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However, no one has found the treasure yet, not even professional treasure hunter Dal Neitzel. The treasure, suspected to be somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, is estimated to be worth over a million dollars. When he was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, he decided to put some of his valuable collection in a chest and publish a poem with clues leading people to its secret location. Some adventurous adults are following through on those dreams, scouring the western United States for the treasure of Forrest Fenn.Īfter serving in Vietnam as a fighter pilot, Fenn became a wildly successful art dealer in Sante Fe, New Mexico. Many children dream of buried treasure and fantastical adventures in search of gold and jewels.
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Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.This story originally aired March 26, 2016. I realize I put an end to something that meant so much to so many people.” “I thought that whoever found the chest would be absolutely hated, because it ends everyone’s dream,” Stuef told Outside. The plan is to eventually sell it to help pay off Stuef’s student loans. “There were a few times when I, exhausted, covered in scratches and bites and sweat and pine pitch, and nearing the end of my day’s water supply, sat down on a downed tree and just cried alone in the woods in sheer frustration,” wrote Stuef on an earlier Medium post, originally published anonymously.Īfter he finally struck gold, Stuef visited Fenn, temporarily reuniting the old man with his treasure before storing it in a New Mexico vault. “Maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself what a hold it had on me.”Īfter pinpointing the general location of the treasure, it took the medical student 25 days going over the area with a fine-toothed comb to actually find the chest.įorrest Fenn’s treasure was allegedly buried in an ornate, Romanesque box filled with gold nuggets, gold coins and other gems.
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“I think I got a little embarrassed by how obsessed I was with it,” Stuef, who joined the search in 2018 but declined to tell friends and family about the full extent of his quest, told Outside magazine.
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Others quit their jobs or devoted their life savings to the challenge. His self-published memoir, The Thrill of the Chase, contained a cryptic poem offering clues as to the treasure’s whereabouts.Īn estimated 350,000 people took part in the hunt over the years, including at least five people who are believed to have died in the process. Photo by Melissa via TripAdvisor.įenn, who was 90 at the time of his death, hid the 42-pound bronze chest in 2010, filling it with gold, gemstones, antique jewelry, and other valuable artifacts. As reported by the Chicago Tribune, she claimed her find had been “stolen” by an anonymous man who had been taunting her by text for months and had hacked her computer.ĭeLacy Creek trail in Yellowstone National Park, near where Forrest Fenn’s treasure may have been found. Immediately after news of the treasure’s discovery was made public, 47-year-old Barbara Anderson, a Chicago lawyer, filed a complaint alleging that she was the one who had solved the puzzle. But the US District Court for New Mexico ruled last month that Fenn’s family had to reveal Stuef’s identity in connection with an ongoing lawsuit from a thwarted treasure hunter. Stuef had initially chosen not to reveal his name out of fear that he would be harassed by delusional fans of Fenn, who had himself dealt with stalkers, death threats, and even a home invasion over the years. “I searched for it for two years, and on June 6 of this year, I retrieved the treasure from the place I found it in Wyoming.” “I am the finder of the Forrest Fenn Treasure,” Stuef wrote on Medium. His name is Jonathan “Jack” Stuef, and he is a 32-year-old medical student from Michigan. Yesterday, however, the man who solved Fenn’s decade-old quest came forward. When the retired New Mexico art dealer died in September, he took the secret of the identity of the successful treasure hunter, who wished to remain anonymous, to the grave. The hopes and dreams of thousands were crushed in June, when Forrest Fenn announced that his storied hidden treasure, said to be worth $2 million, had been found.