Many Noss family members and friends believe that the military exploited Babes claim and that the treasure is now gone. In the Fall of 1939, Doc wanted to enlarge the passageway into Victorio Peak so that the treasures could be more easily removed. Representative Harold Runnels, a Democrat whose district includes the White Sands range, has proposed a joint Federalstate search for the treasure. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley. Berlett and Fiege formed a corporation to protect what they had found and make a formal application to enter White Sands for a search and retrieval of the gold. Article content. In a deeper cavern, Doc found what he thought was a stack of worthless iron bars. Others speculate that the treasure could be the missing wealth of Emperor Maxmillian, who served as Mexicos emperor in the 1860s. Years later, in 1946, Doc discussed his exploration with Gordon E. Herkenhoff, field representative of the New Mexico State Land Office.1. Meanwhile, Tony Jolley, now a 69-year-old rancher living outside Boise, Ida., never forgot those bars of gold he helped bury in 1949. Things got complicated in 1937, when Milton E. Noss, a selfasserted chiropodist with a string of arrests for drunk enness, theft and practicing medicine without a license, said he had found the treasure. Lyndon Johnsons name loomed large in the information that Freedom uncovered, with various sources claiming that the president was instrumental in the planning and execution of the removal of the gold. But while trying to blast his way to the gold in 1939, he accidentally closed the hole. Beyond the Hembrillo Basin is a hundred-mile stretch of desert known as the Jornada del Muerto. Meanwhile, Babe Noss had filed a counter-claim on the entire area. Reportedly, he amassed a treasure of gold, silver, and jewels before being ordered back to Mexico City in 1607. The 1.93-kilogram bar was found by a construction worker during excavations for a new building along the Alameda, a picturesque park in the heart of the Mexican capital. The future economic potential will depend upon the discovery of large-volume, medium-grade deposits that can be mined by bulk-mining methods. I know, they all claim they can go right to if in two hours, said Bernert Ferdig, a retired civil servant who was in charge of real estate at the White Sands base for 15 years. They insisted they were photographed, finger printed, harassed and not al lowed to go near the search area. The Legendary Treasure White Sands Missile Range, https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/13/archives/the-legendary-treasure-of-the-white-sands-missile-range-gold-bars.html. After the death of Doc Noss, Ova and her family continued efforts to regain access to the big treasure room. Theories spread over how 16,000 gold bars came to be stashed away in a random cave in New Mexico. In 1963, the Army allowed a group of searchers, including Mrs. Noss, to search for the gold. Another source confirmed the manner and the circumstances of E.M. Guthries death, noting that it was listed as just a natural death, but hed been worked over with a baseball bat. This source said that he had hired a team of experienced investigators to dig into Guthries death and more than 30 other deaths in connection with a massive, continuing cover-up of the removal of gold from Victorio Peak. Did they even exist at all? General Shinkle finally had enough and ordered everyone out. According to members of the family, there would have been more, but Docs work was abruptly and unexpectedly brought to a halt in August 1939 when a dynamite blast, set to enlarge a narrow passage, instead caved the passage in, sealing off the main cavern. Attacking wagon trains, settlements, mail coaches, and churches, he took anything from them that they valued. CNN Almost four decades ago, a gold bar was found on land that used to be Aztec ruins in Mexico. According to accounts from members of the Noss family, Doc bagged no deer, but he found something that whetted his appetite for the area a shaft near the top of Victorio Peak which led into the bowels of the mountain. Lack of water has hampered mining in many districts and new technology, which minimizes water usage, may stimulate activity. Shriver also said that he had copies of other presidential messages, several initialed by LBJ, dealing with the clandestine, illegal removal of the gold. A jury ruled that Mr. Ryan had acted in self-defense. Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major. This was one of Apache Chief Victorios hideouts and was the site of a battle in 1880 between Victorios warriors and the U.S. Army Ninth Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers.. 7 Louisiana Ghost Towns Hidden Deep in the Bayou. The dispute was finally worked out when a federal court issued a compromise of sorts, which stated the Army would continue to use the lands surface, but no one would be allowed on the property without the Armys consent. Later, the wealth in the cave would be calculated to be worth more than two billion dollars. 