After looking for five days, they found no trace of Dametz and the case was closed. Yamashita, known as the . Marcos soon learned that if he wanted to maximise the value of his finds, he needed to transform the ancient gold bars into a format that could be exchanged on modern gold markets, namely the London gold standard. 0000007779 00000 n
Andrew Gough. I was further astounded by the conversation that continued off camera. LOS ANGELES (AP) Robert Hunter, the man behind the poetic and mystical words for many of the Grateful Dead's finest songs, has died at age 78. I was excited to hear what Jose had to say about Japanese treasure in the Philippines, but was informed by the director that my presence was not welcome in the interview room. I was also disappointed to learn that the History Channel had made a reality TV series about a team of questers seeking Japanese treasure in the Philippines, after every channel and production house informed me it was a bad idea. 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. What did Roger say? Cite this article: 0000009660 00000 n
McDougald, who has lived here for more than a decade and secured his doctorate in business from the University of the Philippines in 1983, is not the moving force behind the dig. Not much time was left to pursue the constant enquiries from the Philippines for funding and assistance in various treasure-site excavations around the archipelago. I sat down with Cathcart and his wife in their affluent Beverly Hills home, and was joined by their live-in carer, who sat nearby, listening intently to our every word. Roxas would need more time and money in order to proceed, and thus he sold seven of the gold bars and initiated the sale of the golden buddha. Ultimately, Valmores gave up forty of the lesser site maps that he had in his possession, in order to save his life. My spare time was spent editing the Heretic Magazine with my friends Mark Foster and Beth Johnson. Then, at an infamous event, where President Marcos ordered the slaughter of his opponents at a political rally and blamed the ensuing grenade attacks on the Communists, Roxas escaped once more. Curiously, my GoPro showed only the opening and concluding moments of the procedure and nothing in between; a physical impossibility. On the contrary, this young man was conspicuously well informed and appeared to possess some highly classified information. I could hardly move. Now they moved with a kinetic energy I had never experienced before. With a change of shirt I descended once again into the abyss. Not surprisingly, some of Klauss workers will no longer venture to the bottom of the tunnel complex. The Japanese are believed to have visited Germany in the late 1930s, where they not only learned the technique of carving tunnels out of sheer earth and stone, but also how to backfill the tunnels with naturally coloured concrete known as German cement, in order to camouflage them, and to ensure that they did not look man made to novice treasure hunters. 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. Not bad for a sixty-nine-year-old. I nodded and reflected on how pathetically difficult I found traversing the tunnel to be. They were retaken by the Allied forces over the course of a brutal year culminating with the Japanese surrender in September 1945. The director trying to get the old woman to recapture on camera what she had said off camera. He was dazed, and yet actually excited about what he believed had caused it. However, the legal fees and the cost of the trials ate up so much cash that only $175,000 remained. Its akin to what was found in Egypt in the pyramids. It smelled remarkable. The treasure locations are spread all across the land of Red Dead Redemption. Klaus leading me through the cobra-infested rice paddies London Review of Books. Fortuitously, Cheatham took a photo of himself with the golden buddha. This entire field was part of the Japanese military base, you see., The low-growing tree that points towards the gold The enormity of the tragedy is underscored by the fact that the Roxas family have yet to be paid their settlement. How exciting is that?, Klaus posing with a Japanese treasure symbol, a heart, which he found in a backfilled treasure tunnel Bob assumed that Billy must be nearby. I was not aware that Peggy had passed away the previous year, and that Sterling had only just passed in May 2017, aged 80. President Marcos consults with Las Vegas-based psychic, Olof Jonsson. Each day after class she dug in the back garden of the schoolyard. 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. Curtis, who is now in the Philippines but insists that McDougald act as his spokesman, says that he and 10 other Americans successfully conducted a similar treasure hunt under the regime of. Roxass quest continued to attract other like-minded seekers. I protested and attempted to leave a second time, but was restrained. The cobra was violently thrashing about. Our conversation prompted me to reach out to Roxass wife and daughter. From what? Klaus shared that he felt many were not reputable insomuch as they often claimed to not be feeling it today and concluded I need to come back tomorrow, effectively doubling their income. Multiple men began to go missing or die in Deadmen Valley following the decapitation of the McLeod brothers. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. Klaus and I continued our daily Skype calls and I could sense he was making real progress. Oihara was there too. And over here we have a marker stone, Klaus added in his patented Austrian deadpan. Sadly, the worst scenario materialised. Night fell, and Billy never returned. 