In the room were two large stacks of gold bars, each roughly six feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long. General Shinkle finally had enough and ordered everyone out. Many Noss family members and friends believe that the military exploited Babes claim and that the treasure is now gone. Treasure Hunting Treasure Legends Victorio Peak Top threads 1 2 3 Next Filters G Why did Charlie Ryan get away with murdering Doc Noss? However, disputing the military claim, New Mexico officials stated that they leased only the lands surface to the military. Noss claimed that he noticed a strange rock while taking shelter in a cave within Victorio Peak, in New Mexico in 1937. Ryan hinted that if Noss did not reveal the whereabouts of the gold, Doc would not live to enjoy it. They supposedly found no sign of the treasure. One of the problems Noss faced at the time was that this was all highly illegal, as the Gold Act passed just a few years before his discovery had forbidden private owner ship of gold, but he meant to remedy this. From November 21 to November 25 of that year, some claim that 36.5 tons of gold was taken from Victorio Peak, repoured to be sold overseas, via the C.I.A. The secret stash of a gold mine owner? The two men told Porter they had taken one of the smaller bars from the stack because they felt it would be easier to handle than one of the large bars in moving through the long and sometimes difficult passage. 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 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. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Victorio_Peak_treasure&oldid=1121773095, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 14 November 2022, at 02:09. Or at the very least, their remains have. Lampros, for example, described having his photograph taken with Colonel Willard E. Holt of Lordsburg, New Mexico; each held an end of a bar while it was being sawed in half. Porter and his friends were amused at his story and McDonald, to prove that what he was saying was true, took the two other hunters on a moonlit drive to Victorio Peak. Eventually she brought her case to the military, but the alleged bonanza had vanished. (The Bahamas Maritime Museum via CNN Newsource) By CNN staff. Among the artifacts, Doc is reported to have retrieved documents dated 1797, which he buried in the desert in a Wells Fargo chest along with various other treasures. taxpayers). Here's an exciting selection of 12 famous real-life lost treasures - "real" in the sense that countless people have gone out in search of them (with limited or no success! Too much evidence supports the treasure, including photographs, affidavits, and relics held by the Noss family. (Repeat) No one in the provost marshals office to whom Porter talked would admit to knowing anything about the gold, and he was warned by the provost marshal that any future trespassing would be dealt with severely. When Maxmillian heard of the plot to assassinate him, he moved his gold and treasures out of Mexico. He would dig at this anomalous stone to find that it was loose, and that it was situated over a shaft that led down into the gloom, along with a wooden pole fastened to its side. 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. FBI paperwork even indicates that an attorney in Washington went to the Bureau to report that Victorio Peak had been breached again and dynamite had been used on the Peak. In December 1961, General Shinkle shut down the operation and excluded anyone from entering the base who was not directly engaged in the missile research activities. Is it still under that mountain? White Sands Missile Range, Legends, Ghosts, Myths and Mysteries Main Page, Byways & Historic Trails Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, George Bent Cheyenne-American Soldier & Leader, Susan Magoffin Recording the Santa Fe Trail. Bill Shriver, before his death, told this writer that he had a copy of a transcribed order from Lyndon Johnson describing in detail how the president wanted a military escort to handle the supply of gold taken out of Victorio Peak and taken to his ranch. Past this was a dank room with what seemed to be just worthless bars of iron stacked against a wall, and by this time he was eager to get back to the surface and tell his wife what he had found. This treasure was only the beginning. Subscribe Today! In a deeper cavern, Doc found what he thought was a stack of worthless iron bars. Edward Atkins himself died, reportedly of a heart attack, in April 1979 while returning to Illinois from El Paso on a matter pertaining to his claim. However, White Sands issued an edict expressly forbidding them to return to the base. He was barely able to lift one, much less think of carrying it back to the surface. At one time, he brought out a crown, which contained 243 diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. At the time it was in the middle of nowhere, and just about the only people who ever saw it were sporadic hunting parties that would come through the region from time to time. 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. 