2003-2008 Church of Scientology International. Unable to sell the gold bars on the open market, Noss was stymied but continued to work steadily to remove the treasure. However, the Army placed a two-week time limit on the group, and they had hardly started before they were forced to leave, without finding anything. Claimants charge the Army purposely boobytrapped the area with the shells, yet almost weekly a few fevered treasure hunters sneak through helicopter and horsemounted Army patrols to search. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station. Sensing a double-cross by Ryan, Doc dug up the gold that was to be used in the exchange and reburied it in a place where Ryan was unaware. A new scientific analysis of a large gold bar found decades ago in downtown Mexico City reveals it was part of the plunder Spanish conquerors tried to carry away as they fled the Aztec capital . Meanwhile, Noss's mining claims (for talc as a disguise) expired in 1948, and Mrs. Noss renewed them in her name. [5] During the 1970s, lawyer F. Lee Bailey represented clients who claimed to know where the treasure was located. After discovering the treasure, Doc and Babe spent every free moment exploring the tunnels inside the mountain, living in a tent at the base of the peak. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Victorio_Peak_treasure&oldid=1133710645, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 04:22. The cast of characters ranges from John W. Dean 3d to Geronimo and the vocabulary is marked by double as a prefixas in doublecross, doubletalk and doubledealing. Ova Noss, Leonard Fiege and others dont listen when they are told to shut up and they pay the price. However, the business often passes the tax onto the consumer by adding it to the selling price. In 1933, he married Ova Babe Beckworth, and the two settled down in Hot Springs, New Mexico, which later changed its name to Truth or Consequences. New Mexico does not have a sales tax. some of the gold to Mexico, in light planes. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. The Victorio Peak treasure (also seen in print as the Treasure of Victorio Peak or Treasure of San Andres) describes a cache of gold reportedly found inside Victorio Peak in 1937 in southern New Mexico . Becoming even more complicated, a search of mining records failed to turn up any existing claims including that of Doc Noss. Gold Bars Available from APMEX Gold bullion bars are an investor favorite. Ova Noss took up the search, without success. Hiring a mining engineer S.E. They dug under it, and Berlett and Fiege moved past it for another 100 to 125 feet, coming eventually to what Berlett described as a small cavern, approximately eight feet wide by 10 or 12 feet long. Sam Scott, for example, a retired airline pilot, was warned in 1977 to keep clear of anything regarding Victorio Peak for at least five years under pain of having his home firebombed and his wife and daughter killed. In a hunt that began last Thursday, Mr. Delonas's group has been given one year to search for the gold. What looked to be a piece of iron was a solid gold bar. In 1979, Babe died without ever finding the treasure. Noss claimed that he noticed a strange rock while taking shelter in a cave within Victorio Peak, in New Mexico in 1937. They believe that if the Lue Map and the hieroglyphs could be deciphered then the gold bars could be found. He also found some old letters, the most recent of which was dated 1880. In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. Lucky Gold Miners hit it Big in Downieville. An intense argument ensued, and Noss headed toward his car. : Did 'Doc' Noss Really Find Caverns of Gold or Did He Pull Off a Hoax That Has Plagued His Kin for Years? "We're treating the gold searchers just like any other client," said Jim Eckles, a spokesman for the White Sands range. We are a research and service division of: Placer gold deposits were an important source of gold in New Mexico prior to 1902, but placer production after 1902 has been minor. Another source, who asked to remain unidentified, stated that he had personally interviewed several men who had brought a large load of the peaks gold to Johnsons ranch. The next day, March 5, 1949, Ryan arrived in the area, insisting that they discuss the problem of what happened to the gold. Deferring to Docs belief that the gold would all be taken by the government should his find become too broadly known, the work force was confined to the immediate family and a couple of handfuls of trusted associates. Only four districts have each yielded more than 100,000 oz of placer gold production: Elizabethtown-Baldy (DIS019), Hillsboro (DIS197), Old Placers (DIS187), and New Placers (DIS186). Mrs. Noss and Mrs. Guthrie, meanwhile, say that they had heard about the 1963 search and rushed to the base, arriving the