An 85-year old millionaire hides $1M treasure in the Rocky Mountains (2016)

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/13/469852983/seeking-adventure-and-gold-crack-this-poem-and-head-outdoors

by yurisagalov • 9 years ago

369 156 9 years ago

iplaw• 9 years ago

Has he ever confirmed whether the treasure is still at the location?

What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger hunt, and decided to hide their discovery?

ehsankia4• 9 years ago

I'm not sure how old this information is, but I remember him confirming it still is and also saying that someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there?).

Actually, looking at the wikipedia page [1] for it, it seems to be from August 20, 2016.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure

onion2k2• 9 years ago

I'm not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there?

If he does then that's how to find the treasure. Detecting electronics is a lot easy than detecting a metal box.

ghaff5• 9 years ago

Assuming the statement is true (and the treasure is real), presumably he visited the area and saw some sort of evidence of people having been digging or otherwise poking around. If that were the case, there's an implication that it's probably relatively accessible to where he lives.

mirimir• 9 years ago

Or maybe he has access to high-resolution satellite imagery. If so, maybe someone could figure out what area he was checking.

notatoad• 9 years ago

someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that)

There's at least one forum [1] where people post reports of their search. He's probably just keeping an eye on where people say they've gone looking for it.

[1]http://www.chasechat.com/

onion2k2• 9 years ago

What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger hunt, and decided to hide their discovery?

Only one of the treasure hunters will find the treasure (or possibly no one will). If people are in it for a profit rather than for the "thrill of the chase" and to enjoy the mountains then they've only themselves to blame when they come away empty-handed. If the treasure is no longer there, for the majority of treasure hunters nothing has changed.

elif6• 9 years ago

If certainty is a prerequisite for you, you'll never find treasure because you'll never look.

drzaiusapelord• 9 years ago

I can't imagine ever telling someone I found it. I don't know the exact tax implications but I imagine it would be a lot like gambling which can be up to a 40% taxation rate. I would quietly take the gold, turn it into cash, and slowly launder the cash and never report it. Heck, I would just pay cash for everything and would probably just spent it naturally over my lifetime like this without bothering to launder. As long as I avoided the kinds of purchases that raise eyebrows, the IRS would never know. My normal salary would just go into savings/investments.

I imagine most people would do this, at least the kinds of people who would hunt $1m lockboxes.

As a side note, I wonder if you can DIY ground penetrating radar light enough to be carried on a drone. Imagine a few drones shooting electromagnetic waves at the ground and waiting for a reflective ping from a metal box. You could probably cover a lot of ground with a few drones running everyday for a few days. If you can figure out how to filter out the false positives, you can probably just find this thing via radar. I imagine an old man doesn't have the ability to dig very deep and this thing might only be a couple feet underground, so within some reasonable sensing specs.

edit after some googling:

Working ground penetrating radar drone for $500 here. Heck, its even FCC legal! Its a IG42-SB4 robot which can drive for 3 hours on stock batteries, so maybe double that battery pack and you get 6 hours of non-stop sensing. Just a few of these should cover every human walkable path in a matter of days, perhaps a couple weeks at most (guesstimate).

https://hackaday.io/project/4440-open-ground-penetrating-rad...

Looks like he uses this visualization library from the US Navy. I'm no expert but I imagine something like this would be able to show a treasure chest-like box very easily once you have all the data. Cubes don't exist in nature so once you see something cube-like in your data, go on a hike. If you're clever you can have your drones pipe their data via 4G every five minutes or so, shoot it to your desktop, and look at this data in almost realtime. Or if you're especially clever use CV to look for square-like shapes in the data and to alert you when they pop-up. Now you can tell that drone to go back to double-check and to scan from different angles. If it really, really looks like a cube from different angles, then go on a hike and enjoy your million bucks.

http://pfmabe.software/

pimlottc• 9 years ago

I imagine there are tens of thousands of buried metal objects in the Rockies left over from the old mining days...

logfromblammo5• 9 years ago

The poem makes it sound like it is under a visibly marked blaze, at an eddy in a river or creek that is easily navigable solo with a bare minimum level of strength and skill.

Does GPR detect objects underwater?