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. The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum is located at 4100 Dripping Springs Road in Las Cruces. In a four-page confidential report entitled Field Examination of Noss Mining Claims, Hembrillo District, Herkenhoff recorded a description: Dr. Ryan was charged with murder but was later acquitted. Once again, Doc began to descend about 125 feet before the shaft again leveled off into a large natural cavern. According to Atkins son, John, Holmes possessed key materials which were being used to press the Army into allowing Atkins and Holmes access to Victorio Peak. Passing through the large cavern, he came to a series of smaller caves rooms, he called them. For three months beginning on June 20, 1963, the group used various techniques to search the area; however, they failed to turn up anything. After telling her what he had seen and shown her the loot, she insisted he go back into the mine for one of the iron bars. Hearing about the story, Captain Swanner, who was stationed at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1960s, came forward. At the same time that people were talking about where the treasure came from, they were talking about where it went. Neither man being familiar with laws governing the discovery of treasure on a military base, Fiege went to the Judge Advocates Office at Holloman Air Force Base to confer with Colonel Sigmund I. Gasiewicz. Shriver also said that he had copies of other presidential messages, several initialed by LBJ, dealing with the clandestine, illegal removal of the gold. The Victorio Peak Mystery: A Search for the Greatest Lost Treasure Cache in America - Kindle edition by Jameson, W.C.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Lampros later signed sworn affidavits regarding their experiences. 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. I keep reaching out to Tactacam but all I get back are the standard, canned, BS answers implying that I am doing something wrong with camera positioning. Victorio used the entire Hembrillo Basin as his stronghold, refusing to live on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona, where the government wanted to banish him. The gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a new form in Zurich. Doc Noss was extremely paranoid and buried everything he took out of the caves, not even trusting his wife, Babe. The three men had been on a hunting party when McDonald, who reportedly had imbibed several cans of beer, began talking freely about a huge stash of gold. The Victorio Peak Mystery: A Search for the Greatest Lost Treasure Cache in America Hardcover - September 24, 2019 by W.C. Jameson (Author) 17 ratings Kindle $19.49 Read with Our Free App Hardcover $26.95 3 Used from $22.09 11 New from $20.88 In a little-known mountain range in southern New Mexico is an unremarkable mountain called Victorio Peak. His obsession with this spelled the end of his marriage, and still he was undeterred to re-access his hoard. According to this source, a B-24 was used to transport at least seven loads of the peaks gold, with up to 20 tons of gold moving in each load. 2003-2008 Church of Scientology International. Also: an update on a $2 billion treasure at Victorio Peak, N.M.; cases of loved ones found. Using ropes for support and guided by his flashlights wavering beam, Doc Noss descended a series of interconnecting chambers which led downward for 186 feet. Some believe that Doc Noss found the Casa del Cueva de Oro, Spanish for the House of the Golden Cave. Just 12 years after discovering the treasure, Doc Noss died with just $2.16 in his pocket. Letha Guthrie, Ovas eldest daughter from a previous marriage, described the next few years as a very happy time for the Noss family, one of simple, hard work with a bright, limitless future. 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. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high. 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. We took 90 bars stacked by a mine shaft at Victorio Peak and reburied them 10 in a pile scattered throughout the basin with the exception of 30 bars that we buried in a grassy flat near the road we came out on. The team worked under strenuous conditions down there in the dark, hauling up bar after bar from that subterranean chamber, as well as all manner of other valuable treasures, including an ornate crown studded with 243 diamonds and one pigeon blood ruby, and many of these objects Noss allegedly secretly hid in various spots without telling even his wife. A number of sources also independently named Major General John G. Shinkle, the commander of White Sands Missile Range from June 1960 to July 1962, as knowing about the movement of tons of gold from Victorio Peak. 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. He and his bobbing light would pass by a series of interconnected chambers and a maze of labyrinthine tunnels leading off from the main shaft, and after descending around 60 feet straight down into the mountain he came to a chamber with what appeared to be ancient paintings and inscriptions by the Natives of the region. Once, archaeologists believed that Homo sapiens journeye When he reached the surface, he told Babe, This is the last one of them babies Im gonna bring out. However, when Babe rolled the bar over, she noticed a yellow gleam where the gravel of the hillside had scratched off centuries of black grime. Each skeleton had its hands bound behind it to a large wooden stake driven into the ground. Try as he would, Captain Fiege could not penetrate the opening he had used just three years earlier. His warriors raided southern New Mexico and Texasin an all-out war against the U.S. Army and the Texas Rangers. McGuires Place A treaty was reached between the tribe and the Federal government in Washington that the Indians could stay upon the land in New