The NMBGMR is conducting a research project examining the origin, occurrence, trace element composition, and resource potential of placer gold deposits in the state. One partner, Charles Ryan, shot and killed Doc on March 5, 1949, in Hatch, N. M., after an argument. Sometime around the year 1830, travelers were trying to find a new way to reach California from the newly opened route of Santa Fe. Its occasional visitors included hunting parties, and Doc Noss and his wife, Ova, were on one such expedition in search of deer. 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. [5] During the 1970s, lawyer F. Lee Bailey represented clients who claimed to know where the treasure was located. A priest named LaRue at Durango in northern Mexico was looking after the soldier who told the priest . Additionally, the actual land where Victorio Peak is located was not owned by the State of New Mexico but rather by a man named Roy Henderson, who had leased it to the Army. Treasure Net Forum This was shortly before a much-publicized expedition, entitled Operation Goldfinder, took place at the site in March 1977. 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. Sam Scott, for example, a retired airline pilot, was warned in 1977 to keep clear of anything regarding Victorio Peak for at least five years under pain of having his home firebombed and his wife and daughter killed. The slightest movement stirred up a cloud. Although a suitable path fit for wagons couldn't be found, traces of gold were found somewhere close to Silver City to the north. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. There were thousands of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides. Reaching down, he could not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he got his hands under it. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were stacked like cordwood.. 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. As the years passed, Babe Noss held onto her claim at Victorio Peak, occasionally hiring men to help her clear the shaft. Over the weekend, he said, someone found the chest he had buried with gold nuggets, coins, gems and artifacts. 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. Reportedly, he amassed a treasure of gold, silver, and jewels before being ordered back to Mexico City in 1607. 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.. 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. However, disputing the military claim, New Mexico officials stated that they leased only the lands surface to the military. 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. Lack of water has hampered mining in many districts and new technology, which minimizes water usage, may stimulate activity. A Partner and a Gunfight. Several sand and gravel operators periodically extract minor quantities of placer gold from their quarries. After three years they were given permission to go back to Victoria. Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so. One group of claimants took the flashlight and provided the photo as evidence that they knew the location of the treasure. 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. An affidavit dated October 28, 1961, was signed to this effect, also claiming to have seen a military jeep and a weapons carrier on the mountain. In 1981, a worker in Mexico City found a gold bar just north of Alameda Centralthe oldest public park in the Americasduring the construction of a bank. 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. Because of this natural concentration, some placers are richer in gold than the original lode deposits. 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. Yet, Doc trusted no one, not even his Babe, disappearing into the desert, hiding pieces of the treasure in places that he never revealed. According to this source, a B-24 was used to transport at least seven loads of the peaks gold, with up to 20 tons of gold moving in each load. 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. 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. Possession of gold was against the law at the time, and the men reasoned that the bar would provide evidence to bring about an authorized, legal expedition to remove the vast quantity of gold. 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 found nothing. 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. 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. Once again, Doc began to descend about 125 feet before the shaft again leveled off into a large natural cavern. During World War II, he divorced his wife, Ova, and disappeared for several years. When Docs story eventually hit the headlines, scholars began speculating on how the enormous treasure could have come to be stashed inside Victorio Peak. You just couldn't trust anybody and still can't, she said. Many people believe the search points to the area of the four corners. 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. Passing through the large cavern, he came to a series of smaller caves rooms, he called them. However, the expert won the argument. The saga faded back into obscurity until the Watergate hearings, when John Dean, the dismissed White House counsel, testified before the Ervin Committee that F. Lee Bailey had approached John N. Mitchell, then Attorney General, for help in retrieving 292 bars containing 60 per cent gold and 40 per cent copper from the White Sands range. 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. Docs object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. As Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH . Try as he would, Captain Fiege could not penetrate the opening he had used just three years earlier. Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major. Joe Andregg, an electrician from Santa Fe, New Mexico, reflected on the days when he worked with Doc Noss in the late 1930s. However, the business often passes the tax onto the consumer by adding it to the selling price. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved ). Within moments he found more skeletons, most of them bound and secured to stakes like the first. 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. On the night of September 1, 1968, Porter drove to the peak with a friend and a civilian security guard from White Sands Missile Range named Clarence McDonald. Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. After more than a year's effort, he took five bars to the Denver Mint. Though caught trespassing and escorted from the area, the men reported observing several men in Army fatigues upon the peak. General Shinkle finally had enough and ordered everyone out. They believe that if the Lue Map and the hieroglyphs could be deciphered then the gold bars could be found. In 1979, Babe died without ever finding the treasure. However, Terry Delonas, her grandson, continued the family tradition and formed the Ova Noss Family Partnership. Forrest . 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 gold concentrates by gravity in incised stream valleys and alluvial fans in deeply weathered highlands. Berlett and Fiege had found a different passage into Victorio Peak, leading into a different chamber. South Pass City - A Look into Wyoming's Past. New York Times, July 29, 1992 Mr. Mitchell is said to have forwarded the matter to the White House. According to a close relative interviewed by Freedom, Shriver was murdered. The relative said that Shriver was beaten up in California, beaten about the kidneys and the head and subsequently died from his injuries. His wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left. By this time, Babes story had spread across the nation, profiled in several magazines and newspapers. Recreational mining continues intermittently in the White Oaks, Pittsburg, Hillsboro, Orogrande and Jicarilla districts to the present day. They come in a variety of weights, fineness and designs. 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. 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 a deeper cavern, Doc found what he thought was a stack of worthless iron bars. The gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a new form in Zurich. [6][5] By 1992, a grandson of Ova formed the Ova Noss Family Partnership to finance additional searching. Porter and his friends were amused at his story and McDonald, to prove that what he was saying was true, took the two other hunters on a moonlit drive to Victorio Peak. Victorio Peak, a craggy outcropping of rock barely 500 feet tall, lies in the center of a desert lake known as the Hembrillo Basin in New Mexico. 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 as they fled the Aztec capital . 7 Louisiana Ghost Towns Hidden Deep in the Bayou. Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peaks treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California. The gold bar had disappeared without a trace. He used too much dynamite, and the cave collapsed, sealing in the treasure. 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. They even brought in their own security guards, he added. 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. The Lue Map has very strange symbols. Doc mentioned nothing of his find to the group, choosing instead to return to the site a couple of days later with Ova. Shriver also said that he had copies of other presidential messages, several initialed by LBJ, dealing with the clandestine, illegal removal of the gold. Reportedly the military was able to penetrate one of the caves and inventory the contents. Within just a few days, Doc and Babe were back at the site with ropes and flashlights. 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. All Rights Reserved. Mr. Bailey will not say, but Mrs. Noss and, her dozen or so partners have filed a $1billion Federal Court suit charging that the Government, the Secretary of the Army, several military officers and 200 John Does were conspiring to bilk her out of the treasure. White Sands, New Mexico by the National Park Service. 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. 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. The fortune of a Mexican emperor? A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high. 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. 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. Another source confirmed the manner and the circumstances of E.M. Guthries death, noting that it was listed as just a natural death, but hed been worked over with a baseball bat. This source said that he had hired a team of experienced investigators to dig into Guthries death and more than 30 other deaths in connection with a massive, continuing cover-up of the removal of gold from Victorio Peak. 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. [3][b], A 1961 search by the U.S. Armythe peak lies within White Sands Missile Rangewas stopped following a request to state officials by Noss's first wife, Ova. Ova Noss, Leonard Fiege and others dont listen when they are told to shut up and they pay the price. 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. 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. Holes were drilled and it assayed at $20.67 an ounce, said Mrs. Noss. . 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.. 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. His warriors raided southern New Mexico and Texasin an all-out war against the U.S. Army and the Texas Rangers. 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. 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. That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America. 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. He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. Caballo Mountains - Also called Horse Mountains, the peaks are located 35 miles north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. 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 . And for good reason. Parts of the treasure were described as gold, silver, jewels and as many as 16,000 gold bars estimated around $1.7 billion dollars. The Lost Padre Gold Mine in 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. Mrs. Noss believes Mr. Bailey's clients to be mili tary officers and perhaps some of her husband's old partners. Ryan hinted that if Noss did not reveal the whereabouts of the gold, Doc would not live to enjoy it. Of worthless iron bars in many districts and New technology, which minimizes water usage, may stimulate activity before... Onto the consumer by adding it to the present day in their own security,... The location of the gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a variety of,. More skeletons, most of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides and disappeared several... 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