Shriver also said that he had copies of other presidential messages, several initialed by LBJ, dealing with the clandestine, illegal removal of the gold. Though caught trespassing and escorted from the area, the men reported observing several men in Army fatigues upon the peak. The secret stash of a gold mine owner? Native gold and electrum occurs with quartz, magnetite, ilmenite, amphiboles, pyroxenes, pyrite, zircon, garnet, rutile, and a variety of other heavy minerals. The Army, which runs the missile range, required the searchers to put up $150,000 to cover the cost of environmental assessments, as well as increased security forces. They found nothing. Parts of White Sands are sometimes leased by private corporations and foreign governments for experiments. While waiting for the rain to subside, he noticed a stone that looked as if it had been worked somehow. 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. hell, I'll get Eleanor.. And for good reason. 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. Reportedly, he amassed a treasure of gold, silver, and jewels before being ordered back to Mexico City in 1607. Attacking wagon trains, settlements, mail coaches, and churches, he took anything from them that they valued. In 1961, he returned to the desert and claims to have found 10 . Mr. Delonas said the legend of the buried treasure obsessed the family for generations. The 1.93-kilogram. ): GSA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, USA, Luterbach, T. and McLemore, V.T., 2016, Trace element analysis of placer gold samples: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, 2016 Annual meeting. This was the beginning of protracted legal battles over the ownership of the claim. For the next few years, Mr. Noss sought partners to help him find the gold. Now, scientists confirm it was part of a plunder by Spanish conquistador Hernn. Peak and look, accompanied by the missile range commander, Maj. Gen. John G. Shinkle, military pblicemen and Treasury agents. 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. Alleged gold cache in the U.S. state of New Mexico, "Hunt for Fabulous Cache of Gold Lands in Court", "Following 1937 Story of Buried Gold, Family Searches New Mexico's Sands", "Seekers of fabled southern N.M. treasure sue Army", "Authors re-examine Victorio Peak storyand think gold really may be there", "Treasure or Treachery? In a hunt that began last Thursday, Mr. Delonas's group has been given one year to search for the gold. Noss soon deserted Babe, and in November 1945, a divorce was granted. During World War II, he divorced his wife, Ova, and disappeared for several years. Neither the Denver Mint nor the Federal records center in Denver, which has copies of gold receints for that period, could find the Noss receipt, spokesmen there said. New York Times, July 29, 1992 Reaching a compromise, the military allowed Expeditions Unlimited, representing all of the claimants, to excavate the peak in 1977. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved). 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. 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. Following 1937 Story of Buried Gold, Family Searches New Mexico's Sands, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/29/us/following-1937-story-of-buried-gold-family-searches-new-mexico-s-sands.html. Lampros later signed sworn affidavits regarding their experiences. Try as he would, Captain Fiege could not penetrate the opening he had used just three years earlier. This time, the military began a full-scale mining operation at the Peak. WHITE SANDS, N.M. Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the Southwest. In November 1937, Doc, Babe, and four others left on a deer hunt into the Hembrillo Basin. In September 1961, Berlett and Fiege swore to the specifics of their discovery in detailed affidavits provided to federal officials. 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. Within moments he found more skeletons, most of them bound and secured to stakes like the first. After scraping a small section of the bar clean, she exclaimed, Doc, this is gold!. Decades of Searching. 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. One group of claimants took the flashlight and provided the photo as evidence that they knew the location of the treasure. The Army then shut down all operations stating that no additional searches would be allowed. But the legend of the hidden gold was fueled again during the Watergate hearings in 1973. He supposedly told his wife: "We can make John D. Rockefeller look like a tramp. After determining the accuracy of the two mens reports, the entire area was placed off-limits until an official investigation could be conducted. Finally, others believe that the treasures were hidden by Chief Victorio, for whom the peak is named. See the article in its original context from. In the meantime, Mrs. Noss said her spies, illegally visited the peak and found military men excavating it. Mr. Koury asserted that the General first denied the search was on but admitted it later when sworn statements from the spies were produced. They believe that if the Lue Map and the hieroglyphs could be deciphered then the gold bars could be found. Parts of the treasure were described as gold, silver, jewels and as many as 16,000 gold bars estimated around $1.7 billion dollars. And, on March 4, 1949, the day before Doc was shot, a small plane crashed near Victoria Peak killing the pilot and severely injuring Marvin Beckwith, son of the, first Mrs. Noss. Most deposits are thin and less than 45 ft below the surface, but thicker deposits are found in the Elizabethtown-Baldy district (up to 275 ft) and in the Rio Grande Valley district (up to 370 ft). The slightest movement stirred up a cloud. 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). Maxmillian was assassinated in 1867. That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. 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. 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. 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. The more productive ore zones typically occur as narrow pay streaks or layers of fine-grained, disseminated gold, locally on top of basement rock or clay or caliche lenses within gravel deposits. Subsequently, he also filed several mining claims on and around Victorio Peak and a treasure trove claim. Doc Noss was born in Oklahoma and traveled all over the Southwest, seeking excitement. Forrest . TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The Mystery Of The Lost Victorio Peak Treasure, a group of researchers who published their findings. I was just a kid, about 13 or 14 years old, he told this writer. But before that happened, he must have hauled 500 or 600 bars of gold out of there and hid them, contended Mrs. Guthrie. Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. 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. In a four-page confidential report entitled Field Examination of Noss Mining Claims, Hembrillo District, Herkenhoff recorded a description: Dr. This could explain the skeletons in the cavern. Meanwhile, Babe Noss had filed a counter-claim on the entire area. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. You just couldn't trust anybody and still can't, she said. 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. A prospector made an extraordinary discovery yesterday, when he found an "incredibly rare" 12-pound (5.5-kilogram) gold nugget under only 23 inches of dirt. Article content. Current environmental and permitting restrictions also have hampered recent production in the New Placers and Jicarilla districts. That while visiting Foss, a man we both knew, E.M. Guthrie, drove in to the station in a late model Ford Thunderbird. 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. Mr. Fertig denied that the report had been censored. Doc Noss spent the next 10 years in intermittent efforts to regain access to the hoard, in vain. 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. Lifting the rock, he found a hole that led straight down into the mountain. Doc later brought one of the eerie things out.2. Finally reaching the bottom, Doc stepped into a chamber the size of a small room. She called her lawyer, Philip Koury, of Kansas City, who phoned General Shinkle. [5] She later was part of an unsuccessful 1963 search. The peak is riddled with a network of tunnels. Topic at Watergate Hearings. is also on Facebook, New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, Notice of Right to Inspect Public Records, Stephen Wells Bright Star Scholar Program, National Uranium Resource Evaluation database (NURE), Stacy Timmons interviewed for "Searchlight New Mexico" article, New paper published on the timing of small-volume eruptions and related volcanic hazards at Valles caldera. 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. 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. It all started in 1937, when Mr. Noss, who practiced as a foot doctor though it was never clear if he had a medical license, returned from a hunting trip at New Mexico's Victorio Peak with startling news: he had glimpsed a hidden trove of riches, 16,000 gold bars. A narrow passage through rocks kept the bulky Porter from following the other two men into the depths of the peak. : Did 'Doc' Noss Really Find Caverns of Gold or Did He Pull Off a Hoax That Has Plagued His Kin for Years? 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. This theory explains the thousands of gold bars, antiquities, and artifacts dating more than 100 years later. Rare Gold Nuggets. Doc attempted illegally to sell his gold for nine years, but it wasnt easy finding buyers. 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. It could finally solve the mystery. 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.. 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. Mr. Bryan, The Albuquerque Tribune writer, said he had gone through a chunk of Mr. Johnson's memorabilia recently and found both the censored and uncensored drafts of the report. Hunting by himself, Doc scouted the base of the mountain. Jan 20, 2020 Ian Harvey. He used too much dynamite, and the cave collapsed, sealing in the treasure. The fortune of a Mexican emperor? And a fourth story, pieced together recently by Howard Bryan, a reporter for The Albuquerque Tribune, centers on another Apache war chief named Victorio. He was overcome with joy that they might be gold. He carries in his wallet a photograph of gold bars and old coins next to a flashlight he provided. 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. 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. Trace element analysis of placer gold can be used as a valuable exploration tool in order to determine the original deposit source and locating lode gold deposits. The next day, March 5, 1949, Ryan arrived in the area, insisting that they discuss the problem of what happened to the gold. After three years they were given permission to go back to Victoria. ", According to the family, Mr. Noss took some gold bars when he found the cavern in 1937, and planned to return for the rest. After more than a year's effort, he took five bars to the Denver Mint. A new scientific analysis of a large gold bar found decades ago in downtown Mexico City has confirmed it was part of the plunder Spanish conquistadors abandoned as they beat a temporary. In 1955, the missile range was expanded and, the Army closed Victoria Peak to outsiders. Babe then began a regular correspondence with the military requesting permission to work her claim, but she was always denied. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so. The skeletons hands were bound behind its back apparently, the person had been deliberately left there to die. Through the years, soldiers at White Sands have spent weekends looking for the gold. Searching with 15 people at a time to try to determine the size of the cave, the group in a few weeks plans to start drilling 6-inch holes several hundred feet deep into the areas where the soundings show the cave is. 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. Los Angeles Times Theories spread over how 16,000 gold bars came to be stashed away in a random cave in New Mexico. Ova Noss, Leonard Fiege and others dont listen when they are told to shut up and they pay the price. Passing through the large cavern, he came to a series of smaller caves rooms, he called them. Fueled by suspicions that the military was working her claim, Babe Noss hired four men to enter the range secretly. Then in 1981, the construction crew found the gold bar, and today scientists have confirmed it was part of the Aztec treasures that Cortes hoped to steal away from Mexico for Spain. 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. He was also known to take prisoners back to the Basin, where he subjected them to elaborate torture tests before killing them. In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. But, she said, mint officers confiscated the five bars and gave her husband a receipt for $97,000. 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. 