INCREDIBLE  BUT  TRUE  (Part I)

Buried Treasure

It has been estimated that in the area of North America alone, there is upwards of 4.5 billion dollars in buried treasure lying about just ready to be dug up. The question is, where?  Well, here is some information about two of the lost treasures.

The Lost Adams Diggings

In 1864, a teamster called Adams was travelling in New Mexico and while staying in an Indian village listening to some prospectors talking, an Indian, nicknamed, Gotch Ear told the men that he knew where gold could be found in a canyon just ten days away.

The prospectors and Adams followed the Indian and sure enough, he led them to a canyon in which a small green valley surrounded a creek. The prospectors and Adams panned $60,000 in gold from the creek in three weeks but despite warnings from the local Apache chief not to venture past the waterfall where there were better diggings, they disobeyed him. The Apaches killed most of the prospectors however several including Adams escaped.

Adams killed two Apaches at a later date out of the desire for vengeance and was jailed for murder. He escaped and didn't return to New Mexico until 20 years later. By then, he had forgotten the exact whereabouts of the lost valley of gold.

To this day, no-one has ever found it. What is known is that the canyon lies somewhere in the Zuni Reservation and it is believed that the creek is a tributary of the Zuni River.

The Cocos Island Treasure:

While Simon Bolivar marched through Peru in 1823, a group of Spaniards in Lima seized the state treasure to keep it out of the hands of Bolivar. The treasure, now estimated to be valued at more than $20 million, consisted of 200 chests of jewels, 250 swords with jewelled hilts, 150 silver chalices, 300 bars of gold and 600 bars of silver, just to describe some of the trinkets taken. To get their treasure out of South America, it was put on board the Mary Dier which was under the command of a Scotsman called William Thompson.

The governor of Lima and a bishop, along with some other Spaniards travelled with the treasure so that the wrong hands wouldn't get hold of it. They were no match for Thompson and his crew and were killed outright. Thompson then ordered his crew to sail his vessel to the island of Cocos which is on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. There, the treasure was stashed in a cave. Soon after leaving the island, they were captured by a Spanish frigate and Thompson and a member of his crew was returned to Cocos on the promise that their lives would be spared if they disclosed the whereabouts of the treasure. Once on the island, Thompson and his crew member escaped. The Spanish left the island empty handed and Thompson was rescued when a whaler showed up to get a supply of fresh water. He claimed that the crewman died. Thompson never returned to the island but he later gave his friend John Keating a chart which specifically stated where the treasure could be found.                                                                         

 

Keating went to the island and rediscovered the treasure but  the  crew  of  the  vessel  he  was  sailing  on  mutinied and Keating and a friend narrowly escaped to the island with their lives. Keating was rescued (without his friend who, not unlike Thompson's friend, also died) and Keating, like Thompson, never returned to the island. He did however entrust his secret to a friend.

In 1872, Thomas Welsh and his wife, the owners of the South Pacific Treasure Island Prospecting Company  and several of their followers dug a tunnel 85 meters into the mountain on Cocos Island but netted nothing for their efforts.

A German named August Gisler, using a treasure map which supposedly belonged to a pirate called Benito Bonito, searched the island from 1899 to 1909. He found no treasure but he did find clues, such as stone with the letter K (for Keating) carved in it and a cable attached to a hook.

Since then, there have been several expeditions to the island, and even Sir Malcolm Campbell, (the famous race driver) Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Count Felix von Luckner tried their hands at searching for the treasure with no success.

In 1932, Colonel J.E. Leckie using the services of a metal detector did uncover some of the gold, however, to this day, the bulk of the treasure still remains on the island.

If you are thinking of trying to find the treasure, Cocos Island is situated 643 kilometers west of Costa Rica and can be reached only by a chartered boat.

Lost treasure of John Dillinger

John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1, buried $200,000 in the Wisconsin woods three months before his death. Ken Krippene, author of Buried Treasure, heard the story from Patricia Charrington (or Cherrington), a girl friend of a member of Dillinger's gang.

Small, pug-nosed Dillinger parked himself in the Little Bohemia roadhouse, 8 miles southeast of Mercer, for a weekend with six of his gang, including Baby Face Nelson and Three-Fingered Jack Hamilton, in late April, 1934. On Sunday, at 7:45 p.m., FBI men in bulletproof vests surrounded the place and waited until three men came out. Unfortunately, the three were not gang members, but two CCC workers and a gas station attendant. The FBI killed one of them and wounded the other two. In the confusion, Dillinger and his gang escaped out a back window. The FBI waited until the next morning, when they tear gassed a building which was already devoid of the criminals.

Once out of the roadhouse, Dillinger ran 500 yards. north into the woods, dug a hole near two pines and an oak, and buried the suitcase containing $200,000 in small bills obtained from the sale of $1 million in stolen securities.  To this day, no one has ever found the suitcase.

If you feel lucky, here is how to find the suitcase in the Wisconsin woods (if it is still there). Drive to Mercer, Wisconsin which is a small town on Route 51 near the Michigan border. Once there, ask how to get to the Little Bohemia roadhouse. Go 500 yards north from the roadhouse into the woods and look for two pine trees and an oak tree.

Fall 0f the mightiest castle in the world

On the road between the city of Hom in Syria and Tripoli in Lebanon lies a well preserved fortress that Lawrence of Arabia once declared as the 'most wholly admirable castle in the world'. It is called the Krac des Chevaliers (Crag of the Knights) It was originally built by the Kurds and it passed into the hands of the Crusaders in the 1090s and in 1142, into the hands of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John. 

