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Finding the Fenn Treasure · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there. Bryant, Really,
0:18
Speaker 1: would you say the first time? I pronounced it with
0:20
Speaker 1: a real hard te Bryant. Yeah, you only do that
0:24
Speaker 1: when you're mad at me, you know, like kissing through
0:27
Speaker 1: a clenched teeth, kind like I say, Josh Clark, Right,
0:31
Speaker 1: Marge Simpson even know the one where that guy came
0:35
Speaker 1: in and introduced Marge's substitute teacher. Oh yeah, yeah, um
0:41
Speaker 1: so wait what did you say? Boy? This is this
0:44
Speaker 1: is great podcasting. Right now, I'm clearing my throat and
0:48
Speaker 1: asking you what you said ten seconds ago. Uh? Well,
0:51
Speaker 1: I do have a couple of weird announcements, if let's
0:55
Speaker 1: do that before we actively get going. One is just
0:59
Speaker 1: a quick listener shout out. And you remember in the
1:02
Speaker 1: Hell Hell Hell episode when I couldn't think of the
1:05
Speaker 1: Pixar movie where if you were forgotten you go away,
1:09
Speaker 1: It's Coco. Yeah, I saw somebody right then, And is
1:12
Speaker 1: that a good movie? I've seen nothing but good things,
1:14
Speaker 1: but I've never watched it. Dude, Coco is easily the
1:19
Speaker 1: best looking animated film I've ever seen. It's amazing. It
1:24
Speaker 1: is striking. And that's from Joe Brown. He's a movie crusher.
1:26
Speaker 1: I felt so dumb because the main song from that
1:29
Speaker 1: movie is called remember Me. Think it's about being remembered.
1:35
Speaker 1: The title of the song is remember Me chuck. Uh.
1:39
Speaker 1: And also, uh, we wanted to announce that we are
1:43
Speaker 1: edging close to one hundred thousand books sold. Yeah that's
1:49
Speaker 1: pretty good, huh it is, and we would really like
1:52
Speaker 1: to hit that number. Oh okay, yeah, I mean like
1:56
Speaker 1: we uh, I mean you don't Yeah, yeah I do.
1:58
Speaker 1: I totally do know, I totally do. Um. It's just
2:01
Speaker 1: usually we coordinated with stuff like this so I can
2:03
Speaker 1: prepare some remarks. Uh, you know, come on, let's see
2:08
Speaker 1: what you gotta say. Selling book, good bye book, good you.
2:14
Speaker 1: Hundred thousand, big number, that's what I have to say
2:18
Speaker 1: off the cup. Yeah, we'd like to hit a hundred
2:20
Speaker 1: thousand because that would, um, that would please a lot
2:22
Speaker 1: of people. It's a good round number. And just because
2:25
Speaker 1: the holidays have come and gone, you still can go
2:28
Speaker 1: out and get that thing, the stuff you should know
2:31
Speaker 1: Book of Interesting Facts and Figures. What it's called bit's
2:36
Speaker 1: close stuff you should know Invisible colon uh, an incomplete
2:40
Speaker 1: compendium of mostly interesting things. We took some grief for
2:43
Speaker 1: not actually putting a colon on there. Oh really after
2:48
Speaker 1: our colon heavy speak over the past few years. Yeah,
2:51
Speaker 1: my response is that it's invisible and silent, invisible in silent,
2:56
Speaker 1: much like us. Yeah, yeah, not at all. But the
3:01
Speaker 1: thing is, I wonder if we shot ourselves in the
3:03
Speaker 1: foot by making the thing bright red so people are
3:06
Speaker 1: confused and think it's it's only a Christmas present m m,
3:11
Speaker 1: because you're right, it's not. Just because Christmas is over,
3:13
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you can't get it. So it's available
3:15
Speaker 1: everywhere still, and you can get it from indie booksellers
3:18
Speaker 1: to Giant uh, global monopolies. Everywhere has it anywhere you
3:24
Speaker 1: can buy books. That's right. Uh. And then my final
3:26
Speaker 1: little quick shout out because this is an episode on
3:29
Speaker 1: the fin Treasure. Actually know a guy who looked for
3:33
Speaker 1: this thing, and it's my old pal from my film
3:35
Speaker 1: industry days, Kim bro and I remember when this well,
3:40
Speaker 1: we don't want to ruin anything, but I remember him
3:42
Speaker 1: posting on Facebook about it some that he had looked
3:44
Speaker 1: for it. He didn't quit his job like some people,
3:47
Speaker 1: but he was a UM, a casual to moderately intense
3:53
Speaker 1: UM explorer for the Finn Treasure. So that's really neat man.
3:57
Speaker 1: Big shout out to kimbro Yeah listen, Actually, oh even better,
4:02
Speaker 1: you won't have to email and be like you should
4:04
Speaker 1: really listen to the Finn Treasure episode. So you just
4:08
Speaker 1: kind of let the cat out of the bag. You
4:10
Speaker 1: and the title of the episode. We're talking about the
4:13
Speaker 1: Fen Treasure, and it's probably familiar to a lot of people.
4:17
Speaker 1: It made the news pretty widely over the decade that
4:21
Speaker 1: it was ongoing. But for those of you who aren't
4:24
Speaker 1: aware of it, it was a treasure hunt, like a
4:26
Speaker 1: real live treasure hunt. There was a chest of treasures
4:31
Speaker 1: literally treasures of gold and jewels and gems and are
4:35
Speaker 1: like archaeological artifacts hidden somewhere by a very eccentric art
4:39
Speaker 1: dealer named Forest Finn, hence the name Finn Treasure. And
4:44
Speaker 1: he published something in his book which is basically a
4:49
Speaker 1: puzzle map full of clues I think nine clues, and
4:53
Speaker 1: said you got everybody go find it and kick back
4:56
Speaker 1: and and watched by the highest count I've seen about
5:00
Speaker 1: three fifty thousand different people search for this treasure, some
5:05
Speaker 1: of whom, like you mentioned, quit their jobs moved out
5:08
Speaker 1: to the rockies so that they could um search more frequently.
5:14
Speaker 1: Most people, though, just kind of were casually involved or
5:17
Speaker 1: maybe followed it on the message boards that kind of thing.
5:20
Speaker 1: But but the people who actually did go out and
5:22
Speaker 1: look for it, we're kind of fulfilling this vision that
5:26
Speaker 1: Forest Fin had, which was, you know, we're also just
5:29
Speaker 1: kind of stuck on our couches in front of multiple
5:33
Speaker 1: screens all the time, and there's so much natural beauty
5:36
Speaker 1: out there that's just passing people's lives by. UM. And
5:39
Speaker 1: he said, well, you know, if you put a chest
5:41
Speaker 1: of treasure worth a couple of million dollars out there,
5:44
Speaker 1: tell people it's somewhere out there, it might actually get
5:46
Speaker 1: some people to go look for it. And and that
5:48
Speaker 1: was the definite result of that whole thing. Yeah, I mean,
5:52
Speaker 1: it's a very cool thing. I did not know about
5:54
Speaker 1: it until the end, and I'm still trying to sort
5:58
Speaker 1: of dance around a spoil alert. UM. But you know,
6:02
Speaker 1: anything could have happened. It could have exploded, yep, could
6:07
Speaker 1: have never been found and been a hoax, right, don't
6:09
Speaker 1: forget Martians could have been Martians, it could have been found.