Seems like you only need a camera for your drone, looking for man-made markings near waterways.

omegaham2• 9 years ago

exact tax implications

From https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html:

If you find and keep property that doesn’t belong to you that has been lost or abandoned (treasure trove), it’s taxable to you at its fair market value in the first year it’s your undisputed possession.

---

This means that it's just counted as regular income. If you find a few million dollars, that puts you into a pretty damn high tax bracket.

I'd probably just declare it and take the 40% haircut. I got a couple thousand dollars from renting my guest room to a woman who was divorcing her husband, and I've barely touched it. It just sits in a shoebox. Cash is such a pain in the ass to deal with.

Darthy• 9 years ago

Could it be that he never checked whether all the hints he gave sufficiently narrow down the location to just one spot? That he has additional knowledge for every line, knowledge which he thinks is self-evident, but knowledge with is actually just very personal to him, and cannot be inferred?

In this case, the riddle might never be solved, and he might die in the self delusion that all the attention this raised is because he is a gifted writer, when the reality is much more sad: he was a terrible riddle author that threw away a million bucks.

devoply• 9 years ago

If I were him, the point is not a million dollars. That's trivial. It's not helping people find the treasure, that's also trivial. The point is all the entertainment to be had searching for the treasure. In fact if I had some money and time I might put together a game centered around finding the treasure. Imagine all the fun to be had and all the stories to be told about the treasure that was never found. In fact I would probably not even put any treasure out there. Just a tall tale for the ages.

hbosch• 9 years ago

Perhaps he's hid a million dollar treasure, and perhaps he actually hasn't. Regardless, he is probably in the black financially due to book sales alone...

Whether or not it's a truly good, solvable riddle may not be the goal in the end – could equally be that he just wanted to give people a sense of excitement and wonder. Maybe that's too generous on my part, though. :)

canadian_voter• 9 years ago

Regardless, he is probably in the black financially due to book sales alone...

Well, if he's sold more than 20,000 copies at $55 each[1] then yeah, he'd have broken a million. And if he just kept the treasure then he's golden.

[2] http://www.koat.com/article/author-who-hid-2-million-treasur...

M_Grey• 9 years ago

Or maybe he realized that if you monetize a treasure hunt, you'll die rich?

mrspeaker• 9 years ago

It's a quirky guy who buried treasure - actual treasure - along with a riddle. That's fucking magical and fun... it's beautiful. You'd have to be pretty sad to think that "reality is much more sad" for him.

ehsankia4• 9 years ago

Exactly, he most definitely didn't do it for designing a riddle, he did it for the fun of seeing how people would respond and seeing them struggle and go beyond expectations.

ehsankia4• 9 years ago

There was a neat little mini-documentary by Vox [1] that went over the details of this, talked to a few other people obsessed by this treasure hunt. Pretty good overview of the history and current state of the hunt.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk

seren• 9 years ago

If you're into that sort of things, you can have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl.

ehsankia4• 9 years ago

Also the Book of Masquerade [1] which was a pretty fascinating little treasure hunt. There's a great lecture [2] on game design and eastereggs that gives a great overview of the events surrounding it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)

[2] http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html

nothis• 9 years ago

Psalm 46 was what I've been thinking of when reading the article, especially after this bit:

For further clues, you have to read the poem in his self-published book, The Thrill of the Chase.

He might actually make money on this, lol.

SubiculumCode• 9 years ago

Bet satellite recordings know where he hid it. Some spy is chortling.

planteen3• 9 years ago

What if he hid it on a cloudy/rainy/snowy/foggy day?

oh_sigh2• 9 years ago

There are wavelengths other than visible light that satellites use.

jonknee• 9 years ago

I bet not, assuming perfect conditions and you knew the date it was hidden he would look no different from any of the other thousands of hikers out and about.

saycheese10• 9 years ago

Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim is likely real, especially given Fenn has charted private helicopters to help search for those lost and known to be searching for the treasure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure

Fenn hasn't been out in the Rocky Mountains, north of Santa Fe, to check on the chest since he hid it, but he knows it's still there.

My guess is that the prize is not inside, but with Fenn; which explains why he checks to see if someone has found it and requests they provide proof of what is inside.

Fenn has more clues posted here: http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-page

widforss• 9 years ago

That is not a plausible theory. Sure, the treasure might be elsewhere, but I wouldn't keep the prize in my own possesion if I were over 70 years old. What if someone finds the chest after his death.

