Late at night, after his kids have gone to bed, Ryan Bavetta sits down at the computer in his home office and goes to work again. By day, the former Google software engineer creates programs for NatureTeam, a firm he founded to help improve the habitats of neighborhood wildlife. But at night he works at something else, a project he keeps thinking he's almost done with but just can't quit. If you were to look over Bavetta's shoulder in his cavernous woodshop-turned-office, you might think he was a detective, or a lawyer preparing to argue a case. He has dozens of tabs open in his browser, all pieces of digital evidence—pictures, YouTube videos, interview transcriptions, Reddit posts, maps—that he's amassed over the past two years.
These late-night investigative sessions were supposed to be a temporary hobby. Starting in 2018, Bavetta joined thousands of other people trying to locate a bronze chest filled with gold nuggets, coins, jewelry, and other artifacts somewhere in the American West. Twice, after gathering evidence about the chest's whereabouts from home, he flew to Salt Lake City and then drove to Yellowstone National Park to look for it. Each time he camped for a week. He drove rental cars on roads they couldn't really handle. On the second trip, his wife Salomé joined him, and they bought an inner tube from a local adventure outfitter and used it to float down the Madison River in search of the treasure. Another day, they hiked off trail together and found themselves atop a hill washed with wildflowers, with a 360-degree view of West Yellowstone and a large bison marching directly toward them. These moments were exhilarating and beautiful, and Bavetta was looking forward to having more.
Then, on June 6, 2020, the incentive behind the thrilling trips to the mountains vanished. The chest was found. Still, for Bavetta and thousands of other hunters, the search wasn't over. The chest's location was never revealed, and the hunters began filing lawsuits and FOIA requests and analyzing photos and interviews to try to find out where it was. To this day, they're still checking in with one another about new theories and developments that might bring them closer to understanding what the chest's original owner had intended when he started this whole thing.
An ordinary treasure hunt would have ended when there was no more treasure, but "The Chase," as the race to find the chest has been known since it began in 2010, was no ordinary hunt. It was, according to Alan King, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of North Dakota who studied it, the greatest treasure hunt in American history. It attracted a horde of competitive, devoted thinkers, sending them down a rabbit hole that turned out to have infinite proportions. And it's not clear what it will take to get all of them out. |
Late at night, after his kids have gone to bed, Ryan Bavetta sits down at the computer in his home office and goes to work again. By day, the former Google software engineer creates programs for NatureTeam, a firm he founded to help improve the habitats of neighborhood wildlife. But at night he works at something else, a project he keeps thinking he's almost done with but just can't quit. If you were to look over Bavetta's shoulder in his cavernous woodshop-turned-office, you might think he was a detective, or a lawyer preparing to argue a case. He has dozens of tabs open in his browser, all pieces of digital evidence—pictures, YouTube videos, interview transcriptions, Reddit posts, maps—that he's amassed over the past two years.
These late-night investigative sessions were supposed to be a temporary hobby. Starting in 2018, Bavetta joined thousands of other people trying to locate a bronze chest filled with gold nuggets, coins, jewelry, and other artifacts somewhere in the American West. Twice, after gathering evidence about the chest's whereabouts from home, he flew to Salt Lake City and then drove to Yellowstone National Park to look for it. Each time he camped for a week. He drove rental cars on roads they couldn't really handle. On the second trip, his wife Salomé joined him, and they bought an inner tube from a local adventure outfitter and used it to float down the Madison River in search of the treasure. Another day, they hiked off trail together and found themselves atop a hill washed with wildflowers, with a 360-degree view of West Yellowstone and a large bison marching directly toward them. These moments were exhilarating and beautiful, and Bavetta was looking forward to having more.
Then, on June 6, 2020, the incentive behind the thrilling trips to the mountains vanished. The chest was found. Still, for Bavetta and thousands of other hunters, the search wasn't over. The chest's location was never revealed, and the hunters began filing lawsuits and FOIA requests and analyzing photos and interviews to try to find out where it was. To this day, they're still checking in with one another about new theories and developments that might bring them closer to understanding what the chest's original owner had intended when he started this whole thing.
An ordinary treasure hunt would have ended when there was no more treasure, but "The Chase," as the race to find the chest has been known since it began in 2010, was no ordinary hunt. It was, according to Alan King, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of North Dakota who studied it, the greatest treasure hunt in American history. It attracted a horde of competitive, devoted thinkers, sending them down a rabbit hole that turned out to have infinite proportions. And it's not clear what it will take to get all of them out. |
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