12/27/18 Report - Some Treasure Coast Beaches Lightly Cut And Higher Surf Coming. Curse of Oak Island TV Show Comments By Viewers.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

John Brooks Beach Thursday Morning.

I checked some beaches this morning.  John Brooks showed some small cuts, which evidently happened last night.

John Brooks Beach Thursday Morning.

Blind Creek had been nicely eroded some time in the not too distant past.  Unfortunately I missed that.  Today was too late.  

Blind Creek Beach Thursday Morning.

Fort Pierce South Jetty was mostly poor with the exception of a short area to the north that looked better.

Fort Pierce South Jetty Beach Thursday Morning.

I'm not expecting much more improvement in beach conditions despite the larger surf that is predicted.  The wind will be shifting more to the south.

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I stumbled on some fun and interesting comments concerning the Oak Island TV show on reddit.  Here is one that echoes much of what I've said.

Curse of Oak Island has shown us a definite pattern.

Allow 'Metal Detection Expert' Gary Drayton find an interesting item or two. Last year, for example, the items included the brooch and the Tanit cross. This year it is another brooch and the Roman pilum.

The pattern:

-- Have Metal Detection Expert Gary Drayton immediately announce his assumption as to what the item is, what it consists of, and its age.

-- Call Rick.

-- Salivate over it in the War Room.

-- Hire an "expert" to say exactly what they want them to say.

-- Squeeze two or three episodes (or maybe more) out of it.

-- Include a photo of it in the show's intro as if it is some great discovery.

But the biggest thing... is it gets us arguing back and forth about the actual nature of the item and takes our focus off what we should really be looking at... the hunt for treasure!

As Dan Blankenship said in last Season's finale', as the Team sat around the Table of Pathetic, "These are just surface finds! They're leading you no closer to finding out if there's treasure on Oak Island!"

(Of course, this quote was bastardized, taken completely out of context, and used in promos for the finale', as producers clipped it to show Dan exclaiming: "... There's treasure on Oak Island!") (but I digress)

Example: They say it's Roman, they hire an "expert" to say it's Roman, and it forever becomes "Roman". Meanwhile, we do more research than the "Oak Island Team" or any UFO writer has done, and we can just about prove it isn't what the "expert" says it is.

Another classic example of this is a couple of Seasons ago when a rather obvious railroad spike was confidently pronounced by "Dr" Lori, to be a "decking nail from the Spanish Galleon". (Which just coincidentally (wink, wink) matched up with the outlandish theory of a Spanish Galleon being purposely sunk between the "two" Oak Islands, followed by the "two" islands being merged into one.)

Regardless, whether this new item is actually a pilum, a crossbow bolt, a frog gig, a property marker, etc, etc.... IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER!

Even if we assume it is a Roman pilum... BIG DEAL! It was found near the shore at Lot 26. Is that leading them to buried treasure in the Money Pit area (or anywhere else, for that matter)?

Will excavation at Smith's Cove lead them closer to buried treasure?

Will searching through spoils lead them closer to buried treasure?

Don't get caught up in all the bull. Don't get hooked by a fishing hook which "looks like it was used to haul large chests on ships".

Here is the link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OakIsland/comments/a41qo2/roman_pilum_or_not_dont_get_hooked/

There are some other humorous ones.

Could it be that the possible Crossbow Bolt found at Smiths Cove is a weapon of Ancient Roman origin? Or, perhaps even more intriguing, could it be that it is, in reality, the rusted shank of a 19th Century Hand Drill Bit like those below? Could the Antiquities Expert be a total hack? STAY TUNED! (i.redd.it)

submitted 22 days ago by Bill0Rights

Here is that link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OakIsland/comments/a39j2h/could_it_be_that_the_possible_crossbow_bolt_found/

I had some readers that crossbow bolt was actually something else.  It sure didn't look like the examples I saw.

Seems like the "experts" don't have a lot of credibility with the viewers and for many the show is becoming a not too entertaining comedy.  There are many posts and comments about the show out there.  It does get viewers, but many are unimpressed by their misspent viewing time.