I would rather believe it contains a note requesting that Fenn should be contacted by the lucky one.

saycheese10• 9 years ago

Assure you that there are ways to deal with Fenn dieing and still require the party finding it to make contact with someone to claim the prize; in fact, Fenn planned this when he thought he would die from cancer.

freehunter2• 9 years ago

Key to a safe deposit box and an address of the bank is more than enough to fulfill that requirement. At my bank, they come with two keys. Put one in the box and keep the other, and check the safe deposit box periodically.

oever• 9 years ago

Or a bitcoin private key. Fenn can monitor whether the money's been moved out of the account to know if the treasure's been found.

DanBC• 9 years ago

Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim is likely real,

At least one person died looking for the Fargo treasure, and that was made up.

saycheese10• 9 years ago

Thanks, though I have no idea what the "Fargo treasure" is, so I'm not able to comment on it.

Do you have links to it, proof it's fake, the related death, etc.?

(Attempted to Google "Fargo treasure" but it appeared there were a number of different Fargo treasures.)

EDIT: Link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/kumiko-the-treasure-hunter/t...

Yes, I would hope it's obvious that a fictional treasure is not real. Difference between your example and mine is the source is claiming it's real, aware people are dying, and spending money to help look for missing people.

js2• 9 years ago

Assuming you mean the Japanese woman, her death was ruled a suicide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Takako_Konishi

The urban legend that she died looking for the treasure however, was turned into a movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumiko,_the_Treasure_Hunter

valuearb• 9 years ago

my guess is it's a scam, cause his story doesn't add up.

saycheese10• 9 years ago

What does not add up?

dorfsmay2• 9 years ago

Good point.

From reading the article I immediately thought that maybe Randy Bilyeu did find it and decided to disappear.

saycheese10• 9 years ago

Bilyeu is dead: https://www.google.com/search?q=Bilyeu+dead

ransom1538• 9 years ago

If he did drive there, the license plate would be interesting. He probably picked up supplies or even bought food along the way. When you are about to go deeper into the woods, and that LAST stop is just sitting there, you usually grab a few things. EVERY convenience store I know has a few cameras. Also gps units use satellites? If he did use one would there be a log of this?

Just sayin'

RobotCaleb• 9 years ago

What's a "satellite lookup for gps request"?

blhack• 9 years ago

GPS units are receive-only. The tech behind GPS is actually really cool!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Fund...

notadoc• 9 years ago

Sounds like the Rocky mountain version of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

elif6• 9 years ago

If he's confident that no one else knows where it is, either he killed someone, or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest. I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic.

If I had to guess, the location is within an 8 hour hike (12 miles at that age) of a road or jeep trail. Between that and the water clue, I think the field is considerably more narrow than the 5,000ft map in the article.

dang. I think i got bit by this gold bug ;)

DashRattlesnake• 9 years ago

or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest. I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic.

Say it's filled with coins: he could have carried the empty chest and its contents separately, distributing the load. He could have also made multiple trips.

weaksauce4• 9 years ago

According to him he did just that. Two trips.

Fezzik• 9 years ago

I'm not familiar with the area, but he could have also carried the chest on a Pack Mule. Short of treacherous terrain they are quite sure-footed. Or was there some indication he carried the chest to the location himself? Other than the blurb on Old Sante Fe Trading Co webpage I didn't see anything saying as much. I didn't watch all the videos though. Theorizing is fun.

forsaken• 9 years ago

He might know how to fly a helicopter :)

elif6• 9 years ago

investigating that hypothesis is easier, since there are fewer places to land a helicopter in the rockies. or maybe he tied down the control stick and rappelled from the empty helicopter. Or perhaps dropped it on a line and went back on foot later to conceal it :)

Cpoll• 9 years ago

where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest

I wonder if you couldn't take it pretty far with a motorized contraption.

You could also hire some help that you're reasonably sure isn't experienced in mountaineering, and has no reason to believe they're carrying something valuable. Then, even if they discover the contents, they will be unable to return to the scene.