6:12
Speaker 1: You'll have to listen to find out. But eventually when
6:16
Speaker 1: things came to a conclusion is when I learned about it,
6:19
Speaker 1: and I was kind of mad that I didn't know
6:21
Speaker 1: about it before. I definitely would not have gone and
6:26
Speaker 1: looked for it, but I would have done a lot
6:28
Speaker 1: of online sleuthing just to sort of poke around because
6:32
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun. Treasure hunts are neat Well, yeah,
6:34
Speaker 1: that was the cool thing about this too, is like
6:37
Speaker 1: you could do a lot of it through online sleuthing
6:41
Speaker 1: and you could just kick back and like join the
6:43
Speaker 1: forums and help out like that. But if you had
6:45
Speaker 1: your own salves is what they're called, where you figure
6:48
Speaker 1: out different solutions to the clues UM and you put
6:51
Speaker 1: them all together. That's a solve, and you know, different
6:54
Speaker 1: people had multiple solves UM. To prove whether it was
6:58
Speaker 1: correct or not, try to find the you had to
7:00
Speaker 1: actually get out there and look follow the solve that
7:04
Speaker 1: you would come up with UM, And so a lot
7:07
Speaker 1: of people did do that, and I think that's really
7:09
Speaker 1: cool because it drew a lot of people out to
7:10
Speaker 1: the Rockies, and the Rockies are indeed quite beautiful they are. Uh,
7:15
Speaker 1: should we talk about the man himself? I think we should. Man. Yeah.
7:18
Speaker 1: So Forest fen f E double n FO double R
7:23
Speaker 1: as Well was born in Texas and he was always
7:27
Speaker 1: into the great outdoors. Apparently when he was a kid,
7:30
Speaker 1: they used to vacation at Yellowstone National Park and it
7:33
Speaker 1: really made a pretty big impact on him. He went
7:36
Speaker 1: through high school and then joined the Air Force and
7:38
Speaker 1: became a pilot. Uh served in Vietnam, and after about
7:42
Speaker 1: twenty years of service in the military, got out, moved
7:46
Speaker 1: to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and got into the art
7:50
Speaker 1: dealer business, which is something he really didn't know anything
7:53
Speaker 1: about it first. No, but he, I guess, had started
7:57
Speaker 1: collecting art um even though he wasn't like a particularly
8:02
Speaker 1: enthused by art itself. But he liked the business of
8:05
Speaker 1: art and art collecting. I think he liked the art
8:07
Speaker 1: world and um, I get the impression also that it
8:10
Speaker 1: brushed up against celebrities and you could, you know, get
8:13
Speaker 1: rich people to part with their money pretty easily. So
8:16
Speaker 1: sure that has something to do with it. Yeah, I
8:17
Speaker 1: think he really liked that a lot. Um. One thing
8:19
Speaker 1: I do want to say, I saw about his time
8:22
Speaker 1: in Vietnam was that he said that he had flown
8:25
Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty eight combat missions in three hundred
8:28
Speaker 1: and forty eight days while he was there, which is
8:31
Speaker 1: just astounding. And then apparently that drove him to become
8:34
Speaker 1: a pacifist because he after he left the military, he
8:38
Speaker 1: became a certified self proclaimed pacifist from from Fur the
8:42
Speaker 1: rest of his life from what I understand, Yeah, which
8:45
Speaker 1: that quite a few Vietnam vets went down that path.
8:48
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of those stories. So he uh
8:52
Speaker 1: moves to Santa Fe in ninety two, and like you said,
8:56
Speaker 1: by that time, he had already collected some art. What
8:59
Speaker 1: he would you is go out and buy art from
9:03
Speaker 1: um little known artists and then up sell it, which
9:06
Speaker 1: is I guess the whole nut racket. But that's the
9:09
Speaker 1: business of art collecting, as you buy low hopefully and
9:13
Speaker 1: sell high, right. And uh. He specialized in Native American
9:17
Speaker 1: art and also artifacts and opened the Aerosmith Finn Gallery
9:21
Speaker 1: with his partner Rex Aerosmith. Um. Eventually he just became
9:25
Speaker 1: the Finn Galleries with his wife Peggy, and he sold
9:29
Speaker 1: art for you know, about eight or nine years. UM.
9:32
Speaker 1: While he kept selling art, but in eight or nine
9:34
Speaker 1: years he started uh selling it to really famous people
9:37
Speaker 1: and was making a lot of money doing it. Yeah,
9:39
Speaker 1: and he would actually he had a pretty cool tactic actually,
9:42
Speaker 1: um where you know, if you were of some certain
9:45
Speaker 1: level of rich or famous, he would put you up
9:50
Speaker 1: at his gallery, which is, you know, a compound which
9:53
Speaker 1: had lots of guest houses that were filled with art
9:55
Speaker 1: and everything was for sale, and um he would just
9:58
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh bathe you in luxuriousness while also
10:02
Speaker 1: simultaneously trying to to sell you art. Um. So he
10:06
Speaker 1: he seemed to have been living a pretty kush lifestyle
10:10
Speaker 1: in Santa Fe for a while, and he was making like,
10:12
Speaker 1: I think grossing back in the eighties six million a
10:15
Speaker 1: year um in eighties money too, which is you know,
10:19
Speaker 1: that's a lot of cheese for somebody who just came
10:21
Speaker 1: into the art world because he said, I guess I'll
10:23
Speaker 1: go try this next. You know, the dirtiest money too.
10:27
Speaker 1: It's pretty dirty. Yeah, And a lot of people are
10:29
Speaker 1: like that guy is no hero. He's very widely celebrated,
10:33
Speaker 1: but a lot of um Native American communities, including I
10:37
Speaker 1: believe the Pueblo, UM, say, you know, this guy is
10:41
Speaker 1: a plunderer. And archaeologists too are not a big fan
10:44
Speaker 1: of him either, because he would excavate UM, you know,
10:48
Speaker 1: our archaeological sites, but without any documentation whatsoever. He just
10:51
Speaker 1: wanted to get to the artifacts and then he would
10:53
Speaker 1: take it and sell it. He would he would ruin
10:56
Speaker 1: an archaeological site UM to to get to the art
11:00
Speaker 1: and then make some money off of it. So he
11:03
Speaker 1: didn't have He wasn't beloved universally in that sense, for sure.
11:07
Speaker 1: It's worth pointing out. Yeah, I mean the FBI actually
11:11
Speaker 1: investigated him. They did an undercover operation where an informat,
11:16
Speaker 1: a wired informat just like you seen the movies, went
11:20
Speaker 1: over to his house. I assume sort of posing is
11:23
Speaker 1: some kind of a rich art collector, and he was
11:27
Speaker 1: like here, like, look at all this cool stuff, like
11:30
Speaker 1: here's some eagle feathers, which I'm not supposed to have,
11:33
Speaker 1: and here's some human hair from antiquity, and here's some
11:37
Speaker 1: chain mail and some prehistoric sandals and a basket and
11:41
Speaker 1: and don't tell anyone, but I'm not supposed to have
11:44
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. And after the raid UH in
11:48
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, apparently no charges were brought. It says
11:52
Speaker 1: in our article that UM people assume that the artifacts
11:56
Speaker 1: were hidden or sold, but he had stuff confiscated, so
11:59
Speaker 1: there was definitely only some of it there. And I'm
12:02
Speaker 1: just not sure why no charges were ever levied against him.
