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. 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. It is estimated that 662,000 oz of gold have been produced from placer deposits throughout New Mexico from 1828 to 1991. Several sand and gravel operators periodically extract minor quantities of placer gold from their quarries. General Shinkle finally had enough and ordered everyone out. [6][5] By 1992, a grandson of Ova formed the Ova Noss Family Partnership to finance additional searching. In effect, no one could mine the treasure, and that included the Army and Babe Noss. 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). An intense argument ensued, and Noss headed toward his car. This was one of Apache Chief Victorios hideouts and was the site of a battle in 1880 between Victorios warriors and the U.S. Army Ninth Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers.. 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. 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. 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. When Docs story eventually hit the headlines, scholars began speculating on how the enormous treasure could have come to be stashed inside Victorio Peak. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved). Legend says he sent a palace full of valuables to the United States to be hidden. (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 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. Anyone can read what you share. Several smaller rooms had been chiseled from the rock along one wall. The gold was supposedly removed from the cave and sent to Fort Knox. The reported treasure and efforts to find it have been covered in books and on television, including: On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. Some believe that Doc Noss found the Casa del Cueva de Oro, Spanish for the House of the Golden Cave. That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss. 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 . Parts of White Sands are sometimes leased by private corporations and foreign governments for experiments. He also found some old letters, the most recent of which was dated 1880. 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. WHITE SANDS, N.M. Lost treasure stories are a dime a dozen in the Southwest. The rate of this tax varies from 5.125% to 8.8675% depending on where the business is . 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. Berlett and Fiege had found a different passage into Victorio Peak, leading into a different chamber. During World War II, he divorced his wife, Ova, and disappeared for several years. This writer conducted extensive interviews with Thomas Berlett. 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. Topic at Watergate Hearings. Where they the plunder of Spanish conquistadores who had conquered the Aztecs? Hearing about the story, Captain Swanner, who was stationed at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1960s, came forward. 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. The Mystery Of The Lost Victorio Peak Treasure, a group of researchers who published their findings. The fortune of a Mexican emperor? Others believe that Noss found the treasure of Don Juan de Onate, who, in 1598, founded New Mexico as a Spanish colony. 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. Fearing Doc was getting a gun, Ryan fired a warning shot in Docs direction, demanding that Noss back away from the vehicle. The room had been undisturbed for so long that the dust, according to Berlett, lay several inches thick. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved ). If nothing else, he said, an exhaustive search would lay to rest a question that has driven the family for more than 50 years. After much searching, he finally found a small iron bar to carry back through the narrow passageway. He used too much dynamite, and the cave collapsed, sealing in the treasure. Montgomery, the two went into the mountain to blast out the shaft. 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. 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. In November 1937, Doc, Babe, and four others left on a deer hunt into the Hembrillo Basin. Meanwhile, Babe Noss had filed a counter-claim on the entire area. They come in a variety of weights, fineness and designs. Part II: The bizarre history of Victorio Peak continues to unravel as the Army, the Treasury Department and the Secret Service authorize a top secret operation aimed at locating and bringing out the gold. Patterson, Don Breech, Edgar F. Foreman, Leo D. OConnell, Eppie Montoya and B.D. 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. He said I'll get F.D.R. Because of this natural concentration, some placers are richer in gold than the original lode deposits. Over the weekend, he said, someone found the chest he had buried with gold nuggets, coins, gems and artifacts. This Nevada Gold Mine Produces Amazing Crystalline Gold Nuggets! And for good reason. The next day, March 5, 1949, Ryan arrived in the area, insisting that they discuss the problem of what happened to the gold. Yet, Doc trusted no one, not even his Babe, disappearing into the desert, hiding pieces of the treasure in places that he never revealed. The Lue Map has very strange symbols. 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. 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. In the summer of 1961, upon the advice of the Director of the Mint, Major General John Shinkle of White Sands allowed Captain Fiege, Captain Orby Swanner, Major Kelly, and Colonel Gorman to work the claim. The flamboyant lawyer F. Lee Bailey once said he represented 50 unnamed clients. 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. While Babe looked on from above, Doc inched his way down the narrow passageway into the mountain nearly 60 feet. You just couldn't trust anybody and still can't, she said. Mr. Bailey claimed that given a helicopter and a half-hour, he could find 292 gold bars. 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. Doc attempted illegally to sell his gold for nine years, but it wasnt easy finding buyers. There wasn't much known about a 4-pound gold bar discovered during construction work in Mexico City nearly 40 years ago, but now experts are calling the precious metal an Aztec relic. Others speculate that the treasure could be the missing wealth of Emperor Maxmillian, who served as Mexicos emperor in the 1860s. 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. Attacking wagon trains, settlements, mail coaches, and churches, he took anything from them that they valued. Discovered by a . As Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH . One man, a Mr. He was shot to death in 1949, but his first wife, Mrs. Ova Noss, now 77years old, insists she was with him. 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). The. 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. What looked to be a piece of iron was a solid gold bar. 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. By this time, Babes story had spread across the nation, profiled in several magazines and newspapers. A treaty was reached between the tribe and the Federal government in Washington that the Indians could stay upon the land in New Mexico. Description: Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Hot Springs, New Mexico. [5] The partnership conducted unsuccessful searches until March 1996, when the Army suspended their access. Reaching down, he could not budge it, but after digging around the rock, he got his hands under it. Gold also concentrates above cemented gravels and clay layers within gravel deposits, which constrain downward migration of gold particles. 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. The peak is riddled with a network of tunnels. Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. Treasure Net Forum 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. Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. Decades of Searching. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. The 1.93-kilogram bar was found . At the same time, he concentrated on the gold coins and bars. 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