Reportedly the military was able to penetrate one of the caves and inventory the contents. The treasure was allegedly found in 1937 by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss. If nothing else, he said, an exhaustive search would lay to rest a question that has driven the family for more than 50 years. (Reuters) 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.For 39 years, its origins remained a mystery.INAH - National Institute of Anthropology and History/Handout via REUTERS Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History 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. 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. 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. On each trip, Doc would retrieve two gold bars and as many artifacts as he could carry. ", According to the family, Mr. Noss took some gold bars when he found the cavern in 1937, and planned to return for the rest. 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. The gold concentrates by gravity in incised stream valleys and alluvial fans in deeply weathered highlands. There are four major stories on the treasure's origin, said Mr. Background research into the enormous wealth contained in the caverns of Victorio Peak revealed many eyewitness reports of the gold. Decades of Searching. The room had been undisturbed for so long that the dust, according to Berlett, lay several inches thick. 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. Victorio Peak, located in northern Dona Ana County, now lies within the White Sands Missile Range in south-central New Mexico. Noss claimed that he noticed a strange rock while taking shelter in a cave within Victorio Peak, in New Mexico in 1937. But the legend of the hidden gold was fueled again during the Watergate hearings in 1973. But before that happened, he must have hauled 500 or 600 bars of gold out of there and hid them, contended Mrs. Guthrie. The buying entity was a Middle Eastern principal, Shriver said. 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 third story asserts that Geronimo hid, Apache booty in the area. Becoming even more complicated, a search of mining records failed to turn up any existing claims including that of Doc Noss. The higher gold values occur near the base of alluvial gravel deposits where the gold is trapped by natural processes such as riffles in the river bottom, fractures within the bedrock, along bedding or foliation planes, and/or structures that are transverse to the river flow. Now, scientists confirm it was part of a plunder by Spanish conquistador Hernn. 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 initial soundings appear to indicate a cavern precisely where Mr. Noss described. He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. The. Noss soon deserted Babe, and in November 1945, a divorce was granted. Mr. Koury asserted that the General first denied the search was on but admitted it later when sworn statements from the spies were produced. He said I'll get F.D.R. Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, swore to an affidavit regarding another death. Lucky Gold Miners hit it Big in Downieville. 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. 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. 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. 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. A small town was built near the place Anyone can read what you share. However, disputing the military claim, New Mexico officials stated that they leased only the lands surface to the military. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high. However, White Sands issued an edict expressly forbidding them to return to the base. Noss agreed with Ryan to exchange some of the gold bars for $25,000 to reopen the shaft. He was overcome with joy that they might be gold. Gold also concentrates above cemented gravels and clay layers within gravel deposits, which constrain downward migration of gold particles. In 1979, he sold a small mail-order business to devote full time to the search. Meanwhile, Babe Noss had filed a counter-claim on the entire area. By completing a chemical analysis and determining the particle morphology of placer gold collected from these districts using an electron microprobe, patterns in the chemical signatures from each location can be used to examine chemical variability (1) within the individual placer gold particles, (2) within the same district and (3) among different districts. When it began to rain, Doc sought shelter under a rocky overhang near the mountains summit. Just 12 years after discovering the treasure, Doc Noss died with just $2.16 in his pocket. In 1958, Leonard V. Fiege, then an Air Force captain stationed at nearby Holloman Air: Force Base, and three other men, contended that while deer hunting they found a cave filled with gold bars. The cave was covering a small tunnel, originally thought to be an abandoned mineshaft. In the room were two large stacks of gold bars, each roughly six feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long. 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. The skeletons hands were bound behind its back apparently, the person had been deliberately left there to die. That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss. 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. Several sand and gravel operators periodically extract minor quantities of placer gold from their quarries. 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. He has recruited friends and investors to form the Ova Noss Family Partnership, named for his late grandmother, that is financing the new search. 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. Discovered by a . Through the years, soldiers at White Sands have spent weekends looking for the gold. Begrudgingly, he did so. 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. Noss divorced her, charging desertion. 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. 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. A priest named LaRue at Durango in northern Mexico was looking after the soldier who told the priest . [7], Theories abound on the origins of the alleged treasure, including that it was pilfered from Mexico during the reign of the Austrian puppet Emperor Maximilian, or through collusion between Pancho Villa and Germany prior to World War I.[8]. 7 Louisiana Ghost Towns Hidden Deep in the Bayou. 2016, Trace Element Analysis of Placer Gold Samples (abstr. now. At one time, he brought out a crown, which contained 243 diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. For three months beginning on June 20, 1963, the group used various techniques to search the area; however, they failed to turn up anything. What looked to be a piece of iron was a solid gold bar. The economic potential of placer deposits in New Mexico is unknown and most known economic placers in the state have been worked. Claimants charge the Army purposely boobytrapped the area with the shells, yet almost weekly a few fevered treasure hunters sneak through helicopter and horsemounted Army patrols to search. 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.. 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. 'Like Any Other Client'. 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. 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. Doc mentioned nothing of his find to the group, choosing instead to return to the site a couple of days later with Ova. Lifting the rock, he found a hole that led straight down into the mountain. In 2019, evidence to support the theory that the gold never left Mexico was revealed when archaeologists confirmed that a gold bar found in 1981 was from Montezuma's treasure. Peak, located in Victorio Peak, in New Mexico in 1937 by American businessman gold... 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