12:05
Speaker 1: He was a part of a bigger um investigation with
12:08
Speaker 1: a lot of people, but that might have something to
12:11
Speaker 1: do with it. I have no idea that well, he
12:13
Speaker 1: seems to have been slick and rascally like in the
12:18
Speaker 1: way that you know, those kind of people attract admirers
12:22
Speaker 1: far and wide and tend to like get off the
12:24
Speaker 1: hook in situations that other people necessarily wouldn't. So who knows.
12:29
Speaker 1: I have no idea exactly why he wasn't prosecuted if
12:32
Speaker 1: he was, you know, caught with that kind of stuff,
12:34
Speaker 1: but it would kind of um be in step with
12:38
Speaker 1: his larger personality, which is, you know, I saw him
12:41
Speaker 1: compared to the Native American coyote archetype, you know, the
12:46
Speaker 1: kind of the trickster, the the slick when you can
12:49
Speaker 1: never quite pin down. He definitely had a thread of
12:52
Speaker 1: that going through him, if not that being like you know,
12:56
Speaker 1: his main trait. Yeah, I mean, he was definitely extent
13:00
Speaker 1: rick He kind of flouted the rules of the art world.
13:04
Speaker 1: He thought they were kind of stagy and he was
13:05
Speaker 1: going to do his own thing. Um. Apparently in his
13:08
Speaker 1: galleries he had signs that said please touch the art,
13:11
Speaker 1: we are responsible. Um. He sold Master forgeries like as
13:16
Speaker 1: Master forgeries and basically said, hey, if you like the painting,
13:20
Speaker 1: by the painting the real fakes of those people who
13:23
Speaker 1: just by it because of the real signature of the
13:26
Speaker 1: real artist, which is interesting. Um. And he said he
13:31
Speaker 1: had a roster full of celebrities Jessica Lang, Michael Douglas,
13:35
Speaker 1: Steve Martin, Robert Redford, and as everyone knows, the largest
13:40
Speaker 1: art collector on the planet, Suzanne Summers. Yeah, who he
13:43
Speaker 1: was trying to help find a Georgia O'Keefe. Um. And
13:47
Speaker 1: I don't from a profile of him and People magazine
13:51
Speaker 1: that that hadn't been successful yet. But who knows what
13:54
Speaker 1: the nineties brought. You know. Well, she had that thime
13:56
Speaker 1: Master money, so yeah, she was rolling in the thime
14:00
Speaker 1: as her money. She wasn't hurt. Um. So so Forest
14:04
Speaker 1: Fin is kind of going along living his life just
14:07
Speaker 1: being Forrest Fin from what I can tell. And he
14:10
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with cancer. His father had had developed cancer
14:15
Speaker 1: and uh, when when Forrest was younger, and his father
14:19
Speaker 1: decided that rather than UM undergo uh potentially losing battle
14:25
Speaker 1: with with cancer, UM, he would take his own life.
14:29
Speaker 1: So he took a bunch of sleeping pills and he died.
14:32
Speaker 1: And Forrest Uh decided he wanted to do the same.
14:35
Speaker 1: But rather than like his father dying at home, he
14:39
Speaker 1: knew of a spot that he wanted to die in
14:42
Speaker 1: in the rockies, and so his idea was he was
14:45
Speaker 1: going to put together a chest of treasure uh, and
14:48
Speaker 1: when the time came, he was going to walk out
14:50
Speaker 1: to this spot, UH, take a bunch of sleeping pills himself,
14:53
Speaker 1: and lay there and die. And then at some point
14:56
Speaker 1: somewhere sometimes somebody was going to come along, probably and
15:00
Speaker 1: find this treasure chest being clutched by an old skeleton.
15:05
Speaker 1: That was his idea. But the whole idea kind of
15:08
Speaker 1: took a left turn, Chuck, because he actually got better.
15:13
Speaker 1: He didn't he didn't die from cancer. He actually beat it.
15:16
Speaker 1: And I think that came as a bit of a
15:17
Speaker 1: surprise to him. Yes, I imagine pretty pleasant surprise. Uh.
15:24
Speaker 1: So he wrote a self published memoir called The Thrill
15:26
Speaker 1: of the Chase Publishing, and he um In it contained
15:33
Speaker 1: a poem with six rhyming stanzas printed on the map
15:37
Speaker 1: of the Rockies. And I think we should take a
15:39
Speaker 1: break and read this poem right after this. All right,
16:05
Speaker 1: Fenn has written a poem, and I think we should
16:08
Speaker 1: just read it. You want to take turns? Oh? Sure?
16:12
Speaker 1: Are we going to do our voices like the Halloween episode?
16:14
Speaker 1: Or you can do whatever you want to know? I agree,
16:18
Speaker 1: we'll skip that one. I'm not going to read it
16:21
Speaker 1: as Sammy Davis Jr. You want to go first to me? Uh,
16:26
Speaker 1: dealer's choice. Okay, I'm gonna go you ready, all right?
16:29
Speaker 1: As I have gone alone in there and with my
16:32
Speaker 1: treasures bold, I can keep my secret ware and hint
16:36
Speaker 1: of riches new and old. My turn, Ye begin it
16:43
Speaker 1: where warm waters halt. That's the first clue of where
16:46
Speaker 1: to start, by the way, and take it in the
16:49
Speaker 1: canyon down not far but too far to walk. Put
16:53
Speaker 1: in below the home of Brown Capital b. Yeah, that's
16:57
Speaker 1: a big one. From there, it's no place for the me.
17:00
Speaker 1: The end is ever drawing nigh. There'll be no paddle
17:03
Speaker 1: up your creek, just heavy loads and water high. If
17:08
Speaker 1: you've been wise and found the blaze, look quickly down
17:11
Speaker 1: your quest to cease, but Terry scant with marvel gaze,
17:16
Speaker 1: just take the chest and go in peace? Okay. Uh
17:20
Speaker 1: so why is it that I must go and leave
17:23
Speaker 1: my trope for all to seek the answers? I already
17:26
Speaker 1: know I've done it, tired, and now I'm weak and finally,
17:31
Speaker 1: so hear me all and listen, good, your effort will
17:34
Speaker 1: be worth the cold if you are brave and in
17:36
Speaker 1: the wood, I give you title to the gold. This
17:40
Speaker 1: is really exciting, I gotta say, sure, especially the back
17:43
Speaker 1: and forth. You know, I'm really appreciative of us doing
17:47
Speaker 1: that was a really amazing literary device. So what this
17:51
Speaker 1: was was a very cryptic poem about this treasure that
17:56
Speaker 1: he's hidden, and uh, it was a real treasure, like
18:00
Speaker 1: you said it was. I mean some people say possibly
18:03
Speaker 1: up to three million dollars worth of golden loot. Um.
18:07
Speaker 1: I imagine just being a part of the fin treasure
18:10
Speaker 1: makes it even more valuable at auction. So who knows
18:13
Speaker 1: what it would fatch? You know? Yeah, I think, um,
18:16
Speaker 1: from what I've seen that there's a pretty wide belief
18:19
Speaker 1: that the treasure sold intact as the finn Treasure, would
18:24
Speaker 1: be worth way more than its estimated market value of
18:27
Speaker 1: the combined parts. Oh totally. There's some rich person that's
18:31
Speaker 1: just like, I want to have this in my house.
18:34
Speaker 1: I'll pay ten million bucks for it. Uh, we should
18:36
Speaker 1: say the box itself was actually a treasure as well, right, Yeah,
18:41
Speaker 1: it was a twelfth century bronze treasure chest basically, I
18:45
Speaker 1: think a ten inch by ten inch treasure chest or chest.
