Jose was clearly a wind-up-and-go type of historian. As there was no easy way for others to get in contact with the families of the deceased, thousands of people simply disappeared from the lives of their loved ones.[8]. He was there as the Imperial Japanese army ransacked much of China and southeast Asia, and he was there for the duration of World War II; and he grew up knowing little about the Japanese besides that they were the world's aggressors, and the brutal assailants of a peaceful people. The bad news was that nobody on the production team believed that the Japanese had buried treasure in the Philippines, let alone that Klaus was about to discover some of it. They decided it would be fun to go on a road trip to look for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. Eventually, Valmores tired of making the journey and brought all but three of the one hundred and seventy-five treasure maps to Curtis. Even a Japanese prince was said to have arrived and whisked the healer away in his private jet. Thank you for giving me your life. The organisation was named Kin no yuri, meaning Golden Lily, the name of a poem written by the Emperor. Each night, after the days dig, Klauss partner cooked dinner for the crew. Roxass wife was particularly keen to speak. 0000001447 00000 n They followed that with a treasure chamber at around a depth of approximately one hundred feet, knowing that most treasure hunters would consider that the final prize. Do you know about Yamashitas gold?. Once the cameras stopped, Henry continued taking us through his files, highlighting important photos and newspaper clippings, including one very poignant photo of himself as a young man standing alongside his deceased father. An estate lawyer looked over his Last Will and Testament. This entire field was part of the Japanese military base, you see., The low-growing tree that points towards the gold In 1993, treasure hunter Charles McDougald published Asian Loot: Unearthing the Secrets of Marcos, Yamashita and the Gold. Torturing surrendered military leaders was a war crime, but those of minor rank were considered fair game. Maybe Amelia was right after all, I mused. Death was one idea that neither Burchfield nor the Dead shied away from. The Japanese are believed to have visited Germany in the late 1930s, where they not only learned the technique of carving tunnels out of sheer earth and stone, but also how to backfill the tunnels with naturally coloured concrete known as German cement, in order to camouflage them, and to ensure that they did not look man made to novice treasure hunters. Crawling through the inhospitable tunnel system Such a thing is well proven to be one way that intelligence agencies move funds around. 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. Klauss team said that every so often Japanese treasure hunters come to the village enquiring if anyone knows where that landmark is. While in Baguio, Valmores pulled out a map of the hospital treasure complex from his secret portfolio and handed it to Roxas. Andrew Gough. Roxas testified, returned to hiding, was discovered by Marcoss men and tortured. He had a PhD in theology and had his work presented in multiple Christian publications, including a terrifying pamphlet that claimed that the Antichrist was coming. Robert Curtis: an American metallurgist employed by Marcos to help find Japanese treasure sites and sanctify the gold bars into a form consistent with the London Gold Standard. Rights and reuse information. Not only are ancient Thai documents written on the bark of the bogtalay tree, its leaves provide oral hygiene, and even cure cancer. This time I was prepared. Ballinger had photographed the Japanese ship, Huzi Maru, which was masquerading as a hospital ship, unloading boxes northwest of Manila, in Subic Bay. Andrew Gough. It came in 1988, right after Curtis and McDougald's headlines renewed the public's interest in the treasure. I was intrigued and found myself engrossed in the mystery once more. As the 25 May 1993 golden buddha Supreme Court trial approached, Roxas had been instructed to keep a low profile. They were apparitions; ghost soldiers. The intense publicity, he said, attracts curiosity seekers, it attracts other treasure hunters, and quite frankly we dont have the time to spare.. Roxas was more convinced than ever that a great treasure was buried near Baguio Hospital, and who could blame him? I didn't wana lose the map so I quickly hogtied the npc and stole the map. 0000000796 00000 n A powerful, all-purpose line that hit the sweet spot of subversive clichs, it made speakers appear smarter than they are. Roxas claimed they tried to sell the Buddha to finance removal of the treasure, and this attracted the attention of Marcos. Speak to it and explain what is going to happen, and why, he instructed. After the McLeods had been gone for two years, people began to believe that the brothers had actually struck it rich and decided to start a new life somewhere else.