15 ms·

An 85-year old millionaire hides $1M treasure in the Rocky Mountains (2016)

369 points by yurisagalov 10y ago

iplaw 10y ago
Has he ever confirmed whether the treasure is still at the location? What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger hunt, and decided to hide their discovery?
- ehsankia 10y ago
  I'm not sure how old this information is, but I remember him confirming it still is and also saying that someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there?). Actually, looking at the wikipedia page [1] for it, it seems to be from August 20, 2016. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure
  - onion2k 10y ago
    I'm not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there? If he does then that's how to find the treasure. Detecting electronics is a lot easy than detecting a metal box.
    - giarc 10y ago
      Or if he visits the site... just follow him.
      - LoSboccacc 10y ago
        If that's the way to find it then it must be a tshirt reading "I found the treasure of melee island"
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        The forest on Melee is fixed; you can find the treasure by memorizing its location or by following the map, but there is no guide who will lead you to it. You find the sword master in the same forest by following a guide (or, again, by memorizing her location). This was an interesting choice, since the hell caverns in the same game are randomized and it's impossible to get through them without the guide.
      - iaw 10y ago
        You're more likely to end up having a ton of wonderful hikes through the park system. He doesn't just go out there to check his gold ;)
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Assuming the statement is true (and the treasure is real), presumably he visited the area and saw some sort of evidence of people having been digging or otherwise poking around. If that were the case, there's an implication that it's probably relatively accessible to where he lives.
    - iaw 10y ago
      He can get to the region, with weights, and home within an afternoon
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Or maybe he has access to high-resolution satellite imagery. If so, maybe someone could figure out what area he was checking.
  - notatoad 10y ago
    >someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that) There's at least one forum [1] where people post reports of their search. He's probably just keeping an eye on where people say they've gone looking for it. [1]http://www.chasechat.com/ http://www.chasechat.com/
    - ghaff 10y ago
      It also occurs to me that if you do get to the general location by paddling, as many have speculated, if someone posted or emailed him with the correct put-in spot he would know that they would have passed by the treasure.
- onion2k 10y ago
  What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger hunt, and decided to hide their discovery? Only one of the treasure hunters will find the treasure (or possibly no one will). If people are in it for a profit rather than for the "thrill of the chase" and to enjoy the mountains then they've only themselves to blame when they come away empty-handed. If the treasure is no longer there, for the majority of treasure hunters nothing has changed.
- elif 10y ago
  If certainty is a prerequisite for you, you'll never find treasure because you'll never look.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  I can't imagine ever telling someone I found it. I don't know the exact tax implications but I imagine it would be a lot like gambling which can be up to a 40% taxation rate. I would quietly take the gold, turn it into cash, and slowly launder the cash and never report it. Heck, I would just pay cash for everything and would probably just spent it naturally over my lifetime like this without bothering to launder. As long as I avoided the kinds of purchases that raise eyebrows, the IRS would never know. My normal salary would just go into savings/investments. I imagine most people would do this, at least the kinds of people who would hunt $1m lockboxes. As a side note, I wonder if you can DIY ground penetrating radar light enough to be carried on a drone. Imagine a few drones shooting electromagnetic waves at the ground and waiting for a reflective ping from a metal box. You could probably cover a lot of ground with a few drones running everyday for a few days. If you can figure out how to filter out the false positives, you can probably just find this thing via radar. I imagine an old man doesn't have the ability to dig very deep and this thing might only be a couple feet underground, so within some reasonable sensing specs. edit after some googling: Working ground penetrating radar drone for $500 here. Heck, its even FCC legal! Its a IG42-SB4 robot which can drive for 3 hours on stock batteries, so maybe double that battery pack and you get 6 hours of non-stop sensing. Just a few of these should cover every human walkable path in a matter of days, perhaps a couple weeks at most (guesstimate). https://hackaday.io/project/4440-open-ground-penetrating-radar https://hackaday.io/project/4440-open-ground-penetrating-rad... Looks like he uses this visualization library from the US Navy. I'm no expert but I imagine something like this would be able to show a treasure chest-like box very easily once you have all the data. Cubes don't exist in nature so once you see something cube-like in your data, go on a hike. If you're clever you can have your drones pipe their data via 4G every five minutes or so, shoot it to your desktop, and look at this data in almost realtime. Or if you're especially clever use CV to look for square-like shapes in the data and to alert you when they pop-up. Now you can tell that drone to go back to double-check and to scan from different angles. If it really, really looks like a cube from different angles, then go on a hike and enjoy your million bucks. http://pfmabe.software/ http://pfmabe.software/
  - pimlottc 10y ago
    I imagine there are tens of thousands of buried metal objects in the Rockies left over from the old mining days...
Darthy 10y ago
Could it be that he never checked whether all the hints he gave sufficiently narrow down the location to just one spot? That he has additional knowledge for every line, knowledge which he thinks is self-evident, but knowledge with is actually just very personal to him, and cannot be inferred? In this case, the riddle might never be solved, and he might die in the self delusion that all the attention this raised is because he is a gifted writer, when the reality is much more sad: he was a terrible riddle author that threw away a million bucks.
- devoply 10y ago
  If I were him, the point is not a million dollars. That's trivial. It's not helping people find the treasure, that's also trivial. The point is all the entertainment to be had searching for the treasure. In fact if I had some money and time I might put together a game centered around finding the treasure. Imagine all the fun to be had and all the stories to be told about the treasure that was never found. In fact I would probably not even put any treasure out there. Just a tall tale for the ages.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- hbosch 10y ago
