The location of a hidden treasure worth £2m has finally been revealed after five men died in the hunt to find it.
The man behind the global search, art dealer Forrest Fenn, passed away in 2020 following a fall at his home in New Mexico, age 90.
He had allegedly stashed a chest loaded with pre-Columbian artefacts, gold and ancient Chinese jade carvings worth millions of pounds somewhere in the Rocky Mountains in 2010.
Then, in his self-published autobiography The Thrill of the Chase, he included a 24-line poem that detailed a series of cryptic clues as to the location of a buried treasure.
Five hunters lost their lives in the quest for wealth and glory.
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In 2016, 54 year old Randy Bilyeu went missing. Seven months later, his skeletal remains were discovered along the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
Then in the summer of 2017, another three men died.
Jeff Murphy fell to his death in Yellowstone National Park; Eric Ashby died in a raft on the Arkansas River and 52 year old Colorado pastor Paris Wallace’s remains were found floating in the Rio Grande.
Months before the discovery of the chest, 53 year old Michael Sexson never returned from the Utah/Colorado border after he and a companion got stuck in snow with little to no water and only a few bars of chocolate to help them face the cold temperatures, rescuers said.
His companion, a 63 year old man, survived.
Although Fenn called the deaths “tragic,” he never called off the hunt.
He once told the New York Times: “If someone drowns in the swimming pool we shouldn’t drain the pool. We should teach people to swim.”
It took 10 years before the bounty was discovered, and more than 350,000 people battling it out in their hope of become victorious... and extremely wealthy.
The Finder, revealed to be medical student and former journalist, Jack Stuef, said it took him 25 days to locate the treasure in one specific area.
He claimed to have solved the riddle in 2018, but it still took him another two years to locate the actual chest.
He said: “This treasure hunt was the most frustrating experience of my life. There were a few times when I, exhausted, covered in scratches and bites and sweat and pine pitch, and nearing the end of my day’s water supply, sat down on a downed tree and just cried alone in the woods in sheer frustration.”
But, despite disbelief from the thousands of fellow treasure hunters that Stuef has really found the treasure, Fenn himself confirmed it to be true in 2020.
He made the announcement on his blog, keeping the identity of the Finder hidden but saying that he was sent photographic proof to confirm the finding.
If he'd already waited ten years, why suddenly choose to end the hunt were it not for the fact that someone had genuinely found the chest?
We'll never know what truly inspired Fenn to cause global pandemonium, as the eccentric art dealer and former combat pilot passed away in his home in 2020.
But, in what can only be considered as a parting puzzle, Fenn had recently revealed the location of the chest in yet another cryptic, mystifying fashion.
He said: "It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago."
Indeed, you could argue that he did not reveal its location at all.
