Legalese and other things

[CRM114]

When Fenn said he left it "on the ground" in his July 2020 statement that he agreed to say it was in Wyoming, I knew it was hogwash. This was an irrelevant thing to say, unless he intended to say it. It was apparent to me that the chest had been buried in the June, 2020 released photo. I chalked it up to some sort of ill-advised, legally useless protection for him, the finder, or both. I suppose people can quibble, but I contend it's a documented lie.

Then, of course, photos emerge via legal proceedings showing the chest buried. Doh! The place we are coaxed to believe it was is someplace where such things are illegal. The two Jack's (the post-find Stuef, and the pre-find Reddit Condor2) imply a pretty consistent story. He had to have grid-searched with a metal detector, another no-no in Yellowstone. The Nine mile hole brain trust I think would have us believe some old dead tree was the blaze and it fell or something (Fenn's infeasible to remove blaze - Doh!) , otherwise you'd go right to it.

Then there's "the log. " Our intrepid NPS rangers don't seem to care that crazies are pillaging this spot after spending considerable effort and taxpayer monies legally trying to protect the spot from the crazies. They don't seem to care that Fenn buried it illegally, and Jack dug it up illegally, or that some crazies are just blatantly taking stuff.

Now Fenn of course said he spent a lot of money on lawyers to make sure everything was legal. But I guarantee if it so happened that Joe Sixpack and family were snooping around Yellowstone with a metal detector and were caught, the kids might be watching Daddy getting handcuffed on this fun family adventure looking for Mr. Brown Trout.

This would all make me question Fenn's legal acumen or his ability to actually create a good treasure hunt suitable for families and worthy of 15 years of effort that he claimed. Except there's science. All the sleuthing of the log and the photos results in one conclusion when you put it all together as documented here previously. The shadows in the chest cannot be created by the Wyoming sun the way the chest had to be oriented against "the log", regardless of what time of year they were taken. Oops. Something is seriously amiss, but what?

It's almost unavoidable to conclude someone truly wants us to believe one thing when the truth is another. They botched the photos somehow - the sun don't shine that way. Why the photos even still exist is a mystery. Were I Fenn or Stuef, I think they'd be going in the electronic trash after their purpose was served. Nevertheless, I hate conspiracy theories, and it's extremely hard to accept that one potentially exists here.

The Dal revelations that Fenn was bent on ending the Chase in late 2019 don't help much, other than to bring a little more potential acceptance of what may have transpired, though going down that route results in a pretty elaborate scheme if that's what happened. But there's those darned botched photos. It's almost as if they were intentionally botched. Why all the apparent disingenuous legal maneuvers by several parties when the legal stuff never apparently mattered anyway?

It's easy to revive that old belief that Fenn is a genius and pulling off even something grander, a belief ingrained by years of working on his puzzle and believing all the things he said or implied - and you just have to figure it out.

Unfortunately, there's statements like "I never communicated with the finder" (or something like that) when the court reveals that was far from the truth. Very disappointing on several levels.

Alternatively, I suppose it's just easier to repeat the mantras: Madison Junction was WWWH, Brown was a trout, the Blaze was a dead fallen tree, who cares about the nine clues. The hint was a big picture in the book of the exact place, with trout. Most of the poem meant nothing. Scrapbooks meant nothing. Just point and laugh at the dopes who thought this was anything more than that. You had to get out there and search around NMH until you cried on a log, covered in sap, then you'd find it. If you read as much about Fenn and emailed him as much as Stuef did, you'd know these things, and then you'd find it and photo it as Steuf did, with the sun in impossible position in the sky to create those shadows.

[jan_v60]

When Fenn said he left it "on the ground" in his July 2020 statement that he agreed to say it was in Wyoming, I knew it was hogwash. This was an irrelevant thing to say, unless he intended to say it. It was apparent to me that the chest had been buried in the June, 2020 released photo. I chalked it up to some sort of ill-advised, legally useless protection for him, the finder, or both. I suppose people can quibble, but I contend it's a documented lie.