Here are a couple more to read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OakIsland/comments/a1cep6/what_exactly_did_jack_and_gary_unearth/

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/category/oak-island

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

It looks like the surf will not be quite as high as expected earlier, but worse yet, the winds won't be favorable.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

5/11/17 Report - TV Show Poll Results and More. Space Treasure and Collectibles. Custom Made Cobs.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

The poll has concluded and the results are in.  I think the poll could have been constructed better, but it worked.  One person said I should have had a "none of the above" answer.  That is a good idea.  Maybe I should have done that.  There were other possibilities as well.

The sample size was good.  Over fifty people responded.

Here are the poll results on the perceived "realness" or "trustworthiness" of each of the four TV shows.

Bearing Sea Gold	20 (38%)
Cooper's Treasure	3 (5%)
Curse of Oak Island	9 (17%)
Gold Rush	20 (38%)

The amazing thing to me is how precisely the results matched my own feelings.   The poll respondents put the shows in exactly the same order that I would, and the relative number of votes for each show reflected how I felt about the shows.

Bering Sea Gold and Gold Rush were selected as being the most real or trustworthy by the same number of people, and both of those shows received more than twice the number of votes received by either of the other shows.

I also had a hard time deciding which of those two I trusted most.  It was a toss up.  I like Bering Sea gold better, but that has nothing to do my feeling about it being more real.

Coming in third was the Curse of Oak Island show.  That is where I would put it too. I think it is an interesting, even with all of its short-comings.  I can watch it, even with all of the dramatization and baiting.

And dead last in trustworthiness according to the poll results was the Cooper's Treasure show, which, as I think I said before, almost makes me feel like I need to take a shower after watching a few minutes.

It seems that there are a lot of people that feel the same.  That was my feeling from the first few minutes, and I wondered if everybody else felt that way.  Evidently many did.

For me the meeting between Darrell Miklos and Gene Kranz said it all.  Darrell had obviously misled Gene about the purpose or topic of the meeting in order to arrange a meeting, and then tried to get Gene to say something about the topic of treasure. Gene didn't appreciate being misled and put an abrubt end to the meeting and walked off.

Below is a link to an article on the Cooper's Treasure program by Variety, an entertainment publication, and even they address what I would call ethics issues.  That article starts with the following.

The poorly kept secret of unscripted TV is that it is, in general, rather scripted. Ari Mark and Phil Lott, co-founders of production company AMPLE, are looking to affix that “un-” back where it belongs.

“Our generation, you’re at a point where you want to believe in things,” Mark tells Variety. “Everything in your life is fake, and especially in our genre.”

Here is that link.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/coopers-treasure-discovery-ample-darrell-miklos-1202011043/

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I've made several references to space lately, ranging from meteorites to rocket parts.  Occasionally people discover what appear to be melted metal from Shuttle launches on the Treasure Coast.  I've written about that, provided tips on how to test that metal to distinguish it from melted aluminum and reported on some people who talked to NASA to verify that their finds were related to space shots.

On May 7 it was reported that  The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B mini-space plane has landed after a record 718 days in Earth orbit, touching down for the first time on the Florida runway historically used by NASA's space shuttles.

I've said before that someday people will be salvaging space vehicles and debris similar to how shipwrecks are salvaged now.  In fact there is a space vehicle that orbits while collecting space junk to turn into fuel that it can use.  Interesting idea.

I recently heard it said (I think it was on TED) that if you want a new idea, read an old book.  I agree with that, but there are other ways to get new ideas too.  Creativity is stimulated by reading broadly.

Here is the link if you want to read the article about the vehicle that vacuums up space junk to use as fuel.

http://www.popsci.com/design-concept-space-vacuum-thats-fueled-by-space-junk

Continuing on the subject of space, there is a good web site that offers a wide variety of "space collectibles."  Here is the link.

http://www.collectspace.com/

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Did you know that there is a company that will manufacture cobs that are hand struck from die that are  custom made?  They hand strike them on planchets.  You can send them the silver after I investigate it more.

I'll have more on that in the future.

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We're supposed to have a couple weeks of one or two foot surf on the Treasure Coast.  No change in beach conditions expected.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net