  Perhaps he's hid a million dollar treasure, and perhaps he actually hasn't. Regardless, he is probably in the black financially due to book sales alone... Whether or not it's a truly good, solvable riddle may not be the goal in the end – could equally be that he just wanted to give people a sense of excitement and wonder. Maybe that's too generous on my part, though. :)
  - canadian_voter 10y ago
    > Regardless, he is probably in the black financially due to book sales alone... Well, if he's sold more than 20,000 copies at $55 each[1] then yeah, he'd have broken a million. And if he just kept the treasure then he's golden. [2] http://www.koat.com/article/author-who-hid-2-million-treasure-pens-new-book/5050431 http://www.koat.com/article/author-who-hid-2-million-treasur...
ehsankia 10y ago
There was a neat little mini-documentary by Vox [1] that went over the details of this, talked to a few other people obsessed by this treasure hunt. Pretty good overview of the history and current state of the hunt. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk
seren 10y ago
If you're into that sort of things, you can have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl.
- ehsankia 10y ago
  Also the Book of Masquerade [1] which was a pretty fascinating little treasure hunt. There's a great lecture [2] on game design and eastereggs that gives a great overview of the events surrounding it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book) [2] http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html
  - nothis 10y ago
    Psalm 46 was what I've been thinking of when reading the article, especially after this bit: >For further clues, you have to read the poem in his self-published book, The Thrill of the Chase. He might actually make money on this, lol.
    - finid 10y ago
      So at the end of the day, the guy might be giving away $1 million, but it's likely he will also make more than that from the book sales, or at least something close. No wonder he has a million to throw around!
SubiculumCode 10y ago
Bet satellite recordings know where he hid it. Some spy is chortling.
- planteen 10y ago
  What if he hid it on a cloudy/rainy/snowy/foggy day?
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    There are wavelengths other than visible light that satellites use.
    - planteen 10y ago
      Yeah, and which of those go through rain? The atmosphere blocks lots of wavelengths outside of visible light. Rain fade is huge above 11 GHz. Good luck imaging a person from orbit at a low RF frequency. http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/transmission_lecture.pdf http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/transmission_l... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade
- jonknee 10y ago
  I bet not, assuming perfect conditions and you knew the date it was hidden he would look no different from any of the other thousands of hikers out and about.
saycheese 10y ago
Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim is likely real, especially given Fenn has charted private helicopters to help search for those lost and known to be searching for the treasure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure Fenn hasn't been out in the Rocky Mountains, north of Santa Fe, to check on the chest since he hid it, but he knows it's still there. My guess is that the prize is not inside, but with Fenn; which explains why he checks to see if someone has found it and requests they provide proof of what is inside. Fenn has more clues posted here: http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-page http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-page
- widforss 10y ago
  That is not a plausible theory. Sure, the treasure might be elsewhere, but I wouldn't keep the prize in my own possesion if I were over 70 years old. What if someone finds the chest after his death. I would rather believe it contains a note requesting that Fenn should be contacted by the lucky one.
  - saycheese 10y ago
    Assure you that there are ways to deal with Fenn dieing and still require the party finding it to make contact with someone to claim the prize; in fact, Fenn planned this when he thought he would die from cancer.
    - 1001101 10y ago
      From Wikipedia: "He filled the chest with "treasure" containing gold nuggets, rare coins, jewelry and gemstones, along with a jar holding his autobiography. He intended to hide it and end his life nearby, with the treasure as a legacy.[2] However, he survived his illness and waited until he was 79 or 80 to hide the treasure." These are all bearer instruments. You may not know if it's found. 79-80 is 2009-2010. If he had a cellphone, there's a trail for some enterprising telcom worker or NSA analyst to follow (base station->sector->signal strength if not outright location). Presumably he drove there, maybe some ALPR database to mine.
notadoc 10y ago
Sounds like the Rocky mountain version of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine
elif 10y ago
If he's confident that no one else knows where it is, either he killed someone, or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest. I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic. If I had to guess, the location is within an 8 hour hike (12 miles at that age) of a road or jeep trail. Between that and the water clue, I think the field is considerably more narrow than the 5,000ft map in the article. dang. I think i got bit by this gold bug ;)
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  > or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest. I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic. Say it's filled with coins: he could have carried the empty chest and its contents separately, distributing the load. He could have also made multiple trips.
  - weaksauce 10y ago
    According to him he did just that. Two trips.
    - elif 10y ago
      Ah that makes sense. Still, off-trail in the Rockies with 20lb is difficult for me at 30. the CDT might be a good starting point.
      - weaksauce 10y ago
        It was two trips in the same afternoon too.
        takk309 10y ago
        Do you have a source for this statement?
trollsonson 10y ago
I'm glad this was posted here. A lot of you could really benefit from spending some time outdoors.
Balgair 10y ago