Mexico. In effect, no one could mine the treasure, and that included the Army and Babe Noss. Victorio Peak, a craggy outcropping of rock barely 500 feet tall, lies in the center of a desert lake known as the Hembrillo Basin in New Mexico. Theories abound on the origins of the alleged treasure, from eighteenth-century . I was just a kid, about 13 or 14 years old, he told this writer. All Rights Reserved. Indeed, a man by the name of Captain Swanner, who had been stationed at White Sands Missile Base, would later claim that the military had managed to find and remove all of the gold to Fort Knox. In the spring of 1938, Doc Noss and Babe went to Santa Fe to establish legal ownership of the find, filing a lease with the State of New Mexico for the entire section of land surrounding Victorio Peak. Doc attempted illegally to sell his gold for nine years, but it wasnt easy finding buyers. Becoming desperate for cash, Doc and a man named Joseph Andregg transported gold bars, coins, jewels, and artifacts into Arizona, selling them on the black market. Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. [citation needed], The treasure was featured twice on the show Unsolved Mysteries. In 1979, Babe died without ever finding the treasure. The Treasure of Victorio Peak is (or was) a supposed cache of gold bullion that was said to have been stored within a cavern in Victorio Peak, a basalt outcropping in the Hembrillo Basin, part of the San Andres Mountains of Doa Ana County, New Mexico, now part of the White Sands Missile Range. At least one close relative was convinced that Atkins death was not accidental and that it was directly related to his getting too close to the true story of Victorio Peak. Subsequently, he also filed several mining claims on and around Victorio Peak and a treasure trove claim. 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. And for good reason. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station. What was the meaning of the skeletons and other oddities to be found within this dim place? Berlett viewed this as substantiation for the theory that Spaniards had been responsible for stashing the gold. After some discussion, the men decided that Porter should take the bar to a close friend of his who worked in the provost marshals office in nearby Fort Bliss, Texas. For Trademark Information on Scientology Services. In yet another chamber, Noss was surprised to find a treasure trove of coins, jewels, gemstones, and even a shimmering gold statue of the Virgin Mary. Large movements of bullion from the peak went on for nearly a decade, with the largest single removal of gold occurring in 1976, according to Bill Shriver. Unable to sell the gold bars on the open market, Noss was stymied but continued to work steadily to remove the treasure. 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.. Find high-quality stock photos that you won't find anywhere else. In the spring of 1938 he and his wife made a trip to Santa Fe in order to apply for legal ownership of the land, several mining claims, and a treasure trove claim, which he successfully acquired, making his claim on the treasure legal. [1], Many years following the Doc Noss discovery, local newspapers reported different accounts of possible treasure finds and hikers falling in the Hembrillo Basin. Case File: Victorio Peak Treasure Location: White Sands, New Mexico Date: November 1937 Description: Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Hot Springs, New Mexico. 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. Victorio Peak, located in northern Dona Ana County, now lies within the White Sands Missile Range in south-central New Mexico. Search from Real Treasure Maps stock photos, pictures and royalty-free images from iStock. Throughout history, some of the greatest rulers, adventurers, and artists have met mysterious ends. After the death of Doc Noss, Ova and her family continued efforts to regain access to the big treasure room. Beyond the Hembrillo Basin is a hundred-mile stretch of desert known as the Jornada del Muerto. The bars that Noss and his crew removed from Victorio Peak were, in general, crudely formed, indicating the use of primitive smelting processes. That he seemed very disturbed, nervous and agitated, and refused my invitation to dinner, saying, Im running for my life., That he also said, The Mob is after me.. Near the bottom, he encountered a huge boulder hanging from the ceiling, almost blocking his way. The gold, Porters friend stated breathlessly, ran in a tremendous stack along one side of the cavern stretching for approximately 200 yards. 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. This could explain the skeletons in the cavern. gunslinger44 May 17, 2020 Replies 11 Views 5K Oct 19, 2022 Juiced8 J The Lost Gold of Padre Larue and Victorio Peak and a Treasure Hunters Papers Daryl Friesen Sep 3, 2019 Replies 5 Views 4K Oct 18, 2022 autofull A All told, he reportedly found 27 human skeletons in the caverns of the mountain. This was not iron, but rather a bar of gold, and there were thousands more where it had come from. They discovered only that Victorio Peak contained no goldbearing ore. Only yesterday, White Sands officials, after consulting with Army Department lawyers in Washington, decided to allow Mr.. 26.21 - MU Plus+ Podcast - The Garuda Monks, 28.20 - MU Podcast - The Sphere of the Plutonians, 28.19 - MU Podcast - Damu 69 at Gmail.com, The Alien Big Cat (ABC) Phenomenon: There's a Paranormal Aspect to the Mystery, Fancy Mummy Portraits and Mummies with Gold Tongues Discovered in Egypt. The Yeren: An Ancient, Chinese Cousin of the United States' Bigfoot? 