission from Big Chief for the entire neighborhood. No hassles, no police or angry homeowners; just weekends of scanning and digging...silver coins, gold rings, watches, you-name-it was coming off these properties by the handful. Kevin's Fisher 1280-X and my Garrett ADS Deepseeker were singing the song of treasure all the way. 

Mid-20th Century South Florida homes were built of cinder-block (called CBS construction) and were like small military bunkers, low and strong to withstand the violent hurricanes that visited the peninsula every other season. And a common feature was a low-slung planter box filled with dark Florida dirt, about six feet long and maybe four feet high, made of cinder block, and usually attached at right-angles to the wall of the house. The more elaborate ones had copper irrigation piping encircling the interior wall of the planter; you could water your plants by simply turning the spigot.

This was what I came upon while we were searching the yard of a soon to be torn-down house. Kevin was in the yard, down on one knee, digging the tons of wheat pennies, toy cars, and stuff. I passed by the planter wall and casually swung the Deepseeker's 8" co-planer coil over the top as I headed for the yard. A loud signal almost knocked my earphones off my head! I stopped and backed up. Once again, a very loud, almost too loud, target signal screeched from the machine. I ran the coil down the sides of the planter wall and got the same signal. I looked over at Kevin.

"Hey, Kevin, I got one heluva' signal here, man...a real humdinger!" Kevin looked over his shoulder at me. "Is that the planter box?" I nodded my head. Kevin shrugged and said "That's just the copper piping in there...don't bother with it!" He went back to digging the yard. I wandered into the front yard as well, picking up a few coins, a few lead toy cars from the 1930's with the Deepseeker. The planter box stared dolefully at my back, whispering and snickering. I finally couldn't stand it any longer, and headed back to the cinder-block planter. Carefully scanning it from all sides, I was getting somewhat of a target separation...several large targets...and copper pipe would not do that. I looked back at Kevin, who was now swearing loudly (he was a died-in-the-wool Irishman) as he'd somehow managed to almost stick his coin probe thru his hand. He was not happy about it! I yelled back at him. "Kevin, I'm getting a big signal here, and some target separation...copper pipe would not do that, right?" Kevin looked at me, his eyes reddening. "Look, Jim, it's the copper pipe...copper is a major conductor...it will create a huge signal...okay?" He was fanning his sore hand, so I figured, what the heck, I'd dug a few inches into the dirt at the top of the planter and didn't find anything, so it's probably the copper pipes.

The next day, I opened the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper, with a minor headline blaring (as well as I can remember it) "Demolition Workers Strike Treasure!!!" I stared at the large B&W photo of a bulldozer, parked in a field of glittering silver coins, with construction workers filling up their hard-hats with specie. I read the article, the gist of which was that bulldozer "A" demolished the cinder-block planter "B" which contained six large mason jars filled with Morgan dollars which were blown all over the site "C" and were being scooped up by the happy workers "D," which was D for dammit!!! I called Kevin and asked if he had seen the news about the silver dollar finds on the demolition site. He said he had. I asked him if he had anything to say to me at all. He was quiet for a second, then said "It sure looks like they were not copper pipes after all, aye?" First rule of cache hunting...check the target and never take the signal for granted...especially big targets. If I'd gone down a crummy six-inches deeper, I would have hit the top of the Morgan dollar cache. It's been 33-years and I still get angry with myself for not checking it. Don't make the same mistake.

Note: My good friend, and treasure hunting partner, Kevin Reilly passed away in 2012 from cancer, forever leaving a hole that can never be filled in the metal detecting community. Rest in peace my friend.