18:49
Speaker 1: The fact that it contained treasure made it a treasure
18:51
Speaker 1: chest by definition, but I don't know if that's what
18:54
Speaker 1: it was originally built for. But yeah, it's a remarkable
18:56
Speaker 1: looking box just just on its own. It's the kind
19:00
Speaker 1: of heft and size and just shape that you would
19:04
Speaker 1: imagine opening and being like, wow, there's hundreds of rare
19:08
Speaker 1: gold coins among other things in here. Yeah, so, uh,
19:12
Speaker 1: rare gold coins, um two gold nuggets supposedly as big
19:17
Speaker 1: as a hen's egg. That that's pretty neat to look at,
19:19
Speaker 1: I imagine. And then artifacts like pre Columbian figurine, some
19:23
Speaker 1: jade carvings from China, antique jewelry, emeralds, rubies, like the
19:28
Speaker 1: kind of thing that you would open up in. I
19:30
Speaker 1: think he you know, he wanted a bit of a
19:32
Speaker 1: wow factor and not just like a stack of cash. Yeah,
19:35
Speaker 1: well apparently he was originally going to put thousand dollar
19:38
Speaker 1: bills in there, but but yeah, but he was like,
19:42
Speaker 1: I don't know when this thing is going to be found,
19:44
Speaker 1: and who knows what kind of you know, uh, what
19:47
Speaker 1: kind of shape those those that paper currency is going
19:50
Speaker 1: to be in. And also he's like, who knows if
19:53
Speaker 1: there'll be banks accepting that kind of currency any longer.
19:55
Speaker 1: So he decided to put in more, um, everlasting treasures
20:00
Speaker 1: like gold and things like that. So he takes this
20:03
Speaker 1: box chuck and this treasure chest. He goes to the
20:07
Speaker 1: spot somewhere in the Rockies where he he was he
20:10
Speaker 1: wont he was going to go lay down and die,
20:13
Speaker 1: but rather than lay down and die, he just leaves
20:15
Speaker 1: the chest there, comes back, publishes this book and then
20:20
Speaker 1: you know, let's everybody know about it. And it takes
20:22
Speaker 1: a few years to catch on because I believe he's
20:23
Speaker 1: self published the book. Um, so he didn't have a
20:26
Speaker 1: lot of marketing behind it. But word of mouth started
20:29
Speaker 1: to spread that there was a man from Santa Fe
20:32
Speaker 1: who claimed to have put a two million dollar treasure
20:35
Speaker 1: chest out in the woods somewhere and had published a
20:38
Speaker 1: poem that that contained all the clues you needed to it,
20:42
Speaker 1: and so people started really getting into this, right, Yeah,
20:46
Speaker 1: I mean he didn't um. He gave away a few
20:49
Speaker 1: extra little clues, but basically said, the clues are in
20:52
Speaker 1: this poem. Uh. There are nine of them. They are
20:56
Speaker 1: listed in consecutive order, and they are you know, there
21:00
Speaker 1: are a series of steps that you have to take,
21:02
Speaker 1: um starting with that second stanza. Um. He did also
21:06
Speaker 1: say it's somewhere in the rocky mountains between Santa Fe
21:09
Speaker 1: and Canada. Another big clue was that it's an elevation
21:14
Speaker 1: of about five thousand feet, so that that's a big
21:17
Speaker 1: one that rules a lot of stuff out. And then
21:19
Speaker 1: this last extra clue is also pretty big. He said,
21:22
Speaker 1: it's not in a mine or in a graveyard or
21:24
Speaker 1: near any man made structure. And he said that last
21:27
Speaker 1: part from what I saw, because people were starting to
21:30
Speaker 1: do really dumb things and and going for really far afield.
21:35
Speaker 1: And he kept reminding people because so this is something
21:38
Speaker 1: that kind of um emerged from from reading about this stuff.
21:42
Speaker 1: He became part of this community. People would call him up,
21:47
Speaker 1: they'd text him, they'd email him, like he became friends
21:50
Speaker 1: with a lot of the most hardcore searchers. Um. And
21:53
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they would ask him for clues or
21:56
Speaker 1: hints and he would just ghost him. But others just
21:58
Speaker 1: were kind of like, you know, I'm sitting in this
22:00
Speaker 1: one spot and you know, thinking of you right now
22:03
Speaker 1: because you you sent me here through this. This treasure
22:06
Speaker 1: hunter just wanted to thank you. Like he became a
22:08
Speaker 1: friend to a lot of these people. Um. But the
22:11
Speaker 1: one thing he kept saying to this crowd was, I
22:16
Speaker 1: was eighty years old carrying a forty pound treasure chest
22:21
Speaker 1: when I went out to this place, Like like, this
22:24
Speaker 1: is not a place where you have to climb up
22:26
Speaker 1: any sort of precipice or go down a precipice. Um,
22:30
Speaker 1: it's not that hard to get to. Just remember, like,
22:33
Speaker 1: it's the kind of place that an eighty year old
22:35
Speaker 1: man carrying a treasure chest weighing forty pounds can get
22:38
Speaker 1: to by himself because there was no one there. There
22:41
Speaker 1: were no witnesses, um. And it was just his word
22:45
Speaker 1: that this was actually there that people had to take
22:47
Speaker 1: it for for you know, on face value. Yeah, one
22:51
Speaker 1: of his friends supposedly saw what he claimed was the
22:55
Speaker 1: treasure chest in his walking close at once. But that's
22:58
Speaker 1: kind of the only verification and that this wasn't some
23:01
Speaker 1: big hoax. I think people took him at his word.
23:04
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're gonna figure something like this out,
23:07
Speaker 1: you have to start. If you don't get that first
23:09
Speaker 1: clue right, then you might as well not even bother.
23:12
Speaker 1: So it really comes down to begin it to where
23:15
Speaker 1: waters I'm sorry, begin it where warm waters halt and
23:19
Speaker 1: take it in the canyon down. You gotta find that place.
23:22
Speaker 1: And people like, what does that mean? Are their rivers converging?
23:26
Speaker 1: Is it a hot springs going into a river? Um?
23:29
Speaker 1: The first thing I thought was like, maybe he's being cheeky.
23:32
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like, uh, some primitive National park bath house
23:37
Speaker 1: that doesn't have hot water, right, you know, like, don't
23:42
Speaker 1: don't look in nature it's a bathroom. That's Some people
23:44
Speaker 1: actually took um below the home of Brown to mean
23:48
Speaker 1: an outhouse. I'm not kidding. I saw that in a
23:52
Speaker 1: couple of places, but Brown is capitalized. Yeah, I know,
23:56
Speaker 1: I know, But that's the like that that like you're
24:00
Speaker 1: idea about, you know, it being like a place without
24:02
Speaker 1: hot water. This pretty pretty mainstream thinking actually, like the
24:06
Speaker 1: like there were people who really got into this and
24:09
Speaker 1: started seeing things that just were not there. Yeah, of course,
24:14
Speaker 1: so um there. The whole thing is there was a
24:17
Speaker 1: lot of question about how you should interpret this and
24:20
Speaker 1: like I didn't see that that, like the whole thing
24:23
Speaker 1: actually did start with beginning where warm waters hault. A
24:27
Speaker 1: lot of people suspected that the real first clue was
24:31
Speaker 1: in the first stanza, but apparently that's not the case.
