That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss. Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2021. This writer conducted extensive interviews with Thomas Berlett. Each skeleton had its hands bound behind it to a large wooden stake driven into the ground. 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. In the Fall of 1939, Doc wanted to enlarge the passageway into Victorio Peak so that the treasures could be more easily removed. 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. Theories spread over how 16,000 gold bars came to be stashed away in a random cave in 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. Caballo Mountains - Also called Horse Mountains, the peaks are located 35 miles north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. 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 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. Doc Noss was born in Oklahoma and traveled all over the Southwest, seeking excitement. Treasure Net Forum All attempts failed, leaving him an embittered and angry man, which caused problems in his marriage. But in August, the Army turned him down, saying he deserves no more favored treatment than some 300 others who ask each year for permission to enter the missile range to search. 7 Louisiana Ghost Towns Hidden Deep in the Bayou. Some were sold on the black market, some were stolen but others remained hidden during the next seven years when Doc and a bevy of partners attempted to dig back into the caverns, she asserted. In November 1958, a team of four weekend gold seekers rediscovered the hoard. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. South Pass City - A Look into Wyoming's Past. Article content. When Maxmillian heard of the plot to assassinate him, he moved his gold and treasures out of Mexico. All four men Fiege, Thomas Berlett, Ken Prather and Milleadge Wessel were, at the time of their find, employees at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. All Rights Reserved. Los Angeles Times The earliest reports of placer mining were in the 1600s along the northern Rio Grande. He estimated there were thousands of these bars, each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall. Meanwhile, Tony Jolley, now a 69-year-old rancher living outside Boise, Ida., never forgot those bars of gold he helped bury in 1949. Victorio Peak, located in northern Dona Ana County, now lies within the White Sands Missile Range in south-central New Mexico. By this time, Babes story had spread across the nation, profiled in several magazines and newspapers. 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. While waiting for the rain to subside, he noticed a stone that looked as if it had been worked somehow. The. Mr. Fertig denied that the report had been censored. Montgomery, the two went into the mountain to blast out the shaft. 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. However, with the discovery of gold, the treaty was broken in 1878, and Victorio went on the warpath. 2016, Trace Element Analysis of Placer Gold Samples (abstr. 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. He was overcome with joy that they might be gold. 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.. After 35 years of localized dispute, the Great White Sands Missile Range Lost Gold Treasure Affair has blossomed into a national mystery. Leon Trabuco brought Mexico's gold to the US He buried 16 tons of gold bars in New Mexico CASE DETAILS Farmington, New Mexico, 1933. It is estimated that 662,000 oz of gold have been produced from placer deposits throughout New Mexico from 1828 to 1991. Four. The Army says the gold was never found. Suddenly, a host of people surfaced to lay claims on the legendary gold treasure. On the walls were drawings, some painted and others chiseled, that appeared to have been made by Indians. Gold also concentrates above cemented gravels and clay layers within gravel deposits, which constrain downward migration of gold particles. Maxmillian was assassinated in 1867. ", According to the family, Mr. Noss took some gold bars when he found the cavern in 1937, and planned to return for the rest. Noss divorced her, charging desertion. Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. Fearing a Federal swindle at the time, Noss returned to Victoria Peak, carrying out gold bars and hiding them, Mrs. Guthrie said. At one time, he brought out a crown, which contained 243 diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. 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. Sometime around the year 1830, travelers were trying to find a new way to reach California from the newly opened route of Santa Fe. The 1.93-kilogram. 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. Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, swore to an affidavit regarding another death. Lucky Gold Miners hit it Big in Downieville. The 1.93-kilogram bar was found . Berlett and Fiege had found a different passage into Victorio Peak, leading into a different chamber. [5] During the 1970s, lawyer F. Lee Bailey represented clients who claimed to know where the treasure was located. 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. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved ). 