True Adventure

 There are literally untold Billions and Billions of dollars in Gold, Precious Gems and Treasure waiting to be discovered out there. Will you be the one, if not it'll probably be me or someone else no doubt. The world is full of True Adventures, plenty to last a hundred lifetimes I guarantee you that, but what type of Adventure will you choose? What is your interest? That you must figure out, then begins the research and the road to your success.

Although my passion is Treasure Hunting http://www.stangrist.com/?hop=theminer I've had many wonderful experiences mining gold both professionally and as a hobby. I started reading about gold mining and treasure hunting when I was young about 11, and in my early 20's I met a man named Mr. Louis Matacia a professional dowser and Treasure Hunter http://www.opm.bz/articles/m/matacialouis/ . I was thrown into the world of Treasure Hunting in New Mexico and Texas at 21 and had many amazing adventures and some great success. Alot of the early knowledge I've attained and success I attribute to Mr. Matacia, he is a man I truly respect.  Since I started with Matacia I've enhanced that knowledge 100 fold. Knowledge and learning should be a constant thing, we should allways keep an open mind and be open to the possibilities that life and learning opens up for us.

I didn't really start gold mining until I moved to California at age 25, I  bought a mining claim in the heart of the California gold country with a couple partners, we went to work dredging the river for gold. We had to have our equipment helicoptered in and it was about a mile and a half hike down the canyon to a place I can only describe as paradise. We were dredging ancient river gold that had washed down from up above, we did very, very well. Since then I've dredged the American River, the Kern River, the San Gabrial River and the Colorado River, all with success. But have also nuggett hunted all over the place and have found ounces upon ounces of beautiful gold nuggets and more things that I can count. But the True Adventure lies in the seeking not the finding.

Yes folks there is still tons of gold to be had.  Although I love dredging for gold there are other ways of mining such as sniping that can produce beautiful pieces of gold and nuggetts. You clean exposed bedrock cracks for trapped on the bedrock or in the cracks of the bedrock. Bedrock is the crust of the earth and all the heavy stuff gets trapped or ends up there. Sniping for gold is one of my favorate forms of mining and here are the books you'll need to learn more about mining and sniping for Gold http://www.akmining.com/cart/bookgoldmining.htm .

I set out to do some mining on the San Gabrial River in Southern California, I planned to take a few days with a couple friends and do some sniping for gold. We were about a hundred yards down the trail and I noticed a couple guys putting together their new six inch Keene dredge http://www.keeneeng.com/ . I complemented them on a nice looking dredge and they wished us good luck as we headed down the trail. A couple days went by and we decided to hike out. It was getting a little late when we got to the camp of the dredgers and they invited us to stay for some barbacue and a beer, miners are some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet. They had just finished cleaning up there gold for the day, and as he showed me a 1/2 ounce of some pretty gold flakes and tiny nuggets, I dumped over 2 1/2 ounces of gold into my little cleanup pan. They peered into the pan, and couldn't believe there eyes. I had several nice size nuggets ranging from  2 pennyweight to allmost a quarter ounce. They couldn't believe how a couple of guys with a small sluice box and minimal gear could come back with that much gold. I said look guys you've dredged five to eight feet deep to bedrock where the gold is. Well down the river  we're sniping exposed bedrock and cleaning the bedrock cracks for the gold that's been left behind and trapped, we have more exposed area to work 100 times the area.

Well about a week or so later one of the guys called me and said "Frank I would love to learn how to snipe for gold can you teach us?" Well needless to say about six months later they sold there dredge, and are now sniping gold all over and really paying for there trips. Gold sniping can really pay and it doesn't take alot of heavy equipment, just a wetsuit mask and snorkel and some basic crevicing tools which you can make yourself.

With good research there are plenty of places that still have lots of gold to be dredged, mined, sniped and most good sniping or mining areas will replinish themselves. A good metal detector really helps in locating good cracks to crevice http://www.kellycodetectors.com/indexmain.htm Also in sniping you see the gold as your mining it which allways gives me a thrill. But don't let me discourage you from buying a dredge, a small 2 inch model works great for sucking out bedrock cracks.  You may need a larger dredge if your in an area that's really paying, it really depends on the situation.

One of my heroes in the business of Gold Mining is Mr. Dave McCracken  http://www.goldgold.com/ Dave can show you what It's all about, where it is and how to get it. He has some of the best books, courses and videos on goldmining and dredging out there, his company Promack Mining manufactures equipment for any dredging or river mining situation http://www.goldgold.com/promackstore.htm. I consider him one of the fathers of underwater gold mining as do others.

Check out these sites to learn more about mining and sniping for gold : http://store.goldfeverprospecting.com/crsnforgo.html , http://www.lifestylestore.com/ls_books_how_to_find_gold.htm , http://www.stangrist.com/?hop=theminer  , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw_1nacpSyU , http://youtube.com/watch?v=0jXGbp8KJAo , http://youtube.com/watch?v=RbhxX0n3eTY , http://youtube.com/watch?v=KLjMqfEHp_s&feature=related , http://youtube.com/watch?v=cIK8O5mL8Zg&feature=related ,

Hey send me an e-mail and I'll take you mining myself  www.true.adventure@hotmail.com I would love to hear from you. I truly enjoy watching people getting involved in mining and treasure hunting, your family will charish the great times you spend together in the great outdoors. But the amazing beauty in God's creation and the wealth the Earth contains makes it so much worthwhile. The mind can achieve anything it can concieve. See you out there soon I hope and good hunting.

Yours Truly,

Frank Salmon

Mining Consultant, Treasure Hunter, Adventurer                                   

      

                                                              

             Treasure Hunting             

 

 Where do I begin, there are so many areas in Treasure Hunting. It really depends on you, and what type of interest you have. You might just want to metal detect beaches and parks, or collect artifacts and relics from ghost towns or historic places. There's also Cache hunting which is searching for small to large caches of buried treasures basically. A cache could be a number of things, could be a train robbers loot, maybe a rancher buried his savings under one of his fencepost, which is called a posthole bank. People buried money precious metals, and just about any item you can imagine for many different reasons. Why would you bury something ? To hide it from everyone else ofcourse. 

It takes alot of  hard work and research to pinpoint that lost mine or that forgotten ghost town or beach.  If you look out over any beach, 3 to 4 feet down is a literal treasure trove of coins and jewelry which are heavier and sink below the sand, try to find cuts in the beach that expose deeper layers of sand. Using this technique I've left beaches with a five gallon bucket half filled with coins and jewelry. On one day after about just two hours work, I found a 24 inch Italian gold necklace two diamond rings, several silver rings, and a bunch of coins, one of which was an 1889 walking liberty half dollar"no bull", that was in Golden Gate Park in San Fransisco. I used a Garrett metal detector that cost me about $450. I paid for it and then some in about 6 hours.

                       

                                                                                            9 Hours of work

Anywhere where people have been or where history has taken place there is something to be found. It may be a rare coin or a hoard of Spanish gold your looking for, it really depends on your research. Although most legends are based on some kind of fact I myself try only deal with the facts at hand, not much into fantasy. My own interest lie in Gold Prospecting and Gemstone Mining, Ancient Treasures and the search for Lost Cities, Ancient Cultures and  the knowledge they left behind http://www.stangrist.com/?hop=theminer , http://www.mysteriesmegasite.com/main/bigsearch/lostcities.html . 

I truly love and enjoy all forms of Treasure Hunting and Mining. I tend to take things to the extreme when seeking Adventure you could say, right now I'm preparing for a trip to South America. A while back I discovered a series of satellite photos taken in 1974 by the Landsat II Satellite which showed 12 pyarmids and other structures that to my knowledge have not been recorded or discovered by anyone, fascinating. In South America there are many remnants of advanced civilizations, possible the people of Atlantis settled there at one time in our ancient past. A man named Percy Fawcett http://home.earthlink.net/~larryorcutt/fawcett.html , lead several expeditions into the Interior of the Amazon jungle in the early part of the 20th Century. He discovered an ancient lost city in the heart of the Amazon's Matto Grasso region. A book was later written by his son from his fathers manuscripts, and what was told can only be described as amazing. Later on the book The Lost World was based on Fawcett's manuscripts. You could fit most of Brazil in the United States, Brazil is mostly all jungle and rain forest, now emagine from east to the west coast of the United States is empenatrable jungle, it's easy to understand how something could get lost there. But still proper research must be accomplished if I or anyone else is going to recover any lost treasure or lost city. Most of you out there have no idea what fortunes really await you. Never ever underestimate what is right in your own backyard.

In the US back in the 1930's the government put a ban on private ownership of gold bullion, as a result thousands upon thousands of gold mines shut down overnight 275,000 to be exact, you see the gold price dropped so low it just wasn't worth mining it. Those laws weren't repeald until Kennedy came into office. And the guys that mined those thousands of gold mines have been dead more than sixty years or more now, there not around to tell us where to go, what they did or how much is still left, only 5-6% of the worlds Gold has been recovered, 94% awaits us folks no bull!

So now we have to read and learn about these treasures and places, where to go, how to get there, what it will cost, do I have the right team and what's there. But don't worry there's plenty of gold and treasure left to find. Just in California since the Conquistadors started mining until today only 3 or 4% of the gold has been taken from the ground and thats just in California. Most of it is lost and covered over, not found yet, or too deep to find or mine, it is definately there though. Just by understanding a small piece of history and what took place in our past you can discover a fortune that truly awaits you.

Once you start reading about lost treasures its hard to stop, the possibilities are endless of what can be discovered. And we have it a little easier than the oldtimers did back then, the technology we have now is truly amazing, there are metal detectors of every type and price range. You can even go to Radio Shack and buy a Bounty Hunter metal detector for around $200. bucks. I use a Minelab Detector for Gold Mining and another Minelab that uses a pulse induction technology for the beach, they'll run you about 2 to $4000. depending on the model. I'm also working with some advanced technology that can see underground in 3D immagery. I'll be able to go anywhere in the world and see underground for over a hundred feet http://www.imaginglocators.com/ . Metal detecting is an awesome hobby, it get's you outdoors to the most beautiful places and lets you profit from mother nature. It doesn't cost much to start, a couple hundred bucks for a good detector, some gas and food, a little research and who knows.

Obey the laws this I cannot stress enough if you are unshure allways ask permission, usually the land owner will do a 50/50 split with what you discover and you make a new friend . To me its about living the True Adventure more than what we dig up or how we profit. Although I like digging up coins and gold nuggetts It's the searching not the finding that gives me the thrill. If you get into treasure hunting just for the money your in the wrong business and your not going to have very much fun, but if you follow your research right and plan you can discover great fortunes.  There is alot of money to be had in mining and treasure hunting, but the experiences I've had I would not trade for any amount of money.