24:34
Speaker 1: It is um, as I have gone alone in there
24:39
Speaker 1: and with my treasures bold I can keep my secret
24:42
Speaker 1: ware and hint of Rita's new and old. People were
24:45
Speaker 1: looking at things like, um, so in that first line,
24:48
Speaker 1: as I have gone alone in there, they're like, well,
24:52
Speaker 1: if you look at um the word gone and the
24:55
Speaker 1: word alone, the number one is spelled out, and those
24:58
Speaker 1: two words, maybe these are some sort of coordinates that
25:01
Speaker 1: start with one one Like this is the level of
25:04
Speaker 1: thought that bating too much into it, way too much.
25:08
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think he even kind of tried to
25:10
Speaker 1: help guide people away from that, like you don't need
25:13
Speaker 1: to be a cryptologist to get this right. This is
25:16
Speaker 1: you know, uh, it's it's not that kind of a
25:19
Speaker 1: puzzle like it's it's it's different than that. Um yeah,
25:23
Speaker 1: I mean he said there were no codes, no anagrams.
25:25
Speaker 1: It was just like warm waters, dummy, right, But that
25:29
Speaker 1: didn't stop anybody from from saying like, no, no, you're
25:33
Speaker 1: a liar. And that's clearly one one or the first
25:36
Speaker 1: two numbers in whatever coordinates you're giving us. Interesting. So, uh,
25:42
Speaker 1: he did accomplish his goal as far as getting people
25:44
Speaker 1: out there. Um, like you said, like he got emails
25:47
Speaker 1: where people talked about these amazing places they never would
25:51
Speaker 1: have seen otherwise. And I imagine that brought him a
25:53
Speaker 1: lot of joy because that was the whole point for him,
25:56
Speaker 1: was to was to get people out there. And uh,
25:58
Speaker 1: I think he had the idea initially during the financial
26:01
Speaker 1: crisis when everyone was feeling down about stuff, and he said,
26:05
Speaker 1: this is really gonna uh if people find out about it,
26:08
Speaker 1: this is gonna spice up a lot of people's lives
26:10
Speaker 1: and get them out into nature. Yeah. Because again, like
26:13
Speaker 1: you could sit there and be like, Okay, this is
26:15
Speaker 1: you know, this is where I think the starting point is,
26:17
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go on to Google Earth and start
26:19
Speaker 1: here and try to find the next clue and put
26:21
Speaker 1: together a solve. But again, if you had thought that
26:25
Speaker 1: your your solve was onto something you had to go
26:27
Speaker 1: out to the rockies and go see for yourself. Um.
26:30
Speaker 1: So it really did get all those people out to nature.
26:32
Speaker 1: And you know there there were so many like, um,
26:36
Speaker 1: thanks and messages and you know, um just kind of uh,
26:43
Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for where you honor somebody
26:45
Speaker 1: with thanks or something like that. Yeah, there were accolades
26:51
Speaker 1: for a forest friend for doing this because you know,
26:53
Speaker 1: he helped change a lot of people's lives. But um,
26:56
Speaker 1: there were definitely cases where things went far enough off
27:00
Speaker 1: the rails that some of these treasury hunters did not
27:03
Speaker 1: come back from, you know, going to verify their solves
27:06
Speaker 1: in the in the woods in real life. Yeah, I
27:09
Speaker 1: mean sadly, it looks like there were five people that died.
27:14
Speaker 1: Certainly others that were rescued that could have died. Um.
27:18
Speaker 1: One man named Jeff Murphy I think died from a fall.
27:20
Speaker 1: A man named Eric Ashby was found in the Arkansas River.
27:24
Speaker 1: There was a man named Randy Bill you who he
27:28
Speaker 1: was one of these full timers. He moved from Florida
27:30
Speaker 1: to Colorado and he died and was found near the
27:34
Speaker 1: Rio Grand River. There was a preacher named Paris Waller
27:38
Speaker 1: Um um, sorry Wallace a priest who was Um, he died.
27:42
Speaker 1: And then just before this thing came to its conclusion
27:46
Speaker 1: in March, there were two men found. Uh. One of
27:50
Speaker 1: them was alive and one of them, named Michael Sexon,
27:53
Speaker 1: was actually dead. They went out as a pair, which
27:56
Speaker 1: is what he always recommended, like go out with a buddy,
27:58
Speaker 1: don't be dangerous. Um. But one of these guys died
28:01
Speaker 1: near a Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Yeah, and Um,
28:04
Speaker 1: the other guy, like you said, was rescued. That was
28:07
Speaker 1: the second time that pair had had to be rescued
28:09
Speaker 1: in the area in a month. Man. Yeah, so you
28:13
Speaker 1: can imagine that law enforcement in some of these places
28:16
Speaker 1: around Colorado in New Mexico where people were getting lost
28:20
Speaker 1: or dying. Um called on Fenn to say, like just
28:25
Speaker 1: stop this, just call us off, like tell everybody where
28:27
Speaker 1: it is, like this has gotten dangerous. People are are
28:30
Speaker 1: losing their lives now because of this, Like people have died,
28:34
Speaker 1: and Forest Fen had um a fairly libertarian response to that.
28:40
Speaker 1: He said, there's there's not Um. He said, life is
28:43
Speaker 1: too short to wear both a belt and suspenders. If
28:46
Speaker 1: someone drowns in the swimming pool, we shouldn't drain the pool.
28:49
Speaker 1: We should teach people to swim, which has a certain homespun,
28:53
Speaker 1: wild West folksy sensibility to it, for sure. Um, it
28:58
Speaker 1: makes sense like he wasn't he. It's not like he
29:01
Speaker 1: was the original Tom Fool who was sending people to
29:05
Speaker 1: their death in the quicksand that he knew was going to,
29:08
Speaker 1: you know, catch them on their way to find this treasure.
29:11
Speaker 1: Like he was. He was trying to get people out
29:14
Speaker 1: of doors, and he was trying to guide them as
29:16
Speaker 1: best he could in a safe manner without giving anything away. Um.
29:21
Speaker 1: And you can make a case one way or the
29:24
Speaker 1: other that he was responsible or not responsible for those
29:28
Speaker 1: people's deaths. I think it just comes down to your
29:30
Speaker 1: philosophy on personal responsibility or you know, um, indirect responsibility. Yeah.
29:37
Speaker 1: And he also after that quote said why do I
29:39
Speaker 1: have to pay school taxes when I don't have kids? Right,
29:43
Speaker 1: I don't care about your kids. And now I'm going
29:46
Speaker 1: to get emails from libertarians. Yeah, I don't think libertarians
29:50
Speaker 1: listening to this anymore. We discussed them. Oh, who knows, Now,
29:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some out there. I'm just kidding. Of course,
29:55
Speaker 1: we have libertarian listeners. So there was some other you know,
29:59
Speaker 1: aside from the deaths, there's some other darker sort of
30:01
Speaker 1: aspects to this story. Um. When you have hundreds of
30:05
Speaker 1: thousands of people looking for something in national parks and
30:08
Speaker 1: in wildlife, you're gonna get some people that are not
30:11
Speaker 1: accustomed to being in these places and treating them with
30:14
Speaker 1: their respect they deserve, and uh damaging protected spaces and
30:20
Speaker 1: uh species. There was one person charged with the misdemeanor
30:23
Speaker 1: for digging under a memorial cross owned by the New
30:27
Speaker 1: Mexico State Game Commission. Um. They had to actually backfill
30:30
Speaker 1: the space to stabilize the monument. Um. There was other people.
