Those who have read Willie Douthit's book may remember how weird it seemed for him to be writing about alien encounters when the world associated him strictly with gold bars from the Caballo Mountains. What follows may a bit OT from Willie per se, but it's another interesting Treasure/UFO connection.
After several less-than-thorough Google image searches over the years, I finally discovered an old photograph that has had me puzzled since the days I lived in Albuquerque, and the discussion I had with a waitress there ca 1990, more or less. The woman was talking with a customer at a lunch counter as I was standing nearby waiting to pay my bill and leave. I became a bit interested, as the story she was telling was pretty good. Long story short: she pulled an old faded, original dog-eared color photo print out of her purse to show the other guy and, by then, me too. It was a very real looking photo of what looked like a UFO hovering above some trees - she said her grandfather took the picture south of Albuquerque and gave it to her when she was a child. He also told her that he'd had conversations with the guys who flew the UFO.
Well, I finally found a pic of the same UFO and the same trees. The photo I saw was from a different angle and was apparently one of several that grandpa took that day at Peralta, NM. I've now found out that grandpa was a guy named Paul Villa. There's an interesting 3-part YouTube video about Villa for those of you who may be UFO buffs. Apparently Villa was well-known.
What really got my attention that day in the diner were the things that Villa told the girl that the aliens told him. The one story I remember most is that Villa (who was native American) told her there was a large pile of gold bars on the floor of a vault up high in the Sandia Mountains above Albuquerque. There was a ten-foot x ten-foot x ten foot deep cubic hole in solid rock, completely open on top to the air, containing the gold. The natives supposedly know about the gold (?), but the aliens told Villa that it would remain untouched until the proper time when it would be used to benefit man.
UFOs and hidden treasure. Huh. Roger Snow also tells stories like this. Be careful out there whiskeyrat - keep looking up.
View attachment 1249369