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.