[Music] [Music] a according to Legend a fortune in Gold lies buried somewhere in America's Rocky Mountains imagine $33 million of gold bullion just waiting to be found the only clue to the Treasure's location is a cryptic map drawn by the sole survivor of a doomed Expedition his descendants seek the gold for almost 200 years is but just when it appears to be within their grasp terrible events unfold rumor has it the treasure is actually cursed and many people have died trying to find it disease violence alleged Supernatural forces all have thwarted treasure hungry adventurers seeking
the hidden bullion there are those who believe that this treasure is guarded by some otherworldly Force something may be trying to keep us from finding that treasure this is the story of a glittering Fortune found and then lost in the Rocky Mountains The Story begins in 1993 in Colorado at that time Christopher O'Brien was an investigator specializing in unexplained phenomena I've been interested in the Paranormal and metaphysical subjects and UFOs anything that has a air of mystery about it I've always been interested in these things but along the way I also wanted to uncover some
treasure Legends and maybe do some followup and maybe do some treasure hunting myself during the course of his research O'Brien was contacted by a mysterious man this guy approaches me and he kind of hinted around that he had some evidence that involved a fabulous treasure and he hinted around that uh he was involved in looking for this treasure and I was very intrigued by this and I kept in touch touch with him and set up a meeting so that we could talk about it [Music] more O'Brien arranged to meet the man at a local cafe
I walk into this Cafe and um I look around and and I see him and he motions me to the back uh he was want to sit in the corner away from prying eyes and and he sits down and he begins to tell me story and he he really blew my mind with what he told me the mysterious man claimed he'd married into a treasure hunting family for Generations they'd searched for caches of gold bullion buried 200 years earlier by a doomed Expedition led by one of their ancestors the man said his family was convinced
they were close to uncovering the legendary cursed gold of Treasure Mountain a mystery that began in the 18th century with an adventure into the Untamed Colorado Wilderness 1790 Louisiana at that time a vast Spanish ruled area that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the border of present day [Music] Canada at a small outpost on the Missouri River a group of Frenchmen prepared for an expedition their official mission was to survey the territory's mineral wealth unofficially their plan was to Journey To The Rock mountains and find Fabulous new sources of gold every since the uh
conquistadors arrived in the new world there have been stories headed back east of of raided inan temples and looted Mayan cities and gold dripping out of mountains and golden masks and so these Tales have been coming back to the East and back to Europe for quite some time at this point [Music] among the expedition's number was a journalist most versions of the legend give his name as simply LeBlanc there's not a lot known about him but we can speculate he was the chronicler he was a historian of some kind so he was literate he was
educated and we can also guess that if he came out west looking for gold with a need to increase his fortune that he would do anything he could and take any risks to find that fortune LeBlanc didn't know it but his Lust For Gold was about to trigger a chain of events that would secure his place in Colorado folklore forever [Music] the expedition began its long journey [Music] westwards LeBlanc and his men crossed the Great Plains likely followed the course of the Platt River and entered the Rocky [Music] Mountains the Frenchmen found themselves alone in
a vast untamed [Music] land the west of the 1790s is it's the frontier to the people who live in the East they can't even wrap their minds around the the enormity of it they think they know how big it is but they're not quite sure [Music] in the 1790s out west there are no roads the mountains are huge there's no stores out here to buy anything so you're on your own and there's no support there's no police force there's no calvalry at that time uh you're totally alone in the wilderness and they don't even know
how big the Wilderness is and it's huge [Music] LeBlanc and his companions followed local waterways through Wolf Creek Pass and made camp in the shadow of a mighty Mountain the men immediately began prospecting it's likely they panned in the local streams and found tiny gold [Music] flakes they follow the trail ever higher into the mountains eager to find the gold source [Music] after weeks of searching one of leblanc's party made a [Music] discovery it was the unmistakable glow of gold or LeBlanc and and his cohorts hit the motherload and it's beyond their wildest dreams I
can only imagine how they felt uh suddenly the real Prospect of becoming some of the wealthiest people they've ever met or ever heard of is right there in their hands right before them the Frenchman's next challenge was mining the precious metal out of the tough Colorado granite in the 18th century to get gold out of the ground is much more difficult than Prospect for gold you're going to have to dig into that rock with a pick until your hands are blistered and you're bleeding and [Music] sweating the Frenchman smelted the gold trapped in the AE
