I know nothing, he said humbly. I examined it closely. Four days later Roxas paid the price of his ill-advised actions. Why are we still having these debates? Later that day I drove to Klauss village. Yes, thats correct, Klaus replied pensively. Roxass brother, Danilo, attempted to resist the men and was badly beaten. Sen. Ernesto Maceda, one of the more skeptical critics of the hunt, asked McDougald whether he still plans to finish his book on hidden wealth. Andrew Gough. He was dazed, and yet actually excited about what he believed had caused it. Andrew Gough. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. None of the prospecting equipment had been taken. He said that Roger only came out of hiding in 1988, shortly after President Marcos had fled to Hawaii while under house arrest. For Roxas, it was a puzzle piece he had long sought. This was the result Marcos had been waiting for. Tunnels filled with a foot of water Whatever they did plunder had likely been well spent building the Imperial Navy well before the end of the war. The director trying to get the old woman to recapture on camera what she had said off camera. I knew only a little about the story, let alone the fact that Peggy and her husband Sterling were the worlds most prolific experts on the subject, and had documented the whole sordid affair in their seminal book, Gold Warriors; Americas Secret Recovery of Yamashitas Gold. It is not a pleasant journey to the bottom of the tunnel complex: three descents down makeshift ladders and three separate crawls on ones hands and knees. After all, that was why we were there. Now they moved with a kinetic energy I had never experienced before. I stared at him with a knowing look one that could not conceal the fact that I was now questioning his identity. It stopped moving at all. The oddest chapter in this urban legend is often cited as legitimate proof that the United States recognizes the treasure to be real. I never expected such a gruelling journey. The Japanese constructed their subterranean treasure networks with the aid of a thousand young men, mostly prisoners of war who worked three eight-hour shifts a day to create a complex series of tunnels and chambers deep underground. His shirt read Trust me, I do this all the time.. All content is Skeptoid Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Imelda Marcos now claims her husbands wealth came from Yamashitas gold. He was there as the Imperial Japanese army ransacked much of China and southeast Asia, and he was there for the duration of World War II; and he grew up knowing little about the Japanese besides that they were the world's aggressors, and the brutal assailants of a peaceful people. He finished and I sat up, slightly dazed and in disbelief. Anderson reported that Curtis group supplied the maps, which marked an estimated $100 billion in treasure, to Marcos, who used the group to track and recover about $14 billion. The Imperial treasure sites were another matter: in addition to gold, they contained ancient artefacts from museums and burial hoards that the Japanese had looted across Asia. Few would persevere and dig that deep, especially after finding so many valuables at the intermediate level. They chose to go on a day when it was 46 degrees Celsius (115 F), but they didnt bring their cell phones with them. The director was beaming with approval. A month later American intelligence officers would learn of the existence of the vast treasure hoards but not before a gruesome fate awaited the men who had overseen the treasures safe deposit deep in the earth. Before I could comment Klaus had taken out his dowsing rods and located the entrance shaft to the tunnel system that the bent tree was pointing towards. The massive and disproportionately large cemetery under construction in Klauss humble village Yamashita, known as the . Andrew Gough. Roxas claimed that some 25 years earlier, using a map given to him by the son of a Japanese soldier, he and a team of friends discovered a cave filled with gold, including a golden Buddha, plus the skeletons of the soldiers and engineers who had been sealed inside. As we stood around discussing the stone and the bent tree, I noticed an elderly woman walking through the rice paddies and suggested we approach her and ask if she remembered the Japanese coming to the area. Amelia did as the dream-induced spirit encounter with Roxas instructed. It felt like a flamethrower had pierced my stomach and opened me up below my navel. In his extensive research on the subject, Seagrave recounted how in one horrific incident in June 1945, as US tanks approached from twenty miles away, the one hundred and seventy-five chief engineers who were responsible for each of the sites were given a farewell party two hundred and twenty feet underground, in a complex known as Tunnel 8. Klaus demonstrating the art of dowsing I had to see the Baguio Hospital treasure site for myself. In Red Dead Redemption 2, you can run out of money fast as there are many things that you need to buy to progress further. Klaus interviewed him on camera, and afterwards we took turns examining the artefacts. He heard of what the locals called Second World War ghost ships; large Japanese freighters that arrived in the evening and, after unloading countless boxes into a tunnel system, had disappeared by daybreak. In 1931, a fur trapper named Phil Powers decided to try his luck at striking it rich. Treasure-hunting equipment The leaves of the bogtalay tree were placed in the cement backfill of the treasure tunnels by Japanese Shinto priests He was integrity personified. She was greeted by a well-dressed, professional looking man who gave her some medicine for Roger, as he had noticed how poorly he was looking and was concerned for his health. In the early 1960s, Hunter volunteered as a test subject for a psychedelic chemicals research program (MKULTRA) sponsored by the CIA and was paid . Roxas was more convinced than ever that a great treasure was buried near Baguio Hospital, and who could blame him? But how? Evidently, she found what she was looking for., Ill be damned, I added. Robert Curtis: an American metallurgist employed by Marcos to help find Japanese treasure sites and sanctify the gold bars into a form consistent with the London Gold Standard. 0000000016 00000 n
