Andrew Gough. Few would persevere and dig that deep, especially after finding so many valuables at the intermediate level. Luis Mendoza: a Filipino goldsmith who had examined the golden buddha on behalf of Roxas and drilled holes in its neck to obtain the powder necessary to confirm that the statue was, in fact, 22 carat gold. In his estimation, the only thing that could have caused the electrocution was large quantities of gold, acting as an electrical conduit. For their safety I will refrain from stating where I met them, but suffice to say it was worth the journey. Privacy Policy. We were all devastated, especially Klaus, as he wanted to open a treasure chamber in time for us to film it for the show. He shared that he and his wife had their emails and phone calls monitored and had received repeated death threats. Roxas was shown a search warrant with Pios signature that mentioned something about illegal possession of firearms. I was amazed, and excited. I knew we were essentially talking to the taxman about poetry. Read about more bizarre, untimely deaths on 10 Creepily Ironic Historical Deaths and 10 Unusual Ways to Die Through the Ages. Eventually, Roxas and his team identified the entrance and discovered various artefacts, such as Japanese bayonets, rifles, and even a human skeleton in a Japanese uniform. The idea is that during Japan's imperialist phase before World War II, they looted every country throughout Asia that they invaded, melted down all that booty into ingots of pure gold, and buried it all in Philippine strongholds to wait out the end of the war. In 1942 Prince Chichibu is said to have examined potential treasure-vault sites around greater Manila, and further afield. Further disappointment ensued when Bruce was no longer able to travel to the Philippines to direct the episode. A silver lining soon emerged, in that Bruce Burgess, my good friend and creator/director of Forbidden History and many other shows that I contributed to, informed me that the sixth season of the programme had been purchased by Discovery Science and they wanted to do a two-hour feature on Japanese gold in the Philippines. During World War II, the Philippines briefly fell to the Japanese, being finally surrendered in April and May of 1942. Serendipitously, later that year I reached out to Klaus Dona, the respected ancient-history authority, to ask if he would write an article for the magazine. After her second NDE she began to have prophetic dreams, and claims to have been in regular contact with the spirit world. When he had finished his verbal dissertation, which, to be fair, included some impressive insights, the director asked him some leading questions about other aspects of the story. I was especially interested in what had happened to the ancient relics of the East, and what exactly, if anything, remains to be discovered. This included dismissing cyanide as a poison that can travel through the air, and numerous character attacks on Seagrave and Curtis. One even had a cobra as its spiritual guardian that Klaus had encountered before. Andrew Gough. Yamashita, known as the . So he headed to the location with some hiking supplies and his dog. The first-hand accounts corroborated those of Robert Curtis, who has so often been unjustly discredited in the story. I was amazed. 0000006813 00000 n Andrew Gough, Exhausted, after returning to the surface We followed a muddy path, not too far from a river that was roaring with monsoon-induced floods, and arrived at the site. Twenty percent of the men who moved to California during the Gold Rush died from diseases like cholera within six months of their arrival. Marcos became the mastermind of a covert gold retrieval operation and acted in partnership with both the Japanese and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Those rumors clearly didnt stop some people from continuing the search for gold. He finished and I sat up, slightly dazed and in disbelief. Back in Tokyo, the healer worked on the Princes daughter, who was suffering with a brain tumour. 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. Lives in La Mirada, California. They were apparitions; ghost soldiers. Since Feb. 12, with the full sanction and protection of President Corazon Aquinos government, McDougalds group has been tunneling more than 20 feet into the catacombs under Manilas oldest structure, 16th-Century Ft. Santiago. At midnight, General Yamashita and the princes slipped out, and dynamite charges were set off in the access tunnels, entombing the engineers. It was, and the Roxas brothers are said to have extracted three handfuls of assorted precious stones and diamonds, which they promptly hid before reattaching the golden buddhas head. Roxas had been caught out. Keep going. When sharp protests came from Manilas lovers, who lost the use of the historic tourist site as a traditional trysting place, the presidential guard put up a sign at the forts front gate declaring simply, Closed for Renovations.. But Japan needed that money badly to pay for its war effort; it would not have converted it to gold bars and sent it away to be buried. Europe and others push for a standard lunar time zone, Bola Tinubu, the declared winner of Nigerias presidential election, appeals for unity, A 5,000-year-old restaurant highlights Iraqs archaeological renaissance, Chicago Mayor Lightfoot ousted; Vallas, Johnson in runoff. You could smell it respectfully, both