Also, it might be much less than 40lbs, assuming the treasure consists mainly of rare coins and gemstones, and not so much gold nuggets.

malz• 9 years ago

He hid the treasure in 2010, I believe, so he was only 78 or so, if that changes the parameters of your old-man filter.

takk3092• 9 years ago

From the clues, I have a suspicion that it is on a river that is accessible only by rafting. An 80 year old man could easily raft to a location on his own depending on difficulty of the river.

ghaff5• 9 years ago

That's certainly the obvious meaning of that one stanza. Put in on a river and paddle downstream a distance that would be too far to walk. (Of course, he would need to get back to his car somehow unless there was a second person with him who could drive to the take-out. And this doesn't really square with his supposedly taking two trips.)

dougmany• 9 years ago

I thought it was funny that the only place his book is sold in on Water St. The place to buy the book is a logical starting place. And there is a Canyon St not too far.

exclusiv• 9 years ago

I agree. He was featured on an Expedition Unknown episode and the host went out with some people that have been searching for a long time. Below is what I recall as theories from the show and some of my thoughts.

Begin it where warm waters halt.. canyon down = Yellowstone (known to be dear to Fenn), waterfall

Not far, but too far to walk... There'll be no paddle up your creek .... Just heavy loads and water high. = Seems obvious to be a raft through rapids

Put in below the home of Brown = refers to brown trout, good fishing spot

iaw4• 9 years ago

There's I think 5 states that it's been narrowed down to. I actually have a map open on my computer now that reduces the searchable area to 10%.

It is out there, but don't make assumptions about what/how Fenn did his thing. That man can accomplish some impressive feats.

stonemetal• 9 years ago

Note he claims to have made two trips in one day. So make that a place where a 85 year old man can carry 20lbs. Also make it much less than 8 hours from the road.

Balgair4• 9 years ago

Some friends and I decided to have a go at the treasure a few years back. It was a good excuse to go out camping and road-tripping with some mates. We identified a spot we each thought it may have been and then spend some weekends one summer checking them out. One place we found outside of Estes Park, CO did have a rather large hole dug out right next to a 'swamp'/water-filled depression, there were a LOT of beer cans and champagne bottles around from at least a winter beforehand. The place fit all the bills for the treasure's location, at least to our minds. Maybe the people that found it are mum, the tax reasons would be enough to shut my mouth too.

The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many attempts at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet, if the thing really exists. Maybe Fenn put some note in there that says to contact him for more cash or something, so that he'll know that it was found. I doubt this. More than likely, there is no treasure at all and it is an intentional wild-goose chase and the 'real treasure is friendship'. But that doesn't square with all the deaths people have had looking for it. If the 'real treasue is friendship' then Fenn has real blood on his hands. We all had a great time camping at least.

saycheese10• 9 years ago

Treasure hunting is a lot of fun, though from experience if you really do find something, it's not always a good thing for the relationships of those involved.

Always have a written agreement prior to starting with anyone involved before starting; that is the search crew, land owners, etc.

Balgair4• 9 years ago

Oh yes, we even drew up contracts for how to split it and what to do in case of legal action, death, etc. I think we based it off the one in The Hobbit, but it has been a while. It was fun to read though as I do remember that there was a clause that you had to drink a few beers before negotiations could start. In general, it was enjoyable to go out and do that shindig and I would suggest it to others to have fun with it, but be sure not to, you know, die while out tramping about in the Rockies.

hueving• 9 years ago

The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many attempts at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet, if the thing really exists.

I think you are vastly underestimating the size of the rockies. The clues are so vague that there are probably thousands of square miles that match the poem description [1].

1. http://www.npr.org/2016/03/13/469852983/seeking-adventure-an...

Balgair4• 9 years ago

Yes, the Rockies are large, I would know, I have a fantastic view of them from my house. But an ill man is who buried the treasure taking 2 trips and the poem does narrow it a fair bit, the search range is 'spaghetti' but not a large amount of area in net total - So says someone that never found it.

Also, I kinda doubt it exists to begin with.

amelius• 9 years ago

I think you are vastly underestimating the size of the rockies.

I would bet there is probably more than $1M worth of (naturally available) gold to be found in the Rockies, and it is spread around, so it's much easier to find than a single treasure.

phkahler• 9 years ago

> If the 'real treasure is friendship' then Fenn has real blood on his hands.

Apparently he has said you don't need to take any big risks to find it. I think that absolves him of any moral responsibility for people dying. You are responsible for your own actions.