Now if your interested in making a business out of mining or treasure hunting there are a number of ways you can profit. But its hard for most of us to drop everything and go hunt treasure professionally. If you are financially independant, have investors, or lots of cash laying around thats different as long as the bills are paid, take care of your business and bills first then prepare for your adventures. I do suggest starting a business first that can either pay you a residual income or enough money that you can afford to take the time to hunt.

Remember Research is 95% of all treasure hunting, and until your puzzle is put together don't drop everything and run out digging blind holes. I've made the mistake of doing that and ended up a homeless guy, so be carefull do your research and prepare yourself for what lays ahead. Remember life is a True Adventure and is also a very precious and wonderful thing, cherish the time you have on this Earth it is truly precious and love the ones your with, God Bless.

Yours Truly,  

Frank Salmon, Knowledge Seeker, Mining Consultant, Treasure Hunter , Dowser.

true.adventure@hotmail.com  

             

 

                                                                 

THE 1715 FLEET DISASTER

Author:  John DeBry,   former President of HRD, Inc.

Compiled from HRDnews letters:
Vol. 1, No. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
Vol. 2, No. 2, 3, and 4

The Prelude

Every year, two fleets traveled between Spain and the Americas; the Esquadron de Terra Firme from Spain to South America, and the Flota de Nova Espana toward Vera Cruz. Sometimes, these two fleets would travel together all the way to the Caribbean. The return voyage was more dangerous. The galleons were fully loaded with precious cargoes of gold, silver, jewelry, tobacco, spices, indigo, cochineal etc… The crews were tired and often plagued by health problems brought on by tropical diseases, malnutrition, and deplorable hygienic conditions on board. These conditions made ships even more vulnerable to attacks by pirates, but the greatest danger came from an uncontrollable element; the weather. The general weather conditions were more favorable during the summer months. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean were calmer, and the prevailing winds gentler. However, the very warm waters of the South Atlantic contributed to unstable weather, and the then unpredictable rapid development of violent and devastating tropical storms called hurricanes.

As a result of France’s Louis XIV policies of expansionism, Europe was ravaged by two major wars, between 1688 and 1715. These wars disrupted trade between the Americas and the Old Continent, and Spain, highly dependent on the riches of the New World to finance her own policies of expansionism in Europe, suffered greatly. The first of these wars, the War of the Grand Alliance, ended in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick, but in 1701 another broke out, this time over the succession of the Spanish crown. Charles II had died childless, but on his deathbed, had named as his heir Philip, the grandson of Louis XIV of France. Leopold I, the Holy Roman emperor, who wanted to see his son, Archduke Charles, ascend the throne, did not kindly receive this decision. Leopold also wanted to prevent at all cost any close alliance between France and Spain. War broke out, with England and the Dutch on one side, and Spain, France, Portugal, Bavaria, and Savoy on the other. The seas and oceans became the scene of naval battles and vicious encounters between merchant vessels and privateers. The sea routes between Spain and the Americas were no longer safe, and the vital flow of New World treasure was practically stopped. Things were going badly for young Philip V and his kingdom. In the year 1702 Spain received a tremendous blow when a large English naval force entered Vigo Bay, on the northwestern coast of Spain. An all-out battle ensued, with the English fleet sinking a large number of war ships, capturing others, and seizing a large treasure. The English sank another Spanish treasure fleet in 1708, off Cartagena, Columbia, and in 1711 another one of Philip’s treasure fleets was destroyed by a hurricane off the coast of Cuba. The War of Succession was finally ended in 1715 by a series of treaties known as the Peace of Utrecht. The treaty between England and France confirmed Philip V’s succession to the throne of Spain, while Philip renounced his rights to the French throne. England was given Newfoundland, the island of St. Christopher, and the Hudson Bay territory. Although the war had ended, the peace was an uneasy one, and much friction remained between the former foes.

At the end of this period of hostilities, Spain was in dire need of financial relief. At the King’s order, a fleet was dispatched to America in order to bring back urgently needed gold and silver, which had been accumulating during the war. The eleven ships making up the fleet assembled in Havana in the summer of 1715. The fleet was made up of the Esquadron de Terra Firme, which served South American trade routes out of Cartagena, and of the Flota de Nova Espana which served the trade of Mexico and Manilla Galleons out of Vera Cruz, on the southeastern coast of present-day Mexico. The Griffon, a French merchant ship under the command of Capitaine Antoine Dare, was given permission to sail with the Spanish combined fleet. Now, every one was busy getting ready for the long and treacherous journey back to Spain. Additional cargo was being loaded. Inventories were taken. Fresh water and food items were placed aboard each ship. After a two-year delay, the mighty Plate Fleet was ready to sail home to Spain.

The Storm

The Squadron of Tierra Firma was under the command of Captain-General Don Antonio de Escheverz y Zubiza, and consisted of six vessels. The Capitana-General was indirect command of the Capitana, the flagship, which was a captured English ship formerly named the Hampton Court, and was laden with a great number of chests of silver coins, gold coins, gold bars, gold dust, and jewelry, as well as tropical products. The flagship of the admiral, the Almiranta, was equally richly laden. The Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion carried gold coins and gold bars, as well as a number of chests of silver coins. The frigate San Miguel, the El Ciervo, and a patache, a smaller merchant vessel, completed the squadron.

The five ships of the New Spain Flota were under the general command of Captain-General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla. Juan Esteban de Ubilla was himself on the Capitana, which carried some thirteen hundred chests containing 3,000,000 silver coins. There were also gold coins, gold bars, silver bars, and jewelry, as well as emeralds, pearls, and precious K’ang-Hsi Chinese porcelain which had been brought to Mexico by the Manila Galleons. The Almiranta carried nearly a thousand chests of silver coins, each individual chest containing some 3,000 coins. The Refuerzo carried eighty-one chests of silver coins and over fifty chests of worked silver. Another ship, a patache, carried some 44,000 pieces of eight. One frigate helped complete the Flota. The French ship Griffon, commanded by Captain Antoine Dar, had received permission to sail with the fleet. In his 1975 book, "The Funnel of Gold", historian Mendel Peterson estimated the value of the registered cargo of the combined fleet at 7,000,000 pieces of eight, which represented a real value of about $86 million (1975) of our money.

The fleet had suffered many delays, and had been sitting idle for nearly two years. Pressure had been mounting for the fleet to sail. The Spanish crown was in dire need of money; so were merchants who had been unable to make their exotic goods available for sale on the European market. Under this tremendous pressure, Ubilla made the decision to start the long and perilous voyage back to the Old World, even though the hurricane season had long begun. This decision would prove to be fatal, for unknown to the Spaniards a tremendous and exceptionally powerful hurricane was brewing to the southeast of Cuba. The great treasure fleet of 1715 sailed from Havana harbor in the early morning of July 24^th, a beautiful and calm day, with a gentle breeze to help the ships find the Florida Current which ran north and up the Straits of Florida. Slowly and smoothly the ships of Ubilla’s fleet gently followed the East coast of Florida, staying far enough away from the shore to take advantage of the Gulf Stream, and stay clear of the treacherous shoals and reef formations which fringed the Florida coast. For the first five days the voyage was uneventful with the weather remaining good and giving no indication whatsoever of the rapidly approaching killer storm. But on July 29^th, long swells started to appear, coming from the southeast. The atmosphere became heavy with moisture with the sun shining brightly through the haze. A gentle breeze still blew and the sea was smooth, but the swells started to make the ship gently dip and roll. Experienced navigators, pilots, and old hands started to be concerned. They knew that these were the early signs of an impending tropical storm.

The storm was traveling north, almost due east of the convoy, but still many many miles away. The storm had reached alarming intensity with winds at the center of the storm now reaching one hundred miles per hour. By nightfall the hurricane had made a drastic change in course, suddenly veering directly to the west. On the morning of July 30^th, along the east coast of Florida, just south of Cape Canaveral, winds had begun to pick up and by midday had increased to well over 20 knots, and the sea was rapidly building up. By late afternoon winds had increased to over thirty knots, and the waves were reaching twenty feet. Ubilla’s fleet was relentlessly driven closer and closer to shore. The Captain General gave the order that all ships head into the wind in order to stay well clear of the reef and shoals, but the attempt was marginally successful. The velocity of the wind kept increasing, and by midnight, the ships were barely under control. Around 4 a.m. on July 31^st, the hurricane struck the doomed ships with all its might, driving one ship after another on the deadly jagged reefs. The ships broke up like wooden toys. Ubilla’s Capitana disintegrated, crushed on the reef like matchsticks. Almost all aboard were killed, including Captain General Ubilla. The entire fleet was lost, and of the some twenty five hundred persons aboard various ships, over one thousand perished. Contrary to previous accounts by various historians, there is no historical evidence to indicate that the Griffon survived the terrible storm, and we can assume that it was lost, as were the two other ships of the 1715 fleet, around the shoals of Cape Canaveral.

For those who had miraculously survived, the ordeal was just beginning. They were stranded in an inhospitable land, infested with disease-carrying mosquitoes, rattle snakes, wild animals, and hostile Indians, far from any settlement, without food, fresh water, or badly needed medical supplies.

When daylight came on that dreadful morning of July 31^st, 1715, the full extent of the disaster could then be seen. The beaches of la Florida were littered with wreckage and bodies, and the survivors of this human tragedy were trying to comprehend what had happened to them. They were attempting to find their actual location. As the ships had wrecked at different locations, and were separated by sometimes several miles, it was impossible for the survivors to fully assess the extent of the disaster. They were stranded in this inhospitable land without food, water, or much needed medical supplies. Many were dying each day, adding to the already devastating number of casualties. Admiral Don Francisco Salmon undertook to immediately survey the extent of the damage. After observing that all ships had been wrecked, he decided, on August 6^th, to send Nicolas de India, Ubilla’s pilot, and 18 men, in a launch toward the island of Cuba, to give the alert, and to send a personal message to the governor, the Marques de Casatorres. It took ten days for the small boat to reach Havana. The alert had been given.

Within a few days several ships were leaving Havana harbor, loaded with emergency supplies, salvage equipment, government officials and soldiers, on their way to the East Coast of Florida. Salvage was to begin as soon as the relief expedition reached the survivors camps. Success came early as salvage sloops dragged the ocean floor for wreckage and quickly brought up chests of coins, as well as jewelry and gold. The Havana salvage Flotta was soon joined by Florida ships sent from St. Augustine to help in the recovery effort. By early September such was the success of the salvage team that Admiral Salmon wrote the governor asking him to send 25 soldiers and ammunition to guard the King’s gold.

By the time the weather and sea conditions had become unsuitable for continuing salvage, in late October of the same year, over 5,000,000 pieces of eight had been recovered along with gold and jewelry, and a great part of the King’s treasure. Although salvage was essentially completed, efforts continued well into 1718.