By the way, this subject was suggested to me by my friend and fellow blogger, Dick Stout and his fantastic metal detecting blog, Stout Standards. Visit him at https://stoutstandards.wordpress.com/

Metal Detecting From Orbit - Cooper Style

 I love treasure hunting TV shows. Who, I ask you, would not like to see the underdog (us) summarily find massive amounts of wealth with raw wits and expensive gear, foiling the powers that be (them) who feel (and quite jealously, I might add) that no one should be allowed, anywhere or at any time to search for lost treasure, let alone actually finding it, and keeping it? Treasure hunting is still, even today, a starry-eyed adventure waiting to happen, if only you could get off work and search for it! And TV shows depicting the struggle of those who make it their job to do so, flourish in the ratings department no matter how long the search is. Take everyone's treasure show they love to hate, Oak Island...literally a treasure never-land...that goes on season after season, with one failure after another, and a cast of characters that continually changes more than you change your socks. But maybe they will find something...so you wince and keep watching. It's all in good fun, right? Reputable treasure hunters spending massive amounts of cash, finding nothing at all, but getting big TV ratings! Who is fooling who here?

Other TV treasure hunting series in the gold vein (see what I did there?) like Gold Rush and Billion Dollar Wreck can and do hold my attention because there are real people here, finding real gold, having their equipment break down, digging into a hillside or facing some real danger underwater looking for real shipwrecks, which they really find on occasion. I find they have a bit of credibility, for a reality show, and the characters are interesting and sometimes even likable. 

My big irritation, though, is the Discovery Channel's TV series "Cooper's Treasure" which hangs on the premise that Gordon Cooper somehow mapped a bunch of treasure galleons in May of 1963, aboard Mercury 9, from his primitive space capsule by using some sort of "secret military sensor" installed to secretly hunt for soviet nuclear missile bases in the Caribbean. And left a notated treasure map for his short term pal, Darrell Miklos, to use after his death. Watching the show from the very beginning, it was action packed and looked like it might actually lead somewhere. But, I knew beforehand that it wouldn't...entertaining as the first few episodes were, I knew it was all bunk. How could I possibly know that? Because someone connected with the production of Cooper's Treasure contacted me before the show was produced to determine if the instrumentation aboard Cooper's spacecraft could have actually detected billions of dollars in shipwrecked treasure. Although I am a famous treasure hunter (not really), I was also an aerospace engineer involved in portions of the space program on and off for many years in the 1970's, 80's and 90's. So when they contacted me, and asked me to verify Gordon Cooper's on-board Gamma Ray Spectrometer could map treasure galleons from space, my answer was a resounding NO.

Email from Cooper's Treasure research department, asking me  to verify Cooper could spot shipwrecks from space

They were not pleased...one of the Cooper's Treasure researchers then called me up, and we had a discussion about gamma ray spectrometers and the likelihood that anything aboard Cooper's spacecraft could detect lost treasure ships. I pointed out to the show's researcher, that during the Civil War thousands of tons of shipping were sunk, steam-boats and ironclads. In WWII, there were millions of tons of allied shipping, bulky iron and steel ships, sunk by German U-boats all around the Atlantic and Caribbean. Did they all show up on his map also? And Spanish Galleons, which are mostly of all-wood construction, other than the thin-copper or lead hull sheathing sporting a dozen or so iron cannon, are not particularly easy to locate, even with a modern proton magnetometer pulled behind a power boat, directly over the wreck!

Despite this information, the show apparently must go on, and it did, for a full season, and is now is in it's second season, with no treasure wrecks found...not one...or really anything else of any significance. One episode touted one of Columbus' anchors (yes, that Columbus) had been found, notated on the map, but I saw very little, if any verification or validation of that from any marine archaeologists, scholars or anyone with any kind of credentials you'd trust. Anchors are everywhere on the sea floor and it's not that rare to find one...a good friend of mine, Kathy W., found a very nice 19th Century anchor while she was magnet fishing off a dock. And without using a map made from orbit either.

Apparently in desperation, the Cooper's Treasure gang has been trumpeting now, that Darrell Miklos has discovered a UFO underwater...or maybe a USO, since it is obviously not airborne. 