Some friends and I decided to have a go at the treasure a few years back. It was a good excuse to go out camping and road-tripping with some mates. We identified a spot we each thought it may have been and then spend some weekends one summer checking them out. One place we found outside of Estes Park, CO did have a rather large hole dug out right next to a 'swamp'/water-filled depression, there were a LOT of beer cans and champagne bottles around from at least a winter beforehand. The place fit all the bills for the treasure's location, at least to our minds. Maybe the people that found it are mum, the tax reasons would be enough to shut my mouth too. The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many attempts at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet, if the thing really exists. Maybe Fenn put some note in there that says to contact him for more cash or something, so that he'll know that it was found. I doubt this. More than likely, there is no treasure at all and it is an intentional wild-goose chase and the 'real treasure is friendship'. But that doesn't square with all the deaths people have had looking for it. If the 'real treasue is friendship' then Fenn has real blood on his hands. We all had a great time camping at least.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Treasure hunting is a lot of fun, though from experience if you really do find something, it's not always a good thing for the relationships of those involved. Always have a written agreement prior to starting with anyone involved before starting; that is the search crew, land owners, etc.
  - Balgair 10y ago
    Oh yes, we even drew up contracts for how to split it and what to do in case of legal action, death, etc. I think we based it off the one in The Hobbit, but it has been a while. It was fun to read though as I do remember that there was a clause that you had to drink a few beers before negotiations could start. In general, it was enjoyable to go out and do that shindig and I would suggest it to others to have fun with it, but be sure not to, you know, die while out tramping about in the Rockies.
    - 10y ago
gk1 10y ago
Vox had a good video about this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk
deleted 10y ago
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NaOH 10y ago
The podcast Everything is Stories did an episode on Mr. Fenn and his hidden treasure in March 2014. For anyone interested it fills out the picture a bit of his life and his motivation for doing this. http://www.eisradio.org/item/003 http://www.eisradio.org/item/003
lcfcjs 10y ago
This isn't new, why is it being reported on now?
gmisra 10y ago
Before getting too carried away, I'd suggest reading this piece [1], about the search for Randy Bilyeu, the missing treasure seeker mentioned int the NPR article. It provides lot more background and context, and is enjoyable as far as long form journalism goes. Like many, I've casually followed the story over the years, but in the 5280 article, the reporter interviews Fenn in the context of the manhunt. To me, Fenn comes off as someone whose obsession with his own eccentric idea of a "game" overrides the very real life-and-death situations created as a result of that game. The NPR article is surprisingly blase considering the dangers involved. [1] http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-colorado-man-disappeared-while-hunting-hidden-treasure http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-colorado-m...
- deleted 10y ago
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Grazester 10y ago
This is interesting especially since I just started reading Read Player One.
- gunnyguy121 10y ago
  Ohh. Good book imo. I get that a lot of people think the references are annoying, but I found them to be rather charming. Of course I'm young so I probably didn't get them all
  - wooshy 10y ago
    I actually had the same thoughts about ready player one when I read this article. It was such a interested book and being able to be part of something like that in real life sounds like it would take over my life.
avenoir 10y ago
Outside has published a number of columns on this usually accompanied with crazy stories of treasure hunters. If nothing else, it's a great way to get some folks into the wild :)
cammio 10y ago
(2016)
sqeaky 10y ago
> Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim is likely real People have died for many religions, at most one is right. Most likely none.
- SimonPStevens 10y ago
  Massive massive tangent... But there is overlap between many religions, to the extent that it is at least theoretically possible that more than one of them are correct to at least some extent. :-) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13877558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13877558 and marked it off-topic.
amenghra 10y ago
Reminds me https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_O..., which is hidden in France and people have been searching for it for decades.
trentnix 10y ago
This is the first time I'm hearing of this treasure - fun stuff! Reading the poem, the first place that popped into my head is Brown's Canyon National Monument, just outside of Salida, Colorado. https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-monument https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-monument It's just 3.5 to 4 hours north of Santa Fe, is an area with multiple hot springs (Mt. Princeton, Poncha Springs, etc.), and downstream (Arkansas River) you go through Bighorn Sheep Canyon and the Royal George. It's just an amazing area on this Earth.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  So maybe go to Nathrop, CO, put your raft on Arkansas River where Chalk Creek, Gas Creek, or Cottonwood Creek joins it, then go downstream past 2 Class IV rapids (Canyon Doors, Pinball) and "put in" below Browns Creek. There is a rail line there, so if you are squeamish about whitewater, it probably wouldn't be difficult to portage around the 12 named rapids on that section of the river. You could probably park at Hecla Junction and reach the search area by land. Below Widowmaker (IV) rapids is an intermittent creek bed ("no paddle") to the west, that runs into some trees surrounded by big boulders ("heavy loads"). I'd start at 38.668777 N, 106.055444 W and follow the dry creek bed up to at least 38.670606 N, 106.063440 W, myself, but I'm not likely to ever visit that part of the country. If you find the chest there, send me a gloating postcard. The place appears to be surrounded by ATV trails within 200 feet, so it's likely the guy just claimed "someone has been within 200 feet" because people are within 200 feet of it frequently, just from riding the trails.
  - developer2 10y ago
    I suspect that 200 feet off any walkable/drivable path is too easy for such a treasure. It's more likely within 200 feet of a river/stream/creek - the assumption being that there are people canoeing past without getting out and traversing overgrowth with no obvious man made paths. The only detail that really matters in terms of whether someone can ever even find it is whether it is buried. If it's buried with no markers, the odds of stumbling upon it even with a metal detector are so incredibly low.
eternalban 10y ago
Let me get this straight. People have died and this geriatric narcissist hasn't yet decided that maybe 4 dead people are too many and maybe, possibly, it would be a better karmic strategy for him to forgoe his little scheme and just call the thing off?
- ProAm 10y ago
  They died doing what they love?
- bcoates 10y ago
  Hundreds of people a year die adventuring in that region cash prize or no. Leaving the house is dangerous.
- ska 10y ago
