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People have been hiding treasures for as long there has been treasures to hide.
Pirates in particular were frequent treasure hiders.
In fact there are over 3 million ship wrecks on the ocean floor, collectively worth billions
in treasure.
Let’s reveal some of the tastiest and most tangible treasures you can actually still
find.
1.
We start with Forrest Fenn’s Hidden Treasure.
Coming from Texas, Fenn has been an avid treasure hunter his whole life.
After becoming a pilot in the air force in the 1960s he would regularly fly his plane
to Pompeii to look for valuable §, of which he found plenty.
Fenn subsequently earned a fortune from his uncovered artefacts.
But in the 1980s Forrest Fenn was diagnosed with kidney cancer and told he would only
have a few years to live.
So Fenn decided to put his most valued gold artefacts into a solid bronze chest, the chest
worth $25,000 alone.
The treasure it contains is said to be worth many millions of dollars.
Fenn hid the treasure somewhere in the mountains north of Santa Fe in New Mexico.
He also wrote this poem and released it on his website, Fenn says there are 9 clues contained
within the poem and that the clues will lead you directly to the treasure.
Anyone can go looking for the treasure and many have tried, but to this day nobody has
been able to find it.
2.
Legend has it that in 1816 a man named Thomas Beale and a few men he was traveling with
came into a large sum of gold and silver whilst mining in the Rocky Mountains.
The fortune was said to be worth around $63 million in today’s money.
With the fortune being so large Beale and his men wanted to make sure their next of
kin would get a cut of the money after their deaths.
So Beale buried the treasure in a secret location in Bedford County, Virginia and then wrote
three ciphers.
The first described the exact location of the treasure.
The second described the contents of the treasure and the third contains the names and addresses
of the party’s next of kin.
Beale entrusted a box containing the three ciphers to a local innkeeper named Robert
Morris and told him in 10 years if Beale did not return for the box he would be mailed
the key to the ciphers, however, after 23 years the innkeeper hadn’t had any word
or mail from Beale.
So, with help from a friend they spent the next 20 years trying to decode the encrypted
cipher texts.
But they only managed to decode the second cipher that contained the contents of the
treasure.
After Morris’ death, his unnamed friend published the three ciphers for sale in the
1880s.
Ever since there have been numerous attempts to decipher the texts and locate the treasure,
but all have resulted in failure.
The treasure still remains buried to this day.
3.
The Oak Island Money Pit is different from most hidden treasures, because everyone knows
where it is, the problem is actually getting to the treasure.
Oak Island is situated just off the east cost of Nova Scotia, in Canada.
The story goes that one day in 1795 an 18-year-old Daniel McGinnis after observing strange lights
coming from the island so he went to investigate.
At the far end of the island he discovered a circular ground depression in a clearing
of trees and a tackle block hanging from one of the branches of a nearby tree.
Daniel knew that the island was largely uninhabited and mostly used by hikers so he therefore
deduced that there must be treasure at the bottom of the pit he had stumbled upon.
His story has inspired numerous treasure hunters throughout the centuries to attempt to reach
the bottom of the Oak Island Money Pit and uncover its treasures.
Theories as to what lies at the bottom range from Captain Black Beard’s treasure, to
Marie Antoinette's jewels and even the Ark of the Covenant.
But to this day, despite tremendous efforts, nobody has been able to reach the treasure
at the bottom of the pit.
This is largely due to a series of ingenious water traps, there are several cleverly designed
water inlets spanning all the way from the sides of the island to the pit at various
depths in the pit that quickly flood the tunnel with sea water when the earth inside the pit
is displaced.
But how do we even know there’s any treasure at all in the pit?
Well, a group of treasure hunters assembled a group called the Onslow Company and, in
the summer of 1804 they began what would be the third attempt at uncovering the treasure.
They made it down to a depth much deeper than any previous excavation.
The group reached 90 feet below the surface and they found something significant, it wasn’t
treasure, but at 90 feet lay a stone tablet that looked like this.
For decades the tablet was thought to be garbage, it wasn’t until the 1860s when an academic,
James Leitchi, the Professor of Languages at Dalhousie University successfully decoded
the tablet’s cipher text.
When decoded the tablet reads "Forty Feet Below, Two Million Pounds Are Buried."
Since the tablet was found at 90 feet excavators believe the treasure lies at a depth of 130
feet.
There have been many more excavation attempts since but all have been foiled by the pits
series of ingenious traps.
In fact 6 treasure hunters have lost their lives in the Oak Island Money Pit.
To this day, nobody knows who built it or why and if there even is treasure at the bottom,
and it remains one of the greatest mysteries on earth.
4.
During World War II through plundering throughout Europe, the Nazis amassed some of the greatest
treasures the world has ever known.
From priceless artworks to never-ending hoards of diamonds and vast reserves of gold, and
a large majority of it has been missing ever since the last few days of the second world
war.
It is believed there are reserves of lost Nazi gold all throughout Europe in hidden
underground bunkers and shipwrecks.
However a notable amount of Nazi gold, priceless artworks and over 134 million pounds worth
of forged Pound Sterling currency…
was packed into metal containers then taken on a long hike up the Austrian Alps to a mountain
lake called Lake Toplitz and tossed in the lake during the last dying days of the war.
Numerous dives have been attempted to recover the treasure but the lake is hazardous and
there is no oxygen below a depth of 20m meaning dives have only been able to recover a fraction
of the treasure.
It is rumoured that the majority of the treasure still lies on the bottom of the lake.
5.
If you want to get your hands on one of the most valuable treasures ever known to man
you will have to get your diving gear on, because it’s at the bottom of the Atlantic
Ocean.
In 1712, Spain assembled one of the richest treasure fleets to ever grace the ocean.
It consisted of 11 ships filled to the brim gold, silver, pearls and jewels, collectively
worth over $2 billion dollars by today’s standards.
The plan was to set sail from Cuba just before hurricane season hit, hoping the hurricane
season would deter pirates.
But it turned out to be a big mistake, just six days after leaving Cuba, the entire fleet
perished at the hands of the hurricane, the treasures and all were sent to a water grave.
Since then seven of the ships have been recovered just off the east coast of Florida, but experts
believe the recovered ships only contain a fraction of the massive loot.
They believe that the main bulk of the treasure was contained on the main vessel, the San
Miguel, and it is yet to be found.
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