News of the disaster had swept the Americas and Europe much like the news of the Market crash would some 220 years later, and privateers, pirates and looters converged toward Palmar de Ayes (near present day Sebastian, Florida) like ravenous vultures. Early in January 1716, pirate Henry Jennings aboard his well armed sloop, the 40-ton Barsheba, and John Wills aboard his 35-ton Eagle, both having been commissioned by governor Hamilton of Jamaica, attacked the Spanish salvage camp at Palmar de Ays, and detained the defenders (no casualties were reported) while looting the camp. They made off with some 120,000 pieces of eight and other valuables, as well as two bronze cannon and two large iron guns.

When the Spaniards abandoned the salvage camp in 1718, great treasure still remained on the ocean floor. Some of the wreck sites were clearly marked by portions of the ships structures which could be observed protruding above water at low tide. For years after the official completion of the salvage operation, merchant ships sailing these waters would fish for treasure.

Little by little the sites were forgotten, and the great 1715 Spanish PLATE Fleet would eventually be forgotten and left undisturbed for nearly 250 years. Then, in 1955, a building contractor named Kip Wagner started a new page in the history of lost and found treasure.

Treasure Finders

Modern day salvage of the 1715 Plate fleet had to wait until the end of World War II and the appearance on the scene of a building contractor from Miamisburg, Ohio, named Kip Wagner.

Wagner, in search of a more hospitable climate had moved from Ohio to the small town of Wabasso, just north of Vero Beach, and was building a motel there, just a few miles south of Sebastian. Wagner’s first contact with Florida was during the winter of 1921, when he and his brother had driven down from Ohio in a model T Ford. Half way down the coast the sunshine state they had a breakdown, and were forced to spend the night in the sleepy little town of Wabasso, just opposite the watery graves of some of the 1715 treasure galleons. Kip and his brother fell in love with the area, and as their construction business grew and thrived, they seized every opportunity they could to visit Florida. Wagner continued to dream of living in Florida, and he increasingly grew tired of the brutal Ohio winter weather. Finally, right after the end of World War II, Kip, and his wife Alice, and their young son Tom moved to Florida on a permanent basis. Although Wagner had no particular interest in treasure hunting, he was fascinated by the stories he would here from some of the locals, about corroded Spanish silver coins that would sometimes wash up on the beach during strong northeast winds, more particularly during the winter months.

Kip had first heard about sunken treasure and pieces of eight from a business partner named Captain Steadman A. Parker. One day, during a particularly severe rainstorm, unable to work on their construction project, Wagner and Parker had gone to a local bar and were having a couple of beers, when Parker suggested that it would be a good time to go look for coins on the beach. Kip asked naively "What coins?" Parker, amazed at Kip’s ignorance of a fact that practically everyone in town knew about had responded, "Hasn’t anyone told you about the old Spanish coins that wash up on the beach here?" Captain Parker went on to educate Wagner, and told him about the sunken Spanish treasure fleet, and added that he had full intention to find it one day.

Intrigued by Parker’s stories, Kip started to investigate on his own, talking to old-timers. As his investigation went on Wagner became convinced that Parker had in fact spoken the truth. It seemed that most everyone in town new about the blackened Spanish silver coins and many had collected them through the years. In 1949, Parker initiated a salvage attempt, entering into a verbal gentleman’s agreement with Wagner and three other individuals. The salvage operation lasted three months, cost the five men $12,000, and was a complete failure. Everybody went back to work, and Kip continued beachcombing every time the opportunity presented itself. Success would have to wait until January 1961.

Kip Wagner had become friends with a local physician named Kip Kelso. Dr. Kelso was a history buff, and was also quite interested in the stories about Spanish sunken treasure. It was in great part to Dr. Kelso’s scholarly approach that Wagner eventually struck it rich. Wagner and Kelso, however, disagreed on one major point; while Wagner theorized that the coins were washed up on the beach and originated from a nearby wreck site, Kelso was convinced that the coins had been buried under the beach as a result of a land-based event.

One thing the two men agreed upon was the fact that none of the coins found were dated later than 1715. Someone had told Wagner that the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet had sunk of the coast of Cape Canaveral. Wagner then contacted another expert, Mendel Peterson, then curator of the Smithsonian’s Armed Forces History Museum, in Washington D.C.. After examining the silver coin Kip had sent him, Peterson replied that this coin could not have possibly come from the 1715 Fleet, for the fleet had sunk off the Florida Keys, more than 150 miles south of Sebastian. Both Wagner and Kelso were confused. They now had two conflicting expert opinions. Either one was wrong and one was right, or both were wrong. Obviously more research would be needed.

In the summer of 1959, Doc Kelso and his family drove up to Washington and while his wife Becky and his children toured the Nation’s capital, he began digging into the massive archives of the Library of Congress. Seeing how serious and motivated Kelso was, the staff pitched in and soon Doc Kelso uncovered interesting documents containing references to the 1715 Spanish Fleet. The single most important book uncovered was historian Cesareo Fernandez Duro’s Armada Espanola, published in 1900. Another important clue Doc Kelso had unearthed was a reference book called A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida by the English cartographer Bernard Romans, published in London in 1775, just 760 years after the Plate Fleet tragedy. After locating the book in the rare books and manuscripts section, Doc Kelso found what he was looking for on page 273; "Directly opposite the mouth of the St. Sebastian River happened the shipwreck of the Spanish Admiral, who was the northern most wreck of the fourteen galleons, and a hired Dutch ship, all laden with specie and plate; which by (undistinguishable word) of northeast winds were drove ashore and lost on this coast, between this place and the bleach-yard, in 1715. A hired Frenchman, fortunately escaped, by having steered half a point more east than the others. The people employed in the course of this survey, while walking the strand after strong eastern gales, have repeatedly found pistareens and double pistareens, which are the kinds of money most probably yet remaining in the wrecks. This lagoon stretches parallel to the sea, until the latitude 27:20, where it has an outwatering, or mouth; directly before this mouth, in three fathom water, lie the remains of the Dutch wreck. The banks of this lagoon are not fruitful." In one of the book’s flaps was the map. Now Wagner and Kelso needed more specific information such as the amount of treasure carried by each ship, and how much, if any, had already been salvaged.

Reading as many books on treasure hunting as possible, Wagner learned that the richest repository of Spanish Colonial documents is the General Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. Wagner quickly wrote the curator, Dr. Jose de la Pena, for more information, but was disappointed when the reply arrived. Dr. Pena’s information was rather vague, and did not shed additional light on the1715 tragedy. Disappointed perhaps, but not discouraged, Wagner and Kelso took a different approach. One of Wagner’s friends, Mrs. Libby walker of Vero Beach, was planning a vacation to Spain, and asked if there was anything she could do for Wagner while she was there. Kip asked her to personally contact Dr. Pena, and show him one of the silver coins he had found. This new approach worked, and resulted in Dr. Pena sending some 3000 feet of microfilmed documents written in archaic Spanish pertaining to late 17^th and early 18^th century Spanish treasure fleet. With the help of National Park historian Luis R. Arana, a recognized authority on archaic Spanish material, Wagner and Kelso had deciphered and translated most of the script in a year’s time. The documents contained much detailed information about the fleet’s cargo of gold, silver, and jewelry, early salvage attempts, and much information about the salvage camp, and the amount of treasure the Spaniards had successfully recovered. In all, the fleet carried 14 million pesos in registered treasure, and less than half of it had been salvaged. Wagner intensified his search of the beaches, using a World War II surplus army mine detector. His goal was to find the location of the Spanish salvage camp. He felt that if he could accomplish this, he could pinpoint the wreck.

After many weeks of intense search during which he uncovered mostly modern material, Wagner finally succeeded. One day, as he was walking on the high portion of the bluff, he spotted a large depression, which appeared to be man made. As he walked around the area, visually checking the ground for clues, he noticed the old hound dog that accompanied him on some of his excursions, was drinking from a partially filled hole in the ground. Kip sampled the water himself, and sure enough it was fresh water. Could this be the well dug by the Spanish salvagers? Wagner drove home to get his metal detector, which he had forgotten to bring, and was back on the site within an hour. In no time at all he had found a ship’s spike and a cannonball. He had found the salvage camp.

What Wagner had actually discovered was the Higgs site so named for the amateur historian who had conducted a limited investigation of the place in 1940-1942. Hale Smith had also done some archaeological research on the same location in 1946, focusing his effort largely on the bluff due to dense vegetation.

Encouraged by his new find, Wagner posted half an acre of land, rented a bulldozer, cleared the land, and, equipped with shovel, screen, and mine detector, proceeded to search the area inch by inch. After several months of hard work, he had uncovered hundreds of fragments of Spanish olive jars, Mexican ceramics, and blue and white Chinese porcelain. He also had found some encrusted metal objects, spikes, cannon balls, thirteen silver pieces of eight, and a gold ring set with a 2.5-carat diamond, and six small diamonds  set around the band.  Wagner’s finds were reminiscent of finds made by Higgs and Smith.

Wagner still did not agree with Doc Kelso, and felt that the coins he found on the beach did not come from the bluff or the campsite, but from a wreck nearby. So, while conducting his hard and painstaking work, he took breaks from the overwhelming Florida heat, and searched the surf by peering through a small window installed on his homemade surfboard. Wagner knew he was searching for a shipwreck, but had no idea what a ship that had sunk such a long time ago would even look like. He repeated his this routine many times, but always without success, until one day he spied something that looked quite different from the surrounding coral reef. There on the bottom, exposed above the sand but covered with marine growth, were five large guns and a large iron anchor. Each cannon was approximately nine feet in length. Wagner now felt sure he had indeed found a wreck and that most likely this wreck had something to do with the coins he found on the beach as well as with the campsite he was busy excavating.

Were there other wrecks nearby? Higgs and Smith had reported that "wrecks" could be seen in the calm waters adjoining the campsite. So Wagner, always resourceful, rented a small aircraft and had the pilot fly him along the beach line. Every time he would spot something suspicious, he would drop a weighted coconut to mark the spot, then would have the pilot put down the plane on the beach, and would swim out to investigate his find. He found so many wrecks that he was now more confused than anything else. How could one tell a Spanish galleon from a more recent vessel?

Wagner acquired some scuba diving equipment and started to regularly dive "his" wreck. One thing very quickly became clear in his mind. A full-scale salvage operation would be a lot more involved that he had ever anticipated, and would require special equipment and money, as well as manpower. There was no way he could continue this project alone. No matter how indefatigable he might be, his body had physical limitations like anybody else. He continued his exploration, now concentrating on his underwater finds, and even explored other sites. One of them, a site well known to local sport skin divers, located just north of Ft. Pierce, some 30 miles south of Sebastian Inlet. A prominent ballast pile consisting of large river rocks marked the site. Little else was visible above the sand, but Wagner, over a period of time, was successful in recovering a handful of 1715 silver coins.