In the next 150 years, the knights constructed the castle into what it is today a fortress whose outer walls in places are over 24 meters thick, and whose massive inner towers are linked by more thick walls. The path leading to the main gate was made to zigzag so that the invaders would have to cross and re-cross a concentrated line of fire. Of all the castles in the world at that time, and after that era, none was stronger.

The Saracens made 12 attempts at capturing it and failed every time. An attack was an exercise in futility, so was a siege because like all Crusader castles of that era, the Krak  was fully stocked with vast supplies of food and water, enough to keep an army of 2000 defenders alive and in fighting spirit for as much as a year. Even the great Saladin was forced to give up the siege when he realized how futile it was.

However, it did fall but not by force, but rather by words. In the year 1271, another Muslim conqueror, the Sultan Baybars (the name means 'Panther') stood at the gate of this formidable stone fortress with his Egyptian army. The castle was the last defense in his way to total domination of what had been the Crusader's kingdom.

By this time, the castle was seriously undermanned and because the year  before,  the  Eighth  Crusade  had  failed, reinforcements was out of the question. Nevertheless, as the Sultan's huge army surrounded the fortress, he was unaware that it was manned by a mere handful of fighting monks.

A direct attack was pointless because of the impregnable gate and  high  walls  so  the  Sultan  decided  on  a  different approach. For weeks his men chipped at the stonework of the southwest tower of the outer walls until it finally collapsed. His men rushed in only to be faced with the equally high towers and walls of the inner fortifications. Everything the Sultan had heard about the fortress was true. It was impregnable.

Refusing to accept defeat and at the same time, facing the probability of a long siege, he attempted something quite different. He had a carefully worded and forged document flown into the castle by a carrier pigeon that had been previously used by the defenders. The letter purported to come from the Grand Masters of the Hospitallers of Tripoli. The letter instructed the defenders to surrender the castle to Baybars as there were no reinforcements being sent to relieve them.

The monks surrendered and Baybars chivalrously permitted them to march to Tripoli unharmed.

Despite its fall by treachery, the castle still remains in the annals of history as a castle that survived the test of battle.

The Hope Diamond—Bringer of Death

Inside the Smithsonian Institution in Washington lies the famous Hope Diamond. It is a sapphire blue diamond and weighs 44.5 carats (a bit smaller than a peach pit)  It's hard to believe that this beautiful gemstone which flickers a bluish reflection of light in your eyes actually caused so much grief to so many people.

It was mined from the Kistna River in India over 500 years ago and placed in the forehead of an Indian temple idol.

At that time, the diamond weighed 112.5 carats. One of the Hindu priests fell under its spell and stole it. He was caught and cruelly tortured to death. He became the diamond's first victim.

The diamond then turned up in Europe in 1642 in the hands of a French trader-smuggler named Jean Baptiste Taferier. He sold it for a small fortune and acquired a title and an estate. His son squandered his father's money and soon the trader was penniless again. He returned to India in the hopes of making his fortune again and while he was there, he was torn to pieces by a wild pack of dogs. He was victim number two.

The gem reappeared in France, this time in the hands of King Louis XIV, who cut it down in size to 67.5 carats.  A government official called Nicholas Fouquet borrowed it for a state ball and later was convicted of embezzlement and sent to prison for the rest of his life.

The king meanwhile became so distraught over so many military catastrophes; he died of a broken heart. Nicholas and the king were victims three and four.

The king's descendants didn't realize just what bad luck it was to have this diamond as part of the crown jewels and as to be expected, three more of the royal family were to die prematurely. They were; Princess de Lamballe who wore it regularly and was beaten to death by a mob; King Louis XVI who was beheaded during the French Revolution and later his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, who shared her husband's fate with the guillotine. Up to this point in time, the diamond had brought misfortune and death to seven persons who at one time or another, had possession of it.      

Then in 1792, the diamond vanished and didn't reappear until 40 years later. Of course, one can only surmise as to how many people who possessed in the interim actually died because they possessed it.

A French Jeweller got a hold of it and gloated over its beauty until he went insane and killed himself. He was victim number eight. A Russian prince, Ivan Kanitovsky gave it to his Parisian mistress, then he killed her. He was later murdered. They were victims nine and ten. Catherine the Great of Russia wore it and shortly thereafter, died of a stroke.

Somehow, it ended up in the hands of a Dutch diamond cutter who sheared it down to its present size-44.5 carats. Unfortunately, his no-good son stole it from him and the diamond cutter was so shocked, he committed suicide.

The diamond bounced from hand to hand across Europe, felling the owners and then it ended up in the hands of Henry Hope, (for whom the diamond got its name) and in 1908, the Turkish Sultan, Abdul Hamid bought it from Hope for $400,000. The Sultan then gave it to his wife Subaya, and then stabbed her to death. A year later, he lost his throne.

The jinxed jewel moved on to the United States where it was purchased by business tycoon Ned McLean for a much lessor price—$154,000. (As an aside, I once carried a rare Canadian silver dollar worth that much while employed with a security firm. It never shone in the sunlight like the Hope diamond did, of that you can be assured.)

Over the next 40 years, Ned’s oldest son was run down by a car, Ned himself became financially ruined and died in a mental hospital, his daughter died from an overdose of drugs and his wife became a morphine addict. She was the eighteenth known victim to have 'touched' the diamond and suffered for it.

And then strangely enough, all the suffering stopped. Harry Winston, an American jeweller bought it but before tragedy could  fall  upon  him like  the  others,  he  donated  it  to  the Smithsonian Institute where it is to this day.

Have you ever felt the surface of the Hope diamond?  Let me show you. Touch it. You will love the way it feels in your hand…AHhhhhhh......gasp......