literally and figuratively. Klaus jumped out of his sidecar. They picked the fort, he said, because it was a high-security location, off-limits to all but military torturers and the unfortunate Filipino prisoners destined for death. Roxass quest continued to attract other like-minded seekers. Before long they gained access to the tunnel system, including tracks, rails and side tunnels. Torn Treasure Map 2: Top right side of the map, inside a drawer of the house called "Manito Glade". Multiple men began to go missing or die in Deadmen Valley following the decapitation of the McLeod brothers. Andrew Gough. But then, at 11 p.m. on Feb. 22, the tunnel caved in, killing two Filipino workers and focusing national attention on the depth of McDougalds undertaking. Within seconds the cyanide had travelled to the surface and killed everyone in the vicinity. He seemed to revel in the horror of the story. Cancel at any time: Best known as lyricist for some of the best known Jerry Garcia / Grateful Dead songs and his various collaborations with Bob Dylan. After a raucous reception dinner we agreed a plan for the next several days. Their relationship was complex to say the least. My business proposal for additional funding to expedite Klauss work had been met with a polite not interested from Richard Bransons people, while Elon Musks people had been less gracious they blocked my IP address. Random encounter with treasure hunter. As I did, the cobra stopped thrashing. Over the next several years the programme was featured on television stations around the world and on YouTube. Was the healer authentic? In the process I sought to confirm that Japanese treasure hoards in the Philippines were not only real, they were about to be unveiled in all their glory. Marcos had whet his now insatiable appetite for gold and the riches and power that it brought. Now they moved with a kinetic energy I had never experienced before. Roger ROXAS and The Golden Budha Corporation, a foreign corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-Appellants, v. Ferdinand E. MARCOS and Imelda Marcos, Defendants-Appellants/Cross-Appellees. If you like this programming, please become a member. The intimidating entrance to the tunnel shaft Yes, thats correct, Klaus replied pensively. Andrew Gough. The Cultural Committee is investigating whether the search should continue. Santy, who tortured General Yamashita Tomoyukis driver, Major Kojima. Klaus explained how the Japanese engineering maps have long since disappeared, and to avoid chiselling into a hidden cyanide deposit, excavators like himself were required to bring in a dowser multiple times a week to check for danger. He also learned the secret language of the Japanese Shinto priests, who left clues symbols in the landscape, and in the ground. What I am really being charged with is losing the war. I replied, Well, keep digging. Whatever I had expected a Japanese tunnel system to be was wrong or at least greatly miscalculated. Even a Japanese prince was said to have arrived and whisked the healer away in his private jet. The director trying to get the old woman to recapture on camera what she had said off camera. Andrew Gough. See Photos. After lunch, I persuaded the director to stop at the hospital on the way out of town. All Rights Reserved. Ballinger recounted the story to Roxas, who he often visited on his trips to the Philippines, adding that the entrance to the tunnel had been in the vicinity of a concrete pillbox, the name given to a small, partly underground concrete fort used as an outpost. Did the Japanese deposit immense quantities of gold in the Philippines? Amelia claimed to have been contacted by Ferdinand Marcos, the deceased former president of the Philippines, who thanked her for her prayers and informed her that he was in purgatory. The director was oblivious. This way, he could use them as ransom against Marcos, who owed him money for the gold they had already retrieved and sold. After they began damaging historical landmarks, public and political pressure kicked them out of the country yet again. Even when I held the dowsing rods, they were charged. 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. McSherry left Dametz and found his own sandpit about 45 meters (150 ft) away. This show is made possible by financial support from listeners like you. 0000017241 00000 n This is how wide you can dig. I was frustrated. The following day we departed for the mountainous, northern resort town of Baguio to meet with Roger Roxass son, Henry, and to examine his museum, which is dedicated to his father. One mans wallet was apparently thrown near his remains. Its going to be dusty, dirty, and there are going to be rodents and spiders, and were probably going to find the gold bars lying on the floor down there somewhere., McDougald said he based his belief that treasure exists on the material that his group is using to locate the site--World War II-era Japanese maps and later engineering drawings and photographs supplied by Curtis. Twenty nerve-racking minutes later we parked up and began a rather gruelling trek through cobra-infested rice paddies. It began The Great Soul Trial of 1967. No thanks In 1931, a fur trapper named Phil Powers decided to try his luck at striking it rich. After a few days, his wife reported that he was missing. 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. 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