  Sounds like you are assuming a net negative impact. How does that compare to expected rates of death doing similar activities?
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/rocky-mountain-national-park-fatalities/81268090/ http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/r... >Since 2011, 21 people have died in Rocky Mountain National Park, eight of those fatalities coming in 2014 alone. While grim, Rocky Mountain's annual death toll pales in comparison to that of Grand Canyon National Park, which averages 12 fatalities each year... About 150 people die in national parks each year, according to the latest federal data, tracked between 2007 and 2013. Yet we don't go shutting down the National Parks or accuse the Federal government of bad karma.
- putsteadywere 10y ago
  Relevant XKCD Ponytail: We should go to the north beach. Someone said the south beach has a 20% higher risk of shark attacks. Cueball: Yeah, but statistically, taking three beach trips instead of two increases our odds of getting shot by a swimming dog carrying a handgun in its mouth by 50%! Beret Guy: Oh no! This is our third trip! Reminder: A 50% increase in a tiny risk is still tiny. [0]: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/increased_risk.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/increased_risk.png
joering2 10y ago
> The most recent was Randy Bilyeu who went missing in January 2016 and was later found dead in July of that year. I wonder how he feels knowing at least one person died because of his actions :(
mannykannot 10y ago
I am not sure I would publicly claim to be the only person who knows where there is an untraceable million-dollar stash, whether it is true or not.
deleted 10y ago
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awerg34gg 10y ago
If this interests you, I highly recommend checking out book The Secret. Super interesting. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage
oakville 10y ago
He even hid a bottle of wine behind those books on his shelf...
welpwelp 10y ago
Arittake no yume wo kakiatsume Sagashimono wo sagashi ni yuku no sa ONE PIECE Rashinban nante juutai no moto Netsu ni ukasare kaji wo toru no sa Hokori kabutteta takara no chizu mo Tashikameta no nara densetsu ja nai ! Kojinteki na arashi wa dareka no BAIORIZUMU nokkatte Omoi sugoseba ii ! Arittake no yume wo kakiatsume Sagashimono wo sagashi ni yuku no sa POKETTO no KOIN, sore to You wanna be my Friend ? We are, We are on the cruise !
appleiigs 10y ago
Maybe I should start off with Pokemon Go first to get warmed up. Similar concept where Fenn wants people to bring out their inner Indiana Jones. Instead of giving away a fortune, the makers of Pokemon Go were trying to make one.
- omgam 10y ago
  Or, the makers of Pokemon Go were installing a system to easily obtain video footage of any urban location (less easily, other areas). If the Fenn-treasure-seeker ground penetrating radar drone teams do materialize, they will almost certainly locate archeological sites, which is pretty cool. The algorithms ought to also pick up petroglyphs while searching for blazes.
Mango_Diesel 10y ago
Random related story: I was in New Mexico recently to see family and my brother said he had recently picked up a hitchhiker who had been searching for the treasure. She had started in Colorado and apparently been following clues found in the poems with geological features to travel along the Rio Grande in search of it. She believed based on her searching at the time (this was 1-2 months ago) that the treasure was likely hidden somewhere in Pilar. Apparently she had found marks on rocks in Embudo that led her to believe it was apparently on the other side of a rock formation she was near. I wouldn't put too much faith in this person's account, but she had apparently been searching for it non-stop for several months and had been led to Pilar by these "clues".
alpinextrm 10y ago
Seems like he's setting himself up for a kidnapping?
alpinextrm 10y ago
Seems like he'd be setting himself up for a kidnapping?
josephpmay 10y ago
If this interests you, you might like the book Daemon by Daniel Suarez. (Ready Player One also deals with similar themes)
pcthrowaway 10y ago
Is it not possible someone's already found it? Whoever finds it would have to pay taxes if they report it.
teslaberry 10y ago
this post has been on so many social media sites in the past month. combined with the dubious likelihood of the veracity of his buried treasure-----the full court promotional press of the guerilla social media variety--has now cemented my opinion that it's clear this is a social engineering promotion to sell books to naive people. yea, a 65$ book that has a story of buried treasure in it. and i'm sure people have died looking for it and all the other fun meta stories about the book are real stories, or based on real stories, or renditions of stories that were based on stories......or............. the only real treasure here is the treasure proceeds from his booksales. the meta irony is that by believing his story-----and making him rich--that who knows, maybe he'll one day have enough money to and decide he's ready to actually bury some of that treasure. utnil then, a fool and his money are being easily upvoted. also, it's useful to note that by burying treasure in a secret place adn then publicizing it's existence you are placing a giant bullseye on you and your family and friends heads for any kidnapper that would like to punish or blackmail or randsom a human being in return for the knowledge of the location of that gold. it's not really that hard to to do. in fact, jails will hold criminals indefinitely on contempt charges if they refuse to disclose the location of their stolen loot. if the law can do it for small amounts, do you think a kidnapper or entreprising serial entrepreneur could not think up a method to force disclosure. it's so obvious that i question whether it hasn't happened already to this man and he payed a handsom randsom so someone simply to leave him alone. or worse.........who knows. this story just seems to implausible from so many angles and teh heavy promotion of the story combined with the expensive book fee make it seem like an obvious scam, on its face. -------but hey .........call me cynical. the best way i can think to ferret out a hint of truth from this scam that has a 2% chance of being real is to announce that you found the treasure and show a whole bunch of fake pieces that is designed to look like the treasure as it is described in the book. --------------------then ---make a very public appearnace documenting your thanks to the man in public with him in front of a large crowd. and then tell the public the gold itself was actually plated gold and not real gold and that this man has deceived you and all of the people that bought his book. and that he owes ALL OF YOU 65$ , UNLESS HE CAN PRODUCE THE REAL TREASURE. shame and the threat of public humiliation and the possiblity of retribution violence will probably flush out the real treasure if there is any...............
petarvasilev 10y ago
Given how many people in the world need help you must be morally bankrupt to do that.