Kip Wagner now had treasure-hunting fever. Although until now his finds had been modest at best, he was more confident than ever that he was just inches away from a fortune in sunken treasure. He knew he had to either quit his almost full time pastime and concentrate on again on "working" for a living, or going at it full blast. Wagner was far from being the type of a person to quit, so his decision was relatively an easy one for him to make; he would become a full time treasure hunter. Mindful of the law, he knew that certain legal procedures would have to be initiated, and that some kind of permit would have to be obtained from the state.

He contacted Tallahassee and met with Van H. Ferguson, then director of the Florida Internal Improvement Fund, the office charged with the task of issuing salvage leases at the time. The State policy then was that the governor of Florida, and his cabinet, as owners of all submerged lands under the state’s navigable waters, could lease the same for search and savage operations. The cost of the annual lease was $100.00 and the posting of a $500.00 bond was required. In addition, during the exploration and salvage phases of the operation, a quarterly report had to be submitted to Tallahassee, describing exploration and salvage activities, and listing all finds. In return for this privilege, the State would receive 25% of all finds, 25% which they would select. In 1959 Wagner filed for an exploration lease covering a fifty-mile long area starting from the north at Sebastian Inlet, and reaching south to a point near Stuart, with exclusive pinpoint salvage-right leases on the precise sites he had investigated. This was one of Wagner’s smartest moves.

What really got things underway was the appearance of Louis J. Ullian, a Boston-born long time resident of Ft. Lauderdale who probably knew more about beachcombing for Spanish treasure than anyone did. Lou had moved to Ft. Lauderdale when he was only 6 months old, and he had been looking for sunken treasure since the age of twelve. A graduate from Purdue University with a degree in mechanical engineering, he had joined the Navy in 1955, and had been trained in the disposal of explosives. Upon completion of his military obligation, in 1959, Ullian had gotten the job of Ordnance Engineer at the Air Force Missile Test Range at Cape Canaveral. Years later, he would play a major role in the research and recovery for the space shuttle Challenger.

His passion for treasure hunting had not faded, and he would seize any opportunity he could to continue his hobby. He had even found a wreck in the Florida Keys and correctly identified it as being part of the ill-fated 1733 Spanish treasure fleet. One day, in need of new SCUBA equipment he had gone into the dive store and chatted with the store owner, Delphine Long, who was also employed at Patrick Air Force base in the capacity of ground power equipment supervisor. The previous year, Delphine Long had founded a dive club and had even dove on a ballast pile just south of the Sebastian Inlet, without realizing what he had actually stumbled upon. Lou quickly joined the club, and days later met another member, Ervin Taylor, who lived near Sebastian. The three enthusiastically discussed their passion for wreck diving, and Taylor suggested that both Lou and Delphine meet a very interesting acquaintance of his whom lived in Sebastian and who share the same interest. His name was Kip Wagner.

A meeting was arranged, and the four men met at Kip’s house. Their meeting continues long into the night, exchanging notes, describing the coins and artifacts found, with Lou relating his diving experience on the various wreck sites he had explored throughout the years. Late that night, Kip finally brought out his finds, including the diamond ring and all the silver coins. The spell was cast. They would join forces and retrieve the long-lost riches of the Spanish Main. Throughout the winter of 1959-1960 the four held many such meetings, discussing their plan of approach to a full-scale salvage operation. One thing was clear, their need for more manpower and more equipment.

One of Ullian’s bosses was Colonel Dan F. Thompson. A veteran pilot about to wrap up a distinguished 24-hour career in the Air Force. Colonel Thompson was also an expert diver. It did not take to long for Ullian to convince him to join the team. The next recruit was also a veteran pilot who had flown combat missions over the Himalayas, India and China during World War II, and who was now working for Thompson at the Cape. He was Lieutenant Colonel harry Canon. His job was to push the destruct button on any out of control missile before it became a serious safety problem. He was also involved in the recovery operation of returning astronauts splashing down at sea in their space capsules. Although not a diver, Cannon was also fascinated by the lure of sunken treasure, and, above all, he had a twenty-one foot boat the "team" felt could be used for their salvage operation. Lisbon Futch, an experienced boatsman with an intimate knowledge of the treacherous Sebastian Inlet and its adjoining shoals, completed the team. The eight members of the group were Kip Wagner, now the most experienced in the field of treasure hunting, Lou Ullian, diver, treasure hunter and explosive expert; Delphine Long, diver, treasure hunter and electrical/mechanical expert; Ervin Taylor, diver and mechanics extraordinaire; Colonel Dan Thompson, diver, pilot, electronics engineer legal and organizational authority; Lieutenant Colonel Harry Cannon, diver, pilot, communications and electronics specialist, with a knack for business and promotion; Lisbon Futch, expert seaman; and last but not least, Dr. Kip Kelso, physician, scholar, archival researcher, and authority on Spanish-Colonial history. Now they were ready to go to work, but Wagner had some doubts as to the ability of this diverse group to work as a team and remain so during the long months of hard and possible dangerous work that lay ahead. There was only one way to find out, and that was to test his friends by taking them to the wreck just north of the Ft. Pierce Inlet, and see how they would perform under adverse conditions. Wagner did see to it that conditions were indeed "adverse", and picked a cold and windy day in January 1960. Many more such dives took place in the ensuing months, and everytime the entire team passed the test with flying colors, their enthusiasm undiminished, and their spirit unbroken. Now Wagner was ready to lead his team to the promising wreck near Sebastian Inlet.

Although the newly formed team seamed solid, Kip Wagner wanted to make sure that these men were as reliable and trustworthy as they appeared to be. So, instead of going directly to his pet wreck south of the Sebastian Inlet as he had originally intended, he decided to further test them on a well-known site, which had little chance to produce anything valuable. It was situated just north of Ft. Pierce, about twenty miles south of the Sebastian Inlet. It was easily accessible, had unusually clear water, was in only 18 feet of water, and, as Wagner would later write, "Practically everyone on the coast within 100 miles knew about it." Wagner himself had dove on its ballast pile a number of times.

Using Lieutenant Colonel Harry Cannon’s cabin cruiser, Wagner’s team started their test diving on a cold January day, in 1960. On that particular day, the ocean was unusually calm and clear, but the water was quite cold and combined with the chilling wind typical for this time of year, the conditions were far from being ideal. They continued their diving activities over the next few weekends, gaining not only experience, but also gathering additional diving gear. As they started "attacking" the massive ballast pile made up of thousands of large river rocks, one thing became apparent; they needed a larger boat. Wagner and Libe Futch made a trip to a Navy salvage yard in Norfolk, Virginia, where they purchased a 40-foot liberty launch for $1,200. As the saying goes "you get what you pay for", their new acquisition was a sorry sight, and, although afloat, desperately needed cleaning and fixing. Nevertheless, Lisben Futch managed to sail the vessel all the way back to Florida. The boat looked so much like a blackened junk, they quickly christened it the Sampan. By April of that same year, the old Sampan was ready, after extensive repairs and modifications, to begin salvage in earnest.

The ballast pile was indeed enormous, stretching some 70 feet in length, 20 feet wide and at least 8 feet high. Wagner estimated that the pile, made up of rocks ranging in sizes from ¼ pound up to 50 pounds, must have totaled some 100 tons. If they were to find ‘anything", Kip figured that they would have to move the ballast. Used to stabilize the galleon, the ballast was carefully arranged below the cargo holds so it would not shift in heavy seas. Wagner felt that perhaps some small artifact s might have found their way through this mass of rocks. The task was formidable.

At first the crew of the Sampan preformed with great enthusiasm, moving up to 500 rocks a day, but as the task progressed and nothing but rocks was being found, their spirit started to diminish, but no one was giving any indication of wanting to quit. After many days of hard work, they had managed to clear a path across the midship area. Wanting to clear the sand away, they had rigged a homemade airlift, but the contraption proved inadequate and they had to continue to resort to working strictly by hands. Progress was painfully slow, and to aggravate the situation two members of the team, Doc Kelso and Libe Futch, were not divers, and the others, at the exception of Wagner, had full time jobs so they could only dive on weekends and holidays. As summer came to a close patience grew shorter, and in his book "Pieces of Eight", Wagner quoted Lou Ullian as saying that "Anyone who thinks treasure hunting is a glamorous profession is just plain crazy."

By mid-summer they had managed to modify the airlift and were busy clearing the sand away from their 10-foot path, when the dredge started to spit up hundreds of tiny Mexican potsherds chips as well as small pieces of blue and white porcelain. Cannon balls and a number of encrusted iron artifacts were also uncovered as well as some wood. Samples were taken and sent to Mendel Peterson at the Smithsonian Institution for analysis. What they thought was decayed wood turned out to be a blend of cow hair and tar. Peterson suspected that the compound was used by the Spaniards to coat the hull of the ship in a futile attempt to halt the damage inflicted by the destructive teredo worms of the warm Caribbean waters.

Spirits picked up, and Kip and his men started to take a more calculated approach to their excavation, and concentrated their efforts to an area that they believed could be the stern section of the galleon. By mid-August treasure was still eluding them and morale was at an all time low, but one morning that month things changed. Harry Cannon had been working a little area of his own, when he uncovered a black encrusted wedge-shaped object. Using a crowbar he quickly started to scrape the encrustation away. The scratched surface of the object shone brightly under the water. Harry had just found a silver ingot. Feverishly he fanned the sand away where he had made his find, and soon uncovered five more wedge-shaped silver ingots. Quickly surfacing Harry asked if that day was anyone’s birthday. It so happened that it was Libe’s birthday. Harry, with a broad small in his face handed Libe one of the wedges and said "Well here. Here’s a present for you". The entire crew went wild. Over the next few weekends they found an additional six silver wedges. Treasure was theirs at long last.

By the end of August the weather changed and the diving season came to an end with no additional finds, but the team was now solidified and Kip was ready to lead his now weathered and experienced team to a more promising site. His site.

    Ancient Tunnel Systems

by David Hatcher Childress

From "World Explorer", Vol. 2, No. 3.
from UFOArea Website

recovered through WayBackMachine Website

All are architects of fate,
Working the walls of time:
Some with massive deeds and great;
Some with lesser rhyme.
-Longfellow

"The Builders"

Part One

 

What if I told you that I had been inside a fantastic tunnel system that runs beneath the continent of South America? Would you think me a liar? Or worse yet, insane? Though I admit it is a story that seems difficult to believe, I am telling the truth. Read on, dear reader, and decide if I am mad or lying.

Although it seems incredible, there is a great deal of evidence to show that a network of ancient tunnels exists throughout much of South America. Legends abound on this tunnel system, and I can state that I have even been inside some of the tunnels on this strangest of continents.

