His shirt read Trust me, I do this all the time.. No one disputes that the Japanese did plunder most of the Southeast Asian countries they conquered and stored some of their loot in the Philippines, which was among the last of their subjugated territories to be liberated by the Allies. Despite the depth, there were still twelve inches of water that needed negotiating. I am sorry that you must die for me, I repeated, over and over. Im sorry what was that? I retorted apologetically. Within hours Roxas was dead. 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. All six bullets had apparently been fired at whoever or whatever had killed him.[2]. After a few days, his wife reported that he was missing. Their relationship was complex to say the least. Andrew Gough. I returned to England and became engulfed by life and my time-consuming corporate job. To come this close and not visit it would be such a shame, I thought. Over time I reached out to Klaus in the hope that he would write an article for the magazine. His remains were not found until seven months later.[5]. The Cultural Committee is investigating whether the search should continue. There was no doubt in my mind that Henry was every bit the fortune hunter his father had been. As we walked between sites with the camera crew, Klaus pointed out the many Japanese treasure symbols in the landscape. He described the odds as 5% more chance than highly probable, approaching absolute certainty.. Maybe in two or three weeks well have some news., According to reliable intelligence sources in the government, the Ft. Santiago dig holds out the greatest promise for hitting pay dirt, and in an official press release March 1, Soriano announced that he expects the group to uncover enough bullion to help pay off the countrys foreign debt in approximately 10 to 15 days.. Roxass life was not his own. Roxass bodyguards were forced to lie on the floor at gunpoint, along with the rest of the Roxas family, while Marcoss men confiscated not only the golden buddha and the precious stones that had filled its retractable head, but the remaining seventeen gold bars, samurai swords, old coins, and even his childrens piggy bank. They were retaken by the Allied forces over the course of a brutal year culminating with the Japanese surrender in September 1945. Regarding the Black Eagle Trust Fund, evidence also fails to show that any such program existed with that name but I'm not pointing a finger at anyone for making it up out of nothing. At two hundred and fifteen feet Klaus was literally on the doorstep of a discovery. It was entirely out of context of our discussion to have done so. Suffice to say I was impressed. Supreme Court of Hawaii. Robert Hunter, who died on Sept. 23 at age 78, matched words to Jerry Garcia's melodies and served as the public conscience for the Grateful Dead, whom he joined as a non-performing member in 1969. Good for her., The treasure-hunting schoolteachers back garden The healer, operating with nothing but his fingers In all, Prince Chichibu is said to have managed the construction of one hundred and seventy-five treasure sites, all across the Philippines. Within seconds the cyanide had travelled to the surface and killed everyone in the vicinity. He seemed to revel in the horror of the story. The Asian Pacific Post. Andrew Gough. Nor, to be honest, did I. However, the legal fees and the cost of the trials ate up so much cash that only $175,000 remained. Andrew Gough. Needless to say, Klaus was buoyant with the news. Despite his altruistic intentions (ie not wanting to risk more of the team getting injured than was necessary), this approach would prove fatal, as he did not do a very good job, and Klaus would have to reshoot the tunnel footage himself, weeks later, and with far inferior equipment. Andrew Gough. Roxas was determined to get it out of the chamber as fast as he could, but even with a group of strong young men they struggled to extract it, until finally applying a technique involving rolling logs and rope. Holes are being dug in virtually every one of the 73 Philippine provinces by treasure hunters like McDougalds group, all of whom believe that fleeing Japanese generals left behind billions of dollars in booty when Gen. Douglas MacArthurs forces retook the islands in 1945. This time he remained hidden for a year, before being arrested after he returned to Baguio in July 1972. Whatever I had expected a Japanese tunnel system to be was wrong or at least greatly miscalculated. The suspicious and rather convenient dig on the site of Roger Roxass treasure site The Imperial treasure sites were another matter: in addition to gold, they contained ancient artefacts from museums and burial hoards that the Japanese had looted across Asia. Even Imelda Marcos confessed that her husbands wealth had come from Yamashitas gold. Not only are ancient Thai documents written on the bark of the bogtalay tree, its leaves provide oral hygiene, and even cure cancer. It read, I understand you met with my brother, Henry, in Baguio. Each time Curtis was requested by Marcos to select a new site to excavate, Valmores was dispatched to provide the treasure map. I wanted to leave, but the caretaker said I mustnt; the healer had sent me, and I needed to complete his process. Is that really necessary? Roxas was shown a search warrant with Pios signature that mentioned something about illegal possession of firearms. Little did they know the arduous effort that a successful excavation would require. See Photos. Andrew Gough. What is worse, it triggered a political backlash. 