This treasure was only the beginning. One partner, Charles Ryan, shot and killed Doc on March 5, 1949, in Hatch, N. M., after an argument. On the night of March 4, 1949, I went with Doc Noss and dug up 20 bars of gold at a windmill in the desert east of Hatch, New Mexico, and reburied them in the basin where Victorio Peak is. [6][5] By 1992, a grandson of Ova formed the Ova Noss Family Partnership to finance additional searching. He also asserts that military security officers censored out of his report all references to military searches for the treasure. Ova Noss took up the search, without success. In September 1961, Berlett and Fiege swore to the specifics of their discovery in detailed affidavits provided to federal officials. 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 next day, March 5, 1949, Ryan arrived in the area, insisting that they discuss the problem of what happened to the gold. Four. Edward Atkins of Decatur, Illinois, had been a claimant to the peaks gold and was vigorously pursuing that claim via attorney Darrell Holmes of Athens, Georgia, when Holmes died under mysterious circumstances. 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. 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. Chester R. Johnson Jr., a museum archeologist at the time who wrote the official report of the treasure's history, says the 1963 search was inconclusive because, for example, seismic geophones do not work well near the surface. Nearly choking, the two men hastily marked their claim and made their exit. A jury ruled that Mr. Ryan had acted in self-defense. However, the business often passes the tax onto the consumer by adding it to the selling price. 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. (1.93 kilograms), while digging for the construction of a central bank in Mexico City. On the walls were drawings, some painted and others chiseled, that appeared to have been made by Indians. Letha Guthrie, Ovas eldest daughter from a previous marriage, described the next few years as a very happy time for the Noss family, one of simple, hard work with a bright, limitless future. That while visiting Foss, a man we both knew, E.M. Guthrie, drove in to the station in a late model Ford Thunderbird. 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. This theory explains the thousands of gold bars, antiquities, and artifacts dating more than 100 years later. In 1963, the Gaddis Mining Company of Denver, Colorado, obtained permission to work the site under a contract with the Denver Mint and the Museum of New Mexico. 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. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley. 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. now. Parts of White Sands are sometimes leased by private corporations and foreign governments for experiments. Searching with 15 people at a time to try to determine the size of the cave, the group in a few weeks plans to start drilling 6-inch holes several hundred feet deep into the areas where the soundings show the cave is. Many years later, a man named Milton Ernest Doc Noss spent some time exploring Victorio Peak while on a deer hunt. Description: Victorio Peak is surrounded by inhospitable environment near Hot Springs, New Mexico. Meanwhile, Babe Noss had filed a counter-claim on the entire area. Further, they stated that underground wealth, in whatever form it took, belonged to the state or any legal license holders. 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. 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. One group of claimants took the flashlight and provided the photo as evidence that they knew the location of the treasure. In December 1961, General Shinkle shut down the operation and excluded anyone from entering the base who was not directly engaged in the missile research activities. The earliest reports of placer mining were in the 1600s along the northern Rio Grande. 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. It is estimated that 662,000 oz of gold have been produced from placer deposits throughout New Mexico from 1828 to 1991. 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. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. But the expedition soon went broke, and the Army declared that it would allow no more searches. Hunting by himself, Doc scouted the base of the mountain. If the treasure was real, Noss had poor timing. But the matter would not rest. In addition, Victorio Peak lay on land owned by the state of New Mexico, and removal of gold without permission of the state violated New Mexico law.4. Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peaks treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California. In 1981, a construction worker discovered the gold bar, weighing 4.25 lbs. In the Fall of 1939, Doc wanted to enlarge the passageway into Victorio Peak so that the treasures could be more easily removed. 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. Fearing Doc was getting a gun, Ryan fired a warning shot in Docs direction, demanding that Noss back away from the vehicle. It would also explain the presence of the Wells Fargo bags, packsaddles, letters, and other artifacts dating to Victorios time. American and foreign car makers have rented land at the installation to test new air bags. He also told his wife that there were enough gold and silver coins to load 60 to 80 mules.. 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. 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. 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. Even though the military refused any of Babes efforts to work her claim, it did not refuse other military personnel from exploring portions of Victorio Peak. Becoming even more complicated, a search of mining records failed to turn up any existing claims including that of Doc Noss. An intense argument ensued, and Noss headed toward his car. One man, a Mr. This was the beginning of protracted legal battles over the ownership of the claim. The gold was supposedly removed from the cave and sent to Fort Knox. The rate of this tax varies from 5.125% to 8.8675% depending on where the business is . They found nothing. Lucky Gold Miners hit it Big in Downieville. 