When the cave-in become public Feb. 29, McDougald and his group were forced to go public as well. I wondered. McSherry left Dametz and found his own sandpit about 45 meters (150 ft) away. The treasure still has not been found. Lansdale could not believe his luck and promptly informed US General Douglas MacArthur, who returned to the Philippines to inspect the extraordinary discovery for himself. From what? Still, I had but one thought on my mind. And so, while we all love a story of lost gold and would thrill to plunge a shovel into a green hillside that we suspect conceals an endless fortune, the urban legend of Yamashita's Gold is another of those most unlikely to have a happy ending. 24 Aug. 2005, Newspaper. Robert Hunter, the longtime lyricist for Grateful Dead, died on Sept. 23, 2019; he was 78. The oddest chapter in this urban legend is often cited as legitimate proof that the United States recognizes the treasure to be real. Yet Hunter, who passed away on Monday evening at the age of 78, did . She introduced herself on Facebook and proceeded to say that she had been pronounced dead, not once but twice, only to survive each time. Many of these men were infected New Yorkers who had traveled to California. Ballinger recounted the story to Roxas, who he often visited on his trips to the Philippines, adding that the entrance to the tunnel had been in the vicinity of a concrete pillbox, the name given to a small, partly underground concrete fort used as an outpost. Andrew Gough. Posing in front of the replica gold bars that Roger Roxas discovered Soriano, who has been quoted as estimating the buried wealth at $900 billion and is currently overseeing the Ft. Santiago dig, told The Times in a recent interview: To my knowledge, nothing has been recovered yet. In the days following the extraction of the golden buddha, Roxas returned and blew up the entrance to the tunnel so that others could not follow in his footsteps. I never expected such a gruelling journey. Andrew Gough, Patrick interviews Roger Roxass son, Henry This guy is a celebrated rock star in the Philippines, and there were posters of him all over campus. Claiming a treasure hunter bounty . Eventually, Roxas and his team identified the entrance and discovered various artefacts, such as Japanese bayonets, rifles, and even a human skeleton in a Japanese uniform. The story has inspired many books to be written, and many artists have created works based by the event. He found the whole thing rather ridiculous and naive, and hastily threw the flyer in the rubbish bin beneath his desk. Andrew Gough. It was entirely out of context of our discussion to have done so. To reach the site that were targeting, we left the dense jungle behind and walked up a rapidly flowing stream and a couple small waterfalls; a tricky endeavour at the best of times, but while carrying camera equipment, it was rather treacherous. Its going to be dusty, dirty, and there are going to be rodents and spiders, and were probably going to find the gold bars lying on the floor down there somewhere., McDougald said he based his belief that treasure exists on the material that his group is using to locate the site--World War II-era Japanese maps and later engineering drawings and photographs supplied by Curtis. They dug through and then, almost a year to the date when they had first plunged a shovel into the ground, they discovered a golden buddha, along with twenty-four small gold bars, each one inch wide, two inches long, and half an inch thick. It dried and fell out, leaving a cavity, and the dirt collapsed inside, causing the tunnel to cave in.. It detailed the work he had done in the Philippines as part of a team led by Nevada treasure hunter Robert H. Curtis. In the background I continued to promote a treatment I had written for a reality TV show, that I would present, that would feature the quest for Japanese treasure in the Philippines, and sent it to all the usual history shows and their production companies. The sheer brutality of the working conditions is what struck me the most; the small, incremental gains that each day brought; hand and chisel, hauling rubble from the reclaimed tunnel backfill back up to the top. Oihara was there too. Obviously, this challenge made it into the press. Part of me understood why the director struggled with the filming, and ultimately did a poor job. No one disputes that the Japanese did plunder most of the Southeast Asian countries they conquered and stored some of their loot in the Philippines, which was among the last of their subjugated territories to be liberated by the Allies. Random encounter with treasure hunter. For a short time Roxas went into hiding near Manila and was provided with bodyguards and a place to live. 0000002456 00000 n In 1975, Marcos turned to an American mining engineer named Robert Curtis. Watch the two-hour special of The Curse of Yamashitas Gold on Forbidden History, Series 6, on Discovery Science and other international channels from April 2020. He was integrity personified. The Asian Pacific Post. The United States had stumbled upon the greatest treasure hoards in history, including more gold bullion than was known to be in existence, and would use this unfathomable wealth to influence world affairs, win the Cold War, launch a space programme, and create a new world order. Is that really necessary? I stared at him with a knowing look one that could not conceal the fact that I was now questioning his identity. When his body was finally discovered in 2012, it was 11 meters (35 ft) off the ground inside a crevasse on the edge of a cliff. 