Don't F**k with Wolves - Using Photo Forensics to Find the Finder

With the news of the finder of Forrest Fenn’s treasure chest wanting to remain anonymous the chase is over. Or is it? Is there some forensic information in that one photograph supplied that can help identify the finder or the chest location?

As far as the location, there is plenty of information such as wood, pine cones, pine needs, soil colour, grass that can help narrow down the area, or at least eliminate some areas or states.

What about the finder?

What if one could identify the photographer of an image or locate the place the photo was taken by zooming into the pupil of a subject’s eye? Well it has proven to be possible under extremely high illumination and at least a 39 Megapixel CCD camera in experiments back in 2013. The problem is there isn’t an eye ball to act as a reflector, so is there anything else we can use?

Yes there is, an olive jar and several plastic bags that offer a degree of reflectivity and to the casual observer, the blue sky and some scattered cloud cover is evident, but is it possible to identify the finder? The other requirement is the angle of incidence must be near zero and fortunately, our finder supplied one photo with a near vertical camera angle to the treasure chest, so it is worth exploring. Since plastic is a poor reflector, contrast will have to be manipulated to sharpen the image. Plastic crumples so it may provide many facets of which the reflection of the finder(s) may be captured.

The first reflector is the olive jar (top left). The curved bottom reflects the man's image directly back at the camera, where it is possible to detect a man (top right) but there is an object obstructing the left side of his mouth and lower jaw, possibly by a camera or his hand. The image is not of high resolution, but some features such as a beard are detectible.

The image in the lower left of the treasure chest produces a vary faint but higher resolution image. With some manipulation to the contrast and brightness, the image is extracted and enlarged at the bottom right.

Is this the finder, partner or is it photoshopped into the image? Mr. Fenn verified his Sitting Bowl pipe was authentic because of photoshopping skills supplied by his daughter. Some photoshopping evidence was discovered in his memoir and of course, his famous doggy poop mystery.

To get these answers someone needs to identify these men. Once identified, we can get our answers.

Remember, don't F**k with Wolves.

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