Metal Detecting Tales of Questionable Rescue

Within the metal detecting community, as a friend of mine would say, "...we use our powers for good!"and offer our services free of charge as a public service. I know many, many hobbyists that will drop everything they are doing, drive untold miles, then spend hours in the hot sun, a snake-infested swamp, or under a porch overrun with spiders to recover a lost item for a perfect stranger. Dog-tags, car keys, wedding rings, and a veritable plethora of sometimes irreplaceable items from everyday life fall before our invisible electromagnetic waves, as they probe the dark water and through the earth. But sometimes the mission may be, to quote a southern term, snake-bit from the very start. A call came in from someone who said they could not turn on the water for their home because the valve was lost...we pictured a family with no water. When we arrived, it turned out that it was a contractor refurbishing an apartment complex! He told us they were looking for 36 valves that were buried about two feet deep, and had not been seen since they were buried in 1986...and the valves were the size of  a large marble, the rest was PVC plastic. After a futile hour with a 15" coil, digging 33-years worth of metal trash, we finally packed it in. Without so much as a "Thank you!" the contractor was back on the phone with another contractor as we packed up and left.

Another sketchy mission was to find some gold that belonged to a man who, the caller claimed, had gone senile and did not know where all his gold had been hidden.

As the call progressed, it came to light that, according to the caller, it was his father-in-law's gold but he, the caller, had actually buried it a few years ago. (Shades of the Chinese Affair, one of my earlier blog posts you might want to look up.) We were getting more and more suspicious, and the conversation went on something like this:

"Let me get this straight, you buried you father-in-laws gold?"
"Yes, out in the back-yard...we are moving and I need to dig it up."
"So why do you need a metal detector to find it if you buried it?"
"I don't remember where I buried it."
"What did you bury it in?"
"I don't remember...maybe a potato chip tube...maybe."
"How deep did you bury it?"
"I don't remember...maybe it is buried under a cinder-block."
"How long ago did you bury it?"
"I'm not sure."
"Why did you bury it specifically...did your father-in-law ask you?"
"I don't remember."

So you can see our hesitation in taking a long drive and spending hours in the hot sun...we talked it over then declined the mission...too many things the caller said made no sense.

Another mission we did take, was someone who called and said that while he was building a giant spider, he suddenly realized he had lost his hearing aid and could we come over with our metal detectors and find it? About an hour later we were on site, with our equipment powered up, ready to go. "Where were you when you lost it do you think?" He looked at us and said "Well, I spent most of the morning at the library, then I stopped at the diner and had some lunch, then I came home and mowed the lawn, then I was working on the giant spider over there when I noticed it was gone."

Patti and I glanced at each other...uh-oh...was the unsaid remark that passed between us. He assured us, however, he had gone back to all those places and searched, but the tiny device had not turned up, so it must be on his property. We were using Garrett equipment, an AT-Pro with a "super sniper" coil on it, and our usual ace-in-the-hole  machine for very small items, the ACE 250 with the four-inch "super sniper" coil that could find a nit on a knat's knuckle. Or so we thought. After almost five hours of searching his front-yard, his acre and a half back-yard, he asked if we could search the rooms in his house. Not usually, but whatever. Patti even looked under the bead, in the shower, the closets, the patio to no avail. He asked us if we would search the attic, but we decided that was enough and declined. I told him it was too bad he did not have another hearing aid we could have used for a test-scan to set a benchmark signal that would be recognizable to either machine. He looked at us and pulled a hearing aid out of his left ear "This is identical to the hearing aid I lost...they were a pair when I bought them." I looked at the tiny device and ran the most sensitive coil and machine combination we have over it and not a peep...the pin-pointer would not even go off either when passed over the top. I found out later that the wires inside, and there were not many, were about as thick as a human hair. Patti and I were about to pass out from the heat and went back to the car for some cold drinks and put our equipment away. He walked along with us and asked about our club and said he would send a "donation" but he was never heard from again. We don't ask for cash or credit cards, and our help is gratis, but a "Thank you!" would sometimes be nice in lieu of a reward, or even a cold drink. But these are rare cases and not usually the norm, and will never affect our mission to help someone find their personal lost something.