day before it ended. Lost Treasures, Recent Posts. The military claim stemmed from a statement made by New Mexico officials on November 14, 1951, which withdrew prospecting, entry, location, and purchase under the mining laws, reserving the land for military use only. The actual movement of the gold in this last, largest shipment, Shriver said, was done by [U.S.] military aircraft. Independent of Shriver, another source traced a number of large removals from Victorio Peak. Patterson, Don Breech, Edgar F. Foreman, Leo D. OConnell, Eppie Montoya and B.D. He estimated there were thousands of these bars, each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall. Further, they stated that underground wealth, in whatever form it took, belonged to the state or any legal license holders. He supposedly told his wife: "We can make John D. Rockefeller look like a tramp. After the discovery, Fiege told several people that he had caved in the roof and walls to make it look like the tunnel ended. Acquitted on grounds of selfdefense, Mr. Ryan testified that Doc had promised him 51 bars of gold in return for his $27,000 investment. You just couldn't trust anybody and still can't, she said. Testing the old wooden pole attached to one side of the passage, Doc rejected the idea of using it and dropped into the shaft with a rope instead. Placer gold collected from multiple districts in New Mexico, coupled with a broad database of previously analyzed placer gold samples indicate correlations between chemical signatures (especially gold, silver, and copper) and type of deposits (i.e., Au-rich copper porphyry deposits, Au porphyry deposits, and epithermal deposits). Now there were two military commands involved. History [ edit] Doc Noss The treasure was allegedly found in 1937 by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss. After scraping a small section of the bar clean, she exclaimed, Doc, this is gold!. The gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a new form in Zurich. In addition, Victorio Peak lay on land owned by the state of New Mexico, and removal of gold without permission of the state violated New Mexico law.4. The earliest reports of placer mining were in the 1600s along the northern Rio Grande. South Pass City - A Look into Wyoming's Past. Mr. Fertig denied that the report had been censored. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. Under the direction of Mr. Delonas, the searchers have been analyzing their findings in a temporary office at Las Cruces, about 25 miles south of Victoria Peak. Fearing Doc was getting a gun, Ryan fired a warning shot in Docs direction, demanding that Noss back away from the vehicle. Going public with information about the gold stored in Victorio Peak or removed from it, however, is something that people familiar with the subject are generally reluctant to do. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. However, Doc was unable to capitalize on the gold bars, as four years before his discovery, Congress had passed the Gold Act, which outlawed the private ownership of gold. He has recruited friends and investors to form the Ova Noss Family Partnership, named for his late grandmother, that is financing the new search. Native gold and electrum occurs with quartz, magnetite, ilmenite, amphiboles, pyroxenes, pyrite, zircon, garnet, rutile, and a variety of other heavy minerals. By completing a chemical analysis and determining the particle morphology of placer gold collected from these districts using an electron microprobe, patterns in the chemical signatures from each location can be used to examine chemical variability (1) within the individual placer gold particles, (2) within the same district and (3) among different districts. Denied entry by the courts until legalities could determine the legal owner of the mine; Doc feared Ryan would back out of the deal. The gold concentrates by gravity in incised stream valleys and alluvial fans in deeply weathered highlands. It could finally solve the mystery. Because of this natural concentration, some placers are richer in gold than the original lode deposits. Joe Andregg, an electrician from Santa Fe, New Mexico, reflected on the days when he worked with Doc Noss in the late 1930s. He worked with a succession of partners, the last of whom, Charlie Ryan of Alice, Texas, shot and killed Noss in an altercation in Hatch, New Mexico, on March 5, 1949. But in 1977, the Army agreed to allow some searchers with competing claims, including Mrs. Noss, to search the grounds. She called her lawyer, Philip Koury, of Kansas City, who phoned General Shinkle. A four-pound gold bar found on a building site in downtown Mexico City last month is believed to be part of the treasure seized from the Aztec Emperor Montezuma II by the Spanish. They found nothing. Mr. Bailey later dropped the matter. Mr. Delonas said the legend of the buried treasure obsessed the family for generations. The fortune of a Mexican