Of course, everyone acts oblivious and says there is no such landmark in the area. Andrew Gough. My spare time was spent editing the Heretic Magazine with my friends Mark Foster and Beth Johnson. He heard of what the locals called Second World War ghost ships; large Japanese freighters that arrived in the evening and, after unloading countless boxes into a tunnel system, had disappeared by daybreak. Intriguingly, Santy introduced Marcos to Imelda, and once dated the former beauty queen back in the day. Throughout his career in mainstream journalism, Seagrave descended deeper and deeper into conspiracy mongering. I returned to England and became engulfed by life and my time-consuming corporate job. Roxas claimed they tried to sell the Buddha to finance removal of the treasure, and this attracted the attention of Marcos. Much to their horror, the driver then performed a three-point turn and accelerated at the Seagraves, forcing them to dive into the ditch where they collected themselves before running for cover in nearby woodland. During one fateful visit Cheatham visited Roxas just days after his discovery. It was bucketing down. 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. He said, until recent times a large metal stake had been secured by the Japanese in a nearby tree that pointed to the spot. I was especially interested in what had happened to the ancient relics of the East, and what exactly, if anything, remains to be discovered. Roxas claimed that some 25 years earlier, using a map given to him by the son of a Japanese soldier, he and a team of friends discovered a cave filled with gold, including a golden Buddha, plus the skeletons of the soldiers and engineers who had been sealed inside. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. Most of it, he said, is Curtis own money. 26 Apr. Yes, thats correct, Klaus replied pensively. Yet Hunter, who passed away on Monday evening at the age of 78, did . Andrew Gough, Patrick interviews Roger Roxass son, Henry Hunter died Monday at his Northern California home . His luck was about to change. You dont mind if Klaus videotapes this, do you? I asked cautiously, but with a tone that suggested I would not be denied. Amelia claimed to have been contacted by Ferdinand Marcos, the deceased former president of the Philippines, who thanked her for her prayers and informed her that he was in purgatory. The Japanese Massacre of Nanjing, the then capital of China, 1937. 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. Why are we still having these debates? 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. Treasure comes in two forms: Treasure Maps Unique Gold Bars In order to find a treasure, the player must obtain a Treasure Map, decipher it, and travel to the location depicted. I was tempted and left with a belief that their site was an authentic Japanese treasure site. In a separate but related ruling, Roxas was awarded $6 million for the torture and false imprisonment he endured. No-one was interested. Andrew Gough. But the real treasure was buried much deeper still. 0
The new, freelance director who had been hired to replace him had read my LinkedIn profile and decided that my business background meant I was not someone he wanted to feature. The men asserted that they had been blindfolded and taken to a warehouse, where they had been shown an enormous stash of gold bars. A rare photograph of Roxas in the Baguio tunnel system. 0000001447 00000 n
For their safety I will refrain from stating where I met them, but suffice to say it was worth the journey. I had come across some real charlatans in my time, but nevertheless I was listening politely and was relieved to discover that Klaus agreed with my bias. He was there as the Imperial Japanese army ransacked much of China and southeast Asia, and he was there for the duration of World War II; and he grew up knowing little about the Japanese besides that they were the world's aggressors, and the brutal assailants of a peaceful people. I was moved by Cathcarts story; it was epic, tragic and inspirational. Andrew Gough. startxref
Operation Golden Lily and the Black Eagle Trust Fund are absent from all the world's historical texts that I searched, save those written in support of this particular mythology. I stared at him with a knowing look one that could not conceal the fact that I was now questioning his identity. I was to tone down my enthusiasm, and bias, for the benefit of the narrative. They have a tendency to overreach, exaggerating the roles of Japanese gangsters and ex-military American bit-players when the bankers, politicians and CIA operatives are scary enough. The story has inspired many books to be written, and many artists have created works based by the event. Andrew Gough. I had felt the same energy when I was dowsing with Klaus. ; There are a total of 4 of these High Stakes Treasure maps hunt, but you only receive a reward from the final treasure map worth $1500. By JOHN ROGERS September 24, 2019. Andrew Gough. Off camera, Patrick asked what I felt to be the most illuminating question of the afternoon. Roxass life was not his own. Each day after class she dug in the back garden of the schoolyard. The director reluctantly filmed it. 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. Slowly putting his ruined life back together, he moved from Reno to Las Vegas . I had delivered Discovered Science a sensational story, one that would feature Klauss network premier. In my mind I visualised a hole running straight through my body and out the other side. Not long after his disappearance, hikers found a tin can on the edge of the 55-meter (180 ft) cliff that simply said, Jesse Capen was here. A single boot, drivers license, and camping gear were all recovered, but he was nowhere to be found.[9]. When he walked back to Dametzs spot only fifteen minutes later, the doctor was gone. No autopsy was performed, despite Cathcarts request, and the official cause of death was ruled as tuberculosis. He quickly succeeded, for he was saying something about cyanide. Their relationship was complex to say the least. With a change of shirt I descended once again into the abyss. Could he have harnessed the legendary viral energy that I had read so much about? She gave the pills to her husband, who took them and swiftly died. McSherry left Dametz and found his own sandpit about 45 meters (150 ft) away. Jim Hawkins, the protagonist of Robert Louis Stevenson 's 1881 novel, Treasure Island. This is how wide you can dig. I detected decades of guilt and sadness that had become imprinted on her face. Never-before-seen photos of authentic Black Eagle Trust bank statements, representing but a small portion of the wealth acquired from Japanese gold. The site we were hiking to was remote, and near a natural landmark that was apparently mentioned in the Japanese treasure maps. To come this close and not visit it would be such a shame, I thought. Ken Cheatham with Roger Roxas and the golden buddha. Klaus was already at the bottom as I made my way down slowly, cautiously, and deliberately. Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, 6 Mar. 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. An estate lawyer looked over his Last Will and Testament. Much to his surprise, and with no background or training in the discipline, Klaus achieved instant success. It was impossible for any man in my position to control every action of his subordinate commanders, let alone the deeds of individual soldiers. At one point Cathcart questioned Roxas for five days straight. The Japanese constructed their subterranean treasure networks with the aid of a thousand young men, mostly prisoners of war who worked three eight-hour shifts a day to create a complex series of tunnels and chambers deep underground. The driver proceeded to peer out of the passenger-side window, as if he was trying to confirm their identity. We ascended the tunnel system and on the surface above Klaus performed a master class in dowsing. He left Colorado in search of the lost gold mine in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. The governor claims that there was no evidence of a massacre, so no one can assume that it happened. As a result, I was frequently contacted by Filipinos who believed they had located lost Japanese treasure hoards and were seeking both expertise and financial assistance in support of their proposed excavations. In addition, he is a co-founder of Gemini Marine Exploration, the company that specializes in recovery of historical shipwrecks. How to Extract Adrenochrome from Children, Why You Needn't Worry About the Missing 411. He said that Roger only came out of hiding in 1988, shortly after President Marcos had fled to Hawaii while under house arrest. The Seagraves seminal whistle-blowing book, Gold Warriors. Anderson reported that Curtis group supplied the maps, which marked an estimated $100 billion in treasure, to Marcos, who used the group to track and recover about $14 billion. The Awa Maru went to the bottom of Formosa Strait, 14 miles off the Chinese mainland with 2,007 souls and at least $500 million worth of war loot hidden aboard. The United States could not risk the truth about the gold and treasures that the Japanese had buried in the Philippines coming to light, especially as a large portion of it was now theirs. Klaus confided that he was working on four different sites and shared the many clues and symbols that he had discovered in each. Andrew Gough. Absolutely not, the healer said. See Photos. Please contact us with any corrections or feedback. For weeks, nearly a dozen members of Aquinos elite presidential security guard cordoned off the entire fort to keep the treasure hunt a secret and to ensure that the government receives its rightful 75% cut of anything McDougalds group finds. 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. Hunting for topaz was just a hobby for Dametz. They know the Philippines well, but are unreliable on Japan and do not read Japanese. The implausibilities pile higher and higher. Many people died a couple of months ago not far from here, Klaus continued. There, some say, it remains today waiting for someone possibly for you to find it and walk away. I had seen the photos, but they did not prepare me for the sheer enormity of the quest he was undertaking. It detailed the work he had done in the Philippines as part of a team led by Nevada treasure hunter Robert H. Curtis. Maybe Amelia was right after all, I mused. 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. I have to! Klaus retorted. Is that correct?. I wondered. They followed that with a treasure chamber at around a depth of approximately one hundred feet, knowing that most treasure hunters would consider that the final prize. Real or imagined? Dunning, B. When the cave-in become public Feb. 29, McDougald and his group were forced to go public as well. What ensued was madness. As it turns out, Klaus had also been in contact with Sterling Seagrave. We exchanged emails, became friends, and made plans to meet at his home outside Carcassonne, France. A month later American intelligence officers would learn of the existence of the vast treasure hoards but not before a gruesome fate awaited the men who had overseen the treasures safe deposit deep in the earth. Since that day, the location has been known as Headless Creek in Deadmen Valley. 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. These were not symbols found in military treasure sites. They were always building this or that in the Philippines as an excuse to look for treasure, due to the fact that obtaining permits was difficult and brought unwanted attention. Unfortunately, my role in the narrative would be minimal. This was the result Marcos had been waiting for. I knew only a little about the story, let alone the fact that Peggy and her husband Sterling were the worlds most prolific experts on the subject, and had documented the whole sordid affair in their seminal book, Gold Warriors; Americas Secret Recovery of Yamashitas Gold. I found it to be legitimately interesting. Once the cameras stopped, Henry continued taking us through his files, highlighting important photos and newspaper clippings, including one very poignant photo of himself as a young man standing alongside his deceased father. We were all devastated, especially Klaus, as he wanted to open a treasure chamber in time for us to film it for the show. I, on the other hand, was experiencing a fair bit of disappointment. 0000003204 00000 n
Then McSherry returned to his own pit to clean up the tools and collect the stones. His shirt read Trust me, I do this all the time.. Roxass brother, Danilo, attempted to resist the men and was badly beaten. There was no follow-up after Bilyeu was pronounced dead. In the end, their ambitious plans were foiled when approaching allied forces, namely the United States, began sinking Japanese cargo ships that were in transit to or from the Philippines. Thirty years after the disappearance, David Paulides, a former police officer and researcher on missing people, filmed the video above and brought the case to the attention of the Colorado government. Remarkably, Roxas never revealed the location of his treasure site, for he knew that doing so would result in his death sentence.
