To further complicate things, rumors swirled about various factions smuggling. The cloud of death shrouding Victorio Peak has reached far. 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 Trademark Information on Scientology Services. [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]. History [ edit] Doc Noss The treasure was allegedly found in 1937 by American businessman and gold prospector Milton Ernest "Doc" Noss. 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. In 1955, the missile range was expanded and, the Army closed Victoria Peak to outsiders. Another woman, now Mrs. Violet Yancy of Fort Worth, says she married Noss in 1947, that she is his legal widow, and that he gave her 76 per cent interest in the treasure. Most placer deposits in New Mexico had been discovered by 1900. On each trip, Doc would retrieve two gold bars and as many artifacts as he could carry. However, the expert won the argument. 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). 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. The earliest reports of placer mining were in the 1600s along the northern Rio Grande. Mr. Bailey, who represents 50 unidentified claimants, says that with a helicopter and a half an hour he can lead officials to 292 gold bars, for openers. After determining the accuracy of the two mens reports, the entire area was placed off-limits until an official investigation could be conducted. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved ). 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. The economic potential of placer deposits in New Mexico is unknown and most known economic placers in the state have been worked. 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 . Article content. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Berlett viewed this as substantiation for the theory that Spaniards had been responsible for stashing the gold. The men believed that Porters friend was in a good position to help arrange an official government expedition to claim the gold. Dangerous unexploded 20mm shells from Phantom jet target practice dot the range, the Army insists. For three months beginning on June 20, 1963, the group used various techniques to search the area; however, they failed to turn up anything. In 1963, the Army allowed a group of searchers, including Mrs. Noss, to search for the gold. 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. Lack of water has hampered mining in many districts and new technology, which minimizes water usage, may stimulate activity. Each skeleton had its hands bound behind it to a large wooden stake driven into the ground. Setting up camp on the desert floor at the base of Victoria Peak, the men headed into the wilderness while their wives stayed at camp. 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. Returning through the main cavern, he noticed an immense stack of metal bars off to one side. Another concerns renegades who robbed the Monterey Mint in 1743 and were in turn attacked by Apaches. They were searching in the wrong place, Mrs. Noss said. He said I'll get F.D.R. 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. He also found some old letters, the most recent of which was dated 1880. 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. The next day, March 5, 1949, Ryan arrived in the area, insisting that they discuss the problem of what happened to the gold. After the death of Doc Noss, Ova and her family continued efforts to regain access to the big treasure room. White Sands is the nation's largest military installation, about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. And a fourth story, pieced together recently by Howard Bryan, a reporter for The Albuquerque Tribune, centers on another Apache war chief named Victorio. (1.93 kilograms), while digging for the construction of a central bank in Mexico City. Six men who worked with Doc in removing the gold C.D. : Did 'Doc' Noss Really Find Caverns of Gold or Did He Pull Off a Hoax That Has Plagued His Kin for Years? ", According to the family, Mr. Noss took some gold bars when he found the cavern in 1937, and planned to return for the rest. 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. 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. 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. 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. At one time, he brought out a crown, which contained 243 diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. 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. But Doc Noss cared little about the historical value of the treasures inside Victorio Peak, mostly ignoring the pouches, packs, and artifacts. Theories spread over how 16,000 gold bars came to be stashed away in a random cave in New Mexico. In 1981, a construction worker discovered the gold bar, weighing 4.25 lbs. When Maxmillian heard of the plot to assassinate him, he moved his gold and treasures out of Mexico. Meanwhile, Babe Noss had filed a counter-claim on the entire area. 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. After scraping a small section of the bar clean, she exclaimed, Doc, this is gold!. (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 Lampros later signed sworn affidavits regarding their experiences. 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. They even brought in their own security guards, he added. 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.. However, Noss demanded to see the money before revealing the new hiding place. 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. 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. 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). In 1961, he returned to the desert and claims to have found 10 . 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. Many hieroglyphs have been found in New Mexico near his home, according to treasure hunters from the area. Hearing about the story, Captain Swanner, who was stationed at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1960s, came forward. 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. This Massive Mine in Utah Has Produced More Gold than Most States! However, Terry Delonas, her grandson, continued the family tradition and formed the Ova Noss Family Partnership. Anyone can read what you share. Fueled by suspicions that the military was working her claim, Babe Noss hired four men to enter the range secretly. The Army, which controls the missile range, insists there is no treasure and has never been any. 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. During World War II, he divorced his wife, Ova, and disappeared for several years. McGuires Place He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were stacked like cordwood.. 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. A Partner and a Gunfight. now. In a deeper cavern, Doc found what he thought was a stack of worthless iron bars. As Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH . The 1.93-kilogram bar was found by a construction worker during excavations for a new building along the Alameda, a picturesque park in the heart of the Mexican capital. Though caught trespassing and escorted from the area, the men reported observing several men in Army fatigues upon the peak. November 16, 2015. In effect, no one could mine the treasure, and that included the Army and Babe Noss. 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. Yet, Doc trusted no one, not even his Babe, disappearing into the desert, hiding pieces of the treasure in places that he never revealed. Now there were two military commands involved. Unable to sell the gold bars on the open market, Noss was stymied but continued to work steadily to remove the treasure. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Victorio_Peak_treasure&oldid=1133710645, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 04:22. At one end of the chamber, the shaft continued downward. But the legend of the hidden gold was fueled again during the Watergate hearings in 1973. Maxmillian was assassinated in 1867. 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. I was just a kid, about 13 or 14 years old, he told this writer. 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. A priest named LaRue at Durango in northern Mexico was looking after the soldier who told the priest . It is estimated that 662,000 oz of gold have been produced from placer deposits throughout New Mexico from 1828 to 1991. 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. Treasure Net Forum Legend says he sent a palace full of valuables to the United States to be hidden. In one room he discovered a large stash of old swords and guns, papers and letters from the 19th century, and a kings ransom in jewels and coins. 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. 2003-2008 Church of Scientology International. "We're treating the gold searchers just like any other client," said Jim Eckles, a spokesman for the White Sands range. Nearly choking, the two men hastily marked their claim and made their exit. Seeking out the Seven Cities of Gold, Onate was said to have been a cruel man, brutally subjugating the Indians to do his bidding by beating and torturing them. The room had been undisturbed for so long that the dust, according to Berlett, lay several inches thick. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station. Once again, Doc began to descend about 125 feet before the shaft again leveled off into a large natural cavern. 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. The NMBGMR is conducting a research project examining the origin, occurrence, trace element composition, and resource potential of placer gold deposits in the state. This could explain the skeletons in the cavern. Becoming even more complicated, a search of mining records failed to turn up any existing claims including that of Doc Noss. 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. Word of the Doc Noss treasure spread, and keeping people out of the area was no easy chore. Noss refused to obey, and Ryan fired again, hitting Noss in the head, killing him instantly. A narrow passage through rocks kept the bulky Porter from following the other two men into the depths of the peak. After three years they were given permission to go back to Victoria. 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. Holes were drilled and it assayed at $20.67 an ounce, said Mrs. Noss. 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