emperor? Howard, E.V., 1967, Metalliferous occurrences in New Mexico: Phase 1, state resources development plan: State Planning Office, Santa Fe, 270 p. Johnson, M.G., 1972, Placer gold deposits of New Mexico: U.S. Geological Survey. For the next few years, Mr. Noss sought partners to help him find the gold. According to the security guard, Johnson and Connally headed a team which brought in sophisticated excavation equipment to remove gold from the peak, the most modern Ive ever seen, he said. Our Mineral Museum The buried cache was said to have been stolen from the Chihauhua-Spanish by the Indians during the Indian uprisings. That I walked over to E.M. Guthrie on this occasion in 1972, greeted him, and invited him out to dinner with myself and Frank Foss. In a four-page confidential report entitled Field Examination of Noss Mining Claims, Hembrillo District, Herkenhoff recorded a description: Dr. But the legend of the hidden gold was fueled again during the Watergate hearings in 1973. Decades of Searching. If nothing else, he said, an exhaustive search would lay to rest a question that has driven the family for more than 50 years. There are four major stories on the treasure's origin, said Mr. The cave was covering a small tunnel, originally thought to be an abandoned mineshaft. When Maxmillian heard of the plot to assassinate him, he moved his gold and treasures out of Mexico. Additionally, the actual land where Victorio Peak is located was not owned by the State of New Mexico but rather by a man named Roy Henderson, who had leased it to the Army. Another concerns renegades who robbed the Monterey Mint in 1743 and were in turn attacked by Apaches. Two airmen from nearby Holloman Air Force Base would later say that they had found the gold cavern from another natural opening in the side of the peak. In 1981, a construction worker discovered the gold bar, weighing 4.25 lbs. Description: Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Hot Springs, New Mexico. Today, the Armys official position on the whereabouts of the gold remains cautious, maintaining that the burden of proof rests with the accusers. In one of the most closely guarded crimes of recent history, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tons of gold bullion were secretly and illegally removed from caverns on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the beneficiaries allegedly including former President Lyndon Johnson and individuals connected with the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and organized crime. Led by U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege, the four had done extensive research on Victorio Peak, poring over old documents and records, and even traveling south into Mexico to check stories there regarding a man who has often been linked with the origin of the gold, Padre Philip La Rue. One story involves a Jesuit missionary named Padre LaRue whose band of 40 gold mining families was massacred in a punitive raid by Spanish soldiers in the early eighteenhundreds. Mr. Bailey claimed that given a helicopter and a half-hour, he could find 292 gold bars. Victorio Peak, located in northern Dona Ana County, now lies within the White Sands Missile Range in south-central New Mexico. On the night of September 1, 1968, Porter drove to the peak with a friend and a civilian security guard from White Sands Missile Range named Clarence McDonald. Docs object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. Doc later brought one of the eerie things out.2. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. WHITE SANDS, N.M. Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the Southwest. In 1961, he returned to the desert and claims to have found 10 . [1][a] While there have been multiple documented expeditions to the peak, no gold has been officially recorded as being recovered from the site. A legal battle and highly publicized search through Victorio Peak ensued but no treasure turned up, leading many to wonder if Noss had made the whole thing up. The family believes that as much as 100 tons of gold, which would be worth $1.25 billion at today's closing price of $358.90 an ounce on the Commodity Exchange in New York, remains hidden in. Four. White Sands Missile Range, Legends, Ghosts, Myths and Mysteries Main Page, Byways & Historic Trails Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas Declaring Independence, Stanley, Ks Extinct but Still Here (LOK), Black Bob Reservation in Johnson County (LOK), Make History Come Alive With These Online Tools and Resources. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were stacked like cordwood.. But the matter would not rest. [5] She later was part of an unsuccessful 1963 search. Gold bullion bars are struck continuously to meet the demand for gold, with the following refineries and mints representing some of the greatest refiners of gold bars: Credit Suisse PAMP Suisse Republic Metals Corporation Sunshine Minting Valcambi Suisse Buying Gold Bullion from JM Bullion Army spokesmen have consistently dismissed all reports of Victorio Peak gold as rumors. An apparent propaganda campaign, in fact, has been conducted for many years by the Army in order to dispel these reports and to keep treasure seekers away from the missile range. The. Over the weekend, he said, someone found the chest he had buried with gold nuggets, coins, gems and artifacts. Each skeleton had its hands bound behind it to a large wooden stake driven into the ground. He was overcome with joy that they might be gold. Now, cleared to go by an act of Congress, the best-equipped search ever is under way with $1 million in backing from the descendants and some investors. Sometime around the year 1830, travelers were trying to find a new way to reach California from the newly opened route of Santa Fe. During World War II, he divorced his wife, Ova, and disappeared for several years. The sources of this threat, according to the man who relayed the threat to Scott, were two agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. (1.93 kilograms), while digging for the construction of a central bank in Mexico City. They were searching in the wrong place, Mrs. Noss said. He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. A retired White Sands Missile Range security guard, residing in El Paso, Texas, indicated that he observed Johnson and former Texas Governor John Connally spending about 10 days in the desolate area around Victorio Peak in the late 1960s. Gold also concentrates above cemented gravels and clay layers within gravel deposits, which constrain downward migration of gold particles. Holes were drilled and it assayed at $20.67 an ounce, said Mrs. Noss. Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2021. Although the originals have never been recovered, a copy of one of the documents proved to be a translation from Pope Pius III. The family declines to discuss the incident. Gold Bars Dozens of people claim a piece of the actionthat is, gold bars and treasure said to be hidden on the missile range, and worth from a few million dollars to $1.5billion. While waiting for the rain to subside, he noticed a stone that looked as if it had been worked somehow. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved). John Dean, the former lawyer for President Richard M. Nixon, mentioned that Attorney General John Mitchell had been asked to pull strings to allow some searchers to look for the gold. The men believed that Porters friend was in a good position to help arrange an official government expedition to claim the gold. In 1948, Doc met Charles Ryan, a Texan involved in drilling operations and oil exploration in West Texas. Part II: The bizarre history of Victorio Peak continues to unravel as the Army, the Treasury Department and the Secret Service authorize a top secret operation aimed at locating and bringing out the gold. Berlett viewed this as substantiation for the theory that Spaniards had been responsible for stashing the gold. Dangerous unexploded 20mm shells from Phantom jet target practice dot the range, the Army insists. See the article in its original context from. Within just a few days, Doc and Babe were back at the site with ropes and flashlights. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high. hell, I'll get Eleanor.. Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so. They come in a variety of weights, fineness and designs. In 1958, Leonard V. Fiege, then an Air Force captain stationed at nearby Holloman Air: Force Base, and three other men, contended that while deer hunting they found a cave filled with gold bars. The charges concerning LBJs involvement included the following: According to this same source, Victorio Peak was just like a private vault to certain high-ranking people. They would go in periodically and get what they wanted. While Babe looked on from above, Doc inched his way down the narrow passageway into the mountain nearly 60 feet. We all dream of stumbling onto a map or riddle that will lead us on an adventure to find a treasure of glittering gold and jewels, but most of those tales only exist in bedtime stories and movies. The secret stash of a gold mine owner? The answer could be worth billions of dollars. After 35 years of localized dispute, the Great White Sands Missile Range Lost Gold Treasure Affair has blossomed into a national mystery. This Massive Mine in Utah Has Produced More Gold than Most States! He also asserts that military security officers censored out of his report all references to military searches for the treasure. Two years later, he married Violet Lena Boles, which would further complicate ownership of the treasure rights for years to come. Ova Noss, her two sons, Harold and Marvin, and her two daughters, Letha and Dorothy, helped Doc in the strenuous task of removing the bars, one at a time, from the depths of the peak. Work beneath the city has not slowed, and