Strange

Treasure Hunter Uses Google Earth to Find Lost Booty

by Tina Kells | February 12, 2009 at 01:30 pm

1283 views | 6 Recommendations | 2 comments

Nathan Smith, a treasure hunter, has used Google Earth technology to find the site of what he believes is a ship full of lost booty.

Unfortunately, the sunken treasure that Smith believes he's found is still out of reach. The owners of the land where the booty is buried won't let the Los Angeles musician dig it up.

Smith is now in litigation to get his Google Earth discovered booty out of its watery holding pen and in to his nice dry bank account.

Using Google Earth, a Los Angeles-based musician named Nathan Smith thinks he's found a lost treasure ship that sank somewhere north of Corpus Christi during a hurricane in 1822.
But the owners of the land won't let him dig — unless a court rules that the muddy creek is indeed "navigable waters," in which case the federal government decides.

A recent book called "Lost Treasures of American History" got Smith to noodling around on his computer — and an intriguing pattern near the small town of Refugio spurred him to drive nonstop to the Gulf Coast, metal detector in hand.

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crr_rndy

at 00:46 on February 13th, 2009

I feel strongly sympathetic to this guy. His resourcefulness is to be commended.

Problem is, even if he does get federal support, could they just be letting him do the donkey work and pay the expense before confiscating the treasure. If the owners had given him permission for 30% or what ever, they would both have avoided central govt and paid duties. Obviously the owners didn;t think that was worth it. But possession is 9/10 of the law.

Wonder why the owners aren't burrowing themselves.