Serendipitously, later that year I reached out to Klaus Dona, the respected ancient-history authority, to ask if he would write an article for the magazine. I wondered. Andrew Gough. Treasure-hunting equipment It was clear, however, that as brilliant as Jose was at Second World War history, he was pretty much winging it with the rest. It does not need to be any wider, Klaus added authoritatively. She reiterated that I was to be very involved in the whole Roxas affair. Hunter died Monday at his Northern California home with his wife, Maureen, at his side, former Grateful Dead publicist Dennis McNally told The Associated Press on . In 1971, Dametz claimed that (The AntiChrist) will be a political, religious, commercial autocrat of the world.. Net Worth: $1 Million Occupation: Treasure Hunter, TV Celebrity & Former Police Officer Birthday: January 6, 1941 Birthplace: Summerland Key, Florida Birth Sign: Capricorn Date of Death: February 19, 2018 Place of Death: Iraan, Texas Nationality: American Ethnicity: Caucasian Married: Twice Children: Darrell, Lauren, Kim, and Kelly Instagram: NA Once European settlers started showing up to hunt for gold, the Naha mysteriously disappeared. The group fled the country in July, 1978, and did not return until late last year. Hunting for topaz was just a hobby for Dametz. Okubo also confided that the General had in his possession a solid gold buddha, which he kept in the convent where he stayed, across from the hospital, before depositing it in a vault beneath the hospital grounds. I knew we were essentially talking to the taxman about poetry. Imagine countless fabulous tunnels bored through the green mountains of the Philippines, all filled with mind-boggling stacks of gold bullion and other riches, all waiting there even today for some lucky adventurer to discover them. By the time I arrived at the next bamboo ladder my knees were cut and bleeding. Intriguingly, the alleged body of Marcos was later reburied in the Cemetery of Heroes in Metropolitan Manila in a ceremony shrouded in secrecy. Now they moved with a kinetic energy I had never experienced before. It detailed the work he had done in the Philippines as part of a team led by Nevada treasure hunter Robert H. Curtis. Their uncle, Charlie McLeod, was worried because they never wrote home. With Roxass discovery, Marcoss hopes had become a reality. Honolulu: Supreme Court of Hawaii, 1988. I had felt the same energy when I was dowsing with Klaus. Curtis fled back to the US in the late '70s, claiming he had destroyed his maps and escaped the Philippines ahead of Marcos's assassins. Perhaps he believed that other men had died from lack of survival training and that his skills at living outdoors would be enough to find the gold mines and make him a rich man. After a few days, his wife reported that he was missing. Even one, the political scientist Chalmers Johnson who was a China specialist and shared the Seagraves' distrust of Japan, could not get entirely on board with their quest. Since Feb. 12, with the full sanction and protection of President Corazon Aquinos government, McDougalds group has been tunneling more than 20 feet into the catacombs under Manilas oldest structure, 16th-Century Ft. Santiago. It was hardly secure. Aquinos executive secretary, Catalino Macaraig, said last month that the government has granted more than 80 permits to foreign and local treasure seekers in the two years since Aquino took power, and that applications continue to arrive at the presidents office at the rate of one a day. In particular, I was keen to investigate one mans courageous efforts to unearth Japanese buried treasure, and the tons of gold bullion that accompanied it. Though the loot is generically referred to here as Yamashitas Treasure, after Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the last Japanese commanding general in the Philippines, McDougald said the treasure that his group is seeking was probably buried in the fort during 1943, 1944 and 1945 by various Japanese generals. Part of the series: "Red Dead Redemption" Tutorials. During the war, the Japanese Imperial Army tortured hundreds of Filipino prisoners in the Spanish colonial-era fort. But Japan needed that money badly to pay for its war effort; it would not have converted it to gold bars and sent it away to be buried. They brought dogs and donkeys to help carry their supplies. The process was known as sanctifying, and via a series of chance encounters Marcos was led to the American metallurgist, Robert Curtis. Klaus Dona before settling in the Philippines I was amazed, and excited. When McDougald replied that he does, Maceda asked wryly, Well, the publicity about all this is not going to hurt your book, is it?, McDougald leaned forward, smiled and replied, No sir, I dont think so.. Andrew Gough. Pi $@Z%">Nq. The year was 1944, and the Japanese had spent the previous fifty years pillaging the East of their national treasures; twelve Asian countries in all. The pillbox at Baguio Hospital Ken Cheatham with Roger Roxas and the golden buddha. 