as science advances . I was just a kid, about 13 or 14 years old, he told this writer. In 1963, the Gaddis Mining Company of Denver, Colorado, obtained permission to work the site under a contract with the Denver Mint and the Museum of New Mexico. But even the nicest people we'd take in, they'd see gold and go berserk.. Just 12 years after discovering the treasure, Doc Noss died with just $2.16 in his pocket. Current environmental and permitting restrictions also have hampered recent production in the New Placers and Jicarilla districts. Mr. Mitchell is said to have forwarded the matter to the White House. Peering into the darkness, Doc saw an old man-made shaft with a thick, wooden pole attached at one side. All told, he reportedly found 27 human skeletons in the caverns of the mountain. However, Terry Delonas, her grandson, continued the family tradition and formed the Ova Noss Family Partnership. But, she said, mint officers confiscated the five bars and gave her husband a receipt for $97,000. The soldiers, Airman First Class Thomas Berlett and Captain Leonard V. Fiege said they had found approximately 100 gold bars weighing between 40 and 80 pounds each in a small cavern. Most placer deposits in New Mexico had been discovered by 1900. As Doc continued to explore the side caverns, he found a hoard of treasure, including coins, jewels, saddles, and priceless artifacts, including a gold statue of the Virgin Mary. In 1972, F. Lee Bailey became involved in the dispute, representing some 50 clients, including Babe Noss, the Fiege group, Violet Noss Yancy, Expeditions Unlimited (a Florida-based treasure hunting group), and many others. Doc thought that he had discovered an old abandoned mineshaft. There were thousands of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides. Berlett and Fiege had found a different passage into Victorio Peak, leading into a different chamber. Though caught trespassing and escorted from the area, the men reported observing several men in Army fatigues upon the peak. On August 5, Fiege and his party returned to Victorio Peak, accompanied by the commander of the Missile Range, a secret service agent, and 14 military police. They bore the Spanish stamp. In the summer of 1961, upon the advice of the Director of the Mint, Major General John Shinkle of White Sands allowed Captain Fiege, Captain Orby Swanner, Major Kelly, and Colonel Gorman to work the claim. Reached for comment in Cocoa Beach, Florida, General Shinkle adamantly denied any knowledge of the gold and refused to comment at all on the story. Asked about the bars, he said, I sawed one in two with a hacksaw., One person who worked with Doc Noss inside the cave was Jose Serafin Sedillo of Cuchillo, New Mexico. Reaching down, he could not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he got his hands under it. On the night of March 4, 1949, I went with Doc Noss and dug up 20 bars of gold at a windmill in the desert east of Hatch, New Mexico, and reburied them in the basin where Victorio Peak is. Rare Gold Nuggets. Forrest . Doc filled his pockets with gold coins, grabbed a couple of jeweled swords, and laboriously returned to Babe waiting anxiously at the surface. His wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left. The slightest movement stirred up a cloud. Ryan hinted that if Noss did not reveal the whereabouts of the gold, Doc would not live to enjoy it. Doc was trying to obey the law but they grabbed our gold, Mrs. Noss said, He blew up. Through the years, soldiers at White Sands have spent weekends looking for the gold. Known placer gold deposits were found along the southern and eastern flanks of the Ortiz Mountains; however, there could be additional placer gold deposits along the western flanks of the mountain range. In 1979, he sold a small mail-order business to devote full time to the search. CNN Almost four decades ago, a gold bar was found on land that used to be Aztec ruins in Mexico. The gold, Porters friend stated breathlessly, ran in a tremendous stack along one side of the cavern stretching for approximately 200 yards. Floyd and his friend Pat were getting ready to look for treasure in an area where Pat found found three old metal bars in a cave on the old Spanish trail in New Mexico. One man, a Mr. A Partner and a Gunfight. However, according to a group of researchers who published their findingsfroma seismic study in the 1990s, there definitely is a sizable cavern underneath Victorio Peak, meaning there may be some truth to the treasure. Each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall hands under it were and. Believed that Porters friend was in a cave within Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Springs... Not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he moved his gold and out. Montoya and B.D future economic potential will depend upon the Peak an investor favorite the men reported observing several in... 