Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp
Gold Member
no journals Charlie, my friend, but plenty of coffee and a few narrow gauge ones.
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. You know, Don Jose', I always arrive with a spare sock. Polka dots or stripes?Join me in a cuppa coffee Marius ? Wait until the grounds settle, not using Oro's sock today.
I too have found zero evidence of the existence of the "guerrilla gang"angle after searching diligently, but if someone finds some evidence proving it did exist, I'm sure we would all love to see it here. As it stands now though, it appears to be a non-starter.
But on the treasure map rock south of Cortez, the swirls meant points to travel from and to, and as pointers, so there is variation in how swirls are used.
Again though, this map did not originate with Douthit, but from a patient of Doc's at his foot clinic. No, we don't have proof of that, OR any other theory being floated here. I also think it is not valid to assume as a given that Doc was a lying con man. Yes, he mislead some people and showed some people bars that were not gold. And so what! All of that was explained as actions he took to protect himself from people who were trying to take advantage of him. So I don't operate from such ideas as if they were a matter of settled fact, as in my head they simply aren't settled at all.
If the proof of Doc's claims were available, this thread wouldn't exist. The actions of the military, and the military eyewitness accounts, lead me to conclude there was indeed a treasure at VP, and that it was removed. When you have state officials walking right up on military equipment in the process of excavating and shoring up tunnels at VP, exactly what do you think was going on? Especially since they were denying they were doing anything at all there! What alternative explanation is there for such goings on? And that is the tip of the iceberg, there are also the statements of former military who actually helped load the gold, the lie detector results, etc. More than enough for a conclusion to be drawn that there was something there worth taking in secret.
Remember, this thread asks where Doc's gold came from, the Caballos or Victorio Peak. We know Noss had a couple hundred bars of gold and that he sold or traded some bars to buyers or folks he owed favors to, such as Samaniego, Jolley and several others. There's little doubt about that. When the Denver mint stiffed him, he realized that the Gold Act indeed had teeth, and that he would have increasing trouble trying to turn the bars into cash - people were on to him. He needed money to keep going, so he turned to bilking investors for beans for years, apparently waiting for things to change with private gold possession laws. It never did, and in 1949, he went for broke with the Mexican smuggling plan with Ryan. That was the end for Doc and the treasure of Victorio Peak, even though there may still be some gold bars hidden in the greasewood around the peak that Doc never got back to.
If there were any large amounts of gold handled by the military at VP, then I believe is was WWII plunder being shuffled around by the brass for black ops and political payoffs. I imagine the military knew all along that the Noss caves were empty. It's funny that Noss died in 1949, then during the mid 1950s a constant parade of GI's from Holloman AFB searched every inch of that mountain looking for gold, including in the then-empty Fiege/Swanner caves, after publication of Henry James' book in 1953. In 1958, voila, the Fiege incident occurred and the Swanner confession followed some years later. How did those 100 gold bars get into the previously empty Fiege cave? If these GI's were seeing bars of gold, then they were European: numbered, stamped shiny refined bullion bars, not darkened dore bars from "Padre LaRue". Sounds like the Fiege party may have stumbled onto recently stashed contraband and assumed it was Spanish treasure. We don't know what went down, but when the Fiege bunch went back a couple of years later to claim their prize, "they couldn't find it." Darn!
Here's the bug bite: there is not one photograph of the VP bullion by Noss, who claimed he was in the caverns via the top shaft or by using his "secret entrance" dozens of times over several years. He seemed to take pictures of everything else, why not the treasure? Swanner? Maybe he did feel guilty about his secret job moving gold. If so, he wasn't crying tears for Ova; instead, it was probably tears for the families in Europe who were ripped off by our military after the war. Or, maybe he was nuts and dreamed the whole thing up. Sure, his name is in the cave - along with many other GI's. If he wanted people to believe him about the gold bars, why didn't he take a photo? Thousands of bars of gold stacked like cord wood and nobody snapped a picture.
But on the treasure map rock south of Cortez, the swirls meant points to travel from and to, and as pointers, so there is variation in how swirls are used.
Actually, Doc did take photos of the treasure in situ, but alas, one person that was involved has/had those pics. That person chooses to keep them to himself. I am not at liberty to give the person's name.
Mike
Then neither do any other unsupported theories or assumptions....