Cooper's Treasure Finds Alien Spaceship
  
So, entertaining or not, I think a treasure hunting TV series should maintain at least a thin aura of authenticity, with some credible episodes that are not mainly a rehash of the previous rehash of the previous episode, ad infinitum. Experts who really know a lot about early spacecraft and their capabilities are as exasperated with the Cooper's Treasure premise and subsequent non-show that has followed as I am. James Oberg, an American space journalist and historian who's books and articles I have enjoyed immensely over the last 40-years or so, had a few things to say about the show in more detail than I ever could

The magic MacGuffin of Mercury 9

My solution is to re-name the show Cooper's Science Fiction Treasure. I'd be an avid fan at that point.

Search Team - Helping The Public & Police

The Central Florida Metal Detecting Club, of...wait for it...Central Florida, has spent more than a few years honing it's CFMDC SEARCH TEAM, a group within the group. Since the year 2000, when the club assisted law enforcement in finding the weapon that killed an Orlando police officer, the CFMDC SEARCH TEAM has been instrumental in searching for, and finding, murder weapons for local law enforcement over the last several decades. During the last several years, business has been good; there have been no decreases, especially in violent, crime. Although the club receives no money for assisting police at these evidence hunts, search teams have been known to get a police-supplied air-conditioned trailer parked at the crime site, as well as stacks of hot pizza for lunch...as well as busy officers also taking time in supplying bottles of ice-cold water to over-heated search team members. There are very few club-snapped photos of these hunts, as police prohibit photographs of an active crime scene, but are sometimes allowed after the evidence is found.

Team members selected for this "club within the club" are selected for their, above all, integrity, expertise with a metal detector, knowledge of evidence gathering, and precisely following the instructions given by CSI personnel as to where to hunt and what to do when a promising signal is acquired. If you pick up the target and wave it over your head, not only will you not be asked ever to participate again, now your fingerprints are ON the evidence...not a good thing if it was involved in a murder!

At any one time, the CFMDC search team consists of about 15 to 20 highly experienced evidence hunters who know the ropes, techniques and seriousness of doing a professional job for our law enforcement community. The biggest advantage is the CFMDC can put a large number of experienced people on site with minimal notice, and get the job done. There are few things that can give you a better feeling about your hobby than lending your skills and expertise in metal detecting to the folks working hard to keep the public safe, and get the violent criminal element off the streets. 

The search team is also involved in finding and returning lost items to the general public in the Central Florida area at no cost whatsoever to the owner of the lost item. Again, Search Team members are selected for their honesty, integrity and expertise with a metal detector.The club gets many relayed requests from metal detector dealer, Kellyco Metal Detectors, in Winter Springs, Florida to help frantic folks who have lost irreplaceable keepsakes...jewelry, rings, necklaces, and bracelets to recover them. From a bejeweled platinum crucifix lost on a six-acre working farm, to a platinum engagement ring lost in a septic tank...the CFMDC Search Team will put as many man-hours in as possible to locate and recover the items. Many times, despite repeated searches, and sometimes trying to recover a target by pawing through piles of wet, "fragrantly" steaming sewage, some items cannot be found...those are the times we feel inadequate to the task. But every CFMDC SEARCH TEAM member who has been in on any search for a lost item can talk the talk, because each and every one has walked the walk!  

If you have lost an item or need experienced evidence hunters in the Central Florida area who's services come at the cost of a pizza...cheese or half-pepperoni...and most usually nothing at all...leave the CFMDC a message on it's website. Central Florida Metal Detecting Club Peace and good health!

Fake Finds - Fibbing and A' Ribbing

Over the many years of metal detecting, treasure hunting and all that, I've run several times (maybe more than a few) into the phenomena we all used to call "Fibbing and A' Ribbing." Basically this consists of someone pretty much lying thru' their teeth about what they have found and where they have found it. Many years ago, early 1980's,down in South Florida, a lot of us would get together at Kevin Reilly's treasure hunting shop "Reillys Treasured Gold" to "chew the fat," and bring out our finds. 

