FORT STEWART, Ga. — Two magnet fishers found a bag full of military equipment and active rockets in Georgia river, but they are now facing fines for how they discovered the items.
Jackson and Nachtwey are magnet fishers who love to explore and upload their adventures to YouTube. They travel across the country throwing magnets into bodies of water and seeing what sticks.
“We’ve found missing cars, murder weapons that’ve solved cold cases, cannonballs, explosives, just nothing as far as this magnitude as far as stolen military equipment,” Jackson told WJCL News 22 in Savannah.
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Back in June, Jackson and Natchtwey found a Delta Air Lines duffle bag at the bottom of a river at Fort Stewart in Georgia.
The bag contained 86 military rockets, dozens of 50-caliber rounds, an anti-tank tracer round, a flare and an old HUM-V communications system. The fishers called authorities and the bomb squad responded.
“When they scanned them to see if they were all active, they were all 100% active. They were ready to explode. As a matter of fact, everything we found that day was active,” Jackson told WJCL.
The magnet fishers posted a video on Outdoor Weekly that so far has been viewed more than 3.5 million times on their YouTube page.
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The pair thought officials would be thankful for what they discovered. Instead, Fort Stewart issued them and a third fisher tickets for not having a Fort Stewart permit, entering a closed area and for unauthorized use of a metal detector.
WJCL 22 News reached out to Fort Stewart. They issued a statement saying, in part, that what Jackson and Nachtwey did wasn’t allowed. The statement also noted that there is a potential for items like they pair found to end up in a river because Fort Stewart is an active base.
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While the pair awaits for their September court date, Jackson and Nachtwey told WJCL they don’t plan on stopping their magnet fishing quests any time soon.
“The officer actually asked me in the video, ‘Well it looks like you’re gonna be done magnet fishing.’ I said, ‘Nope. Just going to motivate me more,’” Nachtwey said.
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