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. Stepping into the eerie darkness, Doc was alarmed when he saw a human skeleton, kneeling and securely tied to a stake, driven into the ground. Exploring further, he found even more skeletons stacked in a small enclosure, much like a burial chamber. Mr. Bailey claimed that given a helicopter and a half-hour, he could find 292 gold bars. The initial soundings appear to indicate a cavern precisely where Mr. Noss described. Case After 35 years of localized dispute, the Great White Sands Missile Range Lost Gold Treasure Affair has blossomed into a national mystery. Meanwhile, Noss's mining claims (for talc as a disguise) expired in 1948, and Mrs. Noss renewed them in her name. Did they even exist at all? He also found some old letters, the most recent of which was dated 1880. This Nevada Gold Mine Produces Amazing Crystalline Gold Nuggets! The Army, which controls the missile range, insists there is no treasure and has never been any. Many years later, a man named Milton Ernest Doc Noss spent some time exploring Victorio Peak while on a deer hunt. Doc filled his pockets with gold coins, grabbed a couple of jeweled swords, and laboriously returned to Babe waiting anxiously at the surface. Doc tried several times to regain entry into his mine, but the shaft was sealed with tons of debris. Noss divorced her, charging desertion. A small town was built near the place 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. 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. This was shortly before a much-publicized expedition, entitled Operation Goldfinder, took place at the site in March 1977. 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. He bolted from the Mescalero reservation in 1879 and camped near Victoria Peak while plundering the countryside and raiding Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major. Just 12 years after discovering the treasure, Doc Noss died with just $2.16 in his pocket. It is one of the most celebrated legends of buried treasure in the history of the American West, a thriller that includes a gunfight, nuclear weapons and the Watergate hearings. 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. He also asserts that military security officers censored out of his report all references to military searches for the treasure. We wanted to lay the matter to rest once and for all, said General Shinkle, who is now tetireil and lives in Cocoa Beach, Fla. We gave him a lie detector test beforehand and it was apparentiy, successful but he couldn't find anything.. South Pass City - A Look into Wyoming's Past. One partner, Charles Ryan, shot and killed Doc on March 5, 1949, in Hatch, N. M., after an argument. Even though the military refused any of Babes efforts to work her claim, it did not refuse other military personnel from exploring portions of Victorio Peak. A gold bar found in a Mexico City park in 1981 was part of the Aztec treasure looted by Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors 500 years ago, a new study says. All told, he reportedly found 27 human skeletons in the caverns of the mountain. [1][a] While there have been multiple documented expeditions to the peak, no gold has been officially recorded as being recovered from the site. Reaching down, he could not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he got his hands under it. Two years later, he married Violet Lena Boles, which would further complicate ownership of the treasure rights for years to come. She appealed to state officials, who forced the search to stop. After the discovery, Fiege told several people that he had caved in the roof and walls to make it look like the tunnel ended. Doc was trying to obey the law but they grabbed our gold, Mrs. Noss said, He blew up. 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. Montgomery, the two went into the mountain to blast out the shaft. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved ). Others speculate that the treasure could be the missing wealth of Emperor Maxmillian, who served as Mexicos emperor in the 1860s. An intense argument ensued, and Noss headed toward his car. A gold bar found in a Mexico City park in 1981 was part of the Aztec treasure looted by Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors 500 years ago, a new study says. 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. The gold bar had disappeared without a trace. Fearing Doc was getting a gun, Ryan fired a warning shot in Docs direction, demanding that Noss back away from the vehicle. Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peaks treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California. 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 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. He estimated there were thousands of these bars, each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall. This Massive Mine in Utah Has Produced More Gold than Most States! (1.93 kilograms), while digging for the construction of a central bank in Mexico City. Now, scientists confirm it was part of a plunder by Spanish conquistador Hernn. 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. Hearing about the story, Captain Swanner, who was stationed at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1960s, came forward. However, it was a slow process, and in 1955, the White Sands Missile Range unexpectedly expanded their operations to encompass the Hembrillo Basin. Recreational mining continues intermittently in the White Oaks, Pittsburg, Hillsboro, Orogrande and Jicarilla districts to the present day. 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. [5] The partnership conducted unsuccessful searches until March 1996, when the Army suspended their access. But even the nicest people we'd take in, they'd see gold and go berserk.. Four. Several sand and gravel operators periodically extract minor quantities of placer gold from their quarries. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. 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. Although the originals have never been recovered, a copy of one of the documents proved to be a translation from Pope Pius III. White Sands is the nation's largest military installation, about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Fearing a Federal swindle at the time, Noss returned to Victoria Peak, carrying out gold bars and hiding them, Mrs. Guthrie said. Gold Bars Available from APMEX Gold bullion bars are an investor favorite. For three months beginning on June 20, 1963, the group used various techniques to search the area; however, they failed to turn up anything.

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