Somehow this story reminded me of the movie CrossRoads from 1986.

simias2• 9 years ago

The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many attempts at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet

This one has been going on for even longer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl

And here we're certain it hasn't been found since only a token has been buried, the real golden owl will be given in exchange of it.

jlarocco• 9 years ago

Not to ruin the fun, but the chances of finding the treasure over such a huge area is very low.

There are a few books dedicated to "lost treasure" around the Colorado mountains. I bought this one at a used book store a few months ago, and it's a fun read: https://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Tales-Rockies-Perry-Eberhart...

Many of the stories are dubious, but quite a few are legit and still "lost". Lots of stories along the lines of a prospector finding a rich gold vein, or very promising claim, and then hiding it for the winter, but never get back to it for whatever reason. There are also quite a few where travelers hide a "treasure" to protect it from Indians or bandits, but can never find it again.

Many times the locations are known down to a particular gulch, valley, or mountain, and still nobody's been able to find it for 100+ years.

I think knowing the history of an area makes hiking there more enjoyable, and it's fun to peek around for treasure, but the people taking it super seriously are wasting their time, IMO. Probably cheaper and better odds to play the lottery.

marme• 9 years ago

he has stated that the treasure is at least partially exposed to the elements and is not buried and requires no tools to find it and at least one person has been within 250 feet of it

gk1• 9 years ago

Vox had a good video about this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk

NaOH• 9 years ago

The podcast Everything is Stories did an episode on Mr. Fenn and his hidden treasure in March 2014. For anyone interested it fills out the picture a bit of his life and his motivation for doing this.

http://www.eisradio.org/item/003

gmisra• 9 years ago

Before getting too carried away, I'd suggest reading this piece [1], about the search for Randy Bilyeu, the missing treasure seeker mentioned int the NPR article. It provides lot more background and context, and is enjoyable as far as long form journalism goes.

Like many, I've casually followed the story over the years, but in the 5280 article, the reporter interviews Fenn in the context of the manhunt. To me, Fenn comes off as someone whose obsession with his own eccentric idea of a "game" overrides the very real life-and-death situations created as a result of that game.

The NPR article is surprisingly blase considering the dangers involved.

[1] http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-colorado-m...

Grazester• 9 years ago

This is interesting especially since I just started reading Read Player One.

gunnyguy121• 9 years ago

Ohh. Good book imo. I get that a lot of people think the references are annoying, but I found them to be rather charming. Of course I'm young so I probably didn't get them all

wooshy• 9 years ago

I actually had the same thoughts about ready player one when I read this article. It was such a interested book and being able to be part of something like that in real life sounds like it would take over my life.

avenoir• 9 years ago

Outside has published a number of columns on this usually accompanied with crazy stories of treasure hunters. If nothing else, it's a great way to get some folks into the wild :)

cammio• 9 years ago

(2016)

amenghra• 9 years ago

Reminds me https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_O..., which is hidden in France and people have been searching for it for decades.

trentnix• 9 years ago

This is the first time I'm hearing of this treasure - fun stuff!

Reading the poem, the first place that popped into my head is Brown's Canyon National Monument, just outside of Salida, Colorado.

https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-monument

It's just 3.5 to 4 hours north of Santa Fe, is an area with multiple hot springs (Mt. Princeton, Poncha Springs, etc.), and downstream (Arkansas River) you go through Bighorn Sheep Canyon and the Royal George.

It's just an amazing area on this Earth.

logfromblammo5• 9 years ago

So maybe go to Nathrop, CO, put your raft on Arkansas River where Chalk Creek, Gas Creek, or Cottonwood Creek joins it, then go downstream past 2 Class IV rapids (Canyon Doors, Pinball) and "put in" below Browns Creek.

There is a rail line there, so if you are squeamish about whitewater, it probably wouldn't be difficult to portage around the 12 named rapids on that section of the river. You could probably park at Hecla Junction and reach the search area by land.

Below Widowmaker (IV) rapids is an intermittent creek bed ("no paddle") to the west, that runs into some trees surrounded by big boulders ("heavy loads").

I'd start at 38.668777 N, 106.055444 W and follow the dry creek bed up to at least 38.670606 N, 106.063440 W, myself, but I'm not likely to ever visit that part of the country. If you find the chest there, send me a gloating postcard.