369 points by yurisagalov 10y ago

iplaw 10y ago

Has he ever confirmed whether the treasure is still at the location? What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger hunt, and decided to hide their discovery?

ehsankia 10y ago
I'm not sure how old this information is, but I remember him confirming it still is and also saying that someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there?). Actually, looking at the wikipedia page [1] for it, it seems to be from August 20, 2016. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure
- onion2k 10y ago
  I'm not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there? If he does then that's how to find the treasure. Detecting electronics is a lot easy than detecting a metal box.
  - giarc 10y ago
    Or if he visits the site... just follow him.
    - LoSboccacc 10y ago
      If that's the way to find it then it must be a tshirt reading "I found the treasure of melee island"
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        The forest on Melee is fixed; you can find the treasure by memorizing its location or by following the map, but there is no guide who will lead you to it. You find the sword master in the same forest by following a guide (or, again, by memorizing her location). This was an interesting choice, since the hell caverns in the same game are randomized and it's impossible to get through them without the guide.
    - iaw 10y ago
      You're more likely to end up having a ton of wonderful hikes through the park system. He doesn't just go out there to check his gold ;)
- ghaff 10y ago
  Assuming the statement is true (and the treasure is real), presumably he visited the area and saw some sort of evidence of people having been digging or otherwise poking around. If that were the case, there's an implication that it's probably relatively accessible to where he lives.
  - iaw 10y ago
    He can get to the region, with weights, and home within an afternoon
- mirimir 10y ago
  Or maybe he has access to high-resolution satellite imagery. If so, maybe someone could figure out what area he was checking.
- notatoad 10y ago
  >someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that) There's at least one forum [1] where people post reports of their search. He's probably just keeping an eye on where people say they've gone looking for it. [1]http://www.chasechat.com/ http://www.chasechat.com/
  - ghaff 10y ago
    It also occurs to me that if you do get to the general location by paddling, as many have speculated, if someone posted or emailed him with the correct put-in spot he would know that they would have passed by the treasure.
onion2k 10y ago
What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger hunt, and decided to hide their discovery? Only one of the treasure hunters will find the treasure (or possibly no one will). If people are in it for a profit rather than for the "thrill of the chase" and to enjoy the mountains then they've only themselves to blame when they come away empty-handed. If the treasure is no longer there, for the majority of treasure hunters nothing has changed.
elif 10y ago
If certainty is a prerequisite for you, you'll never find treasure because you'll never look.
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
I can't imagine ever telling someone I found it. I don't know the exact tax implications but I imagine it would be a lot like gambling which can be up to a 40% taxation rate. I would quietly take the gold, turn it into cash, and slowly launder the cash and never report it. Heck, I would just pay cash for everything and would probably just spent it naturally over my lifetime like this without bothering to launder. As long as I avoided the kinds of purchases that raise eyebrows, the IRS would never know. My normal salary would just go into savings/investments. I imagine most people would do this, at least the kinds of people who would hunt $1m lockboxes. As a side note, I wonder if you can DIY ground penetrating radar light enough to be carried on a drone. Imagine a few drones shooting electromagnetic waves at the ground and waiting for a reflective ping from a metal box. You could probably cover a lot of ground with a few drones running everyday for a few days. If you can figure out how to filter out the false positives, you can probably just find this thing via radar. I imagine an old man doesn't have the ability to dig very deep and this thing might only be a couple feet underground, so within some reasonable sensing specs. edit after some googling: Working ground penetrating radar drone for $500 here. Heck, its even FCC legal! Its a IG42-SB4 robot which can drive for 3 hours on stock batteries, so maybe double that battery pack and you get 6 hours of non-stop sensing. Just a few of these should cover every human walkable path in a matter of days, perhaps a couple weeks at most (guesstimate). https://hackaday.io/project/4440-open-ground-penetrating-radar https://hackaday.io/project/4440-open-ground-penetrating-rad... Looks like he uses this visualization library from the US Navy. I'm no expert but I imagine something like this would be able to show a treasure chest-like box very easily once you have all the data. Cubes don't exist in nature so once you see something cube-like in your data, go on a hike. If you're clever you can have your drones pipe their data via 4G every five minutes or so, shoot it to your desktop, and look at this data in almost realtime. Or if you're especially clever use CV to look for square-like shapes in the data and to alert you when they pop-up. Now you can tell that drone to go back to double-check and to scan from different angles. If it really, really looks like a cube from different angles, then go on a hike and enjoy your million bucks. http://pfmabe.software/ http://pfmabe.software/
- pimlottc 10y ago
  I imagine there are tens of thousands of buried metal objects in the Rockies left over from the old mining days...

Darthy 10y ago

Could it be that he never checked whether all the hints he gave sufficiently narrow down the location to just one spot? That he has additional knowledge for every line, knowledge which he thinks is self-evident, but knowledge with is actually just very personal to him, and cannot be inferred? In this case, the riddle might never be solved, and he might die in the self delusion that all the attention this raised is because he is a gifted writer, when the reality is much more sad: he was a terrible riddle author that threw away a million bucks.