Then, of course, photos emerge via legal proceedings showing the chest buried. Doh! The place we are coaxed to believe it was is someplace where such things are illegal. The two Jack's (the post-find Stuef, and the pre-find Reddit Condor2) imply a pretty consistent story. He had to have grid-searched with a metal detector, another no-no in Yellowstone. The Nine mile hole brain trust I think would have us believe some old dead tree was the blaze and it fell or something (Fenn's infeasible to remove blaze - Doh!) , otherwise you'd go right to it.

Then there's "the log. " Our intrepid NPS rangers don't seem to care that crazies are pillaging this spot after spending considerable effort and taxpayer monies legally trying to protect the spot from the crazies. They don't seem to care that Fenn buried it illegally, and Jack dug it up illegally, or that some crazies are just blatantly taking stuff.

Now Fenn of course said he spent a lot of money on lawyers to make sure everything was legal. But I guarantee if it so happened that Joe Sixpack and family were snooping around Yellowstone with a metal detector and were caught, the kids might be watching Daddy getting handcuffed on this fun family adventure looking for Mr. Brown Trout.

This would all make me question Fenn's legal acumen or his ability to actually create a good treasure hunt suitable for families and worthy of 15 years of effort that he claimed. Except there's science. All the sleuthing of the log and the photos results in one conclusion when you put it all together as documented here previously. The shadows in the chest cannot be created by the Wyoming sun the way the chest had to be oriented against "the log", regardless of what time of year they were taken. Oops. Something is seriously amiss, but what?

It's almost unavoidable to conclude someone truly wants us to believe one thing when the truth is another. They botched the photos somehow - the sun don't shine that way. Why the photos even still exist is a mystery. Were I Fenn or Stuef, I think they'd be going in the electronic trash after their purpose was served. Nevertheless, I hate conspiracy theories, and it's extremely hard to accept that one potentially exists here.

The Dal revelations that Fenn was bent on ending the Chase in late 2019 don't help much, other than to bring a little more potential acceptance of what may have transpired, though going down that route results in a pretty elaborate scheme if that's what happened. But there's those darned botched photos. It's almost as if they were intentionally botched. Why all the apparent disingenuous legal maneuvers by several parties when the legal stuff never apparently mattered anyway?

It's easy to revive that old belief that Fenn is a genius and pulling off even something grander, a belief ingrained by years of working on his puzzle and believing all the things he said or implied - and you just have to figure it out.

Unfortunately, there's statements like "I never communicated with the finder" (or something like that) when the court reveals that was far from the truth. Very disappointing on several levels.

Alternatively, I suppose it's just easier to repeat the mantras: Madison Junction was WWWH, Brown was a trout, the Blaze was a dead fallen tree, who cares about the nine clues. The hint was a big picture in the book of the exact place, with trout. Most of the poem meant nothing. Scrapbooks meant nothing. Just point and laugh at the dopes who thought this was anything more than that. You had to get out there and search around NMH until you cried on a log, covered in sap, then you'd find it. If you read as much about Fenn and emailed him as much as Stuef did, you'd know these things, and then you'd find it and photo it as Steuf did, with the sun in impossible position in the sky to create those shadows.

That is Jack’s story. There is some logic in it, but not enough for me.

[CRM114]

That is Jack’s story. There is some logic in it, but not enough for me.

The only thing above positively tied to Jack is the bit about no hints in scrapbooks, and reading everything Fenn wrote to know the man as a key to finding it as opposed to looking for hints. Mysteriously, though, he had never read Seventeen Dollars a Square Inch. Jack's story was inconsistent before NMH ever came up. He talked about Fenn quotes "swirling in his head" when he found it, as if they were important hints to the location. Such inconsistenties bothered me from the moment he went public.

The Reddit Condor2 stuff is Jack, as long as you believe that was him. Certainly the emails revealed in court were Jack, which revealed more inconsistenties about Jack and Forrest. It was shocking to see how much they communicated when we were led to believe they hadn't but one time at first.

[Space Hopper]

It's possible to have gone down the way it's been told. It's not pie in the sky.