 

The Gold of the Incas

Legends of tunnels in South America surfaced almost immediately after the conquest when the Spaniards discovered that the Incas had hidden much of their treasure-sacred relics of pure gold either beneath the Inca capital of Cuzco or in a secret city known as Paititi. Either way, legend had it that a tunnel system was used.

The history of the conquest of the Inca Empire by the Spanish is one of the most bizarre and incredible stories of history. That Francisco Pizarro with only 183 men could conquer a sophisticated empire of several million people is a feat that has never been equaled, and probably never will be!

Pizarro made his first expedition down the Pacific Coast from Panama in 1527, attracted by rumors of gold and other treasure. A Greek of his company went alone from the ship into an Inca village on the coast, and was taken to be a returning god by the natives. They brought him to a temple filled with more gold than he had seen in his life. Returning to the ship, he told Pizarro about the fabulous wealth he had seen. Satisfied that the rumors were true, Pizarro returned to Panama and then to Spain to prepare another expedition.

 

He set out again in 1531, landed on a lonely beach in Ecuador and began marching inland. He was entering the newly united Inca empire, which had just recovered from a civil war. The people of Peru, Bolivia, and rest of the Inca empire were not all true Incas, but largely Quechua and Aymara Indians. Incas were the ruling elite, of a different race, who believed themselves descended from "Manco Capac," a red-haired, bearded messenger from God.

After taking the town of Tumbes and putting quite of few of the people to death, the Spanish conquistadors continued their march south. At Cajamarca, they were received by Inca royalty with great pomp, splendor, and gifts. The ruler of the Incas (or more correctly, "the Inca") Atahualpa was impressed by their beards and white skin, believing them to fulfill a prophecy about the return of Viracocha, the legendary bearded prophet from a far away land who had visited the South American peoples many hundreds of years before.

 

American Indians have no facial hair, though the first Incas are said to have had reddish-brown hair and beards, like Viracocha. Therefore, Atahualpa believed that the Spanish were Incas themselves, Sons of the Sun, gods in their own right, just as he, the Inca, was a god.

The conquistadors remained in Cajamarca for a time, while the Inca showered them with gifts. In fact, the Incas believed that the horses ridden by the Spaniards were also men, and assumed by the way the horses constantly chewed on their bits that these were the horses’ fodder. The Incas would put bars of gold and silver in the horses’ feeding troughs, saying, "Eat this, it is much better than iron." The Spaniards found this quite amusing, and encouraged the Indians to keep bringing gold and silver for the horses to eat!

Finally, Atahualpa himself came to the Spaniards from his nearby palace. During this audience inside the walls of Cajamarca, Atahualpa had with him no less than 30,000 men, all under strict command not to harm the Spaniards, even if they themselves were attacked. This prohibition proved to be their downfall. The conquistadors kept many of their men in hiding, ready to attack, as Pizarro and his generals with the Dominican friar Vincente de Valverde had their audience with Atahualpa in the townsquare.

The Inca welcomed them as Viracocha Incas and fellow Sons of the Sun. Then the friar Valverde addressed the Inca, telling him about the one true faith, and the most powerful men on earth, the Pope and King Charles of Spain. After a long speech translated by the Indian Felipe, the Inca asked the source of the friar’s material, who responded by handing the Inca a Bible. The Inca placed it to his ear. Hearing nothing, he threw it to the ground.

This rather un-pious gesture from Atahualpa was just what the conquistadors were waiting for. The Spaniards attacked in full force, many from hiding, and began a slaughter of the Incas. They killed literally thousands, many of whom were trying to escape. Not one conquistador was hurt, with the exception of Francisco Pizarro himself, who was wounded by one of his own men as he reached for Atahualpa.

And so was Atahualpa kidnapped by a mere 160 gold-crazed conquistadors (some of the original 183 had died of disease and in earlier battles). To secure his freedom, Atahualpa offered to give the Spaniards gold in exchange for his release. Sensing that they still did not realize the fabulous wealth at his command, Atahualpa stood up in the room in which he was imprisoned and reached as high as he could; he offered to fill the room with gold to that height in return for his release. The Spaniards agreed.

Complicating the story at this point were several intrigues. First, there was a great rivalry between Francisco Pizarro, his brother Ferdinand, and Don Diego de Almagro. Indeed, Francisco Pizarro and de Almagro were bitter enemies. Second, Atahualpa was still at odds with his brother Huascar, who by many accounts was the legitimate heir to the Inca throne. It had been the civil war between the two brothers that had weakened the Inca Empire just prior to the arrival of the Spanish. While he was still in captivity, Atahualpa ordered Huascar arrested, believing him to be plotting a takeover of the Empire. Both Atahualpa and Huascar now took a rather fatalistic attitude to the events taking place, as their father had predicted such a conflict before his death.

Third, most of the subjects of the Inca Empire were not Incas, but common Indians of entirely different races and cultural heritages. Few were loyal to the Incas, and many of them eventually sided with the Spanish. Finally, again from captivity, Atahualpa ordered his brother Huascar killed, thinking this would save the empire from him, believing that the Spaniards may not release him even after the ransom was paid. All of these factors together set the stage for the fall of the greatest civilization extant in the Western Hemisphere at the time.

It took some time for the gold to reach Cajamarca, as it had to be brought from Quito, Cuzco, and other cities that were hundreds of miles away. While the ransom was being gathered, Pizarro sent some of the conquistadors as emissaries to Quito and Cuzco to ensure that Atahualpa had not ordered an assault on Cajamarca. When they returned, they reported that fabulous wealth was to be found in these cities. The Incas did not use gold, silver, and precious stones for currency as Europeans and other cultures did. Instead, they were valued for decoration, and used extensively for religious objects, furnishings, and even utensils. Many buildings had interior gold-lined walls, and exterior gold rain gutters and plumbing. Therefore, when the Inca was ransomed for a room full of gold, to the Incas it was as if they were paying with pots and pans, old plumbing, and rain gutters!

These were sent gladly, though religious objects and those with esthetic value were not. The ransom paid has been estimated to have been 600-650 tons of gold and jewels and 384 million "pesos de oro," the equivalent of $500,000,000 in 1940. Given the rise in the price of gold since then, today that ransom would be worth almost five billion dollars.

Not surprisingly, once the ransom was paid, Atahualpa was not released. The Indian interpreter, Felipe, had fallen in love with one of Atahualpa’s wives, and he was keen to see that the Inca did not survive. He spread the rumor that Atahualpa was raising an army to storm Cajamarca. This being the only excuse the Spaniards needed to execute the Inca, he was condemned to death. Spaniards who had befriended Atahualpa advised him to convert to Christianity before his execution, which would allow the Dominical fathers to strangle him as a Christian rather than burn him at the stake as a heretic. He complied, was baptized, then strangled. This was done even though more gold was on its way, as part of a second ransom, worth much more than the first.

Meanwhile, three Spanish emissaries came back from Cuzco, the Inca capital, with even more treasure, looted from the Sun Temple. They brought an immense cargo of gold and silver vessels loaded on the backs of 200 staggering, sweating Indians. And the second ransom train of 11,000 llamas was on its way to Pizarro’s camp. Loaded with gold, it had been sent by Atahualpa’s queen from Cuzco. But when they heard of the Inca’s assassination, the Indians drove the llamas off the road and buried the 100 pounds of gold that each animal carried.

Sir Clements Markham, who had a particularly keen knowledge of Peru, believed that the gold was hidden in the mountains behind Azangaro. The Cordillera de Azangaro is a wild sierra little known to foreigners, the name in Quechua meaning, "place farthest away." It is believed that this was the easternmost point in the Andean cordilleras which the old Inca empire dominated. However, other versions of this story say that the treasure was hidden in a system of tunnels that goes through the Andes.

One fantastic treasure story involves "The Garden of the Sun." Sarmiento, a Spanish historian (1532-1589), wrote that this subterranean garden was located near the Temple of the Sun.

"They had a garden in which the lumps of earth were pieces of fine gold. These were cleverly sown with maize the stalks, leaves and ears of which were all of gold. They were so well planted that nothing would disturb them. Besides all this, they had more than twenty sheep with their young. The shepherds who guarded the sheep were armed with slings and staves made of gold. There were large numbers of jars of gold and silver pots, vases, and every kind of vessel."

Shortly after the conquest of Peru, Cieza de Leon, part Inca and part Spanish, wrote,

"If all the gold that is buried in Peru ... were collected, it would be impossible to coin it, so great the quantity; and yet the Spaniards of the conquest got very little, compared with what remains. The Indians said, ’The treasure is so concealed that even we, ourselves, know not the hiding place!’

"If, when the Spaniards entered Cuzco they had not committed other tricks, and had not so soon executed their cruelty in putting Atahualpa to death, I know not how many great ships would have been required to bring such treasures to old Spain as is now lost in the bowels of the earth and will remain so because those who buried it are now dead."

What Cieza de Leon did not say was that, although the Indians as a whole did not know where this treasure lay, there were a few among them who did know and closely guarded the secret.

After seeing the fineness of the treasures in Atahualpa’s first ransom, Pizarro had demanded that he be shown the source of this fabulous wealth before he would release the Inca. He had heard that the Incas possessed a secret and inexhaustible mine or depository, which lay in a vast, subterranean tunnel running many miles underground. Here was supposedly kept the accumulated riches of the country.

However, legend has it that Atahualpa’s queen consulted the Black Mirror at the Temple of the Sun, a sort of magic mirror similar to that in the story of Snow White. In it she saw the fate of her husband, whether she paid the ransom or not. She realized that her husband and the empire were doomed and that she must certainly not reveal the secret of the tunnels or wealth to the gold crazed conquistadors.

The horrified queen ordered that the entrance to the great tunnel be closed under the direction of the priests and magicians. A large door into a rocky wall of a cliff gorge near Cuzco, it was sealed by filling its depths with huge masses of rock. Then the disguised entrance was hidden under green grass and bushes, so that not the slightest sign of any fissure was perceptible to the eye.

Conquistadors, adventurers, treasure hunters, and historians have all wondered about and pursued this legend. What incredible treasure did the Incas seal into these tunnels? And as to the tunnels themselves, when and how were they made, and where do they go?

Researchers like Harold Wilkins believed that the tunnels run from the central Andes around Cuzco for hundreds of miles north and south through the mountains, as far as Chile and Ecuador. Wilkins believed that there were other spurs of these tunnels that ran to the east, coming out at the lost city of Paititi in the high jungle somewhere. Another spur was said to run to the west, down to the coastal desert of Peru. This spur of the tunnel system could have come out near Lima, the area of the ancient Inca city of Pachacamac, or near Pisac and the Candlestick of the Andes, which is further south along the coast.