devoply 10y ago
If I were him, the point is not a million dollars. That's trivial. It's not helping people find the treasure, that's also trivial. The point is all the entertainment to be had searching for the treasure. In fact if I had some money and time I might put together a game centered around finding the treasure. Imagine all the fun to be had and all the stories to be told about the treasure that was never found. In fact I would probably not even put any treasure out there. Just a tall tale for the ages.
- deleted 10y ago
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hbosch 10y ago
Perhaps he's hid a million dollar treasure, and perhaps he actually hasn't. Regardless, he is probably in the black financially due to book sales alone... Whether or not it's a truly good, solvable riddle may not be the goal in the end – could equally be that he just wanted to give people a sense of excitement and wonder. Maybe that's too generous on my part, though. :)
- canadian_voter 10y ago
  > Regardless, he is probably in the black financially due to book sales alone... Well, if he's sold more than 20,000 copies at $55 each[1] then yeah, he'd have broken a million. And if he just kept the treasure then he's golden. [2] http://www.koat.com/article/author-who-hid-2-million-treasure-pens-new-book/5050431 http://www.koat.com/article/author-who-hid-2-million-treasur...

ehsankia 10y ago

There was a neat little mini-documentary by Vox [1] that went over the details of this, talked to a few other people obsessed by this treasure hunt. Pretty good overview of the history and current state of the hunt. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk

seren 10y ago

If you're into that sort of things, you can have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl.

ehsankia 10y ago
Also the Book of Masquerade [1] which was a pretty fascinating little treasure hunt. There's a great lecture [2] on game design and eastereggs that gives a great overview of the events surrounding it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book) [2] http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html
- nothis 10y ago
  Psalm 46 was what I've been thinking of when reading the article, especially after this bit: >For further clues, you have to read the poem in his self-published book, The Thrill of the Chase. He might actually make money on this, lol.
  - finid 10y ago
    So at the end of the day, the guy might be giving away $1 million, but it's likely he will also make more than that from the book sales, or at least something close. No wonder he has a million to throw around!

SubiculumCode 10y ago

Bet satellite recordings know where he hid it. Some spy is chortling.

planteen 10y ago
What if he hid it on a cloudy/rainy/snowy/foggy day?
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  There are wavelengths other than visible light that satellites use.
  - planteen 10y ago
    Yeah, and which of those go through rain? The atmosphere blocks lots of wavelengths outside of visible light. Rain fade is huge above 11 GHz. Good luck imaging a person from orbit at a low RF frequency. http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/transmission_lecture.pdf http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/transmission_l... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade
jonknee 10y ago
I bet not, assuming perfect conditions and you knew the date it was hidden he would look no different from any of the other thousands of hikers out and about.

saycheese 10y ago

Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim is likely real, especially given Fenn has charted private helicopters to help search for those lost and known to be searching for the treasure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure Fenn hasn't been out in the Rocky Mountains, north of Santa Fe, to check on the chest since he hid it, but he knows it's still there. My guess is that the prize is not inside, but with Fenn; which explains why he checks to see if someone has found it and requests they provide proof of what is inside. Fenn has more clues posted here: http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-page http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-page

widforss 10y ago
That is not a plausible theory. Sure, the treasure might be elsewhere, but I wouldn't keep the prize in my own possesion if I were over 70 years old. What if someone finds the chest after his death. I would rather believe it contains a note requesting that Fenn should be contacted by the lucky one.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Assure you that there are ways to deal with Fenn dieing and still require the party finding it to make contact with someone to claim the prize; in fact, Fenn planned this when he thought he would die from cancer.
  - 1001101 10y ago
    From Wikipedia: "He filled the chest with "treasure" containing gold nuggets, rare coins, jewelry and gemstones, along with a jar holding his autobiography. He intended to hide it and end his life nearby, with the treasure as a legacy.[2] However, he survived his illness and waited until he was 79 or 80 to hide the treasure." These are all bearer instruments. You may not know if it's found. 79-80 is 2009-2010. If he had a cellphone, there's a trail for some enterprising telcom worker or NSA analyst to follow (base station->sector->signal strength if not outright location). Presumably he drove there, maybe some ALPR database to mine.

notadoc 10y ago

Sounds like the Rocky mountain version of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

elif 10y ago

If he's confident that no one else knows where it is, either he killed someone, or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest. I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic. If I had to guess, the location is within an 8 hour hike (12 miles at that age) of a road or jeep trail. Between that and the water clue, I think the field is considerably more narrow than the 5,000ft map in the article. dang. I think i got bit by this gold bug ;)

DashRattlesnake 10y ago
> or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest. I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic. Say it's filled with coins: he could have carried the empty chest and its contents separately, distributing the load. He could have also made multiple trips.
- weaksauce 10y ago
  According to him he did just that. Two trips.
  - elif 10y ago
    Ah that makes sense. Still, off-trail in the Rockies with 20lb is difficult for me at 30. the CDT might be a good starting point.
    - weaksauce 10y ago
      It was two trips in the same afternoon too.
      - takk309 10y ago
        Do you have a source for this statement?

trollsonson 10y ago

I'm glad this was posted here. A lot of you could really benefit from spending some time outdoors.

Balgair 10y ago

Some friends and I decided to have a go at the treasure a few years back. It was a good excuse to go out camping and road-tripping with some mates. We identified a spot we each thought it may have been and then spend some weekends one summer checking them out. One place we found outside of Estes Park, CO did have a rather large hole dug out right next to a 'swamp'/water-filled depression, there were a LOT of beer cans and champagne bottles around from at least a winter beforehand. The place fit all the bills for the treasure's location, at least to our minds. Maybe the people that found it are mum, the tax reasons would be enough to shut my mouth too. The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many attempts at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet, if the thing really exists. Maybe Fenn put some note in there that says to contact him for more cash or something, so that he'll know that it was found. I doubt this. More than likely, there is no treasure at all and it is an intentional wild-goose chase and the 'real treasure is friendship'. But that doesn't square with all the deaths people have had looking for it. If the 'real treasue is friendship' then Fenn has real blood on his hands. We all had a great time camping at least.