Now of course, certain guys (not that many gal's in the hobby then) could not use a metal detector properly if their lives depended on it, (they were not the easiest machines to master) nor could they pin-point worth a dang with the old concentric co-planer coils, and basically collected pop-tabs by the barrel-load to make aluminum necklaces out of for their pets...or whatever they did with em' at the time.

So, some of these guys, on occasion, would pull out a nice Indian Head penny and pass it around to oohs and ahhs, or wave a shiny gold wedding band or silver ring. Now. there was a lot of stuff to find then, without the roaming hordes of metal detector operators that NOW wander the shore, vacuuming up every dot of metal anywhere. You could easily, on a good day, pull a half-dozen gold rings from the sand. But not everyone could.

How do you get the respect you want in a group of treasure hunters if you ain't finding treasure...or haven't found treasure yet? Answer: you buy or borrow some and present it as the real thing! Instant street cred...wallah! And what good is street cred you ask? You get popular...people want a winner on the team, on the hunts and on the prowl. If you are a producer, you get invited to go where the experienced treasure hunters go. Never underestimate street cred! But you have to be careful...one "experienced" treasure hunter was proudly passing around his coin finds, in their protective sleeves, when someone noticed one of the paper protectors had a price and coin shop logo printed on the border.

This happens a bit in Social Media today, I think...it's not rampant, but you can pick it out if you look close. We had a guy on several FB Metal Detecting groups quite a few years ago who, each weekend, posted amazing and valuable jewelry finds...gold chains, wedding bands and diamonds galore. When he was questioned about it after the up-tenth time, as his "finds" were always set against a jewelry store-type display with not a speck of beach sand anywhere, his temper flared and he threw angry comments about jealousy and envy across the group pages. He left the groups in a huff, but it was discovered later that he worked in a jewelry store in Miami. What a coincidence.

But really, who cares? So what, you say...they are making fools out of no one but themselves, right? Well maybe, but I think it is wrong because you are deceiving other folks, either new to the hobby or new to the area, into thinking that fabulous and valuable finds are made like taking candy from a baby. Every experienced beach hunter, treasure hunter, or coin-shooter knows it takes hours of detecting, research and, mainly luck to make those enviable finds, and is not the piece of cake they are trying to make it out to be.

So, reviewing other people's amazing metal detecting finds is fun, legitimate finds especially, poser finds not so much. But still, how would you know? I have many friends in the hobby that DO make amazing finds, after much hard work and field time...one look at their muddy, sunburned face, dirty clothes, and dazed look, will tell you the whole story. Finds framed by pickup truck beds, resting on a metal detector control panel, still in a dirt-walled hole, or on someones sand-covered finger are pretty much the real deal. Finds sporting brightly-colored magazine-ad backgrounds, not so much.

Stay safe, make good recoveries!

Minelab CTX 3030 - The Arrington Chronicals

I've been metal-detecting since 1965, a good 50-years plus in the hobby. In that time, I've read a lot of books on the subject, met a lot of people who knew what they were doing, and those that didn't, and done a good bit of treasure hunting myself. Now back in the day, nobody called themselves a detectorist...that was coined (excuse the pun) from a British TV show of the same name. Reality imitating Art again. We came in two varieties back then...you were either a coin-shooter, i.e. just a casual plinker digging lost coins, or a THer, i.e. a treasure hunter, researching, locating and finding lost treasure of the serious kind; lost Civil War payrolls, shipwreck coins, hidden caches and anything of great value. And we learned a valuable lesson then...it was not your metal detector that finds the goods...it's you and how you use the tools of treasure hunting. Of course, a $2500 machine is gonna be much more capable than a $29 metal detector you find at a local Big Box store, despite arguments I always hear to the contrary...usually from the $29 detector owners, that they are "...just as good!" in much the same vein as Lear Jet pretty much trumps a little Cessna 152 in speed and altitude, plus the fact Cessna 150 owners are experienced enough not to argue the opposite...not to put too fine a point on it.