0000009660 00000 n What interests might the United States have that would enable the Supreme Court decision to be ignored? When he finally went to look for them, he came upon the skeletons of Willie and Frank lying next to a creek where they had set up camp. They chose to go on a day when it was 46 degrees Celsius (115 F), but they didnt bring their cell phones with them. Their uncle, Charlie McLeod, was worried because they never wrote home. Andrew Gough. Unfortunately, my role in the narrative would be minimal. The only way to recover his body was via helicopter. Back on the surface the cameraman filmed various objects that Klaus had found in the tunnel backfill: symbols such as seashells, leaves, gold dust and other assorted items that should not exist at that depth in the earth, and certainly not with man-made cement and gold dust embedded in them. I approached the manager in charge and asked him what they were digging for. In 2015, IBM UK had their annual kick-off meeting in Los Angeles, and so I took the opportunity to visit Amelia. Throughout his career in mainstream journalism, Seagrave descended deeper and deeper into conspiracy mongering. This cannot be real. What could go wrong? Of course, everyone acts oblivious and says there is no such landmark in the area. 0000007779 00000 n Henry proudly highlights the victorious Roxas v Marcos Supreme Court case Most were situated on Japanese military bases, while others were located near landmarks that would be remembered in coming years, such as hospitals, schools, churches, mountains and waterfalls. I watched the show and their drive-by shooting approach to treasure hunting with dread. I suppose alls well that ends well. It seems Burgess was so impressed with the man-made-tunnel footage that he had changed his mind and was open to the possibility that Klaus was close to a discovery. It is not a pleasant journey to the bottom of the tunnel complex: three descents down makeshift ladders and three separate crawls on ones hands and knees. There, some say, it remains today waiting for someone possibly for you to find it and walk away. For Roxas, greater Manila was ripe with hiding places Curtis to meet privately with a . Nope, we had to move on; places to be. They began holding press conferences to try to raise more money in which they claimed to have found tunnels stacked to the ceiling with gold bars (but hadn't thought to take any pictures or bring back any evidence), and these claims sufficiently irked the government to the point that his team was expelled from the country in 1975. The director simply said, whenever you are ready, and he proceeded to speak uninterrupted for over an hour. Andrew Gough. The buddha was decidedly Burmese in style: 22 carat gold and of a type produced in Asia prior to 1940. I knew we were essentially talking to the taxman about poetry. It seems Henry returned to the site as an adult, many years later, in the late 1980s, and dynamited the entrance shut once more, in order to protect what he believes to be even more gold bullion buried beneath Marcoss excavation. Andrew Gough. As I was banned from listening to the conventional historian do this thing, I became more convinced than ever that the director was orchestrating a hatchet job for the two-hour season premiere of the show. Klaus was already at the bottom as I made my way down slowly, cautiously, and deliberately. Marcos courted Curtis with talk of incredible stashes of WW2 loot hidden on the island. I went for a walk around campus and when I returned the production manager politely asked me to join them, as they were about to begin, and so I did. Descending into another of Klauss amazing tunnel systems About a month after my return I opened WhatsApp on my iPhone and discovered a message from Roger Roxass daughter, whom I had visited in the States a few years earlier, but who I had not spoken with for some time. Wait a minute not so fast, I quipped. Scientists competed in their attempt to somehow prove that a soul left the body at the time of death. No thanks Roxas at the Golden Buddha hearing (from a clipping at the Roger Roxas museum in Baguio) Before long they gained access to the tunnel system, including tracks, rails and side tunnels. The old woman was sensational and described how she and her family had hidden in the hills as the Japanese processed by with an ox pulling a cart that contained what appeared to be a heavy box. Serendipitously, later that year I reached out to Klaus Dona, the respected ancient-history authority, to ask if he would write an article for the magazine. MacArthur was rendered speechless after walking down countless rows of gold bars stacked over two metres high, and promptly notified United States President Harry S Truman of the discovery, who immediately deemed it a state secret. It was almost a year to the date of my first visit and now, like then, I had managed to arrive in the middle of the monsoon season. . They were in their sleeping bags, but their heads were missing. The governor claims that there was no evidence of a massacre, so no one can assume that it happened. His treasure tunnels would be sure to dazzle viewers. 