At first , Milton Nossthoughta rattlesnake was crawl up his pegleg . It was November 1937 , and Noss , 32 , was staking out a plenty top in the arid , ironic warmth of New Mexico in the hopes of catching a deer headed for the spring water nearby .
But when Noss looked down , there was no Snake River . There was only a light zephyr drifting up from the ground . Upon airless inspection , he discovered a muddle under a rock’n’roll — and notjusta hole , but one already equipped with a ladder .
The find naturally piqued Noss ’s curiosity . He later return to the website equipped with rope and a flashlight andwent spelunking , lowering himself into what turned out to be an immense web of caverns hidden inside the mountain known as Victorio Peak .
What happened next was out of a motion picture : Noss said he found a cave with skeleton , Wells Fargo dresser , antique armour , and jewels . afterward , he pulled out what he thought to be cheap branding iron bar . They grow out to be gold — roughly 16,000 of them . In today ’s dollar , Noss found a treasure that could bevaluedas much as $ 28 billion .
But instead of generational riches , Noss uncovered generational heartache . His life would be consumed by attempts to retrieve the stash , with everyone from the U.S. Army to gun - maintain enemy standing in his way . It ’s a fib that ’s thrilled treasure seekers for near a 100 , with one central interrogation still prominent : Will anyone ever be capable to to the full trace his tone and claim the massive treasure trove ? And after all this prison term , is there anything left to plunder ?
A Golden Opportunity
Victorio Peak — which wasnamedafter the nineteenth century Mescalero Apache warrior chief — is a formidable summit climb 6350 feet above ocean degree in the San Andres Mountains in New Mexico . Today , it ’s part of the White Sands Missile Range , a huge swath of dimension rent from the state by the United States Army that oncehostedthe first nuclear bomb detonation in 1945 . But when Noss first encountered the peak , it was something far round-eyed : A authentic gold mine .
Noss , nicknamed “ Doc , ” was a ego - taught foot doctor who tend to bunions and ingrown toenails in the town now known as Truth or Consequences . ( The townspeople , which was called Hot Springs , agreedto change its name as part of aTruth or Consequencesgame show publicity in 1950 . ) He had beenmarriedsince 1933 to Ova Beckwith , who was predictably astonished at her husband ’s find . egg cell and her baby from a previous marriage helped Noss heave sack of hoarded wealth away from the crown . It was Ova , in fact , who had seen the iron bars for what they really were — gold .
“ I asked him to institute out some of that fuzz atomic number 26 he was verbalise about and he state it was too heavy , ” Ova later call in in the seventies . “ But he found a small one and brought it out and say , ‘ That ’s the last one of them babe I ’m gon na bring out . ’ When I rolled it over , I said , ‘ Well , Doc , this is yellow ! Look at it ! ’ He depend at it and say , ‘ Well , Babe , if that ’s Au and all that other is gold , we can call John D. Rockefeller a hiking ! ’ ”
But Doc and Ova could n’t swash about anything just yet . Thanks to theGold Reserve Actof 1934 , it was illegal for individual citizen to possess gold . ( The Act was signed into law by PresidentFranklin D. Rooseveltin an effort to advance governing gold reserves and bounciness back from the Great Depression . ) Even if own the gold bar had n’t been illegal , it would be grueling to move them from the gut of the peak , especially give the tight clinch Noss had to figure and conk through .
( One trouble Noss did n’t need to worry about was having to reply to the hoarded wealth ’s original owners . Though he may not have been aware at the metre , speculation has had it that the stash could have been Aztec treasure , the work of an 18th 100 gold mineworker , or even loot taken by Apache tribes raid stagecoach from California . )
Initially , Noss concerned himself with dealing with state bureaucracy . In 1938 , he filed to lease the attribute from New Mexico and also incur a treasure treasure trove claim . ( In showcase of discover treasure , the somebody who find it typically has a de jure validclaimto it , with the sole exception of the “ true ” or original owner , if one can be demonstrate . ) Next , he began to consistently slog the gold bars out from the cavern , though the tunnel connection , and out to daylight , where he then began to burrow them off in various concealment spot . Accounts vary , but Noss could have find 200 golden bars .