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. I had to see the Baguio Hospital treasure site for myself. When I came across leaves in my tunnel complex I had only another ten feet or so left until I was in the chamber. I was fascinated, not only by the camaraderie between treasure hunters, and the fact that other Imperial treasures had been discovered, but also by the fact that Klaus was actually as close to the prize as he thought he was. Amelia also recounted how the spirit of Roxas had instructed her to wake up and look at her Facebook page, and in doing so she would discover someone who could help the Roxas family reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Hunter died Monday at his Northern California home . I wondered if he was employed by the same people that had assassinated Roxas? See Photos. 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. We are not at the bottom yet? Roxas may have been a beaten man, both literally and figuratively, but he was no fool. I wondered. He was reclusive, choosing to work in private with researchers he trusted and, in recent years, he had gone completely dark. He struck me as a good guy, claiming to know very little about the Roxas story and wanting to learn what the fuss was all about. 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. Japan probably had no surplus from any foreign plundering, and it made no sense to send anything valuable to the Philippines where they knew it was soon going to fall into American hands. His conviction was supported by four first-hand accounts and multiple treasure maps given to him by eyewitnesses. The doomed engineers had installed booby traps at each of the one hundred and seventy-five treasure sites either explosives and/or cyanide. To come this close and not visit it would be such a shame, I thought. At midnight, General Yamashita and the princes slipped out, and dynamite charges were set off in the access tunnels, entombing the engineers. You can also find her on Twitter. As he detailed the story of how he first became embroiled with Roxas, his manner and cadence reminded me of Jimmy Stewart, or Tom Hanks. The cobra settles down in its mesh cage This is something I was told had happened to other treasure hunters as well. Cathcart replied without hesitation, as though it were yesterday, and proceeded to list several witnesses who had, in fact, collaborated Roxass story: Ken Cheatham: an American GI who was stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines in the 1970s. 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. startxref
Literally, out from the shadows, another treasure hunter emerged and interrupted, asking, Did I hear you say that you have found leaves in the tunnel? Can it? She logged onto Facebook and discovered a post featuring a link to The Truth About Yamashitas Gold documentary. Whatever I had expected a Japanese tunnel system to be was wrong or at least greatly miscalculated. In his extensive research on the subject, Seagrave recounted how in one horrific incident in June 1945, as US tanks approached from twenty miles away, the one hundred and seventy-five chief engineers who were responsible for each of the sites were given a farewell party two hundred and twenty feet underground, in a complex known as Tunnel 8. What struck me instantly was how deep Klaus had dug since I first visited. We can gain some insight into part of this by looking into who these authors were and the cultural context in which they wrote. The next morning, Bob reported that his friend was missing. Many believed the whole Golden Lily affair was pure fiction, and yet United States President George Bush was on record as saying the Philippines was the richest nation on the planet. For these, the Shinto priests communicated to those with eyes to see in a different language of symbols to that of the military treasure sites, as I would soon discover. Had he been part of the Golden Lily conspiracy? It had been April fools day, indeed. On my last night, after dinner, Klaus brought out a perfectly shaped cement heart complete with a flawlessly carved artery. Still, I had but one thought on my mind. The year was 1976. I scaled the second descending passage with slightly greater confidence and speed than the first, and as I arrived at the bottom and crept along the next tunnel passage to where Klaus was standing, I was amazed to see that the floor and walls were perfectly smooth. I inspected it closely and from all angles. Andrew Gough. Phils skeleton was lying on the ground outside the cabin. Dan Cathcart at his home, taking me through his Roxas v Marcos file As I suspected, he was questing for Japanese treasure pillaged from Asia, but how he had got started was another story altogether. 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. 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. As he reflected on the significance of his experience, I remember thinking once more that I just wanted to leave. 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. It detailed the work he had done in the Philippines as part of a team led by Nevada treasure hunter Robert H. Curtis. Scientists competed in their attempt to somehow prove that a soul left the body at the time of death. Curiously, his death was not announced publicly until ninety days later. In 1931, a fur trapper named Phil Powers decided to try his luck at striking it rich. It was clear, however, that as brilliant as Jose was at Second World War history, he was pretty much winging it with the rest. The only problem was he was already dead. Fineman, M. "Japanese War Loot Sought: Gold Diggers May Help Manila Pay Off Huge Debt." This was but the precursor to the sobering conditions I would encounter when I explored Klauss first tunnel-system site. 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. 0000002456 00000 n
