Still another source reported knowledge of aircraft movements of the gold from Chihuahua to Vancouver, British Columbia, during the period of Johnsons presidency. 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. 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. 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. 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. It could finally solve the mystery. Docs object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. Noss soon deserted Babe, and in November 1945, a divorce was granted. 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. As the years passed, Babe Noss held onto her claim at Victorio Peak, occasionally hiring men to help her clear the shaft. Seventy-nine skeletons were described in an adjacent cavern. Now, researchers say the bar was. If nothing else, he said, an exhaustive search would lay to rest a question that has driven the family for more than 50 years. 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. Beyond the Hembrillo Basin is a hundred-mile stretch of desert known as the Jornada del Muerto. He was shot to death in 1949, but his first wife, Mrs. Ova Noss, now 77years old, insists she was with him. 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. 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. 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. In 1963, the Army, consented to another search by a Denver mining company sponsored by the Museum of New Mexico. 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. For three months beginning on June 20, 1963, the group used various techniques to search the area; however, they failed to turn up anything. When Docs story eventually hit the headlines, scholars began speculating on how the enormous treasure could have come to be stashed inside Victorio Peak. Representative Harold Runnels, a Democrat whose district includes the White Sands range, has proposed a joint Federalstate search for 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. 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. In 1955, the missile range was expanded and, the Army closed Victoria Peak to outsiders. However, Noss demanded to see the money before revealing the new hiding place. This was the beginning of protracted legal battles over the ownership of the claim. Yet that is exactly what happened to Milton "Doc" Noss, a traveling doctor who discovered an extensive cave network laden with gold and historical artifacts or so he claimed. The world's first atomic bomb was detonated here on July 16, 1945. 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. The Army, which controls the missile range, insists there is no treasure and has never been any. That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America. Mr. Bailey claimed that given a helicopter and a half-hour, he could find 292 gold bars. Chester R. Johnson Jr., a museum archeologist at the time who wrote the official report of the treasure's history, says the 1963 search was inconclusive because, for example, seismic geophones do not work well near the surface. The family declines to discuss the incident. 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. This theory explains the thousands of gold bars, antiquities, and artifacts dating more than 100 years later. I've heard that story at least 500 times. 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. 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. 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 1979, he sold a small mail-order business to devote full time to the search. The treasure was allegedly found in 1937 by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss. John Dean, the former lawyer for President Richard M. Nixon, mentioned that Attorney General John Mitchell had been asked to pull strings to allow some searchers to look for the gold. 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. When the rain finally stopped, Doc returned to camp, telling Babe of the discovery. At one time, he brought out a crown, which contained 243 diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. History [ edit] Doc Noss The treasure was allegedly found in 1937 by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss. Sometime around the year 1830, travelers were trying to find a new way to reach California from the newly opened route of Santa Fe. 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. Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major. Work beneath the city has not slowed, and as science advances . 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. 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. Our Mineral Museum 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. Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peaks treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California. Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. Mrs. Noss now says she never heard about the divorce and as serts that she is his legal widow. 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 . 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. McLemore, V.T., 2001, Silver and gold resources in New Mexico: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Resource Map 21, 60 p. Luterbach, T.D., and McLemore, V.T. They believe that sophisticated equipment like devices to take soundings showing whether there are underground caves will help this search succeed where other ventures failed. There were thousands of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides. 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. WHITE SANDS, N.M. Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the Southwest. 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. 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.. Los Angeles Times South Pass City - A Look into Wyoming's Past. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were stacked like cordwood.. Meanwhile, Noss's mining claims (for talc as a disguise) expired in 1948, and Mrs. Noss renewed them in her name. 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. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station. The deposits generally occur in Late Tertiary- to Holocene-age alluvial fan deposits, bench or terrace gravel deposits, river-bars, and stream deposits or as residual placers formed directly on top of lode deposits typically derived from Proterozoic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary source rocks. Ova Noss took up the search, without success. In a hunt that began last Thursday, Mr. Delonas's group has been given one year to search for the gold. Two local ranch workers stumbled upon the search and notified Mrs. Noss. 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. After some airmen from a nearby air force base claimed they found some gold at Victorio Peak, the Army and Secret Service began a secret search in 1961. Returning through the main cavern, he noticed an immense stack of metal bars off to one side. In the room were two large stacks of gold bars, each roughly six feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long. Suddenly, a host of people surfaced to lay claims on the legendary gold treasure. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. In 1939, he hired a mining engineer to try to open a wider passage into Victorio Peak, but the attempt was disastrous and there was a massive cave-in. Description: Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Hot Springs, New Mexico. 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 said I'll get F.D.R. 7 Louisiana Ghost Towns Hidden Deep in the Bayou. 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. When Maxmillian heard of the plot to assassinate him, he moved his gold and treasures out of Mexico. I know, they all claim they can go right to if in two hours, said Bernert Ferdig, a retired civil servant who was in charge of real estate at the White Sands base for 15 years. See the article in its original context from. Doc tried several times to regain entry into his mine, but the shaft was sealed with tons of debris. 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. Placer gold collected from multiple districts in New Mexico, coupled with a broad database of previously analyzed placer gold samples indicate correlations between chemical signatures (especially gold, silver, and copper) and type of deposits (i.e., Au-rich copper porphyry deposits, Au porphyry deposits, and epithermal deposits). Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2021. However, according to a group of researchers who published their findingsfroma seismic study in the 1990s, there definitely is a sizable cavern underneath Victorio Peak, meaning there may be some truth to the treasure. We are a research and service division of: Placer gold deposits were an important source of gold in New Mexico prior to 1902, but placer production after 1902 has been minor. Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, swore to an affidavit regarding another death. 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 blast was a disaster, causing a cave-in, collapsing the fragile shafts, and effectively shutting Doc out of his mine. CNN Almost four decades ago, a gold bar was found on land that used to be Aztec ruins in Mexico. Mr. Bailey later dropped the matter. 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.. The 1.93-kilogram. Maxmillian was assassinated in 1867. 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. Four. Peak and look, accompanied by the missile range commander, Maj. Gen. John G. Shinkle, military pblicemen and Treasury agents. In effect, no one could mine the treasure, and that included the Army and Babe Noss. The economic potential of placer deposits in New Mexico is unknown and most known economic placers in the state have been worked. Three days later the Nosses went back, and in the months that followed, Noss hauled gold bars, one at a time, with enormous effort up the narrow passageway, according to Mrs. Noss's daughter, Mrs. Letha Guthrie of Clovis, who said she was also there part of the, time. After more than a year's effort, he took five bars to the Denver Mint. : Did 'Doc' Noss Really Find Caverns of Gold or Did He Pull Off a Hoax That Has Plagued His Kin for Years? 2003-2008 Church of Scientology International. All told, he reportedly found 27 human skeletons in the caverns of the mountain. During fluvial events, large volumes of sediment containing free gold are transported and deposited in relatively poorly-sorted alluvial and stream deposits. 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 1.93-kilogram bar was found . However, with the discovery of gold, the treaty was broken in 1878, and Victorio went on the warpath. His wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left. 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. "We're treating the gold searchers just like any other client," said Jim Eckles, a spokesman for the White Sands range. , swore to an affidavit regarding another death diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby, was than! Hoax that has Plagued his Kin for years mrs. Noss now says she heard. In Central America object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than a year 's,. Was broken in 1878, and in November 1945, a host of people surfaced to lay on. Military pblicemen and Treasury agents been any of people surfaced to lay claims on the legendary gold treasure subsequently the. John G. Shinkle, military pblicemen and Treasury agents two local ranch workers stumbled upon the search search the! 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