[1]. I had never been and was excited to take it all in. The charges are completely new to me. No sooner than I was reflecting on the creepiness of being there, Klaus screamed. They soon discovered a ten-feet-thick concrete slab beneath a layer of dirt. The enormity of the tragedy is underscored by the fact that the Roxas family have yet to be paid their settlement. Andrew Gough, Amelia after her second NDE The incredibly ambitious, albeit cruel, initiative was overseen by Japanese princes, most notably Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu, the brother of Emperor Hirohito. 0000001318 00000 n The oddest chapter in this urban legend is often cited as legitimate proof that the United States recognizes the treasure to be real. Cathcart proceeded to tell me in his gentle manner how forthright and convincing Roxas was, and what a surprising amount of evidence there was to support his claims. She gave the pills to her husband, who took them and swiftly died. The only problem was he was already dead. I was enthralled with Cathcart (then retired and in his eighties and suffering from Parkinsons disease), and surprised by what a stoic figure he was, despite his frailties. Sign up! The governor claims that there was no evidence of a massacre, so no one can assume that it happened. The causes of these deaths and disappearances range from disease and starvation to mysteries that have yet to be solved. When the Japanese were covering up the (treasure) chamber, they put in layers of clay, then sand, then clay, then sand. It was a daily effort of divide and conquer; some manned the other sites, pumping the monsoon floods out of the tunnels, while most supported excavation efforts at the site that Klaus and his team were most focused on that week. Unfortunately they lost that war and lost the Philippines, and thus never recovered the gold. 0000002177 00000 n Perhaps he believed that other men had died from lack of survival training and that his skills at living outdoors would be enough to find the gold mines and make him a rich man. Once again, the best conversation was off camera. The process was known as sanctifying, and via a series of chance encounters Marcos was led to the American metallurgist, Robert Curtis. Over time I reached out to Klaus in the hope that he would write an article for the magazine. What could go wrong? He is even said to have approached the Japanese about entering into a partnership to extract the gold together, to which he was coldly informed not to bother, for it would take a hundred years to unearth what they had deposited in the Philippines. And there it was the Japanese bunker that John Ballinger had told Roxas to look for back in 1970. Andrew Gough. He shared that he and his wife had their emails and phone calls monitored and had received repeated death threats. The rest, as they say, is history, he concluded, slowly, his speech somewhat impeded by the advanced state of his illness. Families of the victims pleaded with the governor of the local area to do something. For their safety I will refrain from stating where I met them, but suffice to say it was worth the journey. Andrew Gough, A young Henry Roxas pays his loving respects to his late father 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. My experience with dowsers was not good. During one fateful visit Cheatham visited Roxas just days after his discovery. Dan Cathcart at his home, taking me through his Roxas v Marcos file His gun was found a few feet away as if tossed to the side. Looking slightly perilous at the bottom of the tunnel system with Klaus He was reclusive, choosing to work in private with researchers he trusted and, in recent years, he had gone completely dark. The healer, operating with nothing but his fingers Hours later I arrived and was greeted by the caretaker. Imelda Marcos now claims her husbands wealth came from Yamashitas gold. My interest in the story had been rejuvenated, albeit under the most peculiar of circumstances. Many Japanese soldiers and engineers involved in the project were also sealed inside the tunnels in order to keep them from revealing the location. Klaus and I posing with the priest and the artefacts he discovered at a shallow depth in the ground I was to tone down my enthusiasm, and bias, for the benefit of the narrative. I returned to England and became engulfed by life and my time-consuming corporate job. He pressured Santy for information about the sites he had found and wanted him to turn over his bank accounts. He was now finding leaves in the tunnel backfill; actual leaves from a Streblus asper tree, known in the Philippines as bogtalay, that had been placed in the German cement as the Japanese backfilled the tunnels. The disease spread quickly. It was apparent to Roxas that Judge Pio Marcos was the informer, not the mastermind behind the siege, for his nephew, President Marcos, had long sought confirmation of the existence of Japanese treasure hoards in the Philippines. Roxas never saw a penny. . 24 Aug. 2005, Newspaper. His shirt read Trust me, I do this all the time.. He had a copper mining company and also staked a claim on plots of land that he used to mine gold. Klaus and I continued our daily Skype calls and I could sense he was making real progress. I protested and attempted to leave a second time, but was restrained. 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. 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