A careless remark by an amateur historian during a podcast led to a treasure hunt in the waters of New York

Last month, a Fairbanks-area earner appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. His announcement there sparked a treasure hunt in one of New York's waterways, raising concerns from the US Coast Guard. DNA.

John Reeves, owner of Fairbanks Gold Co., told the podcaster and millions of listeners that the American Museum of Natural History dumped valuable mammoth tusks into New York's East River near 65th Street about 80 years ago.

After that, people went in search of them.

But experts, including a researcher linked to the report Reeves cited when he made the announcement, doubt the valuable tusks will actually be found.

The tusks were part of a vast collection of Ice Age fossils collected in Alaska, Reeves said. He is also a board member of the Alaska Railroad. On the show, he read from a draft report related to Fairbanks Exploration, a former mining company whose assets he acquired. In the decades following World War II, a mining company unearthed many bones and tusks from the Ice Age, which were donated to the museum.

Reeves also owns historic mining lands in the hinterland. Including Fairbanks, which he calls "Bone Alaska." During an amateur fossil hunt, he unearthed a huge collection of mammoth tusks and bones. As well as the remains of other extinct animals of the Ice Age, such as short-faced bears, steppe bison and American lions.

Rogan invited Reeves to his show on December 30th after following Boneyard Instagram account.

“I have always admired your Instagram page and all of your social media,” Rogan said. “So I couldn’t wait to invite you here and find out how the hell did you acquire this magical place in Alaska?”

During the conversation, Reeves told Rogan that a wagonload of bones and tusks, weighing about 50 tons, was thrown into a reservoir because the museum ran out of storage space. Someone with diving gear and a boat might want to look for him, Reeves suggested. He noted that a good set of tusks could cost over $100.

“This is going to be the biggest bone fever in world history,” Reeves said on the show.

A few days after the broadcast, the British tabloid Daily Mail burst into inaccurate headlines about Reeves' words. Including that 500 tusks worth up to $000 billion were thrown away. (Reeves called this article "nonsense" on the Boneyard Instagram page.)

Talk of the potential value of tusks and bones has prompted at least a few boaters and divers to set out in search of

Among them is Don Gunn, known as the "Don of Dirty Water" on Discovery Channel's Sewer Divers, according to news and social media reports.

The New York Museum said they were not aware of the reset or the report to which Reeves refers.

“The American Museum of Natural History has no records of any such burials. Including there is no information about the publication of an article in which this is claimed, ”Kendra Snyder of the museum said in a statement.

But Bob Sattler, lead archaeologist at the Tanana Chiefs' Conference in Fairbanks, said he had a copy of the report listing him as a co-author.

On Wednesday, Sattler said the museum was likely unaware of the draft report. Noon was written by the "very respected" anthropologist and geneticist Dick Osborne around the mid-1990s. Then Sattler began his long career in the tribal organization of Inner Alaska.

Osborne, an Alaskan resident educated in Fairbanks, died in 2005.

Osborne's father worked for Fairbanks Exploration, Sattler said. Before Osborne went into the military during World War II, he helped excavate some of the fossils. And they were sent to the New York Museum, which has one of the world's leading collections of Ice Age fossils, Sattler said.

Osborne must have known about the East River dumping first-hand, Sattler said.

The draft report was Osborn's first attempt at a large book on fossil collecting in Fairbanks County.

The book wasn't finished because Osborne died, Sattler said.

Osborne wrote the draft while talking to Sattler and Robert Evander, a former staff member of the Museum's Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, who is also listed as a co-author.

Sattler said he believes some fossils were dumped into the East River, but not 50 tons. And he suspects that only "tusk trimmings" were thrown away. As well as other “unidentifiable materials” and bones.

“I can't imagine a museum throwing whole tusks into the East River. These are valuable exhibits that are put on public display. And any museum would love to have them,” Sattler said.

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Pat Druckenmiller, a vertebrate paleontologist and director of the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the university was involved in an agreement to ship many of the fossils found by Fairbanks Exploration to the New York Museum.

He is skeptical that Ice Age bones from Alaska were dumped into the East River.

“The proof is under the water,” Druckenmiller said. “If someone dives into the river and wade through the mud, who knows what's at the bottom. Maybe he will find a big pile of bones, then that will be proof.”

Reeves did not respond to multiple interview requests for this article.

While he stated on The Joe Rogan Show that he doesn't talk to other media about Boneyard, he did allow one director to film the Boneyard Alaska documentary in 2019.

Reeves told Rogan that he kept the items he found securely. But he did this work mostly without the presence of scientists.

Druckenmiller said Bonyard is a little-known but "particularly rich place" where animal remains can be found that are tens of thousands of years old.

Druckenmiller said the site has great scientific potential. And he would like experts on the spot to extract and describe the finds in detail.

According to him, this place could be a rare window into the Pleistocene ecosystem. And scientists will be able to study insects and small mammals such as voles or foxes, along with the better-known large animals collected by miners. For example, mammoths.

In addition, scientists could try to better understand why so many animal remains are found in the area. This is the mystery that Reeves and Rogan pondered on the podcast.

“Carefully collecting this information while it is in place would be very important,” Druckenmiller said. “Now there aren’t many places where you can do that.”

To find the specimens, Reeves splashes water on the earth's ledges, and the bones break out of the permafrost and mud.

Reeves says he collected about a quarter of a million fossils in 15 years.

Rogan and Reeves, who talked a lot in a cool manner, chatted for three hours. They often talked about Reeves' life and his fossil hunting.

“Do you know how crazy it would be if they found mammoth bones right in the East River? Rogan said. - Tusks? Right on the East River."

Rogan said he would invite anyone who finds the tusk to be part of his podcast.

The report cited by Reeves suggests that the material may have been damaged bones or tusks in unacceptable condition. The remains belonged not only to mammoths, but also to bison and ice age horses.

But that didn't stop people from looking for the bones.

Reports of treasure hunts have raised concerns from the US Coast Guard in New York. This was reported to them by Coast Guard spokesman Logan Kaczmarek, petty officer third class.

Diving in this waterway requires a Coast Guard permit, Kaczmarek said. Moreover, it must be obtained a few months before the dive. The Coast Guard wants to prevent illegal diving, which can be dangerous in the busy East River.

The NYPD responded to reports of the diver. And another person called the coast guard and said he was planning to use an underwater drone. Obviously looking for tusks, Kaczmarek said.

“We're just trying to figure it out. As you can imagine, this is a rather strange story,” he said. But the Coast Guard wants to make sure no one gets hurt.