I'm not suggesting that the beach was constructed as a hoax. I'm suggesting that it was not constructed at all. How does anyone know what that beach is made of if it hasn't been excavated in its entirety? Until it has been, it's just a story. Until someone finds a drain, those are just stories too. Unless a rune stone turns up, that was just a story. Those gold links that came up on the drill? Also gone, and also a story.
If you want to know why someone might be less than honest about what they found, follow the money. It seems as if every time something is found, it's right around the time that the person doing the digging is looking for investors.
At this point, people have been tromping around that island for a bit over two centuries, digging holes, moving things around, establishing/disestablishing camps, and generally making a mess of things. As I said, I'll believe that you saw a stone with a G on it. I'll even believe that it's never been moved. But who carved it? Some might say that it was a Templar that did it 1,000 years ago, but I could counter that it was done by a bored worker taking a break in the 19th century with the same level of validity - perhaps moreso in my case, as mine is the simpler explanation that still fits with the existing evidence.
At the end of the day, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Every single piece of evidence that I've been able to find can either be debunked or is inconclusive.
I'm aware of the stone with the runes on it. It was yet another piece of evidence that turned up when a team was looking for more investors, and is yet another piece of evidence that no one can find anymore. It's also another piece of evidence that makes no logical sense whatsoever. Why bury a marker at 90 feet telling the diggers to go another 40? They're already balls deep in the recovery process if they went that far; they need no further encouragement nor guidance. This seems to be a trend with the Money Pit - questionable evidence that makes no sense, unless the purpose of the "find" was to generate a bit more cash.
I don't think that many of the people making these discoveries were liars exactly, although I'm quite certain that a few of them were, particularly back in the early days. I'd go so far as to speculate that most of the guys that did lie or falsify evidence did so with the best of intentions. I think that a lot of them truly believe that the evidence is solid, but I don't think that they're basing their beliefs on rational thought. They enter the subject with the idea that there's something there, so how does the evidence fit? I'm a self-admitted skeptic and I approach things from the opposite direction: I don't think that anything's there, so does the existing evidence prove me wrong? As of now, it does not. Likewise, when we hypotheticize about how the treasure got there, we can have some interesting conversations but it's important for someone at some point to step back and say, "Hey, is there even anything there in the first place? Does this even make sense?" I'm one of those guys.
I'm hard on Mrs. Hope's story as you've probably noticed, and I'll bet that she was one of the great folks that you mentioned. I have no problem with the woman. I have a problem with her stories. I don't doubt that she really believed that Vikings built a castle near her home, or even that leprachauns stole her neighbor's car. That doesn't mean that I believe it, and her beliefs don't necessarily make the stories true.
The guys doing the digging certainly have nothing to gain from convincing me. I don't have the money to invest in them and if I did, I'd invest it in something else. However, I'm not going to believe a story unless it's backed up by solid evidence, particularly a story this amazing. We're not there yet.
When I asked earlier how you'd dig the site, it wasn't a trick or anything. I was honestly curious. Let me firm that up a bit: if you were going to try to recover this treasure, would you randomly drill holes and drain swamps, or would you start at the beginning and try to verify some of the existing legends? How about digging up that artificial beach for a start? It would take a day with a bulldozer. It could probably be done for less than a thousand dollars. Doing so would prove (or disprove) one of the foundational stories supporting this legend for good, and hey, you might even turn up one of those drains in the process. That seems like money well spent to me. Of course, one might find just the opposite - it's not artificial, there are no drains, and then the whole thing falls apart.
I apologize if I'm out of my lane here, but it seems to me that most (or all) of these operations pass up these opportunities to verify stories for the opposite reason that I'd want to - because they might just disprove them, and then the legend falls apart, the holes were dug for nothing, the investors are pissed off, and six people will have died for something that never existed. It wouldn't take much to solve this mystery one way or the other, but not too many people seem interested in doing so and honestly, I don't blame them.
Apologies if I offended you or any of your neighbors. That was not my intent.