One of the most expensive detectors you can own is a Minelab CTX-3030. A top-of-the-line machine considered by many to be a professional grade detector. It sports a color screen, target displays consist of double, two-digit numbers denoting the target's Ferrous content and Conductivity rating. A 12-47 comes in usually as a silver quarter, a 01-43 indicates a silver dollar, and a 35-45 indicates something IRON. The machine can display more than one target at a time under the coil, has a built in GPS, runs on 28 different frequencies simultaneously, and is waterproof. Whew!

Ken Returning A Lost Gold Engagement Band

A friend of mine, and fellow CFMDC member, Kenneth Arrington, is what we used to call a Master Hunter with this particular machine. Kenneth had a long dry spell between jobs as a water plant chemist, and rather than sit on his you-know-what, hit the beach, park and everywhere in between during his job search. He spent from 12 to 14 hours daily using the Minelab CTX 3030, developed techniques and search patterns that made him some glorious finds during his hunts. A lot of them he displayed on our club Facebook site, Central Florida Metal Detecting Club group, and a lot of other metal detecting groups.

In between his finds, Kenneth has made himself useful in the local community, finding and returning WWII dog-tags lost in the mid-1940's to the still-living wife of the now-deceased solider, and was written up in the local news. He, along with his wife Karen, also found a lost engagement ring for a frantic groom, who thought his marriage was over BEFORE it had even begun!

A lot of folks became extremely impressed with the finds Kenneth was making and came to a somewhat erroneous conclusion...that the MACHINE was responsible for the finds! As a result, there was a plethora of CTX 3030 purchases made based on that assumption. Of course, there is no doubt it is a stellar detector, but without the dedicated knowledge and experience, you are gonna be angrily posting bottle-caps and few pieces of foil instead of gold rings and silver jewelry. As a result, many folks started requesting advice from Kenneth. He didn't mind giving a few pointers, but with Kenneth hard at work again on a new job, his time has been limited and questions getting more complex.

Water Chemist, and detectorist, Kenneth Arrington in his natural environment

His amazing finds here in Central Florida continue, as a dedicated treasure hunter, and artifact hunter, his skill levels are yet to be surpassed with the Minelab CTX-3030. Kenneth has also offered to give personal lessons on the machine, disseminating some of his hard-won knowlege, so if you are interested, and live in the Central Florida area, give him a holler at Karrington1@cfl.rr.com and see if you can get on the training roster!

Detecting The Paranormal - Passing Angels

A few weeks ago, on a real nice Florida weekday morning, I was en-route to Cocoa Beach from Orlando to do some treasure hunting along the beach. I had the trunk loaded up with several metal detectors, my Minelab E-Trac, with a humongous 16" coil, and my contest-won Nokata Impact, I am still learning to use. I was singing along with Credence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through The Jungle" and thoroughly enjoying my temporary solitude as I whizzed along, southeast bound, on a deserted Route 520 at about 8:00 in the A.M. 

As I sped along, about 60 mph, I noticed a beat-up white Toyota Corolla coming up on my left, in the passing lane. I stole a quick glance in my mirror, and the car was sporting a junk-yard hood, same model, but black, instead of the car's overall off-white color. No big deal...a lot of junk cars, especially in Florida, on the back roads. Thing is, as it pulled up next to me, the driver waved at me! I thought it was someone I knew...I mean, who waves at you while passing???

The car suddenly decelerated and dropped back behind me, not completing the pass. Taking all of less than 5-seconds, I looked ahead, then again glanced behind my vehicle, and the junker was GONE! I looked out my back window and nothing was there. There were no turnoffs, or even much in the way of a hi-way shoulder to pull off on. I slowed further, then pulled off myself on a precarious shoulder. 