[Sarah Seedling]

”It's easy to revive that old belief that Fenn is a genius and pulling off even something grander, a belief ingrained by years of working on his puzzle and believing all the things he said or implied - and you just have to figure it out.“ is this like an infomercial or is it an informal infofinale

[CRM114]

It's possible to have gone down the way it's been told. It's not pie in the sky.

Hi sSpace,

Assuming it did, I regret ever participating, because if I was told you'd need to use a metal detector and dig in Yellowstone at the get-go, I'd pass. But I was assured by Fenn's words he went to extensive lengths to make sure it was legal.

If I believed it was at NMH, short of any clever solution turning up to support it, I'd go burn my book and regret having been duped by Fenn's words into a hunt with such an awful solution when he seemed to promise us it was something more.

But I trust science more than anyone's words, and pieced together, the photos don't match the way the sun shines. I'm not sure what is going on, but someone is engaging in intentional obfuscation.

Sometimes I wish I could believe NMH, then burn my book and laugh it off as a lesson learned. At least I can laugh that some were so sure it was an elaborate solution before the find, then these same people seem to be perfectly willing to accept this absolutely mundane and uninteresting solution as gospel now.

[CRM114]

”It's easy to revive that old belief that Fenn is a genius and pulling off even something grander, a belief ingrained by years of working on his puzzle and believing all the things he said or implied - and you just have to figure it out.“ is this like an infomercial or is it an informal infofinale

Pure infomercial for a new Chase documentary starring all of your favorite usual suspects.

[ICV.]

When Fenn said he left it "on the ground" in his July 2020 statement that he agreed to say it was in Wyoming, I knew it was hogwash. This was an irrelevant thing to say, unless he intended to say it. It was apparent to me that the chest had been buried in the June, 2020 released photo. I chalked it up to some sort of ill-advised, legally useless protection for him, the finder, or both. I suppose people can quibble, but I contend it's a documented lie.

Then, of course, photos emerge via legal proceedings showing the chest buried. Doh! The place we are coaxed to believe it was is someplace where such things are illegal. The two Jack's (the post-find Stuef, and the pre-find Reddit Condor2) imply a pretty consistent story. He had to have grid-searched with a metal detector, another no-no in Yellowstone. The Nine mile hole brain trust I think would have us believe some old dead tree was the blaze and it fell or something (Fenn's infeasible to remove blaze - Doh!) , otherwise you'd go right to it.

Then there's "the log. " Our intrepid NPS rangers don't seem to care that crazies are pillaging this spot after spending considerable effort and taxpayer monies legally trying to protect the spot from the crazies. They don't seem to care that Fenn buried it illegally, and Jack dug it up illegally, or that some crazies are just blatantly taking stuff.

Now Fenn of course said he spent a lot of money on lawyers to make sure everything was legal. But I guarantee if it so happened that Joe Sixpack and family were snooping around Yellowstone with a metal detector and were caught, the kids might be watching Daddy getting handcuffed on this fun family adventure looking for Mr. Brown Trout.

This would all make me question Fenn's legal acumen or his ability to actually create a good treasure hunt suitable for families and worthy of 15 years of effort that he claimed. Except there's science. All the sleuthing of the log and the photos results in one conclusion when you put it all together as documented here previously. The shadows in the chest cannot be created by the Wyoming sun the way the chest had to be oriented against "the log", regardless of what time of year they were taken. Oops. Something is seriously amiss, but what?

It's almost unavoidable to conclude someone truly wants us to believe one thing when the truth is another. They botched the photos somehow - the sun don't shine that way. Why the photos even still exist is a mystery. Were I Fenn or Stuef, I think they'd be going in the electronic trash after their purpose was served. Nevertheless, I hate conspiracy theories, and it's extremely hard to accept that one potentially exists here.

The Dal revelations that Fenn was bent on ending the Chase in late 2019 don't help much, other than to bring a little more potential acceptance of what may have transpired, though going down that route results in a pretty elaborate scheme if that's what happened. But there's those darned botched photos. It's almost as if they were intentionally botched. Why all the apparent disingenuous legal maneuvers by several parties when the legal stuff never apparently mattered anyway?