30:34
Speaker 1: There were other people arrested over the years for digging
30:37
Speaker 1: in national parks, digging in cemeteries, people being indicted on
30:41
Speaker 1: federal charges. Um. You know this is what you're gonna
30:45
Speaker 1: get when you sort of have a wild West treasure
30:48
Speaker 1: hunt in in very kind of sacred areas. Yeah. Especially, Yeah,
30:51
Speaker 1: you're gonna attract some nuts and kooks for sure, who
30:54
Speaker 1: who don't listen and who just stopped thinking you're using
30:58
Speaker 1: their brains. Um. One I was, I believe, got a
31:02
Speaker 1: restraining order UM taken out against him by Fenn and
31:05
Speaker 1: his family because he had decided that the real treasure
31:08
Speaker 1: was fens granddaughter and that that was the key to everything,
31:12
Speaker 1: and had started stalking Fens home. Um, which is kind
31:16
Speaker 1: of scary. Yeah, did you see anything else about that guy?
31:19
Speaker 1: About the stalker? Yeah, I had. His name was Francisco
31:24
Speaker 1: Paco Chavez. Paco was his nickname, and uh, he was
31:30
Speaker 1: just clearly had had issues. I don't want to like
31:34
Speaker 1: diagnose him or anything, but um, it wasn't just about
31:37
Speaker 1: this treasure hunt. He at one point has sent pictures
31:40
Speaker 1: of hearts, the treasure chest and a shoe with a
31:44
Speaker 1: message that said one shoe can change your life Cinderella me. Um.
31:50
Speaker 1: He said he wanted to marry his granddaughter. He eventually
31:53
Speaker 1: was put on three years probation in and then in
31:56
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen showed up at his house again on on
31:59
Speaker 1: the like, Uh, you know, he had a gate at
32:02
Speaker 1: home and I was trying to get buzzed in. They
32:04
Speaker 1: saw who it was and he just sort of disappeared
32:06
Speaker 1: before the cops could show up. But um, that that
32:09
Speaker 1: pretty scary. Yeah, I can't imagine. Um, I mean, that's
32:13
Speaker 1: super duper scary to have somebody zeroed in on you
32:17
Speaker 1: like that, under any circumstance, you know. Yeah, Um, I
32:21
Speaker 1: think there was another guy who tried to gain entry
32:23
Speaker 1: into the house with an axe and had to be
32:26
Speaker 1: held at gunpoint by Fen's daughter. Um. But he was
32:30
Speaker 1: the kind of guy who inspired love and support by
32:34
Speaker 1: his family. And I saw a uh quote from his grandson,
32:38
Speaker 1: whose name is shiloh Old, which is pretty wide wild
32:42
Speaker 1: West name, uh, and he said, you know, this has
32:44
Speaker 1: been you know, really hard on the family, but you know,
32:47
Speaker 1: we we fully support our grandfather. Um. It's I thought
32:51
Speaker 1: that was kind of neat, and it says a lot
32:53
Speaker 1: about his family that they were willing to endure all
32:56
Speaker 1: this without you know, being like, just tell him where
32:59
Speaker 1: the where the treasure is? Like, this has gotten out
33:02
Speaker 1: of hand, so should we take another break and then
33:05
Speaker 1: talk about this mysterious conclusion you've been talking about totally?
33:31
Speaker 1: So people are still looking for this thing, it's um,
33:34
Speaker 1: I believe twenty right June of Yeah, you're speaking in
33:40
Speaker 1: a you know, past tense. Well, no, actually, I think
33:43
Speaker 1: there are people still looking at this for this as
33:46
Speaker 1: we'll see, but they're not necessarily looking for the treasure anymore.
33:49
Speaker 1: Because in June of there was an announcement made by
33:53
Speaker 1: forest Fen that said, it's been found. It's over. Somebody
33:57
Speaker 1: found fair and square and and um. Thus began this frustrating,
34:04
Speaker 1: maddening slow trickle of vague confirmations that this had been
34:11
Speaker 1: found and it had been found legitimately. That actually encouraged
34:16
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories about whether the treasure had even existed at all,
34:21
Speaker 1: or had ever been out there in the wilderness at all. Um.
34:25
Speaker 1: That still kind of persisted among some people of this day.
34:28
Speaker 1: But from what I saw, most of the people who
34:30
Speaker 1: were involved in the treasure hunt are satisfied that it
34:33
Speaker 1: was found and that it was found fair and square.
34:37
Speaker 1: Are you saying there are people in this country that,
34:39
Speaker 1: in the face of hard facts and truth, Uh, still
34:43
Speaker 1: believe in the conspiracy. Chuck, believe it or not. That
34:46
Speaker 1: may be true. I think the jury is still out,
34:51
Speaker 1: so UM. I think it's kind of interesting what he
34:54
Speaker 1: said when when they did find it, he said, Uh,
34:56
Speaker 1: it has been found under a canopy of stars and
34:58
Speaker 1: the lush forced vegetation the Rocky mountains, and had not
35:02
Speaker 1: moved from the spot where I hit it more than
35:04
Speaker 1: ten years ago. I do not know the person who
35:06
Speaker 1: found it. That would change. But the poem in my
35:08
Speaker 1: book led him to the precise spot, and uh, like
35:12
Speaker 1: you said, because of the conspiracy um individuals, he said, Uh.
35:18
Speaker 1: He posted a picture of it and he's like, here
35:21
Speaker 1: it is. Here are some of the objects. They have weathered.
35:23
Speaker 1: It's darker than it was ten years ago when I
35:25
Speaker 1: left it in the ground and walked away. Here's like
35:28
Speaker 1: a bracelet that's been tarnished. And yet some people still
35:31
Speaker 1: were like, Nope, I don't believe the facts in front
35:34
Speaker 1: of my face. This is a hoax. Yeah, I mean
35:36
Speaker 1: the fact. The fact is that the guy who um
35:39
Speaker 1: found it didn't want to be named. So now you
35:42
Speaker 1: had an anonymous person named the Finder who said that
35:46
Speaker 1: you know, he had found it. He wouldn't reveal how
35:49
Speaker 1: he found it because he was saying that he had
35:51
Speaker 1: been to this place obviously to get the treasure, and
35:54
Speaker 1: it was so beautiful and pristine that he said it
35:57
Speaker 1: was not an appropriate place to become a tourist destination.
35:59
Speaker 1: He and want people going out there and looking for
36:02
Speaker 1: maybe treasure that was dropped along the way um, or
36:05
Speaker 1: just you know, trying to see for themselves this place.
36:08
Speaker 1: It was a sacred place in his opinion, and he
36:11
Speaker 1: wanted to defend it so um to this day. Uh,
36:15
Speaker 1: the second part has still held true. People don't know
36:18
Speaker 1: where he found this thing, which is why I said,
36:21
Speaker 1: some people are still looking for this. They're not looking
36:23
Speaker 1: for the treasure anymore. They're looking for the spot, like
36:26
Speaker 1: the spot has become you know, the treasure. UM. And
36:29
Speaker 1: there was something that that we left out before that
36:32
Speaker 1: I think is worth mentioning um because Forest Fen was
36:36
Speaker 1: in correspondence with a lot of these people who are
36:40
Speaker 1: searching for this hard core UM. They would tell him
36:43
Speaker 1: like where they'd been or whatever, and he wouldn't give
36:45
Speaker 1: him anything in response. He'd just take the information, you know.