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. The economic potential of placer deposits in New Mexico is unknown and most known economic placers in the state have been worked. Ever since then, driven by a desire to become fabulously wealthy, Mr. Noss himself, his descendants, investors and soldiers at White Sands Missile Range, which includes Victorio Peak, have gone in time after time searching for treasure, but have always come up empty. Fueled by suspicions that the military was working her claim, Babe Noss hired four men to enter the range secretly. Native gold and electrum occurs with quartz, magnetite, ilmenite, amphiboles, pyroxenes, pyrite, zircon, garnet, rutile, and a variety of other heavy minerals. 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. With so many options available, APMEX has made it easy to find the right Gold bar for your collection or portfolio. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Acquitted on grounds of selfdefense, Mr. Ryan testified that Doc had promised him 51 bars of gold in return for his $27,000 investment. As far as I'm concerned, I've got more gold in my upper bridge than is in those mountains., The center of interest is Victoria Peak, a 1,500foot hill in the San Andres Mountains on missile range land about 25 miles northeast of Las Cruces. Mr. Mitchell is said to have forwarded the matter to the White House. Chester Stout, for example, a retired Army sergeant, traced the removal of two large truckloads of gold from Victorio Peak, but later had to move out of New Mexico; his life was threatened because, as he was told, he knew too much.. 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. Now, instead of having thousands of gold bars to draw from, Noss had only a few hundred that he had hidden in the desert. 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. Because of this natural concentration, some placers are richer in gold than the original lode deposits. 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. Docs object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. The future economic potential will depend upon the discovery of large-volume, medium-grade deposits that can be mined by bulk-mining methods. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. The military claim stemmed from a statement made by New Mexico officials on November 14, 1951, which withdrew prospecting, entry, location, and purchase under the mining laws, reserving the land for military use only. Leon Trabuco's Gold A Mexican businessman buries 16 tons of gold in the New Mexico desert and then dies before telling anyone where it is. 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. All told, he reportedly found 27 human skeletons in the caverns of the mountain. November 16, 2015. 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. The bars that Noss and his crew removed from Victorio Peak were, in general, crudely formed, indicating the use of primitive smelting processes. 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. CNN Almost four decades ago, a gold bar was found on land that used to be Aztec ruins in Mexico. Still another source reported knowledge of aircraft movements of the gold from Chihuahua to Vancouver, British Columbia, during the period of Johnsons presidency. [5] The partnership conducted unsuccessful searches until March 1996, when the Army suspended their access. 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. 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. 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. Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major. 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. ): GSA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, USA, Luterbach, T. and McLemore, V.T., 2016, Trace element analysis of placer gold samples: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, 2016 Annual meeting. Doc later brought one of the eerie things out.2. 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). After the death of Doc Noss, Ova and her family continued efforts to regain access to the big treasure room. By this time, Babes story had spread across the nation, profiled in several magazines and newspapers. All Rights Reserved. In the room were two large stacks of gold bars, each roughly six feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long. Ryan hinted that if Noss did not reveal the whereabouts of the gold, Doc would not live to enjoy it. Noss claimed that he noticed a strange rock while taking shelter in a cave within Victorio Peak, in New Mexico in 1937. According to Berlett, the four men proceeded down a fault into the peak for about 150 feet, at which point their progress was stopped by a large boulder. Holes were drilled and it assayed at $20.67 an ounce, said Mrs. Noss. Sensing a double-cross by Ryan, Doc dug up the gold that was to be used in the exchange and reburied it in a place where Ryan was unaware. Lampros, for example, described having his photograph taken with Colonel Willard E. Holt of Lordsburg, New Mexico; each held an end of a bar while it was being sawed in half. 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. Mrs. Noss believes Mr. Bailey's clients to be mili tary officers and perhaps some of her husband's old partners. 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. He has recruited friends and investors to form the Ova Noss Family Partnership, named for his late grandmother, that is financing the new search. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. See the article in its original context from. 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). 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 . 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 mystery boils down to a single question: Was Milton (Doc) Noss telling the truth, or just a tall tale? Unable to sell the gold bars on the open market, Noss was stymied but continued to work steadily to remove 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. When Maxmillian heard of the plot to assassinate him, he moved his gold and treasures out of Mexico. 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. Work beneath the city has not slowed, and as science advances . A third story asserts that Geronimo hid, Apache booty in the area. 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. 