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. 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. Alleged gold cache in the U.S. state of New Mexico, "Hunt for Fabulous Cache of Gold Lands in Court", "Following 1937 Story of Buried Gold, Family Searches New Mexico's Sands", "Seekers of fabled southern N.M. treasure sue Army", "Authors re-examine Victorio Peak storyand think gold really may be there", "Treasure or Treachery? Two airmen from nearby Holloman Air Force Base would later say that they had found the gold cavern from another natural opening in the side of the peak. The U.S. Army, which gained control of the area when it was converted to a bombing range during the Second World War, refused her request to bring in an excavation firm and ultimately ordered the Nosses to stay out of the area. 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. Returning through the main cavern, he noticed an immense stack of metal bars off to one side. Case The two decided to keep the discovery between themselves and return to inspect the shaft later. Rare Gold Nuggets. 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. 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. White Sands Missile Range, Legends, Ghosts, Myths and Mysteries Main Page, Byways & Historic Trails Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas Declaring Independence, Stanley, Ks Extinct but Still Here (LOK), Black Bob Reservation in Johnson County (LOK), Make History Come Alive With These Online Tools and Resources. In 1979, he sold a small mail-order business to devote full time to the search. Under the direction of Mr. Delonas, the searchers have been analyzing their findings in a temporary office at Las Cruces, about 25 miles south of Victoria Peak. But in August, the Army turned him down, saying he deserves no more favored treatment than some 300 others who ask each year for permission to enter the missile range to search. And we were poor and I guess a little dumb. 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. Several sand and gravel operators periodically extract minor quantities of placer gold from their quarries. In a hunt that began last Thursday, Mr. Delonas's group has been given one year to search for the gold. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station. 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. All four men Fiege, Thomas Berlett, Ken Prather and Milleadge Wessel were, at the time of their find, employees at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Fueled by suspicions that the military was working her claim, Babe Noss hired four men to enter the range secretly. [5] She later was part of an unsuccessful 1963 search. Further, they stated that underground wealth, in whatever form it took, belonged to the state or any legal license holders. In November 1958, a team of four weekend gold seekers rediscovered the hoard. Today, the Armys official position on the whereabouts of the gold remains cautious, maintaining that the burden of proof rests with the accusers. 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. It has banned treasure hunters from the range since 1963. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high. Becoming desperate for cash, Doc and a man named Joseph Andregg transported gold bars, coins, jewels, and artifacts into Arizona, selling them on the black market. They even brought in their own security guards, he added. The Army, which controls the missile range, insists there is no treasure and has never been any. However, with the discovery of gold, the treaty was broken in 1878, and Victorio went on the warpath. During fluvial events, large volumes of sediment containing free gold are transported and deposited in relatively poorly-sorted alluvial and stream deposits. Congress had just passed an act outlawing the private ownership of gold, meaning he had no buyers for his supposed stash (via Unsolved ). The Army put those fellows in there blind knowing they wouldn't find anything.. Recreational mining continues intermittently in the White Oaks, Pittsburg, Hillsboro, Orogrande and Jicarilla districts to the present day. Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2021. He was overcome with joy that they might be gold. Denied entry by the courts until legalities could determine the legal owner of the mine; Doc feared Ryan would back out of the deal. During World War II, he divorced his wife, Ova, and disappeared for several years. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were stacked like cordwood.. After 35 years of localized dispute, the Great White Sands Missile Range Lost Gold Treasure Affair has blossomed into a national mystery. At one time, he brought out a crown, which contained 243 diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. However, it was a slow process, and in 1955, the White Sands Missile Range unexpectedly expanded their operations to encompass the Hembrillo Basin. 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. The charges concerning LBJs involvement included the following: According to this same source, Victorio Peak was just like a private vault to certain high-ranking people. They would go in periodically and get what they wanted. That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America. Claimants charge the Army purposely boobytrapped the area with the shells, yet almost weekly a few fevered treasure hunters sneak through helicopter and horsemounted Army patrols to search. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Large movements of bullion from the peak went on for nearly a decade, with the largest single removal of gold occurring in 1976, according to Bill Shriver. 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. : Did 'Doc' Noss Really Find Caverns of Gold or Did He Pull Off a Hoax That Has Plagued His Kin for Years? 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. 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. 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. Bill Shriver, before his death, told this writer that he had a copy of a transcribed order from Lyndon Johnson describing in detail how the president wanted a military escort to handle the supply of gold taken out of Victorio Peak and taken to his ranch. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. is also on Facebook, New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, Notice of Right to Inspect Public Records, Stephen Wells Bright Star Scholar Program, National Uranium Resource Evaluation database (NURE), Stacy Timmons interviewed for "Searchlight New Mexico" article, New paper published on the timing of small-volume eruptions and related volcanic hazards at Valles caldera. However, Noss demanded to see the money before revealing the new hiding place. However, the Army placed a two-week time limit on the group, and they had hardly started before they were forced to leave, without finding anything. 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. See the article in its original context from. 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. This Massive Mine in Utah Has Produced More Gold than Most States! The dispute was finally worked out when a federal court issued a compromise of sorts, which stated the Army would continue to use the lands surface, but no one would be allowed on the property without the Armys consent. The caverns are located in and around Victorio Peak, in a remote, rugged section of south-central New Mexico. In 1979, Babe died without ever finding the treasure. Two local ranch workers stumbled upon the search and notified Mrs. Noss. Passing through the large cavern, he came to a series of smaller caves rooms, he called them. White Sands, New Mexico by the National Park Service. 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. 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