I got out and looked both directions and there was nothing to be seen...no cars of any kind, which was also odd because it was a weekday morning and some people still drove the 520 to work instead of paying the steep toll of the faster 528. I scratched my head a bit and finally went on. As soon as I passed under the 528 overpass, route 520 was suddenly once again alive with cars and trucks...as it should have been on the other side.

Later I did a little googling and found that the 520 is known as Bloody 520 as so many people have been killed in automobile accidents in the last 40-years, the reference said the entire span of it was literally a graveyard. And the article went on to call Route 520 one of the most haunted roads in Florida. Say what??? 

I told a few of my metal-detecting friends who already know I'm crazy, so I was not inviting ridicule per-say, but I expected a few raised eye-brows, but no one laughed. Apparently when you reach a certain age, with friends also in that age range, you've seen a lot of things...a lot of things...and you have a bit more leeway to consider hard-to-explain events. One of my friends asked about the event I experienced, then looked both ways and said "I was alone sitting in a chair putting on a pair of socks, getting ready to head for work, when I head a voice not more than a few feet away say 'CAN YOU HEAR ME, JEROME?' very loudly." He said he jumped a few feet in the air, then yelled for his wife, who had already left for work. He was totally stumped as to what the voice was or where it came from.

Another friend, Melinda, said something I had not considered. She said "Maybe you and an 18-wheeler were going to collide a few miles up the road and you might have been killed. Maybe it was your guardian Angel, slowing you down and averting your death." Would a Guardian Angel wave at you? Apparently this one did.

Note: A few names were changed to protect the open-minded

The Coin Probe - Electronically Powerless

Among all of social media, hundreds of YouTube videos and various detecting magazines and publications, I've yet to see a serious discussion...no...any discussion at all...of a useful tool borne by electronic treasure hunters for many, many years. It ain't got no screen, it don't need WiFi, and Bluetooth, in this regard, simply means someone just ate a pint of blueberries. 

Coin probes in action...or inaction...hard to tell with coin probes

No power, no batteries, no solar cells, BUT, I can assure you it is completely WIRELESS! A varnished wooden handle embedded with a quarter-inch diameter steel rod running around 7 inches in length...a probe...what we used to call a COIN PROBE in the old days. The probes I own are commercially made, slightly bent from continuous use and lightly discolored except for the polished and rounded steel tip, because it is continually shoved into the sometimes-difficult  ground. It is a piece of field gear I don't leave home without, and you shouldn't either.

Probing a flattened aluminum can; highly conductive target, but highly deceptive

I use a probe like this all the time, so much, it has it's own spot in my field pouch, and always the first thing in my hand when a large, hard to ID, target reveals itself.

Left to right; coin-probe, cleaning brush, Gator digger, and Garrett pin-pointer

Despite our newfangled hand-held pulse detectors, I still instinctively probe carefully beneath the surface for the "hard-strike" of the actual target...also a useful technique in figuring out where the edges of the target lie. Now a lot of people new to the hobby (pretty much everyone in the last year or two) tell me "I don't want to scratch the coin using that thing!" Well, unlike using a ground-down screwdriver, or an old ice pick (OMG...an ICE PICK!!) these feature carefully ground-down tips...careful probing will not scratch coins or artifacts...of course if you try really hard, you probably could. Don't try really hard!

ground down and semi-rounded coin-probe tip

Here in Florida, a "clever" move by many city officials is to not prohibit metal detecting per se, but they snicker quite a bit when they put a "no digging" clause in the rules (hahaha!) so though you can scan for targets, you cannot "dig" for them!!! Using a probe, however, you can physically check for the target, maneuver it beneath the object, and "pop," or work it to the surface, and out of the ground, or between the grass. No digging took place...you just went around the rules and legally recovered a coin or artifact. Of course, there is a limit to what size target you can do this with, and I usually restrict this kind of coin-probe recovery to coin-sized items. For bigger items, you and your friends are going to need to petition city hall and get your detecting rights back!