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. Seventy-nine skeletons were described in an adjacent cavern. 2003-2008 Church of Scientology International. Try as he would, Captain Fiege could not penetrate the opening he had used just three years earlier. In 1972, F. Lee Bailey became involved in the dispute, representing some 50 clients, including Babe Noss, the Fiege group, Violet Noss Yancy, Expeditions Unlimited (a Florida-based treasure hunting group), and many others. Another concerns renegades who robbed the Monterey Mint in 1743 and were in turn attacked by Apaches. Lost Treasures, Recent Posts. He estimated there were thousands of these bars, each weighing over 40 pounds stacked against a wall. That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss. However, Noss demanded to see the money before revealing the new hiding place. Yet that is exactly what happened to Milton "Doc" Noss, a traveling doctor who discovered an extensive cave network laden with gold and historical artifacts or so he claimed. 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. Gold bullion bars are struck continuously to meet the demand for gold, with the following refineries and mints representing some of the greatest refiners of gold bars: Credit Suisse PAMP Suisse Republic Metals Corporation Sunshine Minting Valcambi Suisse Buying Gold Bullion from JM Bullion Doc tried several times to regain entry into his mine, but the shaft was sealed with tons of debris. The skeletons hands were bound behind its back apparently, the person had been deliberately left there to die. 2016, Trace Element Analysis of Placer Gold Samples (abstr. Mr. Noss, a traveling doctor who was known for a hot temper and an appetite for liquor, claimed that the cache consisted of Spanish artifacts and Wells Fargo chests, along with the gold. When it began to rain, Doc sought shelter under a rocky overhang near the mountains summit. Although the originals have never been recovered, a copy of one of the documents proved to be a translation from Pope Pius III. A retired U.S. Army officer said that while on duty at the provost marshals office on White Sands Missile Range during the period of LBJs presidency, he was visited by four men in a late model Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham who sought permission to drive to Victorio Peak. The Lost Padre Gold Mine in New Mexico. 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. 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. That I walked over to E.M. Guthrie on this occasion in 1972, greeted him, and invited him out to dinner with myself and Frank Foss. 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. 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. But even the nicest people we'd take in, they'd see gold and go berserk.. To further complicate things, rumors swirled about various factions smuggling. It has banned treasure hunters from the range since 1963. Representative Harold Runnels, a Democrat whose district includes the White Sands range, has proposed a joint Federalstate search for the treasure. 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. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. [3] Noss was ultimately killed by an associate, Charley Ryan, in 1949 after Ryan accused Noss of fraud and Noss threatened to kill Ryan and his family. The cave was covering a small tunnel, originally thought to be an abandoned mineshaft. Anyone can read what you share. 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. White Sands, New Mexico by the National Park Service. The 1.93-kilogram bar was found . While waiting for the rain to subside, he noticed a stone that looked as if it had been worked somehow. Its occasional visitors included hunting parties, and Doc Noss and his wife, Ova, were on one such expedition in search of deer. 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. Years later, in 1946, Doc discussed his exploration with Gordon E. Herkenhoff, field representative of the New Mexico State Land Office.1. In effect, no one could mine the treasure, and that included the Army and Babe Noss. A priest named LaRue at Durango in northern Mexico was looking after the soldier who told the priest . 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. A legal battle and highly publicized search through Victorio Peak ensued but no treasure turned up, leading many to wonder if Noss had made the whole thing up. 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. Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. As the years passed, Babe Noss held onto her claim at Victorio Peak, occasionally hiring men to help her clear the shaft. That he seemed very disturbed, nervous and agitated, and refused my invitation to dinner, saying, Im running for my life., That he also said, The Mob is after me.. Lack of water has hampered mining in many districts and new technology, which minimizes water usage, may stimulate activity. Some were sold on the black market, some were stolen but others remained hidden during the next seven years when Doc and a bevy of partners attempted to dig back into the caverns, she asserted. Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so. Background research into the enormous wealth contained in the caverns of Victorio Peak revealed many eyewitness reports of the gold. A small town was built near the place Now there were two military commands involved. Finally reaching the bottom, Doc stepped into a chamber the size of a small room. 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. Doc Noss was extremely paranoid and buried everything he took out of the caves, not even trusting his wife, Babe. 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. There were thousands of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides. A number of sources also independently named Major General John G. Shinkle, the commander of White Sands Missile Range from June 1960 to July 1962, as knowing about the movement of tons of gold from Victorio Peak. After 35 years of localized dispute, the Great White Sands Missile Range Lost Gold Treasure Affair has blossomed into a national mystery. Gold Bars Available from APMEX Gold bullion bars are an investor favorite. 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