They did see the truck the next morning. After determining that no one else had seen Ben, Taran called the Holmes County sheriff's office. Upon arrival, the sheriff's deputies sealed off the spring with crime-scene tape. Ben's tanks, wet suit and other diving equipment were not present and there were no signs of a struggle near his truck or anywhere else he could have been. His wallet, with almost $700 in cash, and cell phone were in the cab of his truck; dive logs showed that he had explored the cave and a map he made was also found. At the Santa Rosa Beach house officers found his dog, hungry from having been unfed for two days. Based on these circumstances, police and dive shop employees assumed that he had never resurfaced and had in all probability drowned somewhere in the cave trying to get out. Cadaver dogs alerted on the water surface, further supporting that theory. As the word of a missing diver in the Vortex Spring cave got out, other cave divers came for what they assumed would be a recovery operation, taking advantage of the weekend. The McDaniels were called, and they drove down to Florida, along with Greer, to watch what they could from the shore. News media in the Panhandle and Memphis followed the search closely. Divers scoured the cave, looking in every small crevice and fissure where Ben might have crawled in a panicked attempt to get out as his tanks ran low, a pattern found in other cave diving deaths; many said later that they felt they had risked their own lives to do so. But over the ensuing weekend they found no sign of Ben. They did, however, find some of his equipment. Two tanks known to belong to McDaniel were found near the entrance to the cave. But this discovery struck some searchers as inconsistent with Ben's supposed intent to explore the cave he was technically not permitted to enter. Most cave divers place their extra air tanks, which they need for decompression, at points along their route so they can follow them out, not at the entrance to the cave. And when tested, the tanks were found to contain just air, not the specialized gas mix Ben would have been likely to use had he been researching cave diving as his parents said he had been. By Sunday, August 22, no other signs of Ben had been found. A text message was sent to Edd Sorenson, a veteran cave diver and recovery specialist with hundreds of dives to his credit, on his yacht in the Bahamas, where he was leading an expedition.