Re.: skeptical kill-joy analysis of treasure stories, markers, etc....:
I know it seems counter-intuitive to "doubt" . Because you'd think that this attitude would merely cause a person to NOT go out and chase clues, stories, etc... Right ? Hence they'd simply preclude themselves from the "what if it's true?" side of the equation. Right ?
But IMHO, the opposite is true: If TH'rs would think critically and skeptically (looking for "other explanations" and "more plausible explanations"), then , after weeding out silly coincidences, ghost stories, etc..., they would find themselves only pursuing the leads that DO have potential. Their time would be better spent.
It's the same for md'ing @ single coins/relics: When researching far off sites that are going to require a drive (stage stop, ghost towns, etc....), we ask ourselves for all the reasons why it might be a waste of time. And if it starts to have too many such potential "gotchas", then we concentrate our time elsewhere, instead. This has come from 40+ yrs. of hard-knocks lessons: Would get all excited about some spot I was reading about or heard about from a friend of a friend, blah blah. Rush out there, hike for miles to reach it, ....... only to immediately see it was attributable to some other explanation. Or had a modern house on the spot. Or ..... whatever. And always, in retrospect, I'd realize that I'd put rationale skeptical thinking aside, and had only had dollar signs in my eyes.
Thus as years progressed, I'd start to be much more careful of which leads on-sites I was going to pursue. SO TOO do I believe the same logic would apply to cache hunting. So when these colorful legends come up (and un-canny markers someone sees on a rock, blah blah blah), then in my opinion, the same logic of spending time on the most-likely ones, would be the same logic.
Also: if you look down the annals of history on caches that md'rs found, I bet that all of them (the tame ones, not the commissioned ones) were merely a factor of digging jar-&-hubcap sized signals at whatever place they were hunting. Ie.: most often accidentally found, so-to-speak. And conversely, few if any caches are ever found by chasing the cryptogram clue ones, or these fabled lost-dutchman, yamashita, pearl ship, etc... ghost stories.
So if I were going to angle for caches, I'd merely get a 2-box unit, detune it so that it finds nothing smaller than a soda-can sized object, and merely scout all sorts of cellar holes and foundations of long-gone habitations.