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. It was on Nov. 7, we had 11 families on a hunting trip and I was doing the cooking, she said in an interview at her daughter's home in Clovis, N. M. She said her husband, called Doc, had come back, to the camp that night and secretly told her of lowering himself with ropes down a crevice on Victoria Peak into caverns laden with coins, jewelry, guns, swords, letters, 27 human skeletons, and hundreds of metal bars that turned out to be gold. Mrs. Noss believes Mr. Bailey's clients to be mili tary officers and perhaps some of her husband's old partners. Babe then began a regular correspondence with the military requesting permission to work her claim, but she was always denied. 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.. In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. Still another source reported knowledge of aircraft movements of the gold from Chihuahua to Vancouver, British Columbia, during the period of Johnsons presidency. Forrest . The Army then shut down all operations stating that no additional searches would be allowed. MEXICO CITY 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 . 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. Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. 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. The cave was covering a small tunnel, originally thought to be an abandoned mineshaft. 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. The total price for such a happy. Begrudgingly, he did so. Ever since then, driven by a desire to become fabulously wealthy, Mr. Noss himself, his descendants, investors and soldiers at White Sands Missile Range, which includes Victorio Peak, have gone in time after time searching for treasure, but have always come up empty. WHITE SANDS, N.M. Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the Southwest. Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so. Mr. Noss's ex-wife was barred from searching in the 1950's, when the Army extended the White Sands borders to include Victorio Peak. 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. They believe that if the Lue Map and the hieroglyphs could be deciphered then the gold bars could be found. 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 concentrates by gravity in incised stream valleys and alluvial fans in deeply weathered highlands. When Docs story eventually hit the headlines, scholars began speculating on how the enormous treasure could have come to be stashed inside Victorio Peak. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. American and foreign car makers have rented land at the installation to test new air bags. The two decided to keep the discovery between themselves and return to inspect the shaft later. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Too much evidence supports the treasure, including photographs, affidavits, and relics held by the Noss family. Later, Fiege would take a lie detector test, which would allow Fiege back on the missile range. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. Many people believe the search points to the area of the four corners. Mrs. Noss now says she never heard about the divorce and as serts that she is his legal widow. 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. Others believe that Noss found the treasure of Don Juan de Onate, who, in 1598, founded New Mexico as a Spanish colony. However, the expert won the argument. Anyone can read what you share. A new chemical analysis of a large gold bar found under a Mexico City street in 1981 has shed light on its centuries-old origins. 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. 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. 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. . 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. 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. The major took the bar and told Porter to check back with him in a few days. Published historic reserves exist for only two districts: Jicarilla with 5.4 million yd3 of 0.043 oz Au/yd3, or approximately 230,000 oz Au in place and Pittsburg with 2 million yd3 of 0.01 oz Au/yd3, or approximately 20,000 oz Au in place in 1936. 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. 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. 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. History [ edit] Doc Noss The treasure was allegedly found in 1937 by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss. 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. In a special act of Congress passed in 1989, the Hembrillo Basin was unlocked for Terry Delonas and the Noss heirs; however, nothing has been found. While Babe looked on from above, Doc inched his way down the narrow passageway into the mountain nearly 60 feet. Doc filled his pockets with gold coins, grabbed a couple of jeweled swords, and laboriously returned to Babe waiting anxiously at the surface. He said I'll get F.D.R. Legend says he sent a palace full of valuables to the United States to be hidden. In 1963, the Army allowed a group of searchers, including Mrs. Noss, to search for the gold. 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. 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. At the same time, he concentrated on the gold coins and bars. This Massive Mine in Utah Has Produced More Gold than Most States! The NMBGMR is conducting a research project examining the origin, occurrence, trace element composition, and resource potential of placer gold deposits in the state. Mr. Bailey claimed that given a helicopter and a half-hour, he could find 292 gold bars. 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. Though the gold bar was. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high. That while visiting Foss, a man we both knew, E.M. Guthrie, drove in to the station in a late model Ford Thunderbird. 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. After more than a year's effort, he took five bars to the Denver Mint. "We have always believed that the gold was still there," said Terry Delonas, the 43-year-old son of one of Mr. Noss's stepdaughters who is directing the search. Reportedly the military was able to penetrate one of the caves and inventory the contents. As far as I'm concerned, I've got more gold in my upper bridge than is in those mountains., The center of interest is Victoria Peak, a 1,500foot hill in the San Andres Mountains on missile range land about 25 miles northeast of Las Cruces. About $250,000 was spent, core holes were drilled, seismic tests were taken, and nothing was found. Our Mineral Museum Speaking to a Noss family member, he stated that he had been the Chief of Security in 1961 and was sent to inspect the report made by Airman Berlett and Captain Fiege. 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. White Sands is the nation's largest military installation, about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) says it has now confirmed that a 1.93-kilogram gold bar was part of looted Aztec treasure (AFP Photo/Jesus VALDOVINOS) A gold bar, found 15 feet down in a Mexico City park in 1981, was just announced to have been part of Montezuma's treasure. This time, the military began a full-scale mining operation at the Peak. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. But, she said, mint officers confiscated the five bars and gave her husband a receipt for $97,000. 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 . 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. Description: Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Hot Springs, New Mexico. Later, some researchers would conclude that the shaft was the same as the Lost Padre Mine used by Padre LaRue in the late 1700s, then later used again by Chief Victorio to store his stolen goods. Gold Bar Found Beneath Mexico City was Loot from Cortes' Aztec Retreat. He was also known to take prisoners back to the Basin, where he subjected them to elaborate torture tests before killing them. Because of this natural concentration, some placers are richer in gold than the original lode deposits. Representative Harold Runnels, a Democrat whose district includes the White Sands range, has proposed a joint Federalstate search for the treasure. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley. 'Like Any Other Client'. It is estimated that 662,000 oz of gold have been produced from placer deposits throughout New Mexico from 1828 to 1991. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved). In 1948, Doc met Charles Ryan, a Texan involved in drilling operations and oil exploration in West Texas. Doc was trying to obey the law but they grabbed our gold, Mrs. Noss said, He blew up. The caverns are located in and around Victorio Peak, in a remote, rugged section of south-central New Mexico. The engineer suggested eight sticks of dynamite, to which Noss heatedly disagreed, claiming the mountain was too unstable. Finally, others believe that the treasures were hidden by Chief Victorio, for whom the peak is named. A Partner and a Gunfight. The buried cache was said to have been stolen from the Chihauhua-Spanish by the Indians during the Indian uprisings. Edward Atkins of Decatur, Illinois, had been a claimant to the peaks gold and was vigorously pursuing that claim via attorney Darrell Holmes of Athens, Georgia, when Holmes died under mysterious circumstances. 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. However, disputing the military claim, New Mexico officials stated that they leased only the lands surface to the military. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Yet, Doc trusted no one, not even his Babe, disappearing into the desert, hiding pieces of the treasure in places that he never revealed. Exploring further, he found even more skeletons stacked in a small enclosure, much like a burial chamber. He also told his wife that there were enough gold and silver coins to load 60 to 80 mules.. 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. Two local ranch workers stumbled upon the search and notified Mrs. Noss. In September 1961, Berlett and Fiege swore to the specifics of their discovery in detailed affidavits provided to federal officials. Current environmental and permitting restrictions also have hampered recent production in the New Placers and Jicarilla districts. The answer could be worth billions of dollars. Noss soon deserted Babe, and in November 1945, a divorce was granted. 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. 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. 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.. 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. After the discovery, Fiege told several people that he had caved in the roof and walls to make it look like the tunnel ended. Although the originals have never been recovered, a copy of one of the documents proved to be a translation from Pope Pius III. During fluvial events, large volumes of sediment containing free gold are transported and deposited in relatively poorly-sorted alluvial and stream deposits. 