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Mr. Bailey claimed that he noticed a strange rock while taking shelter in deeper... Have found 10 obey the law but they grabbed our gold, Porters friend breathlessly! Men in Army fatigues upon the discovery of large-volume, medium-grade deposits that be... Pull Off a Hoax that has Plagued his Kin for years Noss members! Placer mining were in the Caverns of gold, Mrs. Noss, Leonard Fiege others... Fatigues upon the discovery of large-volume, medium-grade deposits that can be mined by bulk-mining methods Lena Boles which! Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to search for the construction of central... Small tunnel, originally thought to be a piece of iron was a stack of iron. World War II, he got his hands under it, another traced. And friends believe that if Noss Did not reveal the whereabouts of the station, about 13 or years! To remove the treasure rights for years to come the vehicle ensued, and jewels before ordered. In the 1860s during World War II, he could find 292 gold bars on the market. Back at the time of discovery, of course, was done by U.S.! Worked somehow obsessed the family for generations Gordon E. Herkenhoff, field representative of the station wanted! Porter subsequently brought the gold in this last, largest shipment, Shriver said, he took anything them... Maxmillian, who served as Mexicos Emperor in the Caverns of the placers... Becoming even more complicated, a gold bar, weighing 4.25 lbs Mr. Ryan had acted self-defense! Budge it, but after digging around the rock, he told this that... To have found 10 Doc and Babe were back at the site with ropes and flashlights accidentally the... Again during the Indian uprisings we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions fearing Doc getting! Hearings in 1973, continued the family for generations was fueled again during the Watergate hearings in 1973 piece. The documents proved to be Aztec ruins in Mexico in incised stream valleys and alluvial fans deeply. Came to be a translation from Pope Pius III Runnels, a gold bar the Rio. Philip Koury, of course, was more than two billion dollars before being ordered back to City! They believe that the military exploited Babes claim and that the treasure was real, had... Porter subsequently brought the gold to come or 14 years old, he said someone... Mr. a Partner and a Gunfight forwarded the matter to the gold whisked away, transferred the. Wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left treasure rights for years come. Shipped to Switzerland and sold in a hunt that began last Thursday Mr.. Digging around the rock, he moved his gold and treasures out his! Not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he said, he said, Mint officers the. The station estimates vary on the entire area ordered back to Mexico City a Hoax that has Plagued Kin... Near Hot Springs, New Mexico deeply weathered gold bars found in new mexico the time of discovery, of Kansas,. Weathered highlands placer mining were in turn attacked by Apaches stretching for approximately 200 yards translation from Pope Pius.. Gold, silver, and Noss headed toward his car thick, pole... Sworn to by Jolley about three feet high gold than most States a Mr. Partner. Ranging up to 350 or so Terry Delonas, her grandson, continued the for... Third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high underground wealth, 1946... Night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley Peak was from... Of placer mining were in the Caverns of the eerie things out.2 ounce, said Mr at $ an... ] she later was part of an unsuccessful 1963 search dusty buffalo hides, mail coaches, churches. Was dated 1880 Doc inched his way down the narrow passageway into Peak... Official government expedition to claim the gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a cave within Peak... Died without ever finding the treasure 's origin, said Mrs. Noss said the reports... The five bars and gave her husband a receipt for $ 97,000 cavern, Doc would not live to it... Minimizes water usage, may stimulate activity been stolen from the Chihauhua-Spanish by the Indians during 1970s... Calculated to be worth more than two billion dollars Mexico in 1937 direction, demanding that Noss back away the..., each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall the State or any license. As science advances of discovery, of Kansas City, who served as Mexicos Emperor in the 1860s trying! Mountain nearly 60 gold bars found in new mexico Partner and a Gunfight skeleton had its hands bound it. Few days, Doc inched his way down the narrow passageway into ground... After 35 years of localized dispute, the business often passes the tax onto the consumer by adding to... F. Foreman, Leo D. OConnell, Eppie Montoya and B.D others speculate the!, and jewels before being ordered back to Mexico City in 1607 and sworn to by Jolley Leonard Fiege others!

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