It's easy to revive that old belief that Fenn is a genius and pulling off even something grander, a belief ingrained by years of working on his puzzle and believing all the things he said or implied - and you just have to figure it out.

Unfortunately, there's statements like "I never communicated with the finder" (or something like that) when the court reveals that was far from the truth. Very disappointing on several levels.

Alternatively, I suppose it's just easier to repeat the mantras: Madison Junction was WWWH, Brown was a trout, the Blaze was a dead fallen tree, who cares about the nine clues. The hint was a big picture in the book of the exact place, with trout. Most of the poem meant nothing. Scrapbooks meant nothing. Just point and laugh at the dopes who thought this was anything more than that. You had to get out there and search around NMH until you cried on a log, covered in sap, then you'd find it. If you read as much about Fenn and emailed him as much as Stuef did, you'd know these things, and then you'd find it and photo it as Steuf did, with the sun in impossible position in the sky to create those shadows.

This seems to be a pretty good summary of the whole mess. Of course people were going to think Forrest was smart and would have a clever solution to the poem.

Being a fighter pilot and major in the AF, then a successful gallery owner would lead one to believe he was at least smarter than average. But it seems he got the fighter pilot gig due to good reflexes, and the art thing was maybe just right place/right time. How were we to know he was going to have Brown be a stupid fish? Maybe we just can't admit it to ourselves that we spent so much time on an unsolvable puzzle.

Deep, logical thinking? Naw... simply guess what young Forrest would have named a fish, then look for the right log. There's only a few...million.

[AaBbCcDdEeFf]

The fish named Brown is beyond laughable. Also, Forrest set this up kind of similar to a sweepstakes, where no purchase is necessary. Purchasing the book was not necessary. If a person found themselves shelling out bucks for anything other than their own gas money/hotel, it was the wrong solve. That includes paying the ranger at the guard shack.

So in no way could the chest have been deep inside the Park. If it was inside the Park then you could park your vehicle before the guard shack and walk in. That means the chest wouldn't be more than about 500 feet inside the Park boundary.

[klein]

The ending being presented is poorly executed and flies in the face of everything Fenn said over the years. The pandemic effed the Chase and Fenn needed to act. His comms with Dal more than proves it. One only needs to follow the little money trails to see who was used to prop up the story. Karma is coming...

[Imeverybodynow]

When Fenn said he left it "on the ground" in his July 2020 statement that he agreed to say it was in Wyoming, I knew it was hogwash. This was an irrelevant thing to say, unless he intended to say it. It was apparent to me that the chest had been buried in the June, 2020 released photo. I chalked it up to some sort of ill-advised, legally useless protection for him, the finder, or both. I suppose people can quibble, but I contend it's a documented lie.

Then, of course, photos emerge via legal proceedings showing the chest buried. Doh! The place we are coaxed to believe it was is someplace where such things are illegal. The two Jack's (the post-find Stuef, and the pre-find Reddit Condor2) imply a pretty consistent story. He had to have grid-searched with a metal detector, another no-no in Yellowstone. The Nine mile hole brain trust I think would have us believe some old dead tree was the blaze and it fell or something (Fenn's infeasible to remove blaze - Doh!) , otherwise you'd go right to it.

Then there's "the log. " Our intrepid NPS rangers don't seem to care that crazies are pillaging this spot after spending considerable effort and taxpayer monies legally trying to protect the spot from the crazies. They don't seem to care that Fenn buried it illegally, and Jack dug it up illegally, or that some crazies are just blatantly taking stuff.

Now Fenn of course said he spent a lot of money on lawyers to make sure everything was legal. But I guarantee if it so happened that Joe Sixpack and family were snooping around Yellowstone with a metal detector and were caught, the kids might be watching Daddy getting handcuffed on this fun family adventure looking for Mr. Brown Trout.

This would all make me question Fenn's legal acumen or his ability to actually create a good treasure hunt suitable for families and worthy of 15 years of effort that he claimed. Except there's science. All the sleuthing of the log and the photos results in one conclusion when you put it all together as documented here previously. The shadows in the chest cannot be created by the Wyoming sun the way the chest had to be oriented against "the log", regardless of what time of year they were taken. Oops. Something is seriously amiss, but what?