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. The horde of an Apache chief? It is a generally understood - if not well-known on a detailed level - part of LBJ's "other legacy": That through his highly skilled manipulative abilities, he had become the inventor of dozens of under-the-table frauds against the federal government (i.e. A retired U.S. Army officer said that while on duty at the provost marshals office on White Sands Missile Range during the period of LBJs presidency, he was visited by four men in a late model Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham who sought permission to drive to Victorio Peak. His main source of income cut off, and his marriage to Babe already deteriorated, Noss was desperate to sell his remaining gold bars on the black market. The Victorio Peak Mystery book. This writer conducted extensive interviews with Thomas Berlett. A source interviewed in Mexico stated that it was common knowledge in the towns of Jimenez and Camargo that Johnsons 110,000-acre ranch in Chihuahua served as a storage area for a very large amount of gold flown in by a four-engine, propeller-driven aircraft in the late 1960s. However, long before Victorio Peak was encompassed by the government, a man by the name of Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss spent some time exploring Victorio Peak while on a deer hunt. We took 90 bars stacked by a mine shaft at Victorio Peak and reburied them 10 in a pile scattered throughout the basin with the exception of 30 bars that we buried in a grassy flat near the road we came out on.. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were stacked like cordwood.. Returning through the main cavern, he noticed an immense stack of metal bars off to one side. 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. However, Noss demanded to see the money before revealing the new hiding place. 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 gambit worked well, until Army reinforcements arrived. Others have come forward to also claim the government removed all of the treasure as well, including security guards and officers at the base. Some years after Doc Noss was killed by an associate in Hatch, New Mexico on March 5, 1949, his wife Ova asserted a claim that she was entitled access to the cave in Victorio Peak and its contents. Doc returned with a gold bar, presented it to his wife, Babe, and the couple soon dedicated their lives to exploring Victorio Peak, living in a tent at the base of the mountain in search of treasure. He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. Six men who worked with Doc in removing the gold C.D. Treasure Legends Victorio Peak Victorio Peak Update thegursk Jan 10, 2009 1 2 3 9 Next T thegursk Newbie Jan 10, 2009 3 3 Jan 10, 2009 #1 I live in southern New Mexico and my former neighbor (I have since moved) is an Archeologist and worked for the company that monitored the digging of Victorio Peak by the Noss Partnership in the 1980's. Two years later, he married Violet Lena Boles, which would further complicate ownership of the treasure rights for years to come. He would then spend the next decade selling some of the treasure he did have on the black market and trying to regain access to no avail, the thousands of remaining gold bars out of his reach. They had trekked in from Hot Springs, New Mexico, a town since renamed Truth or Consequences. The theories on why so much gold and other artifacts and valuables would be stashed at this remote peak has seen many theories spring up, such as that it was treasure that the Apaches had stolen, the hoard of the founder of New Mexico as a Spanish colony, Don Juan de Onate, or the missing wealth of Emperor Maxmillian, who served as Mexicos emperor in the 1860s. Docs object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. In November 1958, a team of four weekend gold seekers rediscovered the hoard. After the discovery, Fiege told several people that he had caved in the roof and walls to make it look like the tunnel ended. Bill Shriver, an international dealer in precious metals who proved very helpful in the initial stages of this investigation until his death, brought the total still higher. Noss refused to obey, and Ryan fired again, hitting Noss in the head, killing him instantly. The slightest movement stirred up a cloud. 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. Although it did indeed look to be just a tarnished hunk of worthless metal, Ova suspected differently, and after buffing away the layer of grime she found what she was looking for. Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2021. The affidavit states: I, Thayer Snipes, first being duly sworn, on my oath state: That in the latter part of 1972, I had stopped by the Airport Chevron Station at the corner of Airway Blvd. For more information, call (575) 522-4100. The two decided to keep the discovery between themselves and return to inspect the shaft later. The next day, March 5, 1949, Ryan arrived in the area, insisting that they discuss the problem of what happened to the gold. Chester Stout, for example, a retired Army sergeant, traced the removal of two large truckloads of gold from Victorio Peak, but later had to move out of New Mexico; his life was threatened because, as he was told, he knew too much.. Lifting the rock, he found a hole that led straight down into the mountain. 