saycheese 10y ago
Treasure hunting is a lot of fun, though from experience if you really do find something, it's not always a good thing for the relationships of those involved. Always have a written agreement prior to starting with anyone involved before starting; that is the search crew, land owners, etc.
- Balgair 10y ago
  Oh yes, we even drew up contracts for how to split it and what to do in case of legal action, death, etc. I think we based it off the one in The Hobbit, but it has been a while. It was fun to read though as I do remember that there was a clause that you had to drink a few beers before negotiations could start. In general, it was enjoyable to go out and do that shindig and I would suggest it to others to have fun with it, but be sure not to, you know, die while out tramping about in the Rockies.
  - 10y ago

gk1 10y ago

Vox had a good video about this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk

deleted 10y ago

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NaOH 10y ago

The podcast Everything is Stories did an episode on Mr. Fenn and his hidden treasure in March 2014. For anyone interested it fills out the picture a bit of his life and his motivation for doing this. http://www.eisradio.org/item/003 http://www.eisradio.org/item/003

lcfcjs 10y ago

This isn't new, why is it being reported on now?

gmisra 10y ago

Before getting too carried away, I'd suggest reading this piece [1], about the search for Randy Bilyeu, the missing treasure seeker mentioned int the NPR article. It provides lot more background and context, and is enjoyable as far as long form journalism goes. Like many, I've casually followed the story over the years, but in the 5280 article, the reporter interviews Fenn in the context of the manhunt. To me, Fenn comes off as someone whose obsession with his own eccentric idea of a "game" overrides the very real life-and-death situations created as a result of that game. The NPR article is surprisingly blase considering the dangers involved. [1] http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-colorado-man-disappeared-while-hunting-hidden-treasure http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-colorado-m...

deleted 10y ago
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Grazester 10y ago

This is interesting especially since I just started reading Read Player One.

gunnyguy121 10y ago
Ohh. Good book imo. I get that a lot of people think the references are annoying, but I found them to be rather charming. Of course I'm young so I probably didn't get them all
- wooshy 10y ago
  I actually had the same thoughts about ready player one when I read this article. It was such a interested book and being able to be part of something like that in real life sounds like it would take over my life.

avenoir 10y ago

Outside has published a number of columns on this usually accompanied with crazy stories of treasure hunters. If nothing else, it's a great way to get some folks into the wild :)

cammio 10y ago

(2016)

sqeaky 10y ago

> Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim is likely real People have died for many religions, at most one is right. Most likely none.

SimonPStevens 10y ago
Massive massive tangent... But there is overlap between many religions, to the extent that it is at least theoretically possible that more than one of them are correct to at least some extent. :-) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13877558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13877558 and marked it off-topic.

amenghra 10y ago

Reminds me https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_O..., which is hidden in France and people have been searching for it for decades.

trentnix 10y ago

This is the first time I'm hearing of this treasure - fun stuff! Reading the poem, the first place that popped into my head is Brown's Canyon National Monument, just outside of Salida, Colorado. https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-monument https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-monument It's just 3.5 to 4 hours north of Santa Fe, is an area with multiple hot springs (Mt. Princeton, Poncha Springs, etc.), and downstream (Arkansas River) you go through Bighorn Sheep Canyon and the Royal George. It's just an amazing area on this Earth.

logfromblammo 10y ago
So maybe go to Nathrop, CO, put your raft on Arkansas River where Chalk Creek, Gas Creek, or Cottonwood Creek joins it, then go downstream past 2 Class IV rapids (Canyon Doors, Pinball) and "put in" below Browns Creek. There is a rail line there, so if you are squeamish about whitewater, it probably wouldn't be difficult to portage around the 12 named rapids on that section of the river. You could probably park at Hecla Junction and reach the search area by land. Below Widowmaker (IV) rapids is an intermittent creek bed ("no paddle") to the west, that runs into some trees surrounded by big boulders ("heavy loads"). I'd start at 38.668777 N, 106.055444 W and follow the dry creek bed up to at least 38.670606 N, 106.063440 W, myself, but I'm not likely to ever visit that part of the country. If you find the chest there, send me a gloating postcard. The place appears to be surrounded by ATV trails within 200 feet, so it's likely the guy just claimed "someone has been within 200 feet" because people are within 200 feet of it frequently, just from riding the trails.
- developer2 10y ago
  I suspect that 200 feet off any walkable/drivable path is too easy for such a treasure. It's more likely within 200 feet of a river/stream/creek - the assumption being that there are people canoeing past without getting out and traversing overgrowth with no obvious man made paths. The only detail that really matters in terms of whether someone can ever even find it is whether it is buried. If it's buried with no markers, the odds of stumbling upon it even with a metal detector are so incredibly low.

eternalban 10y ago

Let me get this straight. People have died and this geriatric narcissist hasn't yet decided that maybe 4 dead people are too many and maybe, possibly, it would be a better karmic strategy for him to forgoe his little scheme and just call the thing off?