It's almost unavoidable to conclude someone truly wants us to believe one thing when the truth is another. They botched the photos somehow - the sun don't shine that way. Why the photos even still exist is a mystery. Were I Fenn or Stuef, I think they'd be going in the electronic trash after their purpose was served. Nevertheless, I hate conspiracy theories, and it's extremely hard to accept that one potentially exists here.

The Dal revelations that Fenn was bent on ending the Chase in late 2019 don't help much, other than to bring a little more potential acceptance of what may have transpired, though going down that route results in a pretty elaborate scheme if that's what happened. But there's those darned botched photos. It's almost as if they were intentionally botched. Why all the apparent disingenuous legal maneuvers by several parties when the legal stuff never apparently mattered anyway?

It's easy to revive that old belief that Fenn is a genius and pulling off even something grander, a belief ingrained by years of working on his puzzle and believing all the things he said or implied - and you just have to figure it out.

Unfortunately, there's statements like "I never communicated with the finder" (or something like that) when the court reveals that was far from the truth. Very disappointing on several levels.

Alternatively, I suppose it's just easier to repeat the mantras: Madison Junction was WWWH, Brown was a trout, the Blaze was a dead fallen tree, who cares about the nine clues. The hint was a big picture in the book of the exact place, with trout. Most of the poem meant nothing. Scrapbooks meant nothing. Just point and laugh at the dopes who thought this was anything more than that. You had to get out there and search around NMH until you cried on a log, covered in sap, then you'd find it. If you read as much about Fenn and emailed him as much as Stuef did, you'd know these things, and then you'd find it and photo it as Steuf did, with the sun in impossible position in the sky to create those shadows.

Hey, I like this guy!

lol he presents more evidence AGAINST 9MH than there is to support it!

[trueyeti]

Hey,
Good thread comments/data/etc....IMO.

IMO, if you look at the hot-mess in through the looking-glass of "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead," it renders intention. It means that all the subterfuge at the end is predictable. Wyoming...case in point. However.....we still have a snap-shot of the pure and unadulterated treasure hunt if we go back to the time before the events of the chase post-chest recovery. The winning solve is still being fought for. That is the prize now IMO. "Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead" is toppled completely if you can answer the question, "Who is Brown?"

9MH has nothing to do with Richard Wetherill, Byron Harvey, the Navajo (Silversmith), the turquoise bracelet, or Brown, or the "palace in the sand," or the Dragon, or the place where Forrest felt the most comfortable. What does it have to do with, 4, 23 Hillcrest cemetery? Or the frog, or the drawing of the field of stumps, or the "If she drinks all that beer I'm gonna dial 911?" Nada, Zip, Zero, and Zilch. Preserve legacy much? Movement to reveal location or solve goes against Forrest's legacy, IMO. Saying "Wyoming" preserves and guarantees legacy. (Its the old switcheroo). "Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead," has everything to do with not giving away the whole enchilada, in one fell swoop. The trickster is still doing Mandrake Fenn magic tricks....from beyond the grave. And isn't that inline with his methodology....in a way? Wyoming is a riddle.....and all the rest that went into making that "claim," demonstrates his commitment to the preservation of his legacy of maintaining "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead." After all, possession is 9/10th's the law. Cheers.

[CRM114]

This seems to be a pretty good summary of the whole mess. Of course people were going to think Forrest was smart and would have a clever solution to the poem.

Being a fighter pilot and major in the AF, then a successful gallery owner would lead one to believe he was at least smarter than average. But it seems he got the fighter pilot gig due to good reflexes, and the art thing was maybe just right place/right time. How were we to know he was going to have Brown be a stupid fish? Maybe we just can't admit it to ourselves that we spent so much time on an unsolvable puzzle.

Deep, logical thinking? Naw... simply guess what young Forrest would have named a fish, then look for the right log. There's only a few...million.

It's a fair point we don't have any proof he came up with a grand puzzle other than our own more elaborate solutions. It truly could be "a poem about a fish and a picture in the book.". Other than rendering 90% of what he said about it misleading, to put it generously, it could be.