Wilkins believed, as did apparently Madame Blavatsky (a well known psychic and founder of The Theosophical Society), that a spur of the ancient tunnel system came out in the Atacama Desert near to Arica and the current border between Chile and Peru, which is further south still. Madame Blavatsky related the story, retold by Wilkins, of the ancient treasure and tunnel system.

Sometime around the year 1844, a Catholic priest was called to absolve a dying Quechua Indian. Whispering quietly to the priest, the old Indian told an amazing story about a labyrinth and a series of tunnels built far before the days of the Inca emperors of the Sun. It was told under the inviolable seal of the confessional, and could not be divulged by the priest under pain of death. This story would probably never have been told, except that the priest, while traveling to Lima, met with a "sinister Italian." The priest let out a hint of great treasure, and was later supposedly hypnotized by the Italian to get him tell the story!

"I will reveal to thee what no White man, be he Spaniard, or American, or English, knows," the dying Indian had said to the priest.

He then told of the queen’s closing of the tunnels when the Inca Atahualpa was being held captive by Pizarro. The priest added under hypnosis that the Peruvian government, in about 1830, had heard rumors of these tunnels and sent an expedition out to find and explore them. They were unsuccessful.

In another similar story, the Father Pedro del Sancho tells in his Relacion that in the early period of the conquest of Peru, another dying Indian made a confession. Father del Sancho wrote,

"...my informant was a subject of the Incan Emperor. He was held in high esteem by those in power at Cuzco. He had been a chieftain of his tribe and made a yearly pilgrimage to Cuzco to worship his idolistic gods. It was a custom of the Incas to conquer a tribe or nation and take their idols to Cuzco. Those who wished to worship their ancient idols were forced to travel to the Incan capital. They brought gifts to their heathen idols. They were also expected to pay homage to the Incan emperor during these journeys."

Del Sancho continues,

"These treasures were placed in ancient tunnels that were in the land when the Incas arrived. Also placed in these subterranean repositories were artifacts and statues deemed sacred to the Incas. When the hoard had been placed in the tunnels, there was a ceremony conducted by the high priest. Following these rites, the entrance to the tunnels was sealed in such a manner that one could walk within a few feet and never be aware of the entrance.

"...My informant said that the entrance lay in his land, the territory which he ruled. It was under his direction and by his subjects that the openings were sealed. All who were in attendance were sworn to silence under the penalty of death. Although I requested more information on the exact location of the entrance, my informant refused to divulge more than what has been written down here."

Another interesting story of the tunnels around Cuzco and the incredible treasure they contain involves Carlos Inca, a descendant of an Inca emperor, who had married a Spanish lady, Dona Maria Esquivel. His Castilian wife thought that he was not ambitious enough, and that he did not keep her in the style she deemed befitting her rank, or his descent.

Poor Carlos was plagued night and day by his wife’s nagging, until late one night, he blindfolded her and led her out into the patio of the hacienda. Under the cold light of the stars, when all around were asleep and no unseen eye was on the watch, he began to lead her by the shoulders. Although he was exposing himself to many risks including torture and death at the hands of the Quechuas, he proceeded to reveal his secret.

 

He twirled her around three times, then, assuming her disoriented, led her down some steps into a concealed vault in or under Sacsayhuaman Fortress. When he removed her blinds, her tongue was finally silenced. She stood on the dusty, stone floor of an ancient vault, cluttered with gold and silver ingots, exquisite jewelry, and temple ornaments. Around the walls, ranged in fine gold, were life-size statues of long dead Inca kings. Only the golden Disk of the Sun, which the old Incas treasured most, was missing.

Carlos Inca was supposedly one of the custodians of the secret hiding place of Inca treasure that eluded the Spanish and other treasure seekers for centuries. The U.S. Commissioner to Peru in 1870 commented on this episode:

"All I can say is if that secret chamber which she had entered has not been found and despoiled, it has not been for want of digging ...Three-hundred years have not sufficed to eradicate the notion that enormous treasures are concealed within the fortress of Cuzco. Nor have three-hundred years of excavation, more or less constant, entirely discouraged the searchers for tapadas, or treasure mounds."

There certainly appears to be some repetition and borrowing between some of these stories. Yet most historians and archaeologists believe that they are based on some fact. That tunnels and lost treasure exist, there seems to be no doubt. But the real questions are, where are they? And, who made them?

The treasure of the Incas is believed to still be hidden in the tunnels that run under Cuzco and the ruins of the megalithic fortress mentioned above called Sacsayhuaman.

 

Part Two

In his book "Jungle Paths and Inca Ruins", Dr.William Montgomery McGovern states:

"Near this fortress [Sacsayhuaman] are several strange caverns reaching far into the earth. Here altars to the Gods of the Deep were carved out of the living rock, and the many bones scattered about tell of the sacrifices which were offered up here. The end of one of these caverns, Chincana, has never been found. It is supposed to communicate by a long underground passage with the Temple of the Sun in the heart of Cuzco. In this cavern is supposed, and with good reason, to be hidden a large part of the golden treasure of the Inca Emperors which was stored away lest it fall into the hands of the Spaniards. But the cavern is so huge, so complicated, and its passages are so manifold, that its secret has never been discovered."

 

"One man, indeed, is said to have found his way underground to the Sun Temple, and when he emerged, to have had two golden bars in his hand. But his mind had been affected by days of blind wandering in the subterranean caves, and he died almost immediately afterwards. Since that time many have gone into the cavern-never to return again. Only a month or two before my arrival the disappearance of three prominent people in this Inca cave caused the Prefect of the Province of Cuzco to wall in the mouth of the cavern, so that the secret and the treasures of the Incas seem likely to remain forever undiscovered."

Another story, which may well be derived from the same source, tells of a treasure hunter who went into the tunnels and wandered through the maze for several days. One morning, about a week after the adventurer had vanished, a priest was conducting mass in the church of Santo Domingo. The priest and his congregation were astonished to hear sudden, sharp rappings from beneath the church’s stone floor. Several worshipers crossed themselves and murmured about the devil. The priest quieted his congregation, then directed the removal of a large stone slab from the floor (this was the converted Temple of the Sun!). The group was surprised to see the treasure hunter emerge with a bar of gold in each hand.

Even the Peruvian government got into the act of exploring these Cuzco tunnels, ostensibly for scientific purposes. The Peruvian Serial Documental del Peru describes an expedition undertaken by staff from Lima University in 1923. Accompanied by experienced speleologists, the party penetrated the trapezoid-shaped tunnels starting from an entrance at Cuzco.

They took measurements of the subterranean aperture and advanced in the direction of the coast. After a few days, members of the expedition at the entrance of the tunnel lost contact with the explorers inside, and no communication came for twelve days. Then a solitary explorer returned to the entrance, starving. His reports of an underground labyrinth of tunnels and deadly obstacles would make an Indiana Jones movie seem tame by comparison. His tale was so incredible that his colleagues declared him mad. To prevent further loss of life in the tunnels, the police dynamited the entrance.

More recently, the big Lima earthquake of 1972 brought to light a tunnel system beneath that coastal city. During salvage operations, workers found long passages no one had ever known existed. The following systematic examination of Lima’s foundations led to the astonishing discovery that large parts of the city were undercut by tunnels, all leading into the mountains. But their terminal points could no longer be ascertained because they had collapsed during the course of the centuries. Did the Cuzco tunnels explored in 1923 lead to Lima? As far back as the 1940s, Harold Wilkins, in his books ("Mysteries of Ancient South America" and "Secret Cities of Old South America") wrote that they did.

 

Tunnels to the Hidden City of Paititi?

In my quest for the lost treasure of the Incas and the tunnel systems associated with it, I joined up in the search for Paititi, the ultimate lost city of the Incas according to Cuzco legends.

While the Incas placed some of their hoard in the Cuzco tunnel system to hide it from the conquering Spanish, other treasure (including 14 gold-clad mummies of the former Inca emperors removed from the Sun Temple) was sent by llama caravan into the Antisuyo region of South America, the mountain jungle area east of Cuzco. The caravan’s destination was a mountain-jungle city called "Paikikin" in Quechua which is supposed to mean "like the other." The Spanish called this city El Gran Paititi.

It is well known that the Incan Empire at its height stretched from north of Quito in Ecuador, south along the Andes and west to the coast, all the way down into central Chile. What is not generally known is just how far east the Incas had set up their roads, trade routes and cities. The Incas did have a trade network that stretched eastward deep into the jungles on the east side of the Andes. Salt was frequently carried across the mountains in exchange for gold and feathers. 

 

According to Jorge Arellano, director of the Institute of Archaeology in La Paz, Bolivia, Inca ruins have been found in the Bolivian state of Beni, which is several hundred miles east of the Andes and in dense jungle. He says that a series of small fortresses in the jungle form a line in an easterly direction. He believes that the Incas used these fortresses as stop overs on their migration from the Madre de Dios area of Peru, believed by some to be the site of Paititi.

Though there is little doubt that Paititi did exist, there is a great deal of myth surrounding this lost city. Harold Wilkins believes that the Incas escaped from the Spanish after the battle of Ollantaytambo by fleeing through a branch of the tunnel system discussed earlier, heading east toward Paititi. This may well be true, though it was hardly necessary for the Incas to have fled through a tunnel. They could have left by canoe, then crossed the mountains using the excellent Inca roads.

Assuming this tunnel did exist, Wilkins thinks it went due east from Cuzco, through the jungles, to the empire of Paititi. He indicates that Paititi was a separate kingdom, ruled by mysterious white men whose king was known as the "Tiger King." According to Wilkins, Paititi means "jaguar." The Tiger King, or Jaguar King, lived in a white house by a great lake.

In 1681, a Jesuit missionary named Fray Lucero wrote of information given to him by Indians in the Rio Huallaga area of northeastern Peru. They told him that the lost city of Gran Paititi lay behind the forests and mountains east of Cuzco.

The Jesuit wrote,

"This empire of Gran Paytite has bearded, white Indians. The nation called Curveros, these Indians told me, dwell in a place called Yurachuasi or the ’white house.’ For king, they have a descendant of the Inca Tupac Amaru, who with 40,000 Peruvians, fled far away into the forests, before the face of the conquistadors of Francisco Pizarro’s day in AD 1533.

 

He took with him a rich treasure, and the Castilians who pursued him fought each other in the forests, leaving the savage Chuncho Indios, who watched their internecine struggles, to kill off the wounded and shoot the survivors with arrows. I myself have been shown plates of gold and half-moons and ear-rings of gold that have come from this mysterious nation."

This story is independently documented in the book "Amazonas y El Maranon" by Fray Manuel Rodriguez, published in 1684, according to Wilkins.