before long they had a stack of 18in ingots the Legends State they produced between 5 and $33 million worth of bullion in today's [Music] money so in just a few months this Intrepid band of Frenchmen has left civilization traveled across the wide expanse of the West struck gold and is now sitting on a king's Ransom because of the Frenchman's Discovery the peak they mined would forever be known as Treasure [Music] Mountain the Frenchmen mined for months then abami Colorado summer made way for Autumn's bitter chill it was clear to LeBlanc and his companions that they
must find shelter before winter set [Music] in so these 300 Frenchmen have been going all summer long mining the weather's been nice sunny kind of cool at 11,500 FT but come fall things get kind of serious in Colorado they probably realized that the snow could be 12 ft deep come winter and that they really can't stay there LeBlanc and his colleagues plan to spend the winter in the Spanish settlement of ta 120 Mi away the question was what to do with a stash of precious bullion they didn't really want to bring their gold with them
because it's too dangerous you know if you walk into town with millions of dollars in gold someone's either going to kill you and take it or uh you're going to raise suspicion so they decide really that it's probably best to bury the gold only they will know where it [Music] is The Story Goes the Frenchmen decided to hide the gold in three separate caches concealed in Secret locations their Fortune would be secure until they returned to claim it some Legends State they left eight Clues to help them relocate the gold they then make markings in
the area to remember where they've put it with supposedly putting flu carvings on piles of rocks so they'll remember where their fabulous treasure is hidden when they come back in the spring LeBlanc recorded the Cash's locations and the positions of the markers on a secret treasure map as planned the Frenchman s out the harsh winter in the comfort of [Music] T when spring arrived they were eager to add to their already considerable wealth the Expedition headed north to resume Excavating their gold mine but it wouldn't be long before the curse of Treasure Mountain claimed its
first victims Legend States the Frenchmen were soon struck down with sickness these men could be ravaged by scurvy which at that time the French understood they could eat citrus fruit and not get it but there's no citrus fruit there with scurvy would have seen the men fatigued you would have seen swollen joints painful limbs they just would not have felt well at all the pace of work slowed men collapsed through fatigue one retelling of the story States LeBlanc fed his sick companions a vitamin Rich infusion made from local nals to ward off the sickness but
his efforts were too little too late his companions were riddled with disease and now the weakened expedition was threatened by a new danger the local Native American Ute tribe tribe was observing the Frenchmen the youths probably don't like watching these Frenchmen run all over the mountain chipping holes in it and possibly taking gold that they really thought was theirs in fact they are the land owners in their eyes the you really don't like having somebody else stealing their stuff it would be akin to having a stranger walk into your house and pop open in your
refrigerator and say oh this looks tasty and this looks tasty and you'd stand there and and put up with it I don't think so uh and neither did the youths and after a while they became uh suitably incensed the youth Warriors attacked LeBlanc and his [Applause] companions they really had no idea level of savage intensity arrows whizzing through the air everywhere tomahawks lances you can imagine being one of these men already fatigued wondering what is going on this came out of nowhere it's an absolutely terrifying experience these diseased miners that were all lethargic and really
not up to par they just can't hold their own they're they're setting ducks for the Native Americans that are attacking them [Applause] and so most are killed right [Music] away the survivors knew their time at Treasure Mountain was up they can see a pretty obvious decision that needs to be made their numbers are down their position is compromised they're being attacked they have to save their skins and possibly save their gold it seems the men were too few in number to transport the gold bullion back to the Missouri [Music] River there appeared to be only
one course of action they choose to take whatever gold they might have mined in that spring bury it along with their other CES note that on their treasure map and try to get out of the area with their [Music] lives the men broke Camp striking East on the 700 mile Journey Back to the Missouri River but they weren't safe well according to some versions of the legend the French Expedition is able to get off the mountain and apparently out of the mountains out at the Front Range onto the plains before they're attacked by the ca
tribe this has a completely devastating effect on the party taking them down to only perhaps even five men out of the hundreds who left originally LeBlanc was one of the survivors he and four others continued their Journey East towards the Missouri [Music] River but without horses and short of food their situation was desperate these five guys are in a survival situation they really don't have much equipment you know they're lucky to escape with the shirt on their back many versions of the Legends State the men ran out of food still hundreds of miles from safety
