An environmental activist tainted an auction of oil and gas drilling leases Friday by bidding up parcels of land by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any intention of paying for them, a federal official said.

The process was thrown into chaos and the bidding halted for a time before the sale of 116 parcels of the 131 lots offered was concluded.

"He's tainted the entire auction," said Kent Hoffman, deputy state director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah.

Buyers will have 10 days to reconsider and withdraw their bids, Hoffman said.

The FBI was questioning a man who registered for the auction as Tim DeChristopher of Salt Lake City, said the bureau's Utah Energy Team Leader Terry Catlin.

Other bidders at the auction complained about DeChristopher as unfamiliar and bidding in an unconventional fashion, which raised suspicions, Catlin said.

DeChristopher won the bidding on 13 parcels, auction records show, and drove up the price of several other pieces of land.

He snapped up 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks but said he could afford to pay for only a few of those acres. He owes $1.7 million on all of his leases.

DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah economics student, said his plan was to disrupt the auction, and he feels he accomplished his goal.

"I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself," he said.

DeChristopher, who says he expects to be charged, was released and the case is being referred to the U.S. attorney's office.

He and another man reportedly were laughing during the bidding, and BLM law enforcement officers were tipped off about midway through the sale, BLM spokeswoman Mary Wilson said. "It looked a little bit suspicious."

The two men were detained and questioned and then escorted out of the BLM building in downtown Salt Lake City.

Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Utah, said that a report due Monday will reveal what, if any, crime the men may be charged with.

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance attorney Stephen Bloch denied a rumor that his group was connected in any way to the men. Bloch, who observed the bidding, wasn't aware of anyone in the room making false bids. He called the incident a "disservice" to and a "huge distraction" from the peaceful protest taking place outside the BLM building Friday.

Friday's sale ended with 116 parcels sold, out of the 131 that had been offered. In the weeks leading up the sale, critics and the National Park Service had pressured the BLM to remove more than 100 parcels from the sale over concerns that they were too close to Arches and Canyonlands national parks, Dinosaur National Monument and other sensitive areas in Utah.

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