The document purports to describe how Thomas Beale, returning from a successful mining exploration of the region around Santa Fe, then a part of Mexico, got paranoid and buried a treasure in Virginia with a valueas of gold and silver prices in September 2020of $93 million, plus an unknown quantity of jewels. Where could this be? To extract the hidden message, the following five modifications must be applied to the original text: Finally, in the decoded text there are six errors, probably due to wrong transcription of the original paper: Additional Declaration differences affect paper number 1: word 210 of the modified text ("more") is shown as "now"; words 919 and 920 of the modified text ("fellow citizens") are shown hyphenated (also affects paper number 3); two extra words ("made" and "the") are shown in modified text positions 1058 and 1188; a word is removed ("of") after modified text position 1125. Breaking the cipher(s) may depend on random chance (as, for instance, stumbling upon a book key if the two remaining ciphertexts are actually book ciphers); so far, even the most skilled cryptanalysts who have attempted them have been defeated. Danny Johnson received an emailwe cant say from whom without permission, and so far we dont have itthat begins, Please see attached file Sir Danny. Thats followed by a few cryptic pieces of adviceenhanced by the apparent English-as-a-second-language writing: Protect this hill with all your might and power Find the Twin Oaks on the mountain side., And then: Castleton Johnson deserves recognition for this., Castleton Johnson? On the other hand, maybe everyone is using the wrong keys, including the legendary Friedman. Shes explored the graveyards of Bedford several times, scouting everything she and her husband could find within a 4-mile radius of Bufords Tavern. Johnson shared the letter with me, suggesting I might want to get some ground-penetrating radar and dig up the treasure. Fisher is famous for investing 16 years into the search for the shipwrecked Atocha. Morriss had no luck in solving the ciphers, and decades later left the box and its contents to an unnamed friend. My guess is that six feet was just in the consciousness of the author of the papers, *because of* the common depth for a grave, but that its not a clue to a grave or graveyard. In March 1820, Beales two friends returned, and after a few days, the three of them departed. There are dozens of reasons to believe The Beale Papers, and thus the treasure, is an elaborate hoax. "Even after it's been pretty well debunked, there's something in the human psyche the finding a hidden treasure, something no one else has been able to do that keeps people searching for it," Dunin explains. It was noticed local farmers were using the cave to store vegetables in and such. It worked for the second cipher. The second cracked cipher outlines the contents of the buried treasure as follows: 2,921 pounds of gold. Note: The treasure was found on June 8. The first letter of the 1005th word of the modified text ("have") is always used by Beale as an "x". I assume Beale would have felt the same. From 1820, he was also living in Richmond, Virginia at the time of Beale's alleged encounters with Morriss. Some theorists suggest someone dug up the treasure long ago. In 1817, a group of thirty young, affluent, and well-educated men set out from Virginia to find adventure in the West. The Mysterious Beale Treasure? On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I think it is real, he wrote. While the jury is still out if it even really exists, our writer went looking anywayand found it might just be the thrill of the chase thats the real treasure. Although he didnt find the treasure he brought to light previous clues and keep the hope of finding the treasure alive. Well done Thomas J. This Bufords mentioned in the code is thought to be referring to the Tavern. We leave the peak and head to the Bedford Museum and Genealogical Library to meet with Jennifer Thomson, genealogical librarian and education director. decoding secretly hidden directions located within Cipher One of the Locality Cipher. [h=2]Beale Treasure found inside Nazi Gold Train at Victorio Peak[/h] PHOENIX, AZ 8/25/16 A group of Lost Dutchman Gold Mine hunters say they have located the famed Beale Treasure, inside the boxcars of a Nazi Gold Train stored inside Victorio Peak by Nazi soldiers with the help of aliens after the second world war. His 7,000-word exhumation is as exhaustive and comprehensive as it gets. On a buffalo-hunting expedition a couple of hundred miles north of Santa Fe, some of the young men discovered a vein of gold. The Beale treasure remains unaccounted for, at least as far as we know. The treasure was said to have been obtained by an American named Thomas J. Beale in the early 1800s, from a mine to the north of Nuevo Mxico (New Mexico), at that time in the Spanish province of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mxico (an area that today would most likely be part of Colorado). History. And isnt that the north fork of Goose Creek across the valley? They employed guides, who advised to organize themselves as if they were a military unit. While most of it burned in a warehouse fire, enough copies circulated to excite quite a few people. After driving for miles along country lanes and gravel roads, we reach Cool Spring Church, on a mountaintop, with a small graveyard. The Ward document included the authors breakthrough on page two of the sheets: He or she managed to use the Declaration of Independence to break the code and learn the contentsnot the location; thats on page oneof the cipher. Im not sure if it leads to a physical treasure or a spiritual one, she says. So there is gold in Bedford, and you can take it home in six-packs. So, what if the friend who received the cypher couldnt figure out what to do with it and created a forgery with the other two cyphers because Beale never returned. Many versions of the Declaration of Independence have been printed, with various adjustments to paragraphing, word inclusion, word changing, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Reflecting on the past is bittersweet because my family was split up. Of course, Beale could have used a document that he had written himself for either or both of the remaining keys or either a document of his own or randomly selected characters for the third source, in either case rendering any further attempts to crack the codes useless. Yes, the Beale treasure has been found. A translation of the Cipher from the actual Declaration of Independence shows in fact very poor spelling: "I haie deposoted in the copntt ol bedoort aboup four miles from bulords in an epcaiation or iault six fest below the surlact of thh gtound ths fotlowing articiss beaonging joiotlt to the partfes whosl namfs ate giiet in number thrff httewith.."[citation needed]. https://bisonwoman.