their only chance of survival appeared to be cannibalism the fact that they may have eaten their Partners is probably true uh you know back then if you didn't have any food and you were desperate cannibalism unfortunately is a reality especially back in those days when they didn't have much Choice whatever happened the Legends state only LeBlanc and one other made it back to the Outpost on the Missouri River LeBron's companion died within days of making it to safety the young French journalist was the expedition's sole survivor what he did next is uncertain but all versions
of the story seem to agree on one thing and that's that LeBlanc makes a map he makes copies of this map he gives one to the French government gives one to his family and then disappears from [Music] history but as investigator Christopher obrien listened to the mysterious man he would learn this wasn't the end of the quest to retrieve the French gold nor the last time the curse of Treasure Mountain would strike obviously you have a you know a 300 man Expedition discovers a lot of gold and you have maps that indicate where this gold
is kept because they couldn't escape with it so obviously you're going to have somebody that wants to go back and get it O'Brien learned the quest now moved forward forward 50 years in 1840 a Frenchman arrived in a small town in present day New Mexico according to the legend a young man arrives in tal who knows the story of Treasure Mountain in fact he even claims to be the grandson of LeBlanc and is interested in finding the treasure again it's likely the town's folk would have dismissed leblanc's grandson as just another eccentric prospector Driven Crazy
by Gold Fever if it wasn't for the fact he had a map unbelievably this young Frenchman claims to have his grandfather's map that actually has the eight clues that will lead him to rediscovering where the gold buy and treasure is buried on Treasure Mountain leblanc's grandson was a foreigner in a Strange Land although he had the map he needed help finding the Gold's likely location one in interpretation of the story is that he hired a local Mexican guide named Bernardo Sanchez to take him to Treasure Mountain the two men joined forces to retrieve the gold
buried half a century before by leblanc's grandfather Sanchez LED LeBlanc and his party of French miners into the [Music] mountains one retelling of the legend claims the men discovered strange [Music] markers Flur symbols carved into rocks and piles of stones signs matching those on the map drawn by leblanc's grandfather they get very excited you know because now the map is matching what they're finding the fertiles on the Rocks so they know they're close to a gigantic fortune in Gold buen buried right at their feet somewhere so they're very excited the men searched the area for
months but they found nothing then the the curse of Treasure Mountain struck again just like his grandfather before him LeBlanc was being closely monitored by the local Native American [Music] tribe according to [Music] Legend Warriors attacked the mining party [Music] leblanc's grandson was killed inside his jacket pocket was his grandfather's secret treasure map only the god Bernardo Sanchez made it out [Music] alive for the second time in 50 years the curse of Treasure Mountain had thwarted the LeBlanc [Music] family but the Quest for the buried gold was far from over because Sanchez had a secret
he claimed that during the battle with the Native Americans one of the dying French miners revealed a clue to Finding the Treasure according to this man Bernardo just needs to find a fake Native American burial mound stand on it at 6:00 a.m. some September morning and watch where his shadow Falls where his head is that's where the treasure lies armed with this knowledge Sanchez spent years scouring Treasure Mountain looking for the mound but he never found it in time the dying Frenchman's clue became just another part of the now famous Treasure Mountain story as investigator
Christopher O'Brien would learn this strange clue would play a critical part in the next stage of the quest to find the lost French gold he discovered that 30 years after leblanc's grandson's death a new set of adventurers would take up the [Music] challenge it was during the 1870s that um some colorful characters emerged in the west treasure Hunters um gentleman extremely motivated good researchers very uh very good at not only digging in the Earth but also digging into historical records and it would be in the hands of one such treasure hunter that the LeBlanc map
would reappear Legend gives his name as William Ule characters like William Ule are a classic in the American West stories they hear all these tales that have been coming for quite a while now from the West about gold in the hills and mines to be explored and you just have to pick up nuget and bring it home and you're rich U spent his days scouring the nearby valleys and mountains his aim was to find the eight Clues marked on his tattered old map and the location of the mysterious mock burial [Music] mound his quest reached
the ears of Asa po a man with an eye for an opportunity a successful prospector like asapur actually goes out in the wilderness looks at those different colored rocks and finds the gold he's successful ASA poor knows what he's doing and he's shrewd intelligent and when he sees an opportunity he goes after it U's quest for a mock burial mound linked to a fabulous lost treasure piqued Poor's interest because incredibly po had found a mound that exactly fitted U's [Music] description each has something the other wants Willam Ule has the map to The Treasure of
