Re: Ulloa's Trinidad
Mike, point well taken. I guess it's all a question of each person's threshold of caution. Ie.: at what point is a person simply gullible, verses anylitical? At what point does caution and realizm cross the line to hypercriticalism? Or at what point does "open-mindedness" end up where you become one of those conspiracy buffs, pulling treasure maps out of dime-store novels, convinced they
could possibly be true? (afterall, you NEVER KNOW, right? haha)
Returning to look at this point of yours:
2. SoCal about 1/2 mile from a beach, an old man walking his dog started finding gold coins along a certain trail. Showed them to the Docent at a local museum, who told him what they were. He bought a metal detector and hit the area pretty hard. He found parts of guns, knives, buttons. All Spanish. His best find was about a 7in X 3in gold cross encrusted with emeralds.
a) I'm assuming you don't know, nor have ever met, this "old man", right? Have you seen the coins, or just read somewhere that "an old man found them"? b) Can the coins be viewed anywhere? Or persons interviewed who saw them (not persons who, in turn, heard about them, from someone else, who in turn, heard about them, etc..) In other words, are you/we just relying on this story you read, or can the facts be checked out anywhere, down to either the actual coins, or firsthand witnesses? c) Have you met the docent? who's account of these 2 fellows meeting together that fateful day in the museum, are you relying on? I mean, where did this encounter story originate from? As in, who later wrote about this fateful encoutner? Is the docent's identity known, so that someone could talk to the fellow about the facts of this? d) Where is the rest of the loot the guy supposedly found now? Where's the guy now? Is there any way to know that he wasn't a dreamer showing stuff he got from elsewhere?
This may come as a surprise, but there are actually odd things that people do. I was president of an md'ing club for many years, and saw some odd behavior in people, when it came to "treasure", and metal detecting related issues. For example: We used to have a "find of the month" contest. There was a particular odd fellow who ... month after month looked with envy at others cool finds up there on the table. Rings, old coins, etc.. All this poor beginner could muster up was recent clad
But eventually, he began to show up at the meetings with his own goodies. At first, a gold ring or two. Then eventually, 8 or 10 gold rings, earings, necklaces, etc... at each month's show & tell. He began to get the respect of veteran hunters, who plied him for information on where he was hunting, how he was doing so good on jewelry, etc... He RELISHED the attention of swinging with the big boys, and the attention of his turn up to the podium to talk about his recent finds. The one month, he comes in with a gold coin! Wrapped in a plastic sealed packaging, like you might find in coin store display type container, complete with type-written date, ID, grade, etc.... Everyone was impressed! Wow, his first gold coin!
But get this! Eventually, word leaked out: The fellow wasn't actually finding all these cools things. Instead, what he was doing, was loading up on clad from sandboxes, shallow turf stuff, etc... Once he'd get $100 to $200 worth of clad, he'd go down to the smelt/coin/buy-sell place, and buy random gold rings, and ... yes .... even a gold coin eventually. Then he'd report that he "found" them. People in our club got real p*ssed at him for this and began to shun him. But I still remember his logic: "Hey, I DID *find* them, because I *found* the clad, that added up, to enable me to buy them, therefore it's legit to say they were "found". Get it?
The only reason I bring up this story, is to show that "people walking into a museum or newspaper reporter" with "treasure" may (just may) have some different story behind it. I know it's strange, and I know when your trusted Uncle Bob tells you about a treasure, or your trusted newspaper, you may think there's just no possible other explanation, but believe me, the human psyche gets a little too trusting at times, because it wants to believe so bad, about treasure. I think all of us have this in our blood, to one degree or another, to not want to ask the tough questions, and instead, give the story-teller the benefit of the doubt, because we too want to be in on that "winning side" at times