After 10 Years, Hidden $1M Treasure Chest Finally Found

89-year-old Forrest Fenn had a secret, reports the Guardian. He’d hidden a treasure chest worth over $1 million somewhere in America’s Rocky Mountains: For more than a decade, he packed and repacked his treasure chest, sprinkling in gold dust and adding hundreds of rare gold coins and gold nuggets. Pre-Colombian animal figures went in, along with prehistoric mirrors of hammered gold, ancient Chinese faces carved from jade and antique jewelry with rubies and emeralds. For more than 10 years, “hundreds of thousands” of fortune-hunters searched for his hidden treasure chest, according to the Guardian (adding “Some have said it was a hoax and pursued lawsuits.”) Fenn posted clues online, and included nine hints in a 24-line poem in his 2010 autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase.
Many quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the search and others depleted their life savings. At least four people are believed to have died searching for it. Fenn, who lives in Santa Fe, said he hid his treasure as a way to tempt people to get into the wilderness and give them a chance to launch an old-fashioned adventure and expedition for riches. “There seemed to be despair everywhere,” Fenn told Business Insider in 2018. “I wanted to give people some hope and something to believe in… I hope parents will take their children camping and hiking in the Rocky Mountains. I hope they will fish, look for fossils, turn rotten logs over to see what’s under them, and look for my treasure.” So where was it? “It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains,” Fenn posted coyly on his web site, “and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago.”