Treasure Mountain and asapur has uh the knowledge of this burial mound so he knows this could well be the key to Finding the Treasure the two Prospectors entered into a partnership and headed off to find the lost French gold [Music] after asapur and William Ule head out into the mountains they actually start finding some of the clues they find the fer Le carved on the trees and the rocks and just like the map shows they're they're actually hot on the trail of this treasure following Paul's directions they arrived at the false grave just as the
legend instructed one of the men stood at top of the mound at 6:00 a.m. and cast a shadow across the ground they dug the spot where his head's Shadow fell and they begin digging and they dig and they dig and they're so excited they're rubbing their hands together probably uh spelling each other because it's it's a lot of hard work uh it's bony soil and uh they dig dig dig and they get down so many feet and they find absolutely nothing could it be that this was the wrong Mound or that ul's map was a
fake neither man thought so asapur knew he and youu must take a new approach so at this point poor still doesn't give up he now says that uh they will try something called mineral rods equipment that's being sold at this time that at least claims to be accurate and be able to find the gold you're searching for the The Ore whatever you need these machines that you can hold will find it for you [Applause] [Music] the mineral Rod LED ul and po to a spot 2 mil from the mock burial [Music] mound the men immediately
started [Music] digging the Legends State they excavated about 4 ft down when suddenly the ground gave way had ul and poor found the entrance to a secret cash containing millions of dollars of French buling of course they think they're on to the treasure their hearts pounding they're excited they're they're they're going to find this gold po lowered himself into the opening [Music] incredibly he found himself in a clearly man-made tunnel he crawled down the shaft keeping his eyes peeled for the distinctive glint of gold he gets very excited at this point I imagine his heart
is just pounding a mile a minute he's looking all over he's looking for gold he's trying to squint into the darkness he works his way all the way way to the end but poor discovered the chamber was empty with no new leads the men abandoned their search they have spent pretty much their life's Fortune their broke their tired they're exhausted they're frustrated they finally just give up to search apparently it was the curse of Treasure Mountain that got these guys again but this treasure Legend refused to die [Music] 120 years after U and Poor's failed
Quest investigator Christopher O'Brien sat talking to a mysterious man who'd been involved in the Treasure Mountain legends final chapter the man stated his in-laws were descendants of the first Leblon who survived the doomed expedition of the 1790s then he produced something to back up his extraordinary claim takes out his wallet and he carefully [Music] unfolds it looked like Silk it was some sort of cloth material that obviously was very old it was stained was kind of tattered and he shows it to me and he says this is a map to the treasure to O'Brien it
was clearly the same map drawn in the 1790s by the first LeBlanc I'm sitting there flabbergasted looking at this thing and it looks real to me there seemed to be mountains indicated river systems there was some rough kind of writing on it I didn't get a very long look at it but it obviously was compelling because it looked very old along with the topographical information were eight strange markings Clues the man claimed to finding the lost treasure what was very impressive about it were these eight sigils there was a pair of boots there was a
chalice there was mountains there was a like a cross there was different types of symbols on it the mysterious man told O'Brien his in-laws had found seven of the eight Clues and that he believed he recently found the eight so of course the first thing I do is I ask him I say you know how did you find this eth clue after the family's been looking at it looking for it for Generations how did you find it it's now the man told O'Brien an incredible story about the discovery of the final clue and what happened
[Music] next 1993 delnort Colorado 40 Mi Northeast of Treasure Mountain the mysterious man was hunting elk in the woods it began to rain he sought shelter beneath the overhang of a nearby Cliff obviously he doesn't want to get caught out in this type of weather so he quickly looks around for a place to you know hide and maybe pull up for a little bit let the storm pass over so he he spies this this about 3ft opening behind some underbrush and he he thinks well maybe it it'll open up the man squeezed through the Gap
and found himself in a passageway his first thought was great I'm out of the weather but then as he's sitting there of course like anyone he got curious and so he he started to work his way back and it it goes into the mountain side about 20 ft the man discovered the passageway was blocked by a cave in he sha his torch Across The Damp walls it's then he spotted something as he's looking on the wall next to the cave-in what does he see he sees a chalice which he knows from the treasure map is