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. The plan was that I was to be the quester and Klaus was to be the person who convinces me the whole thing is real. I unambiguously felt them probing around beneath the surface of my skin. Its old but healthy, and yet it is growing parallel to the ground due to the fact that it is chemically drawn to the gold. With a change of shirt I descended once again into the abyss. Poster of the fake golden buddha (from the Roxas Museum in Baguio) No explanation was offered as to why the map's original owner simply gave it away. People named Bob Curtis. Theyre sand traps. All Rights Reserved. Yamashita, known as the . When his body was finally discovered in 2012, it was 11 meters (35 ft) off the ground inside a crevasse on the edge of a cliff. This included dismissing cyanide as a poison that can travel through the air, and numerous character attacks on Seagrave and Curtis. 26 Apr. I go deep underground in an effort to try and find out She said that the second NDE had occurred relatively recently, when an elderly man had accelerated his car into her, while she was crossing an intersection, when he should have braked. The Seagraves seminal whistle-blowing book, Gold Warriors. Fuchigami hastily reconstructed the map from memory and provided Roxas with a copy. It stopped moving at all. Nearby, in a man-made chamber measuring ten feet by thirty feet, Roxas found more gold, this time packed into hundreds of small wooden boxes. In January 1973 he was sent to Baguio prison camp, where he was beaten repeatedly. 20 Nov. 2003, Volume 25, Number 22: 3-6. Find your friends on Facebook. A look of relief radiates from his face Local authorities never explained where they found the bodies or what they believed was the cause of death. While he was talking a hostile player started attacking me, which caused the npc to run away. Sen. Ernesto Maceda, one of the more skeptical critics of the hunt, asked McDougald whether he still plans to finish his book on hidden wealth. 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. It was a sense of danger, a feeling that you are being watched, and that you are uninvited. 0000017241 00000 n
Klaus riding safely; shotgun in his chauffeured tricycle [7] It was given to the Barrow Neurological Institute of Phoenix, Arizona. After lunch, I persuaded the director to stop at the hospital on the way out of town. Their 2000 book The Yamato Dynasty: The Secret History of Japan's Imperial Family included their story of how Japan went about accumulating this staggering wealth from all the Asian nations they looted, via a secret initiative called Operation Golden Lily. He quickly set out to tell his own story, one that did not follow the agreed storyline. Since there were so many people, everyone was in close proximity to one another. Apparently, it was my destiny to help. I didn't wana lose the map so I quickly hogtied the npc and stole the map. They needed money to purchase the land and were offering a very comprehensive excavation plan. We said goodbye to Klaus and Patrick and drove to Manila for the final shoot of the day, my studio interviews. I had delivered Discovered Science a sensational story, one that would feature Klauss network premier. Slowly putting his ruined life back together, he moved from Reno to Las Vegas . In the years that followed the broadcast of The Truth About Yamashitas Gold I continued to be inundated with requests from Filipino treasure hunters who naively believed that, with a little cash and a metal detector, they could discover a treasure, just like Roxas had. Seagrave also shared how his offices were bugged, not by Marcos, but by Washington, and that his researchers were often confronted and intimidated by shadowy figures who demanded they cease their investigations immediately. Two Australian brokers: who testified that in the early 1980s they had negotiated nine contracts with Marcos to sell what amounted to $1.63 trillion-worth of gold bullion. The video that Klaus took on my iPhone confirmed it. The rods always seemed dead. The treasure vaults that Major Kojima had shown Santy were not only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the Japanese had hidden in the Philippines, they also represented a relatively small portion of the overall war booty that had yet to reach Japan. ; 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. It was difficult to be certain, but I knew what I believed. One sudden stop or turn and my head would be severed. Finally, in the spring of 1970 Roxas and his team identified the tunnel area entrance and began an arduous seven-month excavation. Dont get me wrong. Podcast transcript | Subscribe. He was integrity personified. 32 0 obj <>
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Ballinger had photographed the Japanese ship, Huzi Maru, which was masquerading as a hospital ship, unloading boxes northwest of Manila, in Subic Bay. 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. In total, Klaus had the support of a dozen or so workers; humble villagers, not craftsmen. Many people began to say that the valley was cursed, haunted, or filled with members of the Naha tribe who were waiting to kill Europeans who entered their territory. We said goodbye to Henry and headed out for lunch. 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. Andrew Gough. Andrew Gough. His team went and searched and dug but never found anything. One was named Billy Murray. See Photos. 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. Unfortunately, some people never come back. In the days following the extraction of the golden buddha, Roxas returned and blew up the entrance to the tunnel so that others could not follow in his footsteps. Hours later, on the plane back to London, my brain was in overdrive. He brushed off the incident as an attempt to stir up trouble by the opposition, the name given to citizens who are against Nicolas Maduro, the current president of Venezuela. The award was later substantially reduced and nothing was ever collected. Roxas may have been a beaten man, both literally and figuratively, but he was no fool. Andrew Gough, Amelia after her second NDE I was not aware that Peggy had passed away the previous year, and that Sterling had only just passed in May 2017, aged 80. I had packed industrial-strength gloves and knee pads! I was moved by Cathcarts story; it was epic, tragic and inspirational. As I did, the cobra stopped