If this is indeed a pump, it's a pretty lame one...from such a clever and crafty pumper, that is.
It seems like in the events you describe in your post, the stock price went up more significantly, stayed up for a little longer, and there was much greater volume...i.e. more selling by the company.
Seems to me that if you really wanted raise the price in order to sell a bunch of stock to generate capital to continue operating, you'd come up with something better than, "We found a few metal bars and there's the possibility they might be worth something, but probably not."
I'm not a CEO of anything, but I think I could do better than that, if that was indeed my intention.