Then disaster chance on — or , more accurately , Noss himself struck . In 1939 , he hired a mining engineer to make a larger entrance to the bloom . In irony reminiscent of a Looney Tunes short , Noss and his companion wound up using too much dynamite , blowing the entry up and sealing off the perpendicular internet of burrow that Noss had used to enter the cave .
With entry curtail for the foreseeable future , Noss turn rather to selling what gold he had handle to squirrel away , often in nugget - sized man to deflect the wrath of law of nature enforcement . At one point , he seemed to grow tired of the intact affair , moving to Texas without Ova for a period of time . When he returned , he had a new wife distinguish Violet and a unexampled business collaborator : Charley Ryan . In 1949 , Noss convince Ryan to enthrone a aggregate of $ 28,000 in the promise of regaining accession to the cave . Noss also promised to sell Ryan 50 bars of gold .
The night before the deal for the gold was to go down , Noss seemed to panic . An comrade named Tony Jolley afterward claimed he assist Noss re - bury 110 Browning automatic rifle , presumably so they could n’t be locate by Ryan .
The next day , Noss and Ryan ’s business relationship came to an end . Ryan seemed to be unhappy with Noss failing to redeem on his promise . They go into an altercation , andas Noss jogged by , Ryan give rise a handgun and shoot him in the back of the head . Noss died against the bumper of his motortruck . He was 43 .
In reprehensible transactions , Ryan claimed Noss was running back to his truck for a weapon ; a panel believed him , and Ryan was acquitted . But the fable of Victorio Peak would n’t go bad with Noss . If anything , it would only get stronger .
A Military Presence
Ova was determined to continue the lookup that her estranged ( and now late ) husband had started . But there was a new wrinkle — one that would turn the hunt from a family affair to a political web . The United States armed services had alreadyestablishedthe White Sands Missile Range for weapon testing in 1945 . In 1955 , it extended its boundary to let in Victorio Peak . Now under dominance of the politics , the premise were off - limit to civilian like Ova .
But some in the military machine were intrigued by the Noss legend . In 1958 , four military officer from nearby Holloman Air Force Base , including a piece named Thomas Berlett , began exploring Victorio Peak . calendar month of searching led to the discovery of gold bar within the heap .
“ We see artefact on the paries ; one was a very large hybrid , made up of smaller crosses , all carved of wood , ' ” Berlettsaidin 1991 . “ There were two quite a little of gold in the first room … [ one valet de chambre ] could lay in the burrow and see into the next room with a flashlight . The stack of amber in that room was in the cast of a pyramid , and we could see an expiration out of the room … We believe that it probably leave into the main chamber that had been described in the diary of Doc Noss . ”
The men reported the find to their ranking officers and bespeak a courtly military pleasure trip into the cave . When that request was refused , they rigged another dynamite burst , this one seal off the cave entry . If they were n’t able to quest after the treasure , they did n’t require others to intervene . Later , in 1961 , the man passed a military polygraph test to exhibit the veracity of their claim . They were countenance to return , but could n’t get hold another way in . Berlett would afterward speculate that the war machine allow him back to the site to try and nail where he and the other officeholder had first attain admittance .
Rumors develop in the following years that the Army , informed of the hoarded wealth , secretly began removing it from the cave . While some eyewitness have claim to have view Army activity on the peak , the Army deny confiscating any gold . The news report gained more grip when a man make Gene Erwin claim his crony - in - law , Captain Orby Swanner , recite him he led a military operation to convey the Au around this metre and that he had even written his name and nonparallel numeral on one of the cave rampart .
Ova Noss and her family were predictably livid about the Army action and the stories surrounding retrieve gold . She petitioned for the United States Department of State of New Mexico to intervene ; theyorderedArmy activity into the heyday be stopped in 1961 , though not in time to stop Swanner ’s alleged expedition . Ova was then admit to impart a 60 - solar day search in 1963 . She hired a mining party but nothing was found . The monumental peak and its reputed tunnels were like a elephantine ant farm ; burrowing into them took meter , money , and more than a bite of luck .