Bob Curtis. Is it the healer, the region, or something else that made the place so naturally powerful? During one fateful visit Cheatham visited Roxas just days after his discovery. Thats incredible, but tell me more. Quite popular, this particular treasure. At two hundred and fifteen feet Klaus was literally on the doorstep of a discovery. Thank you for your nutrients and for their blessings. There are five Americans from the company working at the Ft. Santiago site, McDougald said, along with about 30 Filipino laborers who are digging the 3-foot-by-7-foot tunnel through the forts long-buried catacombs. But then again, Klaus is five feet five inches tall and I am a foot taller, I defensively mused in my head. His treasure tunnels would be sure to dazzle viewers. I sensed wetness and as I propped myself up and looked down at where he was working all I could see was blood. He found the whole thing rather ridiculous and naive, and hastily threw the flyer in the rubbish bin beneath his desk. After a long morning of work, Bob and Billy decided to take an afternoon nap. The story has inspired many books to be written, and many artists have created works based by the event. All content 2006 - 2023 Andrew Gough. 0000002177 00000 n
This show is made possible by financial support from listeners like you. Dan Cathcart at his home, taking me through his Roxas v Marcos file Then, at an infamous event, where President Marcos ordered the slaughter of his opponents at a political rally and blamed the ensuing grenade attacks on the Communists, Roxas escaped once more. Charles McDougald looked every bit a real-life Indiana Jones one recent afternoon as he sat cross-legged outside the World War II-era Japanese torture chamber where he and half a dozen other American treasure hunters are convinced lie buried more than 400 tons of gold worth at least $7 billion. So McDougald has dropped his previous secrecy and found the spare time to schedule daily press conferences on the lawn outside the torture chamber--at least until he hits pay dirt. The driver proceeded to peer out of the passenger-side window, as if he was trying to confirm their identity. Frustratingly, he was unable to recapture what she had so convincingly and spontaneously said previously, leading the director to believe we had made it all up. McSherry left Dametz and found his own sandpit about 45 meters (150 ft) away. We proceeded to film three of Klauss four sites, the fourth being too flooded to enter. The Cultural Committee is investigating whether the search should continue. Most treasure hunters go searching in the daytime and then return to local motels. I had retreated to a solitary place inside my head where I was contemplating the whole astonishing quest when I heard Klaus attempting to get my attention. Singer-songwriter, poet, translator and occasionally recording artist, born Robert Burns. My experience with dowsers was not good. After lunch, I persuaded the director to stop at the hospital on the way out of town. As he detailed the story of how he first became embroiled with Roxas, his manner and cadence reminded me of Jimmy Stewart, or Tom Hanks. Roxas reported the incident to the police, who predictably ignored his pleas. On the contrary, this young man was conspicuously well informed and appeared to possess some highly classified information. The bogtalay tree is regarded as sacred in the East. Legitimate historians in both Japan and the Philippines dismiss the entire story as fiction. It seems Henry returned to the site as an adult, many years later, in the late 1980s, and dynamited the entrance shut once more, in order to protect what he believes to be even more gold bullion buried beneath Marcoss excavation. ; One of the best ways to earn a high chunk of money in Red Dead Redemption 2 is by High Stakes Treasure maps. Klauss partner had a video of a woman she had accompanied to the healer who had removed her friends stomach, cleaned it and then put it back; no surgical equipment required. Today, only $1.4 million has been paid out to the Roxas estate. Aquinos executive secretary, Catalino Macaraig, said last month that the government has granted more than 80 permits to foreign and local treasure seekers in the two years since Aquino took power, and that applications continue to arrive at the presidents office at the rate of one a day. Crawling through the inhospitable tunnel system The first clue to the treasure reportedly came in 1971, when a locksmith in the mountain resort of Baguio found a Buddha statue filled with gold and jewels. Hours later, on the plane back to London, my brain was in overdrive. When we opened the tunnel, air hit the sand. Editors. Prospective buyers took their turn examining the buddha, including Joe Oihara, a Japanese man who, on 1 April 1971, visited Roxas and shared the worrying detail that he was staying at the home of Ferdinand Marcoss mother, Josefa Edralin Marcos. If you like this programming, please become a member. 32 25
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Henry proudly highlights the victorious Roxas v Marcos Supreme Court case That is exactly what United States Captain Edward Lansdale and Intelligence Officer Santa Romana are alleged to have done to those loyal to Japanese General Yamashita Tomoyuki, who was posted to the Philippines at the end of the Second World War. The bad news was that nobody on the production team believed that the Japanese had buried treasure in the Philippines, let alone that Klaus was about to discover some of it. The next morning he arrived in his office to discover that the cleaning crew had not visited the night before. During World War II, the Philippines briefly fell to the Japanese, being finally surrendered in April and May of 1942. I had never been and was excited to take it all in. Andrew Gough. One mans wallet was apparently thrown near his remains. Torn Treasure Map 1: On the far left side of the map, at the start of the Little Creek River, inside a drawer of a wooden hut. 0000001826 00000 n
It would later be appealed and reduced to $22 billion, because the court could not be certain of the contents of each and every wooden crate that was removed from the tunnel system behind Baguio Hospital. I tried not to think about it as I descended the first sixty-foot shaft with a bamboo ladder that afforded my already wet and slippery wellies only about three inches of grip before my toes became jammed against the edge of the tunnel. Andrew Gough. Despite the depth, there were still twelve inches of water that needed negotiating. Cathcart recounted how, on 24 May 1993, he had spoken to Roxas and had informed him that he would be escorted on a flight from Manila to Honolulu the next day. Back in Tokyo, the healer worked on the Princes daughter, who was suffering with a brain tumour. When no one could find proof, it went to retrial in 1971 with 102 researchers trying to claim the money. There was also the odour; the smell of decomposed bodies. 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