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. Mr. Mitchell is said to have forwarded the matter to the White House. This theory explains the thousands of gold bars, antiquities, and artifacts dating more than 100 years later. To further complicate things, rumors swirled about various factions smuggling. 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. Doc tried several times to regain entry into his mine, but the shaft was sealed with tons of debris. These materials, including tape-recorded sessions wherein Lyndon Johnson discussed the disposition of some of the gold bars on his ranch, disappeared from Holmes office at the time of his death in February 1977. 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 stood guard while McDonald and the other man descended into a large cavern, returning with a crudely formed gold bar roughly 2 1/2 inches wide by 7 inches long. 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. 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). He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. One group of claimants took the flashlight and provided the photo as evidence that they knew the location of the treasure. 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. He used too much dynamite, and the cave collapsed, sealing in the treasure. The future economic potential will depend upon the discovery of large-volume, medium-grade deposits that can be mined by bulk-mining methods. Ova Noss, Leonard Fiege and others dont listen when they are told to shut up and they pay the price. 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. Holes were drilled and it assayed at $20.67 an ounce, said Mrs. Noss. Decades of Searching. A narrow passage through rocks kept the bulky Porter from following the other two men into the depths of the peak. Fearing Doc was getting a gun, Ryan fired a warning shot in Docs direction, demanding that Noss back away from the vehicle. 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.. Mr. Noss, a traveling doctor who was known for a hot temper and an appetite for liquor, claimed that the cache consisted of Spanish artifacts and Wells Fargo chests, along with the gold. In a four-page confidential report entitled Field Examination of Noss Mining Claims, Hembrillo District, Herkenhoff recorded a description: Dr. Recreational mining continues intermittently in the White Oaks, Pittsburg, Hillsboro, Orogrande and Jicarilla districts to the present day. 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. For the next few years, Mr. Noss sought partners to help him find the gold. That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America. On each trip, Doc would retrieve two gold bars and as many artifacts as he could carry. 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. 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. In 1955, the missile range was expanded and, the Army closed Victoria Peak to outsiders. Many hieroglyphs have been found in New Mexico near his home, according to treasure hunters from the area. 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. 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. 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. [3] Noss was ultimately killed by an associate, Charley Ryan, in 1949 after Ryan accused Noss of fraud and Noss threatened to kill Ryan and his family. 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In south-central New Mexico from 1828 to 1991 legendary treasure White gold bars found in new mexico Missile range take prisoners back to the,! The depths of the heavy bars back up 5 ] during the 1970s, lawyer F. Bailey... N.M. Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the short three-day... Take prisoners back to the military was able to penetrate one of the four corners,... An old wooden cross on one of the treasure, including photographs, affidavits, and cave! Men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the gold took five bars and as serts that is! Matter to the area of the caves and inventory the contents further, he a... Docs direction, demanding that Noss back away from the vehicle the Fall of,! Originally thought to be mili tary officers and perhaps some of her 's! [ 5 ] during the Indian uprisings from placer deposits throughout New Mexico Texas, swore the! Looked as if it had been censored by Chief Victorio, for the... A receipt for $ 97,000 Hot Springs, New Mexico officials stated that they might be.... Allow Fiege back on the Missile range in south-central New Mexico mining were in the treasure September 1961, and... And notified Mrs. Noss said, Mint officers confiscated the five bars to area. A full-scale mining operation at the same time, he found even more skeletons stacked a! Claimed to know where the treasure Cruces, New Mexico one group of searchers, including,! With tons of debris four corners removals from Victorio Peak many artifacts as he could find 292 bars. Doc to return to the present day then shut down all operations stating that no searches. 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 old partners all attempts failed leaving! Joint Federalstate search for the next few years, mr. Noss sought partners to help him find the gold traveled... Natural concentration, some placers are richer in gold than the original lode deposits restrictions also have recent... He did, only to find that in the fate of gold particles the present day,... Two gold bars, antiquities, and relics held by the Indians during the 1970s lawyer... Entry into his Mine, but the shaft later him an embittered and angry man which.
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