Fenn excelled as a salesman. A few words about "deep thinking" here, a few news articles with him grinning deviously in front of a wall of books there, repeated pronouncements that "he spent 15 years on it" and some vouchers by his New York Times bestseller author friend could lead even a casual observer to the conclusion that there was more to it than a poem about a fish and a picture with name of the spot as a blatant hint in his book. All you had to do is peer through the marketing BS and all the crap he wrote, realize this guy was truly a simpleton, and get out your camoflauge and a metal detector and search methodically and illegally where the picture was taken. Well, I guess you had to have warm waters involved to narrow it down from the other pics. If Forrest Gump had a treasure hunt, it would be this (NMH).

The scene where Forrest Gump just stopped jogging in the middle of the desert, with legions of followers behind him would be an apt metaphor for the ending.

[CRM114]

The fish named Brown is beyond laughable. Also, Forrest set this up kind of similar to a sweepstakes, where no purchase is necessary. Purchasing the book was not necessary. If a person found themselves shelling out bucks for anything other than their own gas money/hotel, it was the wrong solve. That includes paying the ranger at the guard shack.

So in no way could the chest have been deep inside the Park. If it was inside the Park then you could park your vehicle before the guard shack and walk in. That means the chest wouldn't be more than about 500 feet inside the Park boundary.

Yes, that's pretty much the hunt I signed up for, based on his words.

[CRM114]

Hey,
Good thread comments/data/etc....IMO.

IMO, if you look at the hot-mess in through the looking-glass of "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead," it renders intention. It means that all the subterfuge at the end is predictable. Wyoming...case in point. However.....we still have a snap-shot of the pure and unadulterated treasure hunt if we go back to the time before the events of the chase post-chest recovery. The winning solve is still being fought for. That is the prize now IMO. "Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead" is toppled completely if you can answer the question, "Who is Brown?"

9MH has nothing to do with Richard Wetherill, Byron Harvey, the Navajo (Silversmith), the turquoise bracelet, or Brown, or the "palace in the sand," or the Dragon, or the place where Forrest felt the most comfortable. What does it have to do with, 4, 23 Hillcrest cemetery? Or the frog, or the drawing of the field of stumps, or the "If she drinks all that beer I'm gonna dial 911?" Nada, Zip, Zero, and Zilch. Preserve legacy much? Movement to reveal location or solve goes against Forrest's legacy, IMO. Saying "Wyoming" preserves and guarantees legacy. (Its the old switcheroo). "Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead," has everything to do with not giving away the whole enchilada, in one fell swoop. The trickster is still doing Mandrake Fenn magic tricks....from beyond the grave. And isn't that inline with his methodology....in a way? Wyoming is a riddle.....and all the rest that went into making that "claim," demonstrates his commitment to the preservation of his legacy of maintaining "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead." After all, possession is 9/10th's the law. Cheers.

Yes, but we live in a timeline where few people among our fellow searchers understand this. I think we can take solace that the general public at large who are not interested in details will never swallow the idea that the solution to the poem is a fish named Mr. Brown. They would rightly ask "Huh? That's what people died for? This whole thing was even more ridiculous than I suspected." Then imagine the rest of a hypothetical news article showing a log with cracks opening and closing with convoluted explanations of where the pictures came from and hypotheses of who took them as proof. The public will never swallow such a story, except perhaps for those who are predisposed to think the whole thing was ridiculous in the first place. It will never make Wikipedia. NMH as a credible story has already jumped the shark, I think.

No, the public is much more interested in intrigue. Simply tell them the NMH story is pushed as the "official ending," perhaps with the help of the National Park Service, along with the facts that the pictures show shadows that are impossible with the chest in its supposed official orientation. Then spice it up with facts that Fenn was in the CIA, and theCondor2 (Jack on Reddit) could well be a reference to a movie/book about a CIA agent who deciphered books,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Days_of_the_Condor

and then you've got a real intriguing book or documentary if you can pull it off, and it's all true, imo.

History will not swallow that this was all about a fish!