36:48
Speaker 1: But then later in interviews he said that multiple people
36:52
Speaker 1: had been within a couple hundred feet of the treasure
36:55
Speaker 1: and just hadn't been able to find it. Um. And apparently,
36:59
Speaker 1: uh one of the reasons why is this anonymous finder
37:02
Speaker 1: said that somebody had gone out that way and put
37:06
Speaker 1: a misleading blaze. Ablaze is one of the clues, but
37:09
Speaker 1: it's also something that marks trail, and it was the
37:12
Speaker 1: penultimate clue. I believe if you found the blaze, you
37:15
Speaker 1: were very close to the treasure and somebody had put
37:18
Speaker 1: some other misleading blaze out there to be a jerk,
37:21
Speaker 1: I guess, or throw other people off the trail. Um,
37:24
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of people who had come
37:26
Speaker 1: really really close and just walked right past it. Basically, Yeah,
37:31
Speaker 1: and apparently the original blaze had been damaged over the decade,
37:35
Speaker 1: so I don't think it was even visible to begin with.
37:39
Speaker 1: Then you had the misleading blaze and this mystery person
37:43
Speaker 1: would eventually be out of though because of a lawsuit. Uh.
37:46
Speaker 1: There was a woman, a real estate attorney from Chicago
37:48
Speaker 1: named Barbara Anderson who said that treasure is mine. Um,
37:53
Speaker 1: I solved it, and somebody hacked into my email and
37:57
Speaker 1: my cell phone and stole I solve and it's this person,
38:02
Speaker 1: whoever it is. And so because of this lawsuit, uh,
38:06
Speaker 1: Jack stuff, a thirty two year old medical student had
38:10
Speaker 1: to be revealed and and go to court, and um,
38:14
Speaker 1: we have we are one degree removed from Jack Stupe.
38:17
Speaker 1: I was wondering if friend Dazzo knew him or not.
38:19
Speaker 1: They they're there, they worked there around the same time,
38:21
Speaker 1: I would guess, right, Yeah, so he was a writer
38:24
Speaker 1: for The Onion and we knew folks from The Onion,
38:26
Speaker 1: and uh, I didn't text our buddy Joe Randazzo. But
38:29
Speaker 1: I did text Joe garden Um, former Onion writer, and
38:34
Speaker 1: he knew him, and he said after uh, and asked
38:37
Speaker 1: him if I could quote him on all this, and
38:39
Speaker 1: he said, after he found it. He said, we had
38:41
Speaker 1: a nice little Onion alumni chat about him. And he
38:45
Speaker 1: said he's a decent enough guy. And he said, but
38:47
Speaker 1: as my uh, he said, as my friend John Harris
38:49
Speaker 1: for The Onion put it, I didn't not expect him
38:52
Speaker 1: to find buried treasure. So uh. He said that he
38:57
Speaker 1: was the kind of guy. And you know, I read
38:59
Speaker 1: a little bit more about him. He was, um apparently
39:02
Speaker 1: into this kind of thing. When he was a kid.
39:03
Speaker 1: He was obsessed with the show Push Nevada, which was
39:08
Speaker 1: a TV show reviewers could solve a real million dollar mystery. Um.
39:12
Speaker 1: Joe said he admired his pluck. Uh. He had gained
39:16
Speaker 1: some notoriety before I'm sorry, after The Onion when he
39:20
Speaker 1: wrote for something called The Wonket and uh he was
39:24
Speaker 1: the person who in two thousand and eight made a
39:27
Speaker 1: drogatory term about Sarah Palin's uh special needs son and
39:32
Speaker 1: kind of got a lot of grief for that. Um
39:34
Speaker 1: got out of journalism, went to medical school, and then
39:38
Speaker 1: started searching for this treasure. Yeah, I guess he liked
39:41
Speaker 1: um only meeting with patients everything else. He hated about
39:46
Speaker 1: medical school from what I read. UM, But yeah, he
39:49
Speaker 1: just kind of dedicated his life to this. From what
39:52
Speaker 1: I saw, he didn't really share how into it he
39:56
Speaker 1: was with friends and family, UM, because he didn't know
39:59
Speaker 1: if he was ever going to find it, and it
40:00
Speaker 1: was just a weird thing to to be into this
40:03
Speaker 1: deep as far as he was concerned. So he seemed
40:05
Speaker 1: to have some perspective. But UM, I saw some some
40:09
Speaker 1: of the other treasure hunters were like this guy, Jack Stuf.
40:12
Speaker 1: He he was kind of a lone wolf, but at
40:16
Speaker 1: some points he went on and like and joined some
40:20
Speaker 1: groups that were trying to solve UM the treasure hunt
40:24
Speaker 1: as a group UM. And there were questions at first
40:27
Speaker 1: about whether he had basically taken a solve from one
40:31
Speaker 1: of the groups that he participated in and solved it
40:33
Speaker 1: himself and wasn't sharing the treasure. But um that group
40:37
Speaker 1: was involved in basically looking at like alone has the
40:42
Speaker 1: number one, and they were just totally off. What Stuf
40:45
Speaker 1: apparently did was apply his UM degree in English and
40:49
Speaker 1: literature and did a close reading and studied forest Fan
40:54
Speaker 1: and watched all the interviews with him, read every interview
40:57
Speaker 1: he could find to see if he slipped up or um,
41:00
Speaker 1: just to kind of understand who he was more, and
41:03
Speaker 1: then applied that to it and treated it less like
41:06
Speaker 1: a cryptogram and more like a poem that was that
41:10
Speaker 1: was symbolic, and that apparently is how he cracked the code. Yeah,
41:15
Speaker 1: I mean um. He said that he he did notice
41:17
Speaker 1: a couple of slip ups and interviews that Forrestment had
41:20
Speaker 1: made and that he said, I just guess no one
41:22
Speaker 1: else noticed these. Um. And he said his like, he
41:26
Speaker 1: obviously used the poem to to follow the steps, but
41:30
Speaker 1: in his mind it seemed like um. And there's that
41:32
Speaker 1: great Outside magazine article that if you want to read
41:35
Speaker 1: more about it, it's pretty in depth about him. But um,
41:39
Speaker 1: he said, what he really wanted to figure out was
41:41
Speaker 1: the where he thought he might want to die. Uh.
41:44
Speaker 1: And he thought that was sort of the biggest clue
41:46
Speaker 1: of all and that it would probably be some really
41:49
Speaker 1: beautiful place and not you know, like a rocky, dusty
41:53
Speaker 1: hillside or something like that. Uh. And it turns out
41:56
Speaker 1: that he was right. And um, you know, he said
41:59
Speaker 1: that that one A's had worn away over the years.
42:01
Speaker 1: But he went to the spot where he said, I
42:04
Speaker 1: think this is the spot where he wants to die.
42:06
Speaker 1: He went there about twenty five times over a couple
42:08
Speaker 1: of years, and I just, you know, finally found it.
42:12
Speaker 1: Pretty neat story. Yeah that that, Um, that Outside magazine
42:16
Speaker 1: article on him is pretty interesting. I found one I
42:18
Speaker 1: think is even better. Um. It was in New York
42:22
Speaker 1: Magazine by Benjamin Wallace called the Great twenty one century
42:27
Speaker 1: treasure Hunt. I believe, um that was that it was
42:30
Speaker 1: really provide a lot of extra details in different ways
42:33
Speaker 1: of looking at it that I hadn't seen elsewhere. So
42:35
Speaker 1: and it also profiled a different hunter who didn't find it,
42:38
Speaker 1: by the last name of Posey Um, but is a
42:41
Speaker 1: pretty interesting cat himself too. Yeah, so Stuf ended up. Um.