Many people seem to confuse Gran Paititi and El Dorado, though the legends locate them thousands of miles apart. El Dorado is often believed to be in the vicinity of the Orinoco River near the borders of Columbia, Venezuela and Brazil. In early 1559, the Viceroy of Peru wanted to rid his country of unemployed soldiers and troublesome Spanish adventurers, so he sent a party of 370 Spaniards and thousands of Andean Indians on an expedition down the Amazon in search of a legendary city of gold.

 

This expedition was an utter failure, during which the men mutinied, and a psychopathic soldier, Lopez de Aguirre, killed the leader Pedro de Ursua. Taking over the expedition, he abandoned the search for "El Dorado," vowing to return and conquer Peru itself. This wild and incredible adventure, during which the women warriors known as Amazons were first reported, and the Amazon River was first navigated, was made into a German movie called, Aguirre: The Wrath of God.

This disastrous expedition was the beginning of the confusion between El Dorado and Paititi, the real city of gold. It searched in an area far removed from where Paititi appears to be located, and this is why most adventurers after "El Dorado" searched in the vicinity of Columbia and Venezuela instead of Peru, where the legends actually originated.

One adventurer who searched for Paititi was Pedro Bohorques, a penniless soldier who pretended to be a nobleman. In 1659, after serving in Chile, Bohorques became a wanderer. Calling himself Don Pedro el Inca, he swore that royal Inca blood flowed through his veins. Bohorques set himself up as emperor of an Indian kingdom at the headwaters of the Huallaga River south of Cuzco. He converted almost 10,000 Pelados Indians into his service, and declared all Spaniards fair game. He also sent some of his followers on a search for Paititi, hoping to find the treasure.

When these men did not come back with gold, Bohorques left his empire and went to Lima. Unfortunately, the Spaniards had heard of his decree against them, threw him in prison, and sentenced him to death. He pled for his life, promising to reveal the location of the Kingdom of Gran Paititi if he was released. The judges refused his offer, but many gold hunters visited him in prison, begging him to share his secret with them. He refused, and went to the gallows in 1667, much to the chagrin of the treasure hunters of Lima.

Actually, it is not likely that Bohorques knew the location of Paititi (since his adventurers returned without gold), though he was in the correct area, and may have learned the general location. Also, Paititi was probably still a living city at this time, so it would have been difficult for Bohorques or anyone else to enter.

Of course, the search for Gran Paititi still continues, and many explorers feel that they are getting close. Today, many feel that Paititi is somewhere in the Paucartambo area of Peru, east of Cuzco toward the Madre de Dios River. This is the same area in which Fray Lucero indicated that Gran Paititi could be found. Some expeditions, however, because they either found the city or disturbed the Indians too much in their search, end up dead. Boston anthropologist Gregory Deyermenjian and British photographer Michael Mirecki mounted their own expedition into this area in 1984. Their goal was a jungle mountain in eastern Peru called Apucatinti. I accompanied Deyermenjian.

According to many sources, the mountain on which Paititi is located is called Apucatinti, though exactly which mountain is really Apucatinti is open for debate. The word means "Lord of the Sun" in Quechua, and any mountain with this name (there are several) is a good candidate for having Paititi on it.

As noted above, Paititi comes from the Quechua word "Paikikin" which means "the same as the other" which has also been translated as "the same as Cuzco." What could it mean, "The same as Cuzco?" Deyermenjian thinks that this indicates Paititi is another stone city, similar in its construction to that found at Cuzco and Sacsayhuaman; a megalithic city like Machu Picchu. On the other hand, it may mean that Paititi is like Cuzco in the sense that it is the abode of the Inca kings, as Cuzco once was. If Paititi was built from scratch by the retreating Inca royal fringe, then the ruins are more likely to be similar to those found at Espiritu Pampa: small and unimpressive. Machu Picchu also has part of a tunnel that can be found off the trail on the northern part of the city.

Historically, Gran Paititi was not reported as being located on top of a mountain, but rather by a lake. If these older reports are correct, Paititi may be further into the jungles to the east or south. Some researchers even believe that it may still be a living city, where the Inca tradition is still carried on. Many areas, particularly to the east, could have remained under Inca control for quite some time after the Spanish conquest.

Then again, Apucatinti may well be the site of a long-dead Paititi. Demoralized and cut off from their former empire, the surviving Incas could have existed on top of this remote mountain in a self-sufficient city much like Machu Picchu, until they died out. Deyermenjian backs this theory, and thinks that the city effectively died about the year 1600, a mere 30 or 40 years after the Incas escaped to their refuge there.

In June of 1986, I accompanied Greg Deyermenjian and a party of Peruvians to scale the Apucatinti in Mameria. It took one week by horseback to the edge of the jungle, and a further two weeks of living with Machiguenga Indians in effort to scale the peak. We discovered Inca buildings, ovens, tombs and coca plantations, as well as the first-ever structures in the Madre de Dios district of Peru, but the ascent to the top of the mountain was extremely difficult. The mountain has no fresh water, and is covered in thick, almost impenetrable jungle. We ascended the mountain for five days from the base, with Machiguenga Indians leading the way. However, after running out of food and water, we had to return to the Indian village.

In August of 1986, Deyermenjian returned to Mameria by himself, and made it to the summit of Apucatinti with his Indian guides. To their disappointment, neither Paititi nor any other structures were at the summit of the mountain. It had been a false lead, but it had looked like a good prospect. Deyermenjian continued to search for Paititi, focusing on a nearby area that was even more remote than Mameria and Apucatinti. It urned my attentions to Bolivia.

 

A Tunnel in Eastern Bolivia

With several old friends from the World Explorers Club, including Carl Hart, Steve Yenouskas, and Raul Fernandez, I journeyed to Peru and Bolivia to discover what we could of the tunnels in South America. After a week in Peru, we set off one day from Cuzco for Tiahuanaco and then to eastern Bolivia to the strange hilltop city of Samaipata. I had visited Samaipata by myself in the mid-80s, and wrote about the strange "fort" in my book "Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of South America".
At the time, I was the 153rd person to visit the site since it had been opened to the public in 1974.

Erich von Daniken had visited the site in the early 70s and had described it as a "rocket launching pad" for his alien visitors. The site itself was bizarre enough: high on the summit of mountain was a large outcrop of rock that had been cut into various rooms, channels, pools, chairs, petroglyphs and odd, crisscross grooves.

The whole place was extremely ancient and worn, and apparently there had once been walls and buildings that were now long gone. A large jaguar was carved into the solid at the western end of the "fort." Was Samaipata a cult center for the jaguar? Was it a mining city? Or possibly a remote fort on the eastern edge of the mountain highlands, watching over the lower valleys to the east? No archaeologist has so far come up with an answer to Samaipata, including who built the "city" and when. On a National Geographic map of archaeological sites in South America that I carried with me, Samaipata was not even listed.

The strangest part of Samaipata was a feature that was hidden in the jungle about a 100 meters south of the main fort, a tunnel into the ground that was called by the locals the Camino de la Chinchana, or the "Path of the Subterranean."

The Camino de la Chinchana was a tunnel that began as a two-meter opening to a pit that went straight down for about 6 meters. Once one had made the first descent down to the floor of the pit, something that would take a rope or a ladder, then one would find himself standing in a tunnel that was high enough and wide enough for a man to stand without stooping. This tunnel then descended downhill from the fort, apparently going in a northwest direction.

According to the caretaker of Samaipata, the tunnel had been explored once by Bolivian archaeologists who had entered the pit with a rope and had advanced some 100 meters or more into the tunnel. The air became stale and a small cave-in had blocked a portion of the tunnel. Without proper breathing gear, the team was unable to advance any farther into the earth.
The tunnel was clearly man-made, and at least around the entrance, it was dug out of dirt, rather than cut out of solid rock. I asked the caretaker of Samaipata where this tunnel was supposed to go. He pointed to the north, across the valley, to a mountain about 15 kilometers away. This mountain looked something like the back molar in a row of teeth.

"There", he said, pointing to the mountain, "there to La Muela del Diablo, is where the archaeologists say that the tunnel goes. On that mountain is supposed to be another city, just as here."

Using my dictionary, I translated La Muela del Diablo as "The Devil’s Dimple." This tunnel was said to run from the top of the mountain of Samaipata down to the valley, beneath a river, and then up to a mountain on the other side.

Carl, Steve, Raul and I made a brief search of the area around the Devil’s Dimple but could not find evidence of any lost city or of a tunnel entrance. It was a cursory exploration that proved or disproved little. Still the fact remained that the entrance to a bizarre man-made tunnel, one that was apparently thousands of years old, existed at the weird ruins of Samaipata.

Was it the entrance to a lost mine used thousands of years ago? Was it a spur of the legendary tunnels near Cuzco? The thought that one might be able to enter into a vast labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Andes by entering the Camino tic la Chinchana was an exciting thought. The entrance still exists at Samaipata, waiting for a bold adventurer with the right equipment to discover its secrets. But for myself and Carl, we were to continue on to Brazil and the even more intriguing tunnel entrance at Sao Tome das Letras near Sao Paulo.

 

The Tunnel Beneath Sao Tome das Letras

Our WEX team had to split up, with Steve and Raul returning to Peru and the U.S. while Carl and I headed down to Corumba, the Bolivian bordertown with Brazil. From there we took a bus through the Matto Grosso to Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America.

In Sao Paulo Carl and I visited my Brazilian publisher and various Brazilian friends. I had received a letter from a Brazilian woman who had read the Portuguese version of my book Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of South America and had written me a letter concerning the opening to a tunnel system at the resort mountain town of Sao Tome das Letras. Her name was Marli and she worked at one of the many banks in Sao Paulo.

Carl and I met with Marli one night for dinner and she told us about the town and the tunnel entrance. Sao Tome das Letras is Portuguese for "Saint Thomas of the Letters" and is the rather long name of a small town north of Sao Paulo that, like Samaipata in Bolivia, is on the top of a mountain. Sao Tome das Letras is in fact a well-known tourist town in Sao Paulo state, though I had never heard of it. Being on top of a mountain, it had good views, was cooler than Sao Paulo, and offered hiking trails, good restaurants and an artist colony for atmosphere. It also had the entrance to a man-made tunnel system, a feature well known to visitors of the small town.

Carl and I suggested to Marli that the three of us take a trip to Sao Tome das Letras and see the entrance to the tunnel system. She agreed to accompany the two of us as our guide and interpreter. We left the next day, taking a bus for some four or five hours out of Sao Paulo, heading on a major highway toward the city of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais.

Soon the bus turned off the main road and headed up a narrow paved road for some distant, low mountains. Eventually the road wound its way to the top of one of the mountains and we found ourselves in Sao Tome das Letras.

Carl, Marli and I grabbed our luggage from beneath the bus and stood on the cobblestone street at the lower edge of town. There were many quaint houses, all made of well carved stone with tile roofs and small windows. I noticed that stonework and even stacks of stone slate, was everywhere. Sao Tome das Letras was not only a tourist town, it was also a mountaintop quarry.