the missing symbol of the eight symbols that have been searched for by this family his in-laws for many many generations all thoughts of hunting elk were overtaken by the possibility of finding millions of dollars of lost French gold but there was a problem with the man's story the mountains near delnort where he claimed to have found the eighth clue a 40 mil from Treasure Mountain how could he have found a clue to the gold here had everyone who'd sought the treasure been looking in the wrong place or was the man mistaken there is one possible
explanation how the two stories come together since the delnort area is on a direct path from where the LeBlanc party would have been running away from the Native American attack the first one uh they could have very well taken either all of the boy in or probably just some of it with them and that gold was slowing them down they could have very well buried it in this area that this mystery man is claiming he has found the eighth clue so it was possible the French Expedition buried a portion if not all all their bullion
at the site in delnort and that LeBlanc crafted new Clues to its location both on the ground and on his [Music] map soon after his Discovery the mysterious man returned to the passage with his treasure hunting in-laws the first thing they wanted do of course is go in and see the sigil to make sure that his claim is accurate and the expert of the I think it was the grandfather goes in there and the patriarch is looking at this symbol and he looks at his grandson-in-law and agrees that you have found the Lost Symbol the
family began Excavating the cave-in [Music] their hours of effort revealed a further 12 ft of passageway well imagine their excitement as they're digging and they finally get this obstruction cleared away and it was it was quite sizable it went for quite a number of feet and they finally get it away and one of them squeezes over to look inside and he finds it the the tunnel continues into the hillside but not for very far because he yells back out to them that there's a big boulder that appears to have been purposefully put in the way
to further obstruct the tunnel why would someone deliberately block the passage had it been to hide the gold the family was discussing how to remove the obstacle when Knight began to fall but they want to give it one more shot before it gets too dark to continue working and they had brought some candles and they had flashlights so they're going to give it one last shot but the next 3 minutes would turn out to be the most terrifying of their lives so he has this bundle of candles and he starts to place them going down
the tunnel towards the end where the obstruction is as he's putting the last candle down on the ground a snake comes out of nowhere and Fires at him and narrowly misses him I've had this happen myself and I know how terrifying it is and he backpedals out of there breathlessly [Music] but he and his family were soon threatened by another malicious Force as he's coming out from out of nowhere he's followed by a swarm of bats that are squeaking and and acting very aggressively instead of just flying out of the entrance of the cave and
taking off they start dive bombing and attacking people which is very uncharacteristic behavior for bats and uh this is pretty freaky to everybody the bats finally start to fly away and and everything calms down so he starts to light the candle the first candle at the entrance to the tunnel and much to everybody's horror the candle at the other end by the boulder the candle he had just placed before the snake came at him that comes on now I know this sounds incredible but this is what he told me the man and his family were
transfixed with fear How could a candle light by itself but that ordeal wasn't over so as that candle comes on and out of nowhere out of the Gloom of the tunnel comes this big white colored owl the huge bird swooped just inches above the treasure Hunter's heads it was one close encounter too far this is a a series of events that I think would scare anybody but for people that that are in this position knowing that there's curses on gold and and and knowing some of the folklore around the area several of them have said
they will never ever go back they don't care how much gold is there they will never go back to that particular location [Music] again the mysterious man told O'Brien no one had since returned to the cave to try and recover the lost French gold but after hearing this extraordinary Tale the investigator was left in no doubt the treasure is real personally after all the research that I've done and uh being involved with this treasure hunting family and hearing their story I am absolutely convinced that not only does the French treasure exist but there's probably several
of them there it's probably been broken into pieces and it's just waiting for somebody with a lot of luck and some skill and some perseverance to find it to date no one has reported finding a fabulous cache of gold bullion fitting the description of that in the Treasure Mountain Legend is it possible the story is nothing more than a myth is there any reason to believe the treasure is out there some of the treasure Legends in Colorado since they do have some historical basis have actually been found and if those Treasures could be found then
there is a possibility that uh this $33 million one of the biggest Treasures ever buried in Colorado is out there and will be found someday but if the treasure could be real then so too could the curse well for all you aspiring treasure Hunters out there that want to start poking your nose into the Treasure Mountain legends be careful what you wish for because that curse may still be intact he [Music] [Music]