42:46
Speaker 1: He said he became friends, like legit friends with Fenn
42:50
Speaker 1: before he died in September September seven. Um, he was
42:56
Speaker 1: ninety years old. And uh, he said, you know, I'm
43:00
Speaker 1: hanging onto this for now. I may split it up
43:03
Speaker 1: and may display some of it. I may sell some
43:05
Speaker 1: of it. He's really not sure what he's gonna do.
43:08
Speaker 1: I think I'm with you. Like, if he really wants
43:10
Speaker 1: to bring in the windfall, he should sell it all
43:13
Speaker 1: as one big package to some super rich person who
43:17
Speaker 1: wants to display this thing. But right now he's kind
43:19
Speaker 1: of hanging onto it. And um, it was really seemed
43:23
Speaker 1: like genuinely broken up when when Fenn died. Oh yeah,
43:27
Speaker 1: that guy was very much beloved in the community for sure.
43:31
Speaker 1: Like there there was one of those guys who went missing,
43:34
Speaker 1: one of the searchers who went missing, I believe um. Oh,
43:39
Speaker 1: I don't remember which one it was, but he was
43:40
Speaker 1: missing for seven months and after the initial official search
43:45
Speaker 1: and rescue UM was called off forest Fenn paid for
43:48
Speaker 1: a chartered helicopter to continue the search, and a lot
43:52
Speaker 1: of the treasure hunters searched for him too. So it
43:55
Speaker 1: was a very tight knit community and this guy was
43:57
Speaker 1: like this kind of homespun odd figure to them that
44:01
Speaker 1: they could text and say hi to. He was super approachable, um,
44:05
Speaker 1: and yet he he wouldn't give you anything. He wouldn't
44:08
Speaker 1: give you any hint as to where the treasure was.
44:12
Speaker 1: So it must have been really interesting for him too
44:15
Speaker 1: to um to kind of put himself in that kind
44:19
Speaker 1: of jeopardy or put the treasure in that kind of
44:21
Speaker 1: jeopardy by interacting with people who we're spending tons of
44:26
Speaker 1: their waking hours looking for this treasure UM and not
44:30
Speaker 1: giving them anything, not a single clue. It must have
44:33
Speaker 1: been pretty fun for him to to that that's how
44:35
Speaker 1: he spent his last days, you know. Oh, totally. Uh.
44:38
Speaker 1: And if you're thinking in terms of movies, like I
44:42
Speaker 1: always think, there is a documentary which I wasn't able
44:45
Speaker 1: to watch, called The Lure from that UM obviously before
44:49
Speaker 1: it was found. They made this documentary about people who
44:52
Speaker 1: were searching uh. And you cannot stream it online, but
44:55
Speaker 1: I think you can actually buy it from the website,
44:58
Speaker 1: and they are making supposedly a movie about it. UM
45:02
Speaker 1: director Jake Zamanski has been hired to make a movie
45:05
Speaker 1: based on journalist Hudson Morgan's misadventures looking for this thing himself. Uh.
45:12
Speaker 1: And it's about a group of millennials who set out
45:14
Speaker 1: to find it and getting wacky misadventures. And it's described
45:17
Speaker 1: as uh an action comedy Goonies meets the Hangover. Oh.
45:24
Speaker 1: I never thought I would hear those words put the
45:26
Speaker 1: other on the sid So who knows, maybe we'll see
45:30
Speaker 1: that one day. Uh. Wow, Okay, well, um, let's see
45:34
Speaker 1: you got anything else. Nothing else, let's the find treasury.
45:37
Speaker 1: But if you want to know more about it, go
45:39
Speaker 1: check out that outside article in the New York Magazine
45:42
Speaker 1: article and then just prepare to dive in and you
45:44
Speaker 1: can still join it and figure out where the spot is.
45:47
Speaker 1: Just be safe, you know, be smart. And since I
45:52
Speaker 1: said be safe and be smart, that means it's time
45:54
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this layoff Cisco guy eyes.
46:01
Speaker 1: So uh, in our Buffets episode, I think you specifically
46:05
Speaker 1: sort of bagged on Cisco the restaurant delivery service. I
46:10
Speaker 1: was bagging on restaurants that use Cisco's pre made ingredients
46:13
Speaker 1: and try to pass it off as if it's just
46:16
Speaker 1: sure you know their own stuff. Alright, So take that, Brandon.
46:21
Speaker 1: But Brandon says this, Greetings guys have listened to many
46:23
Speaker 1: years and rarely needed it right in. But on the
46:26
Speaker 1: Buffet episode, that was a massive misconception of the role
46:29
Speaker 1: of Cisco at restaurants. I have worked for Cisco for
46:31
Speaker 1: thirteen years, delivery for ten, and now a shuttle driver
46:35
Speaker 1: hauling food from Salt Lake City to Grand Junction, Colorado
46:39
Speaker 1: every day. I love my job. Cisco was portrayed on
46:41
Speaker 1: the show as a prepackaged, frozen microwave food company. Uh.
46:46
Speaker 1: While we do have select items that are ready to
46:48
Speaker 1: eat and frozen, the vast majority of our food supply
46:51
Speaker 1: our fresh foods, fresh foods and vegetables. We supply restaurants, hospitals, schools, etcetera.
46:57
Speaker 1: With everything needed for kitchens to become successful. Our trucks
47:00
Speaker 1: are dual zone refrigerators for frozen and fresh items. I
47:04
Speaker 1: hope you can do an episode on food delivering how
47:06
Speaker 1: semitrucks are used to keep the cold chain supply and action.
47:09
Speaker 1: I hope this didn't go on for too long. Didn't,
47:12
Speaker 1: And I hope your perception of Cisco will change for
47:15
Speaker 1: the better. Sure, yeah, I mean I love Cisco. Now
47:20
Speaker 1: let's all go to Cisco lots of love. That's from
47:25
Speaker 1: Brandon writer in Colorado, and he saidps, can you plug
47:28
Speaker 1: my very small gaming channel on YouTube? Sure? It is
47:33
Speaker 1: Brandon due to gaming and that is d O O
47:36
Speaker 1: D all one word Brandon dude gaming on YouTube. Yes,
47:40
Speaker 1: I haven't seen his gaming channels, so let's just go
47:43
Speaker 1: ahead and hope that it's all above boards. That's a
47:48
Speaker 1: good point. You should probably do that. Yeah, we should,
47:52
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get busy on that. You go and
47:54
Speaker 1: click on it in the first video, is right. Yeah,
47:57
Speaker 1: that would be the least of my worries. Actually, actually
48:00
Speaker 1: that'd be fine. Uh. Well, thanks a lot, Brandon. Sorry
48:03
Speaker 1: for really kind of I guess indirectly talking smack about Cisco.
48:07
Speaker 1: That was my intent. So thank you for calling me out.
48:11
Speaker 1: Uh And if you want to be like Brandon and
48:12
Speaker 1: call me out or call Chuck out too, you can
48:15
Speaker 1: do that to you once in a while. If you like,
48:17
Speaker 1: you can send us an email. The Stuff podcast at
48:19
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
48:24
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
48:27
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
48:30
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.