We walked up the main street and found a small hotel to spend the night, leaving our packs and other luggage in the hotel. By now it was late afternoon and we had only time to walk about town and familiarize ourselves with this pleasant area.
Later, Marli took us to a local restaurant where a crowd of young people had gathered to hear the local restaurant owner talk about the mysteries of Sao Tome das Letras. He was a large man, in his 50s, who spoke in Portuguese to the 20 or so people gathered in his restaurant.

The crowd listened intently as the man spoke and occasionally I asked Marli what he was saying.

"He is talking about the tunnel that is at the northern edge of town," said Marli, whispering to me. "He says that the tunnel is open as far as anyone has ever walked through it. At no place is the tunnel blocked. The tunnel is man-made, but no one knows who built it or where it goes."

"The Brazilian army went into the tunnel one time to find out where it ends. After travelling for four days through the tunnel the team of Army explorers eventually came to a large room deep underground. This room had four openings to four tunnels, each going in a different direction. They had arrived in the room by one of the tunnels."

"They stayed in the room for sometime, using it as their base and attempted to explore each of the other three tunnels, but after following each for some time, turned back to the large room. Eventually they returned to the surface, here at Sao Tome das Letras."

The man continued talking about the tunnel.

Apparently he gave this lecture every night at his restaurant.

"Now he is saying," continued Marli, "that there is a man here in town who claims to know the tunnel and claims that he has been many weeks inside the tunnel. This man claims that the tunnel goes all the way to Peru, to Machu Picchu in the Andes. This man claims that he went completely under South America, across Brazil and to Machu Picchu. Isn’t that amazing!"

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Carl. He nodded to me at the fantastic nature of the story.

"Does this restaurant owner say that he has been through the tunnel to Peru?" asked Carl.

"No," said Marli, "it is not this man, it is another man. I don’t know who this other man is. But now he is telling another story, this time it is about himself. He says that he was walking early in the morning on the north side of town, near to the tunnel entrance. On this morning, he suddenly met a strange man walking in the area of the tunnel. This man was very tall, about seven feet, and dressed strangely, like the Indians of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia. The man did not talk to him, but walked away. Later, the restaurant owner tried to find this man, but no one knew about him or knew who he was . The restaurant owner thinks that he came from the tunnel!"

As we left the restaurant, Carl, Marli and I were quite stunned. It all seemed so incredible.

"Well, Marli," I said, "tomorrow we must see this tunnel and explore it!"

The next morning after breakfast, we checked our flashlights, put water and snacks into our daypacks, and set off up the cobblestone streets of Sao Tome das Letras to the north side of town.

It didn’t take long to find the tunnel entrance; already four or five young people were gathered around the entrance looking into the wide cavern.

The entrance was quite large. It was a wide mouth of a cave with a mound of dirt creating a small hill over the entrance. The cavern entrance faced to the west and immediately began running down hill, into the earth. The tunnel/ cavern would have to go downhill, as we were essentially on top of a mountain.

With our flashlights in hand, we entered the cavern. Within a few meters, the cavern entrance narrowed into a tunnel which was about three meters (9 feet) high and two meters wide. The tunnel was dug out of dirt, and was not cut out of solid rock, as some tunnels are.

The tunnel headed down ward at a steady slope, but it was not too steep. As mall channel, made by running water moving through this part of the tunnel (and perhaps by the visitors walking through it) was in the middle of the floor, sort of a small "trail" worn into the floor. At no point was it ever necessary to duck, stoop or crawl in this tunnel. Quite the opposite, it was quite wide and high, even for the tallest man to walk through, even someone who was, say, seven feet tall!

I was amazed at this ancient feat of engineering. We were descending down into the earth in a wide, gradually slopping tunnel that was dug into a red, clay-type dirt. It was not the smooth, laser-cut rock walls that Erich von Daniken had claimed to have seen in Ecuador in his book Gold of the Gods, but it was just as incredible.

It wouldn’t have taken some space-age device to make this tunnel, just simple tools; yet, it was clearly a colossal undertaking. Why would anyone build such a tunnel? Was it an ancient mine that went deep into the earth, searching for an elusive vein of gold or merely red clay for the long gone ceramic kilns? Was it an elaborate escape tunnel used in the horrific wars that were said to have been fought in South America-and around the world-in the distant past? Or was it some bizarre subterranean road that linked up with other tunnels in the Andes and ultimately could be used to journey safely to such places as Machu Picchu, Cuzco or the Atacama Desert? Maybe a combination of all three.

Marli, Carl and I continued walking through the tunnel for a kilometer or so. Other visitors to Sao Tome das Letras followed us into the subterranean system. The tunnel was not perfectly straight, but wound left and right and occasionally dropped down a few feet and continued on. It was perfectly dry and the air was fresh and quite breathable.

Eventually, after an hour or so, we came to a spot in the tunnel where it suddenly dropped down about a meter and a half. It was not a great obstacle and we could see the tunnel continuing downward, but it was a convenient place to stop. We had a candy bar and a drink from our daypacks and rested at this spot and then decided to go back to the surface. We had no intention of continuing for several days to the fabled room of four doors deep beneath Brazil. We simply weren’t prepared for such an expedition.

Back on the surface, we had lunch in one of the restaurants and prepared to get a bus back to Sao Paulo. We talked about the bizarre tunnel. It was real, there was no doubt about that. It was man-made as well, as the tunnel was perfectly uniform and contained no fissures or faults of any kind.

Did it really go to Machu Picchu and the Andes? It seemed incredible, but we could not discount this story. Not yet anyway. Perhaps in the future we would return to Sao Tome das Letras, and find the secret of the room with four doors.
The Lost Pyramid in the Valley of the Blue Moon.

Back at the World Explorers Club, I began investigating other tales of tunnels and lost cities in Peru. My search eventually led me to the strange story of the Valley of the Blue Moon and a secret monastery of the Andes.

This monastery is the subject of a book, "Secret of the Andes", by George Hunt Williamson, written under the pen name Brother Philip. Williamson was also the author of a number of other books, including "The Saucers Speak" (1954), "Other Tongues, Other Flesh" (1957), "Secret Places of the Lion" (1958) and "Road in the Sky" (1959). He was an adventurer and anthropologist, and a believer in lost continents. Williamson was no doubt a fascinating person (he died in 1986), however it is clear that he fabricated much of the "true" information in his books and even used material typed directly from Richard Shaver’s book "I Remember Lemuria!" as his own past life "memories."

But George Hunt Williamson cannot be dismissed too easily. He must be given credit for bringing some of the popular mysteries of South Americain to the forefront. Williamson had made expeditions into the Madre de Dios jungles of Peru in search of Paititi in the early 1950s, as many British explorers were attempting to do. In his various books, he talked about many of the mysteries of Peru including Paititi, tunnel systems, the weird stone formations on the Marcahuasi Plateau near Lima, and the Nazca Lines along the southern coast. Undoubtedly, later writers such as Erich von Daniken, Charles Berlitz and Robert Charroux used his writings as early guidebooks to the mysteries of Peru.

While at times the fact and fancy in the pages of Secret of the Andes seem to merge, the first part of the book makes good reading. According to Williamson, a "Lord Muru" arrived at Lake Titicaca at some time in the remote past, when the Andes Mountains were first uplifted in a cataclysmic event that also sank the Pacific continent of Mu. Lord Muru set up the "Monastery of the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays," which was to keep the secrets and treasures of his race in its archives.
Among these treasures was the Golden Sun Disc of Mu. Williamson maintains that this Sun Disc was later given to the Incas, when they had advanced enough spiritually to appreciate it. But when the Spaniards conquered Peru, the Sun Disc was removed from the Sun Temple at Cuzco, and placed back in safekeeping at the monastery.

There is still some indication that a tunnel system, and perhaps a hidden "monastery" does exist in South America. The legend of the Valley of the Blue Moon is one that has a life beyond Brother Philip and George Hunt Williamson.

One story told to me by a friend from Indianapolis, Bryan Strohm, also tends to confirm that there is a secret, underground, "city" in the Andes east of Lake Titicaca.

Bryan came to visit me at the World Explorers Club in Kempton while I was researching the tunnels and told me of his quest for the Valley of the Blue Moon some years before. Bryan arrived in Lima and flew to Cuzco to take the train to Puno. From Puno he took a truck to San Juan del Oro, in the rugged mountains northeast of Lake Titicaca.

He continued past San Juan del Oro by truck to another small village where he met a school teacher who told him an interesting story of a local Quechua Indian who had wandered over a high altitude ridge in the mountains where he saw a small mountain lake with grassy fields leading down to it. It was a small, hidden valley in the Andes.

The Indian was camping beside this lake when late at night he heard the sound of chanting. He hid behind a bush, and soon saw a group of men dressed in white robes. These men came walking down a trail to the lake, chanting and carrying some kind of lights with them.

Terrified, the man hid behind the bush and then watched as the men in white robes began to chant around the lake. The water in the small mountain lake then levitated out of the lake. Astonished, the man then saw steps that were cut in the solid rock, going down to a pedestals and a platform made out of stone. There may have been some sort of door going into the earth among these stone structures. The men in white robes then performed some unknown ceremony.

The man watched for some time until suddenly he was seen by the central figure on the pedestal who turned to the hiding man and suddenly raised his arms into the air and created a storm. A cloud immediately appeared and began to hail on the man. A bolt of lightning struck nearby.

The Quechua Indian ran from the bushes and, with the hail and lightning following him, went back down the mountains the way he had come. When he returned to the villages below he told the strange story to others, and it was now well known.
Bryan also mentioned that the Valley of the Blue Moon, which appears to be in a different location from the lake, was said to have a huge pyramid at the end of it. Bryan spent two weeks hiking on the trails around San Juan del Oro and eventually came to large but hidden valley which had a gigantic pyramid-shaped mountain at the end of it.

The pyramid-mountain was distant and obscured by clouds. They thought that they might reach the area of the pyramid with only a day’s walk after glimpsing the pyramid, but two and a half days later they had still not reached it. Clouds obscured their view most of time, but occasionally they would clear for a short time and reveal the pyramid-mountain to them. This pyramid-mountain, he believed, was the true location of the secret brotherhood which George Hunt Williamson had described in his books.

Storms and lack of food eventually drove their party back to a small village near San Juan del Oro. They didn’t reach their destination, but Bryan said that they were all convinced that they had found the Valley of the Blue Moon and that there was something unusual about it.

There are plenty of people who feel that something unusual is going on underground, not only in South America, but in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and around the world. A huge underground tunnel system connecting distant points on earth is a fascinating possibility. Does it exist? Who will find it? How far back was it built? Time, shall we say, will tell.
 

 

 

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