More of that, he encouraged. Still, this was easier than hiking through the thick underbrush. Phil never returned from his trip, so the police were called. 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. He had a copper mining company and also staked a claim on plots of land that he used to mine gold. The director films Klaus in the flooded tunnel complex over two hundred feet below the surface I was tempted and left with a belief that their site was an authentic Japanese treasure site. Slowly putting his ruined life back together, he moved from Reno to Las Vegas . Within hours of the news becoming public, the Philippine Senate adopted a resolution urging Aquino to bar foreigners from hunting for treasure in the Philippines. I soon learned what Klaus was doing in the Philippines, and how he had ended up there. This show is made possible by financial support from listeners like you. I was amazed, and excited. The director was beaming with approval. Parts of it appeared carved. He met his wife Peggy in the United States after both had become prominent figures in JFK assassination conspiracy theories. I never expected such a gruelling journey. It was going to be easy to bust this guy, I confidently thought. We exchanged emails, became friends, and made plans to meet at his home outside Carcassonne, France. Over the years Roxas became convinced that Yamashita had buried a great treasure in Baguio, and his stature as president of the Philippine Treasure Hunters Association attracted many acquaintances who would confirm his hunch. 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. 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. Best known as lyricist for some of the best known Jerry Garcia / Grateful Dead songs and his various collaborations with Bob Dylan. He never came back. Many return home empty-handed. Find your friends on Facebook. He quickly set out to tell his own story, one that did not follow the agreed storyline. Dametz was in poor health, so he needed help from McSherry to get to his digging spot, a small sandy pit in the middle of the forest. I was also looking forward to seeing Patrick again, a larger-than-life friend of Klauss whom I had met on my first trip. Obviously, this challenge made it into the press. Despite the depth, there were still twelve inches of water that needed negotiating. His friend preferred to stay anonymous, but lets call him Bob for the sake of the story. I believe its here. 1988. When he had finished his verbal dissertation, which, to be fair, included some impressive insights, the director asked him some leading questions about other aspects of the story. The initial award was $43 billion the largest civil judgement in history. Andrew Gough. The bogtalay tree is regarded as sacred in the East. Those who did not kill themselves ritually would gradually suffocate, surrounded by gold bars. Curtis to meet privately with a . He failed These sites were protected by ancient rituals performed by Shinto priests. Within hours Roxas was dead. Luis Mendoza: a Filipino goldsmith who had examined the golden buddha on behalf of Roxas and drilled holes in its neck to obtain the powder necessary to confirm that the statue was, in fact, 22 carat gold. Baguio Hospital, where Roxas made his famous discovery The men asserted that they had been blindfolded and taken to a warehouse, where they had been shown an enormous stash of gold bars. Roxas escaped from his hotel and testified in front of the Senate once more, before ultimately being arrested for not appearing at the court hearing for his alleged illegal arms possession. I had forgotten about the legend of Japanese treasure buried in the Philippines, save for the occasional outreach of Filipinos who had seen The Truth About Yamashitas Gold and were looking to secure funding for their own excavations, when I was contacted by a very curious woman from Los Angeles. Explaining how the fatal cave-in happened, McDougald began to sound as if he was talking about the Temple of Doom, as well as looking the part. Needless to say, Klaus was buoyant with the news. Amelia was a Filipino living in Los Angeles, who had gone to high school in Baguio with Roxass sister. I had seen the photos, but they did not prepare me for the sheer enormity of the quest he was undertaking. By the time I arrived at the next bamboo ladder my knees were cut and bleeding. Marcos had them tortured until they gave up the location of the treasure, whereupon he took it all, thus becoming fabulously wealthy. 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. They needed money to purchase the land and were offering a very comprehensive excavation plan. Robert Hunter, the man behind the poetic and mystical words for many of the Grateful Dead's finest songs, has died at age 78. After they began damaging historical landmarks, public and political pressure kicked them out of the country yet again. Curtis got plugged in and unexpectedly became far more than a mere key cog in the gold-hunting wheel, overseeing not only the retrieval and sanctifying process, but the site discovery process as well. He left Colorado in search of the lost gold mine in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. 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. Local authorities never explained where they found the bodies or what they believed was the cause of death. I, on the other hand, was experiencing a fair bit of disappointment. After a long morning of work, Bob and Billy decided to take an afternoon nap. Andrew Gough. Roger ROXAS and The Golden Budha Corporation, a foreign corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-Appellants, v. Ferdinand E. MARCOS and Imelda Marcos, Defendants-Appellants/Cross-Appellees. We proceeded to film three of Klauss four sites, the fourth being too flooded to enter. For three years, people searched for Jesse and could not find any trace of his remains. Despite the fact the Klaus always lights incense and states his intentions before descending, they have experienced the same sensation I have plus the even more disturbing impression that someone was tapping them on their shoulder. I was lying on a table in my underwear with a sheet laid over my body. Klaus was already at the bottom as I made my way down slowly, cautiously, and deliberately. For their safety I will refrain from stating where I met them, but suffice to say it was worth the journey. In addition, he is a co-founder of Gemini Marine Exploration, the company that specializes in recovery of historical shipwrecks. The award was later substantially reduced and nothing was ever collected. 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