Source of duct-taped bottles still a mystery
Authorities think they are linked to meth
Police in Basalt, a small town east of Carbondale, are in the midst of a mystery.
Authorities keep finding duct tape-wrapped plastic bottles with pinkish and bluish tints in the Roaring Fork River. They have been confusing police and residents alike, although authorities believe they’re somehow linked to methamphetamine. But how exactly and who’s behind them remains unknown.
“This is the first time anyone has encountered anything like this,” Basalt police Sgt. Joe Gasper said Friday afternoon, speaking from the scene of the discovery of yet another bunch of mysterious bottles.
Police started their sleuthing Jan. 24, when police stumbled across 14 bottles under a walk bridge over the river, he said. After a story appeared in the local paper, folks started calling to say they have come across similar bottles, some as long ago as last summer. Some people thought they found messages in a bottle, so they took them home to open.
Local police disposed of 35 bottles and called in help from various agencies, including the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, which also has found bottles downstream of Basalt, as well as the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, U.S. Drug Ensafe forcement Agency and U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Chemists have been taking a look at the substance inside, which is both flammable and hazardous.
“This product has some relationship to the making, storing or transporting of crystal meth,” Gasper said. “Don’t know, though. We don’t know.”
But the story doesn’t end there. On Feb. 8, police were at a local school near the walk bridge when students came up to say they have seen more submerged bottles. The next day, the fire department pulled out 18 bottles. With more and more discoveries, authorities have so far collected about 50 bottles in Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin counties.
“Just when you think it’s over, to say no more bottles, this shows up,” he said.
During a phone interview, Gasper suddenly began talking to someone next to him. Authorities had just pulled another five bottles from the river with the telltale duct tape and pinkish tint.
“That increases the bottle count,” he said. “I don’t know where I’m at now.”
It’s too soon to say who or how many people are behind the bottles, Gasper said. He hopes authorities don’t find more, but at this point, he knows that’s wishful thinking.
“Overall, this is an anomaly,” he said. “But now it’s becoming a regularity.”