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/adventures-in-geocaching-it-was-a-cold-snowy-day/, If you do a lot of detecting then this is a good tip! However, I think that you are mixing recent and past motives and methods for hiding and locating treasure. The treasure was found in June, in Wyoming, by someone else. (Cue the evil laugh.). More than the legend, Johnson is fascinated by the psychology surrounding such tales. In February 1826 Poe enrolled as a student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. According to the story, the innkeeper opened the box 23years later, and then decades after that gave the three encrypted ciphertexts to a friend before he died. Another wagon train in 1821 brought 1,907 pounds of gold and 1,288 pounds of silver. Thanks Jenny for letting us stretch our imaginations. If I, along with others, agreed to hide a treasure in a cave we all thought was secret and then went there only to discover it being used by other people, I wouldnt say, well, lets go use that other cave. From the experience given on the first, I would be extremely cautious in thinking any other cave of the area is unknown and safe enough to hide a valuable treasure in. In 2015 the UKTV series Myth Hunters (also known as Raiders of the Lost Past) devoted one of its season 3 episodes to the topic. 12/13/2009 Near a church. I realized later she wasnt giving us busyworkit was like the old thing about a million monkeys hitting a typewriter and writing Shakespeare. Cagey teacher, that. A small pre-dig mpeg video clip is located below..left click to open or right click to download! He has found the treasure in Bedford County, Virginia. Historic Mysteries provides captivating articles on archaeology, history, and unexplained mysteries. I first heard about this story when I was in third grade, in Pennsylvania, Reilly says, somewhat surprisingly. https://m.reddit.com/r/metaldetecting/comments/4b6cji/daffodils_in_the_middle_of_nowhere_as_a_sign_that/, I thought this might be of some interest to you! The author/Beale described it as six feet below..and so it could be in a grave to my mind. If this is true, it seems the treasure may remain a mystery until the final two codes are broken. It is one of the knowns for where the treasure is buried. They traveled to St. Louis, where they geared up for buffalo and bear hunting. Yes, Danny Johnsons Peaks of Otter Winery is inside the 4-mile radius. They have all been wrong. Nickell argues that the tale is thus a work of fiction; specifically, a "secret vault" allegory of the Freemasons; James B. Since the publication of the pamphlet, a number of attempts have been made to decode the two remaining ciphertexts and to locate the treasure, but all efforts have resulted in failure. We wanted to see if there was anything there that would catch your eye, she says. For the geographic code classification system, see, Statistical analysis of the last digits in the Beale Ciphers. Copyright 2023 Northern Virginia Magazine. I find time to post additional pictures ordocumentation concerning our discovery and work. WebWelcome To The Beale Treasure Website! Video Clip Welcome To The Beale Treasure Unfortunately, missing data from three other states made this search fruitless. The group wasn't sure exactly what to do with their newfound riches, but eventually, they entrusted it to Beale, who traveled back east and buried it in a cave near a tavern in Bedford County, "which all of us had visited, and which was considered a perfectly safe depository," according to the letter. Ultimately, he unlocked the key to one of the three. OP R Ramiro valdez Full Member Aug New information will be on display hereasas Factoid: Bedford is Virginias fifth-largest county by population, with 79,000 residents. But the exact location was on one of the other pages, in a coded message that the anonymous author conveniently for the mystery wasn't able to solve. Because they were in a dangerous land, they decided to send the treasure back with Beale to Virginia to hide in a cave near Bufords Tavern in Buford, not far from Roanoke. Inside he found two plaintext letters from Beale, and several pages of ciphertext separated into Papers "1", "2", and "3". I like those the best, she says. [22] The 1820 U.S. Census has two persons named Thomas Beale, Captain Thomas Beale of the battle of New Orleans 1815 in Louisiana originally from Virginia Botetourt County Fincastle area 12miles from Bedford County and one in Tennessee, and a Thomas K. Beale in Virginia, but the population schedules are completely missing for three states and one territory. million, the treasure's value today, and the honor of twentieth century technology and brains. Copyright 2001 SWN Beale's second cryptogram (the deciphered one). WebMystery Solved The Beale Treasure is Found Home After 12 years of searching, treasure hunter Chaz Windbreeze has found the Beale Treasure. Im on Beales trail, all right: Were about to connect with none other than Goose Creek Valley Road. Danny Johnson and I know the location of the $60 million Beale Treasure buried out in Bedford County. The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 670 and 680. Mr. Ward decided to go public with the Beale treasure. For more than a hundred years, people have been arrested for trespassing and unauthorized digging; some of them in groups as in the case of people from Pennsylvania in the 1990s. Was located by "Those unanswered details seem to always keep the door slightly ajar, no matter how hard some slam it. Words 78 and 79 ("self-evident"), shown hyphenated, are counted as 2 words. No church. The area has been repeatedly explored through the years, and possible locations for the Beale Treasure investigated. The first one in 1819 included 1,014 pounds of gold and 3,812 pounds of silver. The Beale Treasure: Buried Six Feet Below the Surface, Guest Post by Nicolai Anichkin: The Indecipherable Voynich Manuscript, Weekly Words From Forrest: March 11th, 2016, All can be found to have a questing theme within them, https://bisonwoman.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/adventures-in-geocaching-it-was-a-cold-snowy-day/, https://m.reddit.com/r/metaldetecting/comments/4b6cji/daffodils_in_the_middle_of_nowhere_as_a_sign_that/, http://www.rottenworks.com/index.php/2015/02/28/expedition-unknown-beale-ciphers-s01e08, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_mile. Over the years, the Beale mystery has drawn attention to the region via international media outlets. Visitors come from all over the world to experience the Blue Ridge Parkway, Peaks of Otter and Smith Mountain Lake, and also to see the National D-Day Memorial, she says. Until officially debunked, people will continue to believe that over $60,000,000 in gold, silver, and jewels lies buried in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 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