Secrets about THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS

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Similar scenes played out across the Four Corners that morning as officers took an additional 21 men and women into custody. Later that day, the incumbent interior secretary and deputy U. The search-and-seizures were the culmination of a multi-agency effort that spanned two and a half years. Wearing a miniature camera embedded in a button of his shirt, he recorded hours of videotape on which sellers and collectors casually discussed the prices and sources of their objects.

The informant also accompanied diggers out to sites in remote canyons, including at least one that agents had rigged with motion-detecting cameras. The haul from the raid was spectacular. At another house, investigators found some 4, pieces. They also discovered a display room behind a concealed door controlled by a trick lever.

In all, they seized some 40, objects—a collection so big it now fills a 2,square-foot warehouse on the outskirts of Salt Lake City and spills into parts of the nearby Natural History Museum of Utah. In some spots in the Four Corners, Operation Cerberus became one of the most polarizing events in memory.

Legal limitations on removing artifacts from public and tribal but not private lands date back to the Antiquities Act of , but a tradition of unfettered digging in some parts of the region began with the arrival of white settlers in the 19th century. But some white residents felt that the raid was an example of federal overreach, and those feelings were inflamed when two of the suspects, including the doctor arrested in Blanding, committed suicide shortly after they were arrested.

A wrongful-death lawsuit filed by his widow is pending. Ultimately, 32 people were pulled in, in Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. None of them were Native American, although one trader tried vainly to pass himself off as one. Two cases were dropped because of the suicides, and three were dismissed.

No one went to prison. The remainder reached plea agreements and, as part of those deals, agreed to forfeit the artifacts confiscated in the raid.

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This story is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine. The federal Bureau of Land Management BLM , which has custody of the collection, spent the last five years simply creating an inventory of the items. Before they were seized, these objects had been held in secret, stashed in closets and under beds or locked away in basement museums. Recently the BLM gave Smithsonian an exclusive first look at the objects it has cataloged.

Beyond the sheer size of the collection is its range: Some of the objects, such as projectile points and metates, or grinding stones, date to about 6, B. Among the more than 2, intact ceramic vessels, many appear to be from the Ancestral Puebloan people, or Anasazi, who lived on the Colorado Plateau for some ten centuries before they mysteriously departed around A.

The Hohokam, who occupied parts of Arizona from A. An undated sacred headdress belonged to the White Mountain Apaches, while a buffalo mask from the early 20th century is being returned to the Pueblo people in Taos. But not even Native Americans had seen some of these things before. Roughly a quarter of the collection has high research potential, according to a preliminary survey by Webster.

Two human effigies, about six inches tall and made of corn stalk, yucca cordage and wood, are a case in point. You have an innocent and intelligent creature who needed help from humans. There was a huge amount of conflict over what was the right thing to do for him. After this big event in which the natives came out and prevented the capture from happening, you can look at it as a victory for Luna.

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It was quite possible that he would have gone into an aquarium had the capture gone through. The government didn't have a very clear plan. If he got back down to the area where his pod was and still played with boats, the government wasn't going to give him very much time before they said "Okay, that's it, you're going to be shipped off to an aquarium.

He was obviously a very intelligent, healthy killer whale. That's one of the reasons the Native American tribes opposed it. The media coverage put a very strong emphasis on the First Nations' cultural connection to the whale. When their chief passed away he said he was coming back as a killer whale. The same week that he died, Luna showed up in Nootka Sound. The killer whale happens to be a very sacred creature in their culture. A lot of them believed the whale embodied the spirit of their chief. From our point of view he was an animal who needed help.

It felt strange to be there covering this story and not trying to help him. We weren't what you call activists, but we really wanted to get out the information that here was a physically healthy, obviously intelligent animal in difficult circumstances. Captivity is a horrible life for these animals. They swim miles a day. For them to be in a small, confined area is not a good life for these animals. What were you doing to increase awareness? We spent a lot of time writing for the Web. We also spent a lot of time and our own money going out on a boat and talking to people on the water. There were a lot of people frustrated with the situation.

Luna was very persistent in trying to get attention. He would sometimes push boats around. People were threatening to kill him. He was just playful. Sometimes he would break things.

He damaged a septic system at a marina. He would damage rudders on sailboats. He would also break off little transducers and depth sounders on the bottom of boats. He started playing with float planes, which have very fine control rudders and stuff. It was quite scary. There is no question that his presence was a problem for humans. That's something that we humans have to figure out. As we expand our territories, it's inevitable that there are going to be conflicts with wild animals.

We should have done more to accommodate his presence. Both of you developed a strong relationship with the whale. We had never thought that it would be possible to have that kind of relationship with a wild animal. When Luna did come to us humans, he was asking for something, and I know it wasn't food. To have a wild animal come to you for social contact is really quite an amazing thing.

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He would flap his flippers, or turn over and look you in the eye. There was so much about him that we didn't know. Clearly he was trying to communicate. He would mimic sounds. If somebody would whistle he would whistle back in the same pitch. He also imitated sounds of chainsaws. One of the things that struck us was he was extremely gentle.

Never once were we scared for our own safety. There is no history of killer whales ever attacking humans in the wild. Did he get to be full grown? No, he was about 18 feet long. The males grow to be about 30 feet long. The big concern was that there would be an accident. The bigger he got, the stronger he would become. They are big animals with very big teeth, and he looks a little bit scary if you don't know any better. How did he die?

He was six when he was killed. He was swimming behind a large tugboat. These tugs are massive, they've got propellers several meters long. The tug captain put the vessel into reverse and Luna was sucked into the propeller. It sounds as if that was also kind of inevitable. Well, I don't think so. The government was really not willing to try anything. After the failed capture event they threw up their hands and said "We don't know what to do here. The program we were trying to get in place was one where he had a safe boat to come to for interaction.

The idea was he needed social contact with somebody. If you have a safe boat, with trained professionals, designed by scientists and people who knew Luna's behavior, then he would get his interaction in a safe and consistent manner. We know that he needs his contact. If you could give him interaction in a safe way, he wouldn't be a danger.

The second part of our idea would be to lead him outside of Nootka Sound. If you could lead him out of Nootka Sound on a repeated basis it would expand his territory and give him the option that in the event his pod did pass by that he could make the decision whether to go with them or not. Hopefully he would have. There was reluctance on the part of a lot of people to give him interaction because they thought it might spoil his chances of becoming a wild whale again.

We argued that you've got to do something, because he was on a collision course. Did you have qualms about becoming involved? We agonized huge amounts over it. As journalists and filmmakers we hadn't really done that. It seemed like the most natural thing to do, because we thought that we were in a position to help him.

It's one of those things we wouldn't have predicted when we got this assignment from Smithsonian to do this article. Who would have ever known that we would have spent so many years of our lives covering this? It's coming up on four years now. What response has the film gotten from people?



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In December we went to a film festival in China. It was very interesting because you don't assume that every culture has a fascination for whales and dolphins.

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But when we showed this film in China we had an incredible response.