1 Mar 2023. The bad news was that nobody on the production team believed that the Japanese had buried treasure in the Philippines, let alone that Klaus was about to discover some of it. I examined it closely. 0000002983 00000 n Things became even worse. When Marcos discovered that the photo had been widely published he made the CIA pressure Cheatham into signing an affidavit certifying that the golden buddha was not gold, or else face certain death in Vietnam. She was greeted by a well-dressed, professional looking man who gave her some medicine for Roger, as he had noticed how poorly he was looking and was concerned for his health. Roger Roxas was a former Filipino soldier turned locksmith, and president of the Treasure Hunters Association of the Philippines, who lived in Baguio, a mountainous resort town about 130 miles north of Manila. In hindsight, I concluded that I had overstated my projected return on investment even though I knew it was real, and that it must have sounded outrageous and not very credible. With Henry Roxas, Rogers treasure-hunting son Cheatham was obsessed with legends of Yamashitas gold and frequently visited Baguio in search of Japanese artefacts. Frustratingly, he was unable to recapture what she had so convincingly and spontaneously said previously, leading the director to believe we had made it all up. I arrived late, dined with Klaus, and the following morning he and his trusted colleague picked me up in the quintessential Philippine vehicle of choice, a motorised tricycle. The charges are completely new to me. This included dismissing cyanide as a poison that can travel through the air, and numerous character attacks on Seagrave and Curtis. Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, 6 Mar. Andrew Gough. Their relationship was complex to say the least. I had heard many stories about this guy. This is the basic theme of the urban legend known today as Yamashita's Gold. The day before they were due to depart, she walked downstairs from their hotel room and entered the bakery at street level. After looking for five days, they found no trace of Dametz and the case was closed. During World War II, the Philippines briefly fell to the Japanese, being finally surrendered in April and May of 1942. When McDougald replied that he does, Maceda asked wryly, Well, the publicity about all this is not going to hurt your book, is it?, McDougald leaned forward, smiled and replied, No sir, I dont think so.. The Japanese strategy was two-fold: strip the East of their cultural identity, while returning priceless treasures back to Japan to fund their military, political and economic world dominance for the next thousand years. I was later told he had decided he did not like me before we ever met. Poster of the fake golden buddha (from the Roxas Museum in Baguio) I unambiguously felt them probing around beneath the surface of my skin. You climb down and back up each of these sites twice a day? I asked in disbelief. He left Colorado in search of the lost gold mine in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. My spare time was spent editing the Heretic Magazine with my friends Mark Foster and Beth Johnson. The bogtalay tree is regarded as sacred in the East. It would later be appealed and reduced to $22 billion, because the court could not be certain of the contents of each and every wooden crate that was removed from the tunnel system behind Baguio Hospital. Patrick is a great guy, an avid treasure hunter, and was to interview Henry Roxas for the show. The remains of the Shinto shrine entrance to the Japanese military headquarters in Klauss village Presenting on The Truth about Yamashitas Gold. Each time Curtis was requested by Marcos to select a new site to excavate, Valmores was dispatched to provide the treasure map. 0000001139 00000 n The golden buddha was real but not the gold bullion. I could not believe he knew about it all, let alone had such a peculiar opinion about it. Imelda Marcos now claims her husbands wealth came from Yamashitas gold. Never-before-seen photos of authentic Black Eagle Trust bank statements, representing but a small portion of the wealth acquired from Japanese gold. As my interest in the mystery deepened, I reengaged with Sterling Seagrave, the almost singular voice of truth on the subject. The caretaker had lost fingers and toes from chemicals released in the treasure site Klauss partner had a video of a woman she had accompanied to the healer who had removed her friends stomach, cleaned it and then put