With most everyone left out in the common cold , a strange bit of testimonyduringthe Watergate hearings in 1973 made the hoarded wealth a matter of public knowledge . John Dean , formerly a lawyer for Richard Nixon , saidthat he had heard from Attorney General John Mitchell that Mitchell had been separate about someone who wanted to turn over the gold without facing sound backlash . before long after , famed attorney F. Lee Bailey — who would subsequently be part of O.J. Simpson ’s defense team — saidhe was representing rough 50 clients who know the exact location of the gold . Bailey was hoping to hold Army permission to confabulate the web site and to discern whether his clients had legal right field to the bar . ( The Gold Reserve Act was due to be rescinded at the closing of 1974 , making their possession legal . ) But the Army want him to disclose the names of his clients as well as the gold ’s precise location in advance , which Bailey decline to do .
Somebelievedthose involved were former appendage of the military;other speculation had it that Bailey ’s group let in a geologist name Keith Alexander , wholearnedof the gold through an previous associate of Noss ’s named Benny Samaniego . Bailey even had a Browning automatic rifle put forward for analysis by the Treasury Department , which find it to be 60 percentage gold . This lede seemed to vaporise , however , as Bailey ’s client never stepped out of the shadows .
The promotion from the Watergate hearings and Bailey was enough to shake up interest in the site from treasure seekers . The Armybeganposting 24 - hr armed certificate and cautioned that the site was too dangerous for visit . radiation sickness and Scorpion were among the hazards . But Ova was not easy dissuade . As the number of claimants develop , she assay to reassert her family ’s own claim to the still - hypothetic gem .
A Family Ambition
In the springiness of 1977 , a professional gem huntsman named Norman Scottorganizeda search on behalf of those who felt they had a valid claim to the treasure , including one of the Air Force ship’s officer and a representative from the Apache nation . Ova , whose family had long obligate the original claim , was there , as well . A 10 - day hunting window was granted by the Army , who seemed to want to dispense with the controversy as well as discourage any further trespassing . Scott invested $ 75,000 .
Despite being yield three additional days , Scott only found some empty tin can cans , a pair of dirty trouser , and a flyspeck nugget that might have contained a 10th of 1 percent gold . The most compelling uncovering was the scrawled name of Orby Swanner , the Army captain who once told his family he had leave a mission to call up the atomic number 79 . His name and sequent number werewrittenon the bulwark , just as Swanner had once claim .
As Ova aged — she would pass in 1979 — her family progressively took up the cause . Her grandson , Terry Delonas , had grow up listen stories of the treasure , the tragedy of Doc Noss ’s destruction , and the Army ’s stubborn refusal to permit access . Throughout the 1980s , Delonas asked — and keep asking — for another prospect to research the peak .
From 1992 to 1996 , Delonas helped lead a lookup with experts in excavation , geology , and construction , heaving massive heap of soil and exploring the various entrances into the crown . The project was estimated to cost up to $ 2 million .
Even with resources , the right-down size and ambit of the peak made exploration difficult . Though a geologic surveyindicateda void in the mint roughly where Doc Noss had insisted the cave was , there was no easy route to it . The team move easy through dirt and rock , at time being rerouted when unpredictable collapses sealed off further debut .
In March 1996 , Delonasfeltprogress was being made . Using sight data point , they felt they were just 20 feet from a cave that could in theory arrest the hoarded wealth — or at least what was allow for of it . Then , the Army start out raising issue over the monthly fee they were accumulate from Delonas for entree to the site . The bickering head to Delonas being resist entry , which led to Delonas filing a suit and the Army a countersuit for what they claimed were unpaid fees of $ 700,000 and give up equipment on the point .
In 2000 , both side send packing the suits , with the Army forgiving the alleged debt if Delonas agreed not to go after any further permission for access . Delonas believed the Army was still being less than extroverted , but there was picayune else to do : While it ’s potential the hoarded wealth could have been within reach , four year of work had fail to generate real find of even one cavern .
Some are skeptical of Noss ’s original claim , citinghis peddling of phoney gold bars and story of a cave - in as hints he may have only try on to swindle investors out of money . But the imperativeness of everyone from military members to colleagues that they had see gold is punishing to brush aside . Tony Jolley , who helped Noss forget his stash before Noss was obliterate in 1949 , once said he return to some of the hiding spots in 1961 , collecting $ 66,000 in Au . And there was Orby Swanner , who apparently signed his confession on a cave wall . billion could still be deep inside Victorio Peak , effectively entombed until the Noss family or other hoarded wealth seekers deal to nail their agency through both rock and government bureaucracy .
As one commentator put it as a lookup was underway in 1997 : “ Gold caption do not die well . ”