ProAm 10y ago
They died doing what they love?
bcoates 10y ago
Hundreds of people a year die adventuring in that region cash prize or no. Leaving the house is dangerous.
ska 10y ago
Sounds like you are assuming a net negative impact. How does that compare to expected rates of death doing similar activities?
nommm-nommm 10y ago
http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/rocky-mountain-national-park-fatalities/81268090/ http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/r... >Since 2011, 21 people have died in Rocky Mountain National Park, eight of those fatalities coming in 2014 alone. While grim, Rocky Mountain's annual death toll pales in comparison to that of Grand Canyon National Park, which averages 12 fatalities each year... About 150 people die in national parks each year, according to the latest federal data, tracked between 2007 and 2013. Yet we don't go shutting down the National Parks or accuse the Federal government of bad karma.
putsteadywere 10y ago
Relevant XKCD Ponytail: We should go to the north beach. Someone said the south beach has a 20% higher risk of shark attacks. Cueball: Yeah, but statistically, taking three beach trips instead of two increases our odds of getting shot by a swimming dog carrying a handgun in its mouth by 50%! Beret Guy: Oh no! This is our third trip! Reminder: A 50% increase in a tiny risk is still tiny. [0]: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/increased_risk.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/increased_risk.png

joering2 10y ago

> The most recent was Randy Bilyeu who went missing in January 2016 and was later found dead in July of that year. I wonder how he feels knowing at least one person died because of his actions :(

mannykannot 10y ago

I am not sure I would publicly claim to be the only person who knows where there is an untraceable million-dollar stash, whether it is true or not.

deleted 10y ago

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awerg34gg 10y ago

If this interests you, I highly recommend checking out book The Secret. Super interesting. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage

oakville 10y ago

He even hid a bottle of wine behind those books on his shelf...

welpwelp 10y ago

Arittake no yume wo kakiatsume Sagashimono wo sagashi ni yuku no sa ONE PIECE Rashinban nante juutai no moto Netsu ni ukasare kaji wo toru no sa Hokori kabutteta takara no chizu mo Tashikameta no nara densetsu ja nai ! Kojinteki na arashi wa dareka no BAIORIZUMU nokkatte Omoi sugoseba ii ! Arittake no yume wo kakiatsume Sagashimono wo sagashi ni yuku no sa POKETTO no KOIN, sore to You wanna be my Friend ? We are, We are on the cruise !

appleiigs 10y ago

Maybe I should start off with Pokemon Go first to get warmed up. Similar concept where Fenn wants people to bring out their inner Indiana Jones. Instead of giving away a fortune, the makers of Pokemon Go were trying to make one.

omgam 10y ago
Or, the makers of Pokemon Go were installing a system to easily obtain video footage of any urban location (less easily, other areas). If the Fenn-treasure-seeker ground penetrating radar drone teams do materialize, they will almost certainly locate archeological sites, which is pretty cool. The algorithms ought to also pick up petroglyphs while searching for blazes.

Mango_Diesel 10y ago

Random related story: I was in New Mexico recently to see family and my brother said he had recently picked up a hitchhiker who had been searching for the treasure. She had started in Colorado and apparently been following clues found in the poems with geological features to travel along the Rio Grande in search of it. She believed based on her searching at the time (this was 1-2 months ago) that the treasure was likely hidden somewhere in Pilar. Apparently she had found marks on rocks in Embudo that led her to believe it was apparently on the other side of a rock formation she was near. I wouldn't put too much faith in this person's account, but she had apparently been searching for it non-stop for several months and had been led to Pilar by these "clues".

alpinextrm 10y ago

Seems like he's setting himself up for a kidnapping?

alpinextrm 10y ago

Seems like he'd be setting himself up for a kidnapping?

josephpmay 10y ago

If this interests you, you might like the book Daemon by Daniel Suarez. (Ready Player One also deals with similar themes)

pcthrowaway 10y ago

Is it not possible someone's already found it? Whoever finds it would have to pay taxes if they report it.

teslaberry 10y ago

this post has been on so many social media sites in the past month. combined with the dubious likelihood of the veracity of his buried treasure-----the full court promotional press of the guerilla social media variety--has now cemented my opinion that it's clear this is a social engineering promotion to sell books to naive people. yea, a 65$ book that has a story of buried treasure in it. and i'm sure people have died looking for it and all the other fun meta stories about the book are real stories, or based on real stories, or renditions of stories that were based on stories......or............. the only real treasure here is the treasure proceeds from his booksales. the meta irony is that by believing his story-----and making him rich--that who knows, maybe he'll one day have enough money to and decide he's ready to actually bury some of that treasure. utnil then, a fool and his money are being easily upvoted. also, it's useful to note that by burying treasure in a secret place adn then publicizing it's existence you are placing a giant bullseye on you and your family and friends heads for any kidnapper that would like to punish or blackmail or randsom a human being in return for the knowledge of the location of that gold. it's not really that hard to to do. in fact, jails will hold criminals indefinitely on contempt charges if they refuse to disclose the location of their stolen loot. if the law can do it for small amounts, do you think a kidnapper or entreprising serial entrepreneur could not think up a method to force disclosure. it's so obvious that i question whether it hasn't happened already to this man and he payed a handsom randsom so someone simply to leave him alone. or worse.........who knows. this story just seems to implausible from so many angles and teh heavy promotion of the story combined with the expensive book fee make it seem like an obvious scam, on its face. -------but hey .........call me cynical. the best way i can think to ferret out a hint of truth from this scam that has a 2% chance of being real is to announce that you found the treasure and show a whole bunch of fake pieces that is designed to look like the treasure as it is described in the book. --------------------then ---make a very public appearnace documenting your thanks to the man in public with him in front of a large crowd. and then tell the public the gold itself was actually plated gold and not real gold and that this man has deceived you and all of the people that bought his book. and that he owes ALL OF YOU 65$ , UNLESS HE CAN PRODUCE THE REAL TREASURE. shame and the threat of public humiliation and the possiblity of retribution violence will probably flush out the real treasure if there is any...............

petarvasilev 10y ago

Given how many people in the world need help you must be morally bankrupt to do that.