Of course, you can make your own out of old screwdrivers, old ice picks, and the like...just be very careful to make sure the tip is ground down and rounded...I once scratched the face of an 1879 Indian with a homemade screwdriver-probe...I'll never do it again! Good luck and happy hunting!  

Dangerous Detecting and The New World Order

I recently read the social media comment "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I have a great one that I would try!" The dishonest detectorist then went on to describe how he would explain to anyone questioning him (i.e. why he was hunting in a park that was clearly marked NO METAL DETECTING) that he was looking for his dear old granny's precious wedding ring she lost while playing football for the 49ers last week. Indeed, as Andy Sabisch posted on his face book page "Is this what the hobby has become in 2018?" He makes commentary on the sad fact metal detecting, the hobby, has become essentially a number's game nowadays. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, metal detecting has become a competition to see how much "stuff" you can vacuum up without regard to where it was found, what it was, or of what significance it is. Sad to say, I've seen this problem grow in the last few years, with social media throwing down the gauntlet to "...get out there and metal detect, boys and girls!!" with thousands of items tossed in a box and dumped in finds competition...along with confrontations, arguments between people about the legitimacy of the finds, accusations of cheating and et al. I've actually seen metal detecting addicts hunting with their eyes glazed over, digging relentlessly, like someone vacuuming a dammed rug or carpet! I went to the beach one weekend, which I don't usually do, just to spend an hour walking the beach without a detector, and I counted 21 people with metal detectors in the first quarter mile, most digging illegally in the dunes, or waving the machine 3-feet in the air, while carrying a full-sized shovel and glaring at anyone else swinging a machine.

I know of folks who trespass brazenly onto a private property and then, in their own words "I metal detect until someone throws me out!" Others use illicit means to access off-limits properties pretending to be city workers checking for pipes, or power pole markers with the fake ID to go along with it. Or any number of other ruses you or I would never dream of attempting...and they get awards for fantastic finds that the majority of us will never dig because we respect the NO TRESPASSING signs. I've seen people at metal detecting hunts seeding the field with tokens, then when the hunt starts, they turn and follow the line they walked and pick up most of the tokens THEY had just seeded!  Perhaps, as the United States slowly dies and becomes a third world enclave, this is the new normal...civility, pride in achievement, work and honesty are things of the past. Criminality, lies, deceit, theft and an anything-goes mentality among our destroyed middle-class society is what rules nowadays. 

Digging up a person's yard, leaving trash, uncovered holes...same thing in city and county parks. Digging coins by the truckload 8 to 10 hours a day by younger people (in the 20 to 30 to 40 year old range) who should be at work or at least someplace doing something constructive, seems also to be the norm. When I was a kid, maybe 9 or 10, you very rarely saw men in large numbers wandering around during a weekday...it was mostly mothers with small kids shopping, kids just off school, or a few retired folks with their grand-kids. The men were at work...not wandering the community. Nowadays you see masses of apparently jobless young to middle-aged people wandering shopping centers, sitting on picnic tables in parks, standing in doorways, or using metal detectors 10-14 hours a day. The end is near...or is already here and we don't know it yet.

We've had discussions about how to protect yourself at the beach, with a few people calling everyone "pricks" who legally carry weapons to defend themselves and family from the "people," if you can even call em' that, the ones who laugh at gun laws, no matter how many laws...how many tons of paper...are written, and do what they want, whenever they want, and to whomever they want...unless they are the whomever's who legally carry a means of defense. Several folks were talking about quietly detecting a local beach in the cool of the evening only to be attacked by ragged people from out of the darkness, a Hollywood horror movie become reality. Unfortunately for the attackers, the detectorists were legally armed. Their comment was "...pulling out the Glock put a halt to their shenanigans real quick." What would have happened otherwise? You figure it out. It's a tough world now.