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. ).While some of these lost treasures may be products of rumor . Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peaks treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California. Hunting by himself, Doc scouted the base of the mountain. 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. The 17th-century Plaza de la Virgen Blanca has a monument to the 1813 Battle of Vitoria. From that moment onward, every attempt of Babes to clear the rubble from the plugged shaft met with a military escort out of the area. To think that there is a vast hoard of loot or priceless artifacts just lying around out in the wilds has driven people to the point of madness and obsession, and there seems to always be room for a good treasure story. Beyond that there is supposed to be another incline upward at about 30 degrees for some distance (40 feet as I remember it) where entrance is gained to a cave some 2700 feet long which contains many evidences that the cave was occupied as living quarters by a large group of humans for many years., The group evidently had some grisly practices, for the first thing Doc Noss encountered was a row of skeletons, 27 in all. According to Berlett, the four men proceeded down a fault into the peak for about 150 feet, at which point their progress was stopped by a large boulder. Denied entry by the courts until legalities could determine the legal owner of the mine; Doc feared Ryan would back out of the deal. That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America. Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. Now there were two military commands involved. Jolley would later say of the operation: In March of 1949 I handled 110 rough poured bars of gold in the area which is now White Sands Missile Range which is now the area of Victorio Peak. He was also known to take prisoners back to the Basin, where he subjected them to elaborate torture tests before killing them. After determining the accuracy of the two mens reports, the entire area was placed off-limits until an official investigation could be conducted. There are approximately seventy-three ranges, from Animas to Zuni. Where they the plunder of Spanish conquistadores who had conquered the Aztecs? A few days later, Noss and Ova came back to the mystery shaft, this time prepared with ropes and flashlights. Not long after this, the Army began a covert mining operation in the area, despite the fact that the New Mexico government had denied their requests to do so. While waiting for the rain to subside, he noticed a stone that looked as if it had been worked somehow. Looking about the barren landscape around them and paranoid of anyone else seeing what they were up to, they carefully replaced the boulder over the shaft and were determined to come back with what they would need to remove all of that loot. She would vehemently challenge this over the years, but was unable to regain access to the treasure. They would have the proper persons on guard duty., Possession of gold by private American citizens was illegal under federal law throughout the period of the Johnson presidency. Finally, others believe that the treasures were hidden by Chief Victorio, for whom the peak is named. Where are the various stashes that Doc Noss supposedly hid all over the desert? He also found some old letters, the most recent of which was dated 1880. 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. 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. While out scouting the area, Noss did not manage to find any deer, but he did find something rather strange out there in those badlands, which would start one of the biggest mysteries in New Mexico history. With legal ownership established, Noss began to work the claim openly, but he also became increasingly paranoid, hiding the gold bars all over the desert. 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. 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 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. caverns under Victorio Peak, a bioherm reef structure located approximately 80 miles northeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico. According to a close relative interviewed by Freedom, Shriver was murdered. The relative said that Shriver was beaten up in California, beaten about the kidneys and the head and subsequently died from his injuries. Patterson, Don Breech, Edgar F. Foreman, Leo D. OConnell, Eppie Montoya and B.D. Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital of the Basque Autonomous Community in northern Spain. Within just a few days, Doc and Babe were back at the site with ropes and flashlights. The engineer suggested eight sticks of dynamite, to which Noss heatedly disagreed, claiming the mountain was too unstable. 