it back; no surgical equipment required. Skeptoid Podcast. Marcos men were elated, and they never enquired about the other one hundred and thirty-five treasure maps. Bob Curtis. I was told of bus loads of cancer patients who arrived with hope and left with their cancer extracted and physically placed in their hands. Fred C. Dobbs, the protagonist of B. Traven 's 1927 novel, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and the movie of the same name. Klaus extended his elbows and fixed his clenched fists against his chest. The wife and daughter of Roger Roxas There was no blood or any sign of struggle. In order to protect himself from further abuse, he formed the Golden Buddha Corporation (GBC) with Felix Dacaney, a childhood friend who was living near Atlanta, and assigned his interest in the case to the GBC. He never came back. I had met Klaus in 2010, when we had both presented at an alternative-history conference called Megalithomania, in Glastonbury, England. Unfortunately, there had also been a cholera outbreak in New York City from the drinking water at that time. Andrew Gough. Its a heart a symbol placed in the tunnel by the Shinto priests, he replied proudly. Though the loot is generically referred to here as Yamashitas Treasure, after Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the last Japanese commanding general in the Philippines, McDougald said the treasure that his group is seeking was probably buried in the fort during 1943, 1944 and 1945 by various Japanese generals. Fuchigami recounted a time when his father had taken him to a treasure tunnel behind Baguio Hospital, and explained how the tunnel tracks and handrails had been used for transporting large quantities of gold. For Roxas, it was a puzzle piece he had long sought. Death was one idea that neither Burchfield nor the Dead shied away from. Andrew Gough. Seagrave describes the event like the master storyteller that he was: As the evening progressed, they drank great quantities of sake, sang patriotic songs and shouted Banzai (long life) over and over. I was amazed. When we opened the tunnel, air hit the sand. Prior to his death, Fuchigamis father presented him with a coded map of the treasure complex. Klaus dismissed his dowser, who he felt was taking advantage, and began performing the task himself. The liberal opposition party rallied around Roxas, as they saw an opportunity to gain ground on Marcos, and encouraged him to testify in the Philippine Senate. As a result, experienced treasure hunters do not use explosives or, for that matter, motorised devices. Even Imelda Marcos confessed that her husbands wealth had come from Yamashitas gold. A love of China and its people ran deep in young Sterling's blood. It read, I understand you met with my brother, Henry, in Baguio. Klaus riding safely; shotgun in his chauffeured tricycle He also informed the press, who also ignored him at least initially. Andrew Gough. Off camera, Patrick asked what I felt to be the most illuminating question of the afternoon. Andrew Gough. They were retaken by the Allied forces over the course of a brutal year culminating with the Japanese surrender in September 1945. LOS ANGELES Robert Hunter, the man behind the poetic and mystical words for many of the Grateful Dead's finest songs, has died at age 78. A powerful, all-purpose line that hit the sweet spot of subversive clichs, it made speakers appear smarter than they are. Roxas was assassinated. They drove down the road to an area called Topaz Point to search for minerals. Crawling through twelve inches of water at the bottom of a tunnel complex after walking through rice paddies in the rain was not my idea of fun. I was intrigued and found myself engrossed in the mystery once more. or. In fact, in Klauss humble village there was a new cemetery under construction when I visited the first time that would make Forest Lawn blush with envy. The plan was that I was to be the quester and Klaus was to be the person who convinces me the whole thing is real. After a long but successful walk I arrived at Klauss most remote treasure site. Whatever they did plunder had likely been well spent building the Imperial Navy well before the end of the war. Thats incredible, but tell me more. Heres a list, Greek transportation minister resigns over train collision that killed at least 36, Ohios senators to unveil rail safety bill in wake of East Palestine derailment, After months of pounding, Ukrainian official says military may pull back from Bakhmut, 19 cafes that make L.A. a world-class coffee destination, Shocking, impossible gas bills push restaurants to the brink of closures, Elizabeth Holmes cites her new baby as a reason she should avoid prison for Theranos scam, What time is it on the moon? I had packed industrial-strength gloves and knee pads! For weeks, the government deliberately tried to keep that digging a secret. The smell of decomposed bodies was palpable and they halted work while the disconcerting gasses subsided. One sudden stop or turn and my head would be severed. 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