Myself, I would not be caught on any beach at night anymore, the homeless, the criminals, rapists, thieves, and ne'er-do-wells, even though we carry pepper spray and tasers, even carry them during the day, we'd just as soon stay away. Genuine nut cases are everywhere here in the states nowadays, people approach you in broad daylight asking "...do you have any gold?" We were legally metal detecting during a weekday in a deserted section of a county park. Out of nowhere, a 30-something, came up to me and said he'd been bitten by red ants on the legs and it was very painful. His girlfriend, who also appeared from nowhere, nodded. He then says to me "We've decided to contact a state legislator with a request they change the name of the red ant to "Spicy Boy." His girlfriend nodded vigorously. "We really think it's a good idea...how about you?" I saw Patti walking toward us, her detecting shovel, long-handle steel with a sharp, trowel-sized blade, over her shoulder, looking at the couple with caution. They did not see her. I had my hand on the taser at my belt, felt for the activation switch, and flicked it on. 

Just at that moment, one of the park rangers, a friend of mine, pulled up in his electric cart. "Hi, Joe," I say. Ranger Joe looks at us, and says to me and Patti "...find anything?" He looked curiously at the "red ant" couple. They looked back, suddenly uneasy with Joe's presence and for some reason, seemed even more uneasy that we personally knew the park ranger. "Want a ride back to your car? I'm heading that way anyway." We were happy to get a ride back, almost a mile walk. Joe looks at me on the ride back and says "Friends of yours?" I looked back and said "Never saw them before...no car, no bicycles...just showed up outa' nowhere." After I mentioned their conversation topic, he keyed his mike on his radio. "Erma, call the police and direct them to the far side of the park...suspicious characters." A short time later a police car, tossing dust, passed us heading for the outer reaches of the park with two officers aboard. They came back toward us a short time later and Joe said to them, "What's the story?" The officers said they didn't see anyone...there was a 6-foot barbed wire topped fence around the park proper that would not have been easy to climb, even with a ladder. Joe looked at us and said "That was strange...even kinda weird." We had to agree.

The PAS - Rescuing History

The metal detecting community in England and some of the more enlightened  practitioners of the actual art and science of real honest archaeology, as well as the British Museum no less, have come together to discover, document, recover, study, curate and display the neglected artifacts of an ancient age. And they are making fantastic inroads in mutual cooperation, as well as historic finds, with their marvelous Portable Antiquities Scheme or PAS for short. As a result, English history and the tangible remains thereof, have received a tremendous boost in popularity, with the citizens and certain savvy academics, sporting a newly renewed interest in the lives of those who lived thousands of years ago through their everyday objects and coinage.

Of course, none of this came easy, as the old guard, somewhat yellowed and musty, in archaeological circles, organizations and institutions fought tooth and nail against it...as they still do here in America. The sounds of tiny gnashing teeth, an amazing side job in hysterically dissing artifact and coin collectors, along with the infantile name-calling habit, are still heard in certain puddles of these folks who choose to live in the academic basement of archaeological origins and practices. Some 21st Century archaeologists, however, making use of the old adage "Work smarter, not harder!" have been turning to experienced metal detecting practitioners for help in racing the clock in recovering items being destroyed by chemical-based farming, road building, new structures and the like.

Another old saying "Old ways won't open new doors," seems to apply to those that seem to want to clutch at the old methods of doing archaeology, especially those who have lost sight of the goal of the supposed science, which was knowledge, not artifacts. They cannot understand (nor do some of them want to...hate and discord becomes a life choice, in some cases) that old ways of doing things are becoming extinct, and it is important, maybe even imperative, to initiate and embrace new ways to open doors into the future, and more importantly, new doors to the past. The PAS has done just that.

I roundly applaud the enlightened and intelligent purveyors of the PAS, archaeologists and metal detectorists alike, and the amazing database of knowledge it has spawned. Any process that adds 1,321,439 objects within 841,580 records that under the "old way" would not even exist, has my vote. Metal detectorists would do well to emulate this here in the United States before its too late. There is still time, but not much.
  O