thrashing. Okubo also confided that the General had in his possession a solid gold buddha, which he kept in the convent where he stayed, across from the hospital, before depositing it in a vault beneath the hospital grounds. Andrew Gough. He complained at length that none of his journalism colleagues would help him and Peggy with their book. It was bucketing down. Marcos became the mastermind of a covert gold retrieval operation and acted in partnership with both the Japanese and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. I was amazed to see that a hundred feet away a dozen men with huge cranes and bulldozers were digging a massive hole. Roxass brother, Danilo, attempted to resist the men and was badly beaten. We rode back to Klauss house for what was to be a fascinating evening. It felt like a flamethrower had pierced my stomach and opened me up below my navel. Bruce and I had been discussing the subject for years and wanted to feature Klaus and his quest. 0000001059 00000 n
What I am really being charged with is losing the war. or. The first-hand accounts corroborated those of Robert Curtis, who has so often been unjustly discredited in the story. I was intrigued, and worried for him, and a little for myself. More of that, he encouraged. Klaus leading me through the cobra-infested rice paddies Andrew Gough. Henry proudly highlights the victorious Roxas v Marcos Supreme Court case Once again, the best conversation was off camera. Scientists competed in their attempt to somehow prove that a soul left the body at the time of death. Since that day, the location has been known as Headless Creek in Deadmen Valley. After all, they are man made; Japanese made, I muttered to myself. He recounted how he was struck with a sense of justice and responsibility as he retrieved the flyer, uncrumpled it, wiped off the coffee stains, and dialled the phone number at the bottom. His team went and searched and dug but never found anything. In 1908, brothers Willie and Frank McLeod went on a trip to mine for gold in what is now known as Nahanni National Park, which was named after the Naha tribe. Although Roxas had been defeated, he had protected his secret longer than anyone could have reasonably expected him to. Keep going. That was the good news. It was different than that. Santy, who tortured General Yamashita Tomoyukis driver, Major Kojima. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. In his 1986 book Falsifying China's History about Sterling's earlier work, he wrote: The book is so biased, so unreliable, so riddled with errors, and so utterly lacking in historical perspective that much of it could be classified as fiction rather than as a work of history. Read about more bizarre, untimely deaths on 10 Creepily Ironic Historical Deaths and 10 Unusual Ways to Die Through the Ages. Andrew Gough, A young Henry Roxas pays his loving respects to his late father I was still processing the trip and trying to find a balanced view on it all. Aquinos executive secretary, Catalino Macaraig, said last month that the government has granted more than 80 permits to foreign and local treasure seekers in the two years since Aquino took power, and that applications continue to arrive at the presidents office at the rate of one a day. You dont mind if Klaus videotapes this, do you? I asked cautiously, but with a tone that suggested I would not be denied. Sign up! Unlike most treasure hunters, Roxas followed the official protocol, but was unlucky in that his permit was granted by Judge Pio Marcos, the uncle of President Ferdinand Marcos. You must be about two hundred and ten to fifteen feet deep. Best known as lyricist for some of the best known Jerry Garcia / Grateful Dead songs and his various collaborations with Bob Dylan. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Robert Hunter, the man behind the poetic and mystical words for many of the . He met his wife Peggy in the United States after both had become prominent figures in JFK assassination conspiracy theories. Cathcart shared how his office had received a call saying that Imelda Marcos had ordered the killing death by poison and that the CIA had carried out her orders. Eventually, Marcos concluded it was futile to torture Roxas further and released him after what had amounted to two years imprisonment. I was impressed and, dare I say, convinced. The doomed engineers had installed booby traps at each of the one hundred and seventy-five treasure sites either explosives and/or cyanide. Klaus had briefed me as to what the sites would be like. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, but the thought of stumbling upon buried treasure is seductive to everyone. Its akin to what was found in Egypt in the pyramids. 30 Apr 2019. In 2016 in Bolivar, Venezuela, 28 men who worked as gold miners left their homes to hunt for the precious metal and mysteriously disappeared. His bizarre and frightening experience lasted mere seconds. He wrote that he would leave all his money to someone who could prove the existence of the human soul. Each would have been an ideal candidate to contribute to the legal and organised excavation of Klauss treasure sites. After some diligent detective work Cathcarts team discovered Cheatham working as a night-time security guard in a Las Vegas hotel. The disease spread quickly. His bank account had also been rewarded. I was riveted as Cathcart recalled that tragic day and was leaning forward in anticipation as he spoke, when suddenly his carer abruptly corrected him and blurted out facts about the case that I found startling and incongruous from a healthcare professional who had claimed to know nothing about the affair. He was never seen again. The remains of the Shinto shrine entrance to the Japanese military headquarters in Klauss village In 1931, a fur trapper named Phil Powers decided to try his luck at striking it rich. Had he been part of the Golden Lily conspiracy? I will always appreciate your sacrifice. Bassist Phil Lesh remembers tasting the LSD as .