0000005867 00000 n Dametz was in poor health, so he needed help from McSherry to get to his digging spot, a small sandy pit in the middle of the forest. [7] It was given to the Barrow Neurological Institute of Phoenix, Arizona. A STEM-focused 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit. Andrew Gough. In the background I continued to promote a treatment I had written for a reality TV show, that I would present, that would feature the quest for Japanese treasure in the Philippines, and sent it to all the usual history shows and their production companies. From what? 0000001318 00000 n It was not clear if they even knew they existed. In August I flew to Manila and was greeted by a group of treasure hunters, including ex-military men, who transported me to a site to the north east. For the most part the program was the story of Roger Roxas, the Filipino locksmith who discovered a golden buddha and, allegedly, an enormous chamber full of gold bullion (both of which were later stolen by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos), only to have the US Supreme court demand that Roxas be awarded what amounted to the largest civil settlement in history: US$22 billion. Patrick is a great guy, an avid treasure hunter, and was to interview Henry Roxas for the show. In 1949, a 70-year-old man named James Kidd was a professional treasure hunter from Phoenix, Arizona. The three men went out hiking, but there is no evidence that they ever made it out of the mountains. What are you waiting for? the caretaker shouted, as though I should have known what was expected of me. Log In. Andrew Gough. Abcarian: Mask mandates? Although born in the United States, Sterling Seagrave grew up deep inside China, on the border with Myanmar (then called Burma). Darrell is best known among the media for his TV show entitled "Cooper's Treasure", broadcast on Discovery . A powerful, all-purpose line that hit the sweet spot of subversive clichs, it made speakers appear smarter than they are. Is that correct?. The smell of decomposed bodies was palpable and they halted work while the disconcerting gasses subsided. %PDF-1.4 % Sen. Ernesto Maceda, one of the more skeptical critics of the hunt, asked McDougald whether he still plans to finish his book on hidden wealth. He left Colorado in search of the lost gold mine in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. She was clearly in her 90s, and yet it was a long shot, but lo and behold we hit the jackpot. Within hours of the news becoming public, the Philippine Senate adopted a resolution urging Aquino to bar foreigners from hunting for treasure in the Philippines. In Red Dead Redemption 2, you can run out of money fast as there are many things that you need to buy to progress further. Andrew Gough. Europe and others push for a standard lunar time zone, Bola Tinubu, the declared winner of Nigerias presidential election, appeals for unity, A 5,000-year-old restaurant highlights Iraqs archaeological renaissance, Chicago Mayor Lightfoot ousted; Vallas, Johnson in runoff. Each time Curtis was requested by Marcos to select a new site to excavate, Valmores was dispatched to provide the treasure map. Andrew Gough. He brushed off the incident as an attempt to stir up trouble by the opposition, the name given to citizens who are against Nicolas Maduro, the current president of Venezuela. In a now infamous moment of stubborn, albeit courageous, resolve Roxas returned to Baguio, and in the presence of lawyers and the media, defiantly proclaimed the golden buddha to be a fake. He was now finding leaves in the tunnel backfill; actual leaves from a Streblus asper tree, known in the Philippines as bogtalay, that had been placed in the German cement as the Japanese backfilled the tunnels. Can it? No sooner than I was reflecting on the creepiness of being there, Klaus screamed. Thirty years after the disappearance, David Paulides, a former police officer and researcher on missing people, filmed the video above and brought the case to the attention of the Colorado government. Random encounter with treasure hunter. When sharp protests came from Manilas lovers, who lost the use of the historic tourist site as a traditional trysting place, the presidential guard put up a sign at the forts front gate declaring simply, Closed for Renovations.. They chose to go on a day when it was 46 degrees Celsius (115 F), but they didnt bring their cell phones with them. Robert Curtis had paid a very high price for becoming involved in gold recoveries with Ferdinand