A Fairbanks-area miner appeared on “The Joe Rogan Expertise” podcast final month and sparked worldwide headlines and a treasure hunt in a New York Metropolis waterway, elevating considerations on the U.S. Coast Guard.

John Reeves, proprietor of the Fairbanks Gold Co., advised the podcaster and his thousands and thousands of listeners that the American Museum of Pure Historical past dumped precious mammoth tusks into New York Metropolis’s East River about 80 years in the past‚ particularly across the space off sixty fifth Avenue.

After that, folks really went on the lookout for them. However specialists, together with a researcher linked to a report Reeves cited when he made the declare, forged doubt on whether or not precious tusks will really be discovered.

The tusks had been a part of an unlimited assortment of ice age fossils gathered from Alaska, mentioned Reeves, who’s additionally a board member for the Alaska Railroad. On the present, he learn from a draft report related to Fairbanks Exploration, a former mining agency whose belongings he acquired. For a couple of a long time round World Struggle II, the mining firm unearthed lots of the ice age bones and tusks that had been despatched to the museum.

Reeves additionally owns historic mining lands within the Inside, together with 5 acres within the Fairbanks space that he calls the Boneyard Alaska. In an novice hunt for fossils, he has unearthed a large assortment of mammoth tusks and bones, plus stays from different extinct ice age animals like short-faced bears, steppe bison and American lions.

Rogan invited Reeves onto his Dec. 30 present after monitoring the Instagram account of the Boneyard.

“I been admiring your Instagram web page and all of your social media stuff perpetually and it’s loopy and perplexing,” Rogan mentioned. “So I couldn’t wait to get you in right here and see, how the hell did you purchase this magical spot that you’ve got in Alaska?”

In the course of the dialog, Reeves advised Rogan — whose podcast is among the many world’s hottest — {that a} boxcar of bones and tusks, about 50 tons, had been dumped into the waterway as a result of the museum had run out of space for storing. Somebody with diving gear and a ship may need to search for it, Reeves urged, noting {that a} good set of tusks can go for effectively over $100,000.

“It’s gonna be the most important goddamn bone rush in world historical past,” Reeves mentioned on the present.

Within the days after the present, the Day by day Mail, a British tabloid, blared out incorrect headlines about what Reeves needed to say, together with that 500,000 tusks value as much as $1 billion had been dumped. (Reeves known as the article “BS” on the Boneyard’s Instagram web page.)

However all of the speak concerning the potential worth of the tusks and bones prompted at the least a couple of boaters and divers to go searching, together with Don Gann, referred to as “Soiled Water Don” on the “Sewer Divers” present on Discovery, in accordance with information accounts and social media.

The New York Metropolis museum mentioned in an announcement it wasn’t conscious of a dumping or the report Reeves cited.

“The American Museum of Pure Historical past has no document of any such disposal, together with no document of a paper printed that alleges this,” mentioned an announcement from Kendra Snyder, with the museum.

However Bob Sattler, lead archaeologist for the Tanana Chiefs Convention in Fairbanks, mentioned he has a duplicate of the report, which lists him as co-author.

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Sattler mentioned Wednesday that the museum possible wouldn’t have information of the draft report. However he mentioned it was written by a “very credible” anthropologist and geneticist, Dick Osborne, across the mid-Nineties, concerning the time Sattler was beginning his lengthy profession with the Inside Alaska tribal group.

Osborne, an Alaskan who was educated in Fairbanks, died in 2005.

Osborne’s father labored for Fairbanks Exploration, Sattler mentioned. Earlier than Osborne joined the navy in World Struggle II, he helped unearth a number of the fossils that had been despatched to the New York museum, which has one of many main collections of ice age fossils on this planet, Sattler mentioned.

Osborne would have had firsthand information of the dumping into the East River, Sattler mentioned.

The draft report was Osborne’s first crack at creating a bigger ebook that checked out fossil gathering within the Fairbanks Mining District, Sattler mentioned. The ebook wasn’t completed as a result of Osborne died, Sattler mentioned.