Andrew Gough. Nope, we had to move on; places to be. To this day, the gold miners have not been found.[6]. Curtis fled back to the US in the late '70s, claiming he had destroyed his maps and escaped the Philippines ahead of Marcos's assassins. We followed a muddy path, not too far from a river that was roaring with monsoon-induced floods, and arrived at the site. Over the course of the next twelve months Marcoss men extracted a vast amount of gold out from the Baguio Hospital site. I was frustrated. You climb down and back up each of these sites twice a day? I asked in disbelief. It was apparent to Roxas that Judge Pio Marcos was the informer, not the mastermind behind the siege, for his nephew, President Marcos, had long sought confirmation of the existence of Japanese treasure hoards in the Philippines. 0000000796 00000 n
What if the so-called carer had been planted by a covert government agency? Understandably, one of the diggers confessed after Marcos henchmen began extracting his teeth, one at a time. What did you uncover? I asked inquisitively. Is this what Klaus should expect to find in his treasure chambers? Bruce and I had been discussing the subject for years and wanted to feature Klaus and his quest. Klaus had briefed me as to what the sites would be like. They investigated and validated first-hand testimony that corroborated the existence of the golden buddha and the gold bullion. Today, only $1.4 million has been paid out to the Roxas estate. Klaus and I posing with the priest and the artefacts he discovered at a shallow depth in the ground Curtis to meet privately with a . Curtis to meet privately with a . Ill explain, but were not at the bottom yet. I laid back down and thought to myself, What the hell had I just got myself into. Despite the impressive testimonials, I smelled a rat. Whatever they did plunder had likely been well spent building the Imperial Navy well before the end of the war. Its a known Japanese symbol that means the seeker is going to love what is below, he added in his hypnotic Austrian drawl. As I prepped for my studio interview, I found myself captivated by Roxass quest. This, according to the urban legend, is the time frame over which the Japanese military, using Filipinos as slave laborers, transported their gold up into the mountains and sealed it all into vast tunnel systems. When sharp protests came from Manilas lovers, who lost the use of the historic tourist site as a traditional trysting place, the presidential guard put up a sign at the forts front gate declaring simply, Closed for Renovations.. My dialogue with other Filipino treasure hunters had reached a fever pitch and this, coupled with the fact that I was keen to visit Klaus and inspect his work, prompted me to book a trip to the Philippines. The hospital was on public grounds and was highly visible; covert excavation was simply not an option. As he reflected on the significance of his experience, I remember thinking once more that I just wanted to leave. Whats more, during 1974 and 1975 he excavated the tunnel behind the hospital in Baguio and personally witnessed gold bars falling from wooden crates as they were removed from the site. Andrew Gough. In reviewing their 2003 book, he wrote: The Seagraves are not fully reliable as historians. In the early 1960s, Hunter volunteered as a test subject for a psychedelic chemicals research program (MKULTRA) sponsored by the CIA and was paid . He related how he had accompanied a friend who was ill to the Philippines so that he could visit a famous healer. Did the Japanese deposit immense quantities of gold in the Philippines? I am only an instrument of God. I was intrigued, if not humoured by his attitude, and his attire. He had a copper mining company and also staked a claim on plots of land that he used to mine gold. Reassuringly, he informed me that I was fine and that he had simply performed a tune up a bit of preventative maintenance. Torn Treasure Map 1: On the far left side of the map, at the start of the Little Creek River, inside a drawer of a wooden hut. 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. Many Japanese soldiers and engineers involved in the project were also sealed inside the tunnels in order to keep them from revealing the location. His bizarre and frightening experience lasted mere seconds. Or we all die. Roxas reported the incident to the police, who predictably ignored his pleas. 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres thats the size of shaft you just entered. Andrew Gough. Is it the healer, the region, or something else that made the place so naturally powerful? The more cameras the better, he chuckled. Andrew Gough. [7] It was given to the Barrow Neurological Institute of Phoenix, Arizona. Andrew Gough. On my last night, after dinner, Klaus brought out a perfectly shaped cement heart complete with a flawlessly carved artery. Before I could comment Klaus had taken out his dowsing rods and located the entrance shaft to the tunnel system that the bent tree was pointing towards. 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 smelled remarkable. Roxass quest continued to attract other like-minded seekers. Skeptoid Podcast. 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. 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.
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