Marcos, but he was stubborn, and he still had the only copies of the full set of Japanese treasure maps to have surfaced since the war. Each day after class she dug in the back garden of the schoolyard. Local authorities never explained where they found the bodies or what they believed was the cause of death. The oddest chapter in this urban legend is often cited as legitimate proof that the United States recognizes the treasure to be real. It was entirely out of context of our discussion to have done so. One such individual was Eusebio Okubo, who as a young man had served as an interpreter for General Yamashita while he was stationed in Baguio. They looted museums, banks, gold reserves, private art collections even the sacred graves of ancient tombs were pillaged. The Japanese had muscled control of the Philippines away from the United States, and were transferring their war booty from Singapore to Japan, when they were forced to come ashore and secure their treasures. I was having a laugh with Klaus when suddenly I screamed and, for lack of a better explanation, went into shock. About a month after my return I opened WhatsApp on my iPhone and discovered a message from Roger Roxass daughter, whom I had visited in the States a few years earlier, but who I had not spoken with for some time. Hes also a sign of Mexicos healthcare crisis, Some pharmacies in Mexico passing off fentanyl, meth as legitimate pharmaceuticals, TikTok faces bans in a number of countries over security fears. His treasure tunnels would be sure to dazzle viewers. Locals commented that everyone knows to stay away from that area in the summertime because the extreme heat can be dangerous.[10]. There is every indication that this cave-in was caused by a booby trap, McDougald said, reporting the results of an investigation by his teams geologist and resident mining engineers. For these, the Shinto priests communicated to those with eyes to see in a different language of symbols to that of the military treasure sites, as I would soon discover. Klaus demonstrating the art of dowsing So why have so many devoted so much to this tale? Our conversation prompted me to reach out to Roxass wife and daughter. His friend preferred to stay anonymous, but lets call him Bob for the sake of the story. The Japanese Massacre of Nanjing, the then capital of China, 1937. They picked the fort, he said, because it was a high-security location, off-limits to all but military torturers and the unfortunate Filipino prisoners destined for death. The 49-year-old American treasure hunter has cordoned off this rectangular swath of Indian Ocean in the Seychelles, and now he's somewhere 25 feet below, chiseling off chunks of granite and. In the ensuing days Klaus reshot the tunnel footage himself (on his phone) and I re-did my studio interview at the more civilised time of 10am, and with my good friend Burgess directing. Most were situated on Japanese military bases, while others were located near landmarks that would be remembered in coming years, such as hospitals, schools, churches, mountains and waterfalls. Robert Curtis: an American metallurgist employed by Marcos to help find Japanese treasure sites and sanctify the gold bars into a form consistent with the London Gold Standard. Allan Quatermain, a hunter and adventurer, the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard 's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines. These were not symbols found in military treasure sites. But in war someone has to lose. I was intrigued and thought I had nothing to lose, and so I decided to email him one last time. Im in the Philippines. Andrew Gough. Others shared how he had ever so slightly removed their eyeballs, cleaned them, and put them back, fully restoring their vision in the process. While this preceded the Japanese gold heists, each was confiscated as war booty and never returned to its owners. I inspected it closely and from all angles. I made a note to myself; next time I visit I must avoid the monsoon season. 32 0 obj <> endobj Torn Treasure Map 1: On the far left side of the map, at the start of the Little Creek River, inside a drawer of a wooden hut. Over the years Roxas became convinced that Yamashita had buried a great treasure in Baguio, and his stature as president of the Philippine Treasure Hunters Association attracted many acquaintances who would confirm his hunch. As he reflected on the significance of his experience, I remember thinking once more that I just wanted to leave. Families of the victims pleaded with the governor of the local area to do something. Before I could comment Klaus had taken out his dowsing rods and located the entrance shaft to the tunnel system that the bent tree was pointing towards. 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