Osborne wrote the draft whereas he was speaking with Sattler and Robert Evander, previously with the museum’s division of vertebrate paleontology, who can be listed as a co-author, Sattler mentioned.

Sattler mentioned he believes some fossils had been dumped into the East River, however not 50 tons. And he suspects solely “scrap tusks,” plus different “unidentifiable materials” and bones, had been disposed.

“I can’t think about it’s appropriate that the museum would dump whole tusks within the East River, as a result of these are prized objects that go on show and any museum would need these,” Sattler mentioned.

Pat Druckenmiller, a vertebrate paleontologist and director of the College of Alaska Fairbanks’ Museum of the North, mentioned the college was a part of an settlement to ship lots of the fossils discovered by Fairbanks Exploration to the New York museum.

He’s skeptical ice age bones from Alaska had been dumped into the East River.

“The proof is within the pudding,” Druckenmiller mentioned. “If somebody really dives within the river and will get via the muck and ooze and who is aware of what’s on the backside, possibly some funding bankers and mobsters, they usually discover a huge pile of bones, then there’s the proof.”

Reeves didn’t return a number of requests for an interview for this text. Whereas he indicated on the Joe Rogan present he’s not speaking to different media concerning the Boneyard, he has allowed a filmmaker to create the 2019 documentary “Boneyard Alaska,” which Rogan touted.

Reeves advised Rogan that he’s safely storing the objects he reveals, however he’s finished the work largely with out scientists current.

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Druckenmiller mentioned the Boneyard is a little-known however “particularly wealthy little spot” for locating animal stays which can be tens of 1000’s of years outdated.

Druckenmiller mentioned the location holds loads of scientific potential, reminiscent of well-preserved DNA, and he’d prefer to see specialists on the website extracting and detailing the finds.

He mentioned it may present a uncommon window right into a Pleistocene ecosystem, with scientists capable of examine bugs and small mammals like voles or foxes, alongside the higher-profile massive animals that the miners collected reminiscent of mammoths.

Additionally, scientists may attempt to higher perceive why so many animal stays are being discovered on this space — a thriller that Reeves and Rogan mulled over within the present.

“To gather that info fastidiously whereas it’s in place could be necessary,” Druckenmiller mentioned. “There’s not that many locations to try this anymore.”

To seek out his specimens, Reeves sprays water at ledges of earth, and the bones break away from the permafrost and muck, he mentioned. Reeves mentioned he’s collected round a quarter-million fossils over about 15 years.

Rogan and Reeves, with a lot of tough-guy speak and cigarette and cigar smoke swirling, chatted for 3 hours. They usually talked about Reeves’ life and his fossil looking.

“Are you aware how loopy it’d be if there’s f—ing mammoth bones proper there within the East River?” Rogan mentioned. “Tusks? Proper there within the East River.”

Rogan mentioned he’ll invite anybody who finds a tusk to be on his podcast.

The report Reeves quoted from, which he posted on the Boneyard’s Instagram web page, means that the fabric would have been broken bones or tusks in unacceptable situation. The stays got here not simply from mammoths, however from ice age bison and horses.

However that hasn’t stopped folks from on the lookout for the bones.

Studies of the treasure looking have raised considerations with the U.S. Coast Guard in New York, mentioned Coast Guard spokesman Logan Kaczmarek, a third-class petty officer.

Diving within the waterway requires a Coast Guard allow, which have to be obtained months upfront, Kaczmarek mentioned. The Coast Guard desires to stop unlawful diving that may very well be harmful within the busy East River, he mentioned.

New York Metropolis police have responded to reviews of a diver, and one other individual known as the Coast Guard saying he deliberate to make use of an underwater drone, apparently on the hunt for tusks, Kaczmarek mentioned.

“We’re simply attempting to determine this out as a result of as you may think about it’s a fairly unusual factor,” he mentioned. “As odd as this story is,” the Coast Guard desires to verify nobody is damage, he mentioned.

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