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. At the time they were barely making a dent in the total haul, which Noss would estimate as being around 16,000 bars of gold, and they tirelessly toiled away trying to get as much as they could. Victorio Peak, located in northern Dona Ana County, now lies within the White Sands Missile Range in south central New Mexico. Captain Leonard V. Fiege and Airman First Class Thomas Berlett took a group of others to Victorio Peak under the pretense of a hunting trip, duringwhich time they stumbled across a natural passage that led within the peak and ended up at a chamber filled with stacks of the gold bars. Besides coins and bars, there were apparently other valuables down there as well, including documents dated to 1797 written by Pope Pius III, but mostly Doc was all about the gold and the coins, concentrating on all of that loot hidden down there in the earth and ignoring many of the other artifacts. The night before his death, perhaps sensing that a business deal was going sour, Doc enlisted the aid of a cowboy named Tony Jolley to shuffle the locations of various stashes of the bars. Later, Fiege would take a lie detector test, which would allow Fiege back on the missile range. Some of these have claimed to have been part of the government cover-up of the treasure, including an engineer by the name of Dick Richardson, who claimed that he had personally counted 18,888 of the bars in service of the military, but the military has always denied all such claims, and has sought to squash what they call baseless rumors and discourage treasure hunters from entering the area. The Victorio Peak Mystery: A Search for the Greatest Lost Treasure Cache in America : Jameson, W.C.: Amazon.com.au: Books Fast and free shipping free returns cash on delivery available on eligible purchase. By the way, Noss is also called "Doc" because he often. His wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left. However, Terry Delongas stated, Were not accusing the military of stealing the gold, but I do feel that the Department of the Army in the 1960s treated my grandmother unfairly However, weve worked very hard over the years to establish a working relationship with the military, and were certainly not going to jeopardize that by accusing them of theft.. That after he had been beaten to death, according to the information I received, his body was put back into his car, the car was doused with kerosene or gasoline, and then set aflame.. 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. Immediately reporting the activity to Babe Noss, Babe contacted Oscar Jordan with the New Mexico State Land Office, who, in turn, contacted the Judge Advocates Office at White Sands. He estimated the total amount of gold coming from the peak at a staggering 96 million troy ounces, worth, at $320 an ounce, nearly $31 billion. The Tomar Hoard is a hoard of weapons, helmets and chalices believed to have been owned by the Knights Templar . Another theory is that the treasure belonged to Emperor Maxmillian, who served Mexico in the 1860s. For more than 200 years, treasure hunters have been lured to Oak Island, a lush, 140-acre piece of land off the coast of Nova Scotia, where a hole dubbed the "Money Pit" promises a bounty of hidden wealthif they can reach it.This tireless stream of explorers.A single old coin. He would forge a business partnership with a Texas oil man named Charlie Ryan, and in the meantime his growing paranoia in the face of increased media coverage of his discovery had him decide to move a good portion of his hidden stash. He would mine the chambers of Victorio Peak nearly every day, bringing up an estimated 200 to 350 bars of gold, but things were about to take a turn for the worse, and bring the dig grinding to a halt. Reaching down, he could not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he got his hands under it. Eckles has been on and inside Victorio Peak and dealt with many of the treasure claimants. Since time unremembered there has been a certain allure to the idea of lost treasure. FDR's Mysterious Treasure Hunt. Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, swore to an affidavit regarding another death. In 1948, Doc met Charles Ryan, a Texan involved in drilling operations and oil exploration in West Texas. Noss traveled down, passing caverns with Native American designs until he reached a room with hoards of gold, jewels, pouches, documents and 27 skeletons. The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean.All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. 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. Later, the wealth in the cave would be calculated to be worth more than two billion dollars. Gnero: Misterio Drama Misterios sin Resolver: Episodios Originales de Robert Stack - Temporada 2 Episodio 41 Episodio 41 Visin general: A third-anniversary show recalls fugitives apprehended with viewers' help. Original release date January 29, 2018 This week on Expanded Perspectives the guys start the show off talking about how the story of human migration is under. This was shortly before a much-publicized expedition, entitled Operation Goldfinder, took place at the site in March 1977. The major took the bar and told Porter to check back with him in a few days. Exploring further, he found even more skeletons stacked in a small enclosure, much like a burial chamber. But Doc Noss cared little about the historical value of the treasures inside Victorio Peak, mostly ignoring the pouches, packs, and artifacts. 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. One man, a Mr. The cloud of death shrouding Victorio Peak has reached far. A major effort was made to break into an apparent massive underground cave, but after much effort and only 50 feet from where they believed the "treasure room" was located, the group encountered unstable rock and had to seek a different passageway. The reports of the massive treasure would consume his marriage and eventually his life, and mysteries around the treasure persist to this day (via Legends of America). Even so, he was extremely paranoid, and continued to hide secret stashes of gold amounting to millions of dollars out in the desert wilds. . Doc Noss spent the next 10 years in intermittent efforts to regain access to the hoard, in vain. They even brought in their own security guards, he added. Further, they stated that underground wealth, in whatever form it took, belonged to the state or any legal license holders. Background research into the enormous wealth contained in the caverns of Victorio Peak revealed many eyewitness reports of the gold. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley. Back in 1937, the place called Victorio Peak, named after a 19th century Apache war chief, was just a craggy rocky outcropping jutting up out of the parched, desolate wilds of southern New Mexico, in the United States, right next to the sprawling desert called the Jornada del Muerto and within what is in present day the White Sands Missile Range. After he got back to the surface, Doc told Ova what he had seen, and almost as an afterthought mentioned the long row of metal bars. Mine is set at 10 minutes delay, sensitivity level 7. The Mystery Of The Lost Victorio Peak Treasure ridersuperone/Shutterstock By Toby Arguello / Sept. 27, 2021 2:20 pm EST 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. However, the expert won the argument. That while visiting Foss, a man we both knew, E.M. Guthrie, drove in to the station in a late model Ford Thunderbird. Joe Andregg, an electrician from Santa Fe, New Mexico, reflected on the days when he worked with Doc Noss in the late 1930s. A deal with a man named Charlie Ryan went south, and Noss was gunned down. The Victorio Peak treasure (also seen in print as Treasure of Victorio Peak, Treasure of San Andres) describes a cache of gold found inside Victorio Peak in 1937 in southern New Mexico by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss (born in Taloga, Oklahoma on July 3, 1905. Letha told Freedom that she herself handled 12 to 15 of the bars, and I even put one up and hid it for four days.. 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. 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. 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. Doc thought that he had discovered an old abandoned mineshaft. The gold, he said, was removed and smelted into old Mexican bars, 50-pound bars. The gold in its new form, he noted, had no marks to identify its origin. They also were given and passed lie detector tests. Although the originals have never been recovered, a copy of one of the documents proved to be a translation from Pope Pius III. Now, instead of having thousands of gold bars to draw from, Noss had only a few hundred that he had hidden in the desert. The Victorio Peak treasure (also seen in print as Treasure of Victorio Peak, Treasure of San Andres) describes a cache of gold found inside Victorio Peak in 1937 in southern New Mexico by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss (born in Taloga, Oklahoma on July 3, 1905. Victorio Peak Treasure from Expanded Perspectives on Podchaser, aired Tuesday, 30th January 2018. Did they even exist at all? When the rain finally stopped, Doc returned to camp, telling Babe of the discovery. In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. As he looked around the area he climbed up the peak and found near the top a rock that didnt seem to fit, and which looked as if it had been worked or tooled with human hands. 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. Reportedly, he amassed a treasure of gold, silver, and jewels before being ordered back to Mexico City in 1607. White Sands, New Mexico by the National Park Service. Moon, said that he was from the White House Secret Service detail and he showed the officer a green, laminated card which stated Secret Service, Division of the White House. Another man, an engineer named Dick Richardson, told the officer that he was a boyhood friend of Lyndon Johnsons and that he had personally counted 18,888 gold bars in one stack in a cavern at Victorio Peak, each bar weighing about 60 pounds. Finally in 1996 the crew broke into a room that was 60 feet high and six feet wide. Reaching a compromise, the military allowed Expeditions Unlimited, representing all of the claimants, to excavate the peak in 1977. 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. Treasure Net Forum This was one of Apache Chief Victorio's hideouts and was the site of a battle in 1880 between Victorio's warriors and the U.S. Army Ninth Cavalry " Buffalo Soldiers ." These are things we will perhaps never know, and the Victorio Peak treasure has remained shrouded in mysteries and unanswered questions to this day. Doc filled his pockets with gold coins, grabbed a couple of jeweled swords, and laboriously returned to Babe waiting anxiously at the surface. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved). He says it was a nice break from explaining Trinity Site or why there are roadblocks during missile tests. Nina Strochlic. An intense argument ensued, and Noss headed toward his car. While there have been multiple documented expeditions to the peak, no gold has been officially recorded as being recovered from the site. The daughter of another man, Harvey Snow, died from a gunshot wound in the head after Snow had disregarded repeated warnings in regard to the peak. Peering into the darkness, Doc saw an old man-made shaft with a thick, wooden pole attached at one side. : Did 'Doc' Noss Really Find Caverns of Gold or Did He Pull Off a Hoax That Has Plagued His Kin for Years? Yet, Doc trusted no one, not even his Babe, disappearing into the desert, hiding pieces of the treasure in places that he never revealed. Nearly choking, the two men hastily marked their claim and made their exit. Today, the Armys official position on the whereabouts of the gold remains cautious, maintaining that the burden of proof rests with the accusers. Rather than widening the passage, the blast caused a cave-in, bringing the entire tunnel down in a heap of rock and rubble, much to the utter shock of Noss. Victorio Peak: Part Two - Jason Roberts Victorio Peak: Part Two By Jason Roberts | November 20th, 2019 | Tales of Blood and Gold Click here for Part One Scattered among the human remains, Doc found a fabulous, if not curious, collection of treasure. These are things we will perhaps never know, and the Victorio Peak treasure has remained shrouded in mysteries and unanswered questions to . The men believed that Porters friend was in a good position to help arrange an official government expedition to claim the gold. In the Fall of 1939, Doc wanted to enlarge the passageway into Victorio Peak so that the treasures could be more easily removed. Join MU Plus+ and get exclusive shows and extensions & much more! By this time, Babes story had spread across the nation, profiled in several magazines and newspapers. He estimated there were thousands of these bars, each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall. The peak is riddled with a network of tunnels. 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. Indeed, there supposedly were countless gold bars hidden away like this by the greedy Noss, who never would reveal their location. The affidavit states, in part: In March of 1949 I handled 110 rough [sic] poured bars of gold in the area which is now White Sands Missile Range which is now the area of Victorio Peak. A narrow passage through rocks kept the bulky Porter from following the other two men into the depths of the peak. But with all that gold to be extracted, assuming the U.S. Government hadn't already looted the peak, Ova and others were still on the hunt, perhaps in part because the price of gold was going up. The U.S. Army, which gained control of the area when it was converted to a bombing range during the Second World War, refused her request to bring in an excavation firm and ultimately ordered the Nosses to stay out of the area. In November 1937, Doc, Babe, and four others left on a deer hunt into the Hembrillo Basin. Victorio took the high ground of the now famous peak and used it to hold off the superior force. He's written articles for MU and Daily Grail and has been a guest on Coast to Coast AM and Binnal of America. Most of them were so well-hidden that they were never exposed and adjudicated. There are countless historical figures whose bodies. Noss soon deserted Babe, and in November 1945, a divorce was granted. Victorio knew how much the white man valued gold and had little use for it himself; he amassed vast amounts of treasure by attacking the white settlers. Within moments he found more skeletons, most of them bound and secured to stakes like the first. What looked to be a piece of iron was a solid gold bar. 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. Montgomery, the two went into the mountain to blast out the shaft. Did the treasure ever really exist at all, and if so who put it there? Fueled by suspicions that the military was working her claim, Babe Noss hired four men to enter the range secretly. His strategy was to block the Army's access to the only potable water source and, therefore, cause them to retreat. 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. Its occasional visitors included hunting parties, and Doc Noss and his wife, Ova, were on one such expedition in search of deer. They were eventually shut down from further excavations, but in 1963 the Gaddis Mining Company of Denver, Colorado, was given legal rights to work the site. 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. Finally reaching the bottom, Doc stepped into a chamber the size of a small room. This was the beginning of protracted legal battles over the ownership of the claim. While the caverns of Victorio Peak, according to Noss and other accounts, show signs of human working, it was certainly not the origin of the gold ingots, though the nature of the ingots suggests (though none exist to test) a crude and impure quality consistent with early Spanish mining practices. This week on Expanded Perspectives the guys start the show off talking about how the story of human migration is undergoing a dramatic revision. The first of these were airmen from the nearby employees at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, who went out to poke around the peak and see what they could find. As all of this was going on, it had become no secret that the peak was supposed to harbor possibly billions of dollars in gold, and there were people willing to go in and risk their lives to find it. One story made headlines in the early 1990s after two bodies were found trapped inside the peak. 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. It was perhaps a portent of things to come, as the very next day after this Noss got into an argument with Ryan and things turned ugly, ending with Noss shot to death. Free shipping for many products! After scraping a small section of the bar clean, she exclaimed, Doc, this is gold!. When it began to rain, Doc sought shelter under a rocky overhang near the mountains summit. 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