The place appears to be surrounded by ATV trails within 200 feet, so it's likely the guy just claimed "someone has been within 200 feet" because people are within 200 feet of it frequently, just from riding the trails.

developer22• 9 years ago

I suspect that 200 feet off any walkable/drivable path is too easy for such a treasure. It's more likely within 200 feet of a river/stream/creek - the assumption being that there are people canoeing past without getting out and traversing overgrowth with no obvious man made paths.

The only detail that really matters in terms of whether someone can ever even find it is whether it is buried. If it's buried with no markers, the odds of stumbling upon it even with a metal detector are so incredibly low.

eternalban• 9 years ago

Let me get this straight. People have died and this geriatric narcissist hasn't yet decided that maybe 4 dead people are too many and maybe, possibly, it would be a better karmic strategy for him to forgoe his little scheme and just call the thing off?

ProAm• 9 years ago

They died doing what they love?

bcoates• 9 years ago

Hundreds of people a year die adventuring in that region cash prize or no. Leaving the house is dangerous.

ska• 9 years ago

Sounds like you are assuming a net negative impact. How does that compare to expected rates of death doing similar activities?

nommm-nommm• 9 years ago

http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/r...

Since 2011, 21 people have died in Rocky Mountain National Park, eight of those fatalities coming in 2014 alone. While grim, Rocky Mountain's annual death toll pales in comparison to that of Grand Canyon National Park, which averages 12 fatalities each year... About 150 people die in national parks each year, according to the latest federal data, tracked between 2007 and 2013.

Yet we don't go shutting down the National Parks or accuse the Federal government of bad karma.

putsteadywere• 9 years ago

Relevant XKCD

Ponytail: We should go to the north beach. Someone said the south beach has a 20% higher risk of shark attacks. Cueball: Yeah, but statistically, taking three beach trips instead of two increases our odds of getting shot by a swimming dog carrying a handgun in its mouth by 50%! Beret Guy: Oh no! This is our third trip!

Reminder: A 50% increase in a tiny risk is still tiny.

[0] https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/increased_risk.png

joering22• 9 years ago

The most recent was Randy Bilyeu who went missing in January 2016 and was later found dead in July of that year.

I wonder how he feels knowing at least one person died because of his actions :(

mannykannot• 9 years ago

I am not sure I would publicly claim to be the only person who knows where there is an untraceable million-dollar stash, whether it is true or not.

awerg34gg• 9 years ago

If this interests you, I highly recommend checking out book The Secret. Super interesting. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage

oakville• 9 years ago

He even hid a bottle of wine behind those books on his shelf...

appleiigs• 9 years ago

Maybe I should start off with Pokemon Go first to get warmed up. Similar concept where Fenn wants people to bring out their inner Indiana Jones. Instead of giving away a fortune, the makers of Pokemon Go were trying to make one.

omgam• 9 years ago

Or, the makers of Pokemon Go were installing a system to easily obtain video footage of any urban location (less easily, other areas).

If the Fenn-treasure-seeker ground penetrating radar drone teams do materialize, they will almost certainly locate archeological sites, which is pretty cool. The algorithms ought to also pick up petroglyphs while searching for blazes.

Mango_Diesel• 9 years ago

Random related story:

I was in New Mexico recently to see family and my brother said he had recently picked up a hitchhiker who had been searching for the treasure. She had started in Colorado and apparently been following clues found in the poems with geological features to travel along the Rio Grande in search of it. She believed based on her searching at the time (this was 1-2 months ago) that the treasure was likely hidden somewhere in Pilar. Apparently she had found marks on rocks in Embudo that led her to believe it was apparently on the other side of a rock formation she was near.

I wouldn't put too much faith in this person's account, but she had apparently been searching for it non-stop for several months and had been led to Pilar by these "clues".

alpinextrm2• 9 years ago

Seems like he's setting himself up for a kidnapping?

alpinextrm2• 9 years ago

Seems like he'd be setting himself up for a kidnapping?

josephpmay• 9 years ago

If this interests you, you might like the book Daemon by Daniel Suarez. (Ready Player One also deals with similar themes)

pcthrowaway• 9 years ago

Is it not possible someone's already found it? Whoever finds it would have to pay taxes if they report it.

An 85-year old millionaire hides $1M treasure in the Rocky Mountains (2016)

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