The man who buried a treasure chest worth millions in New Mexico reveals new clues
Here's a summer trip idea: Get some friends together, head to New Mexico, visit Walter White's house, and go looking for approximately $2 million in buried treasure – wait, what?
A beautifully crafted video (watch it below) released this week by the New Mexico Tourism Department has presumably startled people who don't frequent this site with the news that, yes, a "real-life Indiana Jones" buried millions in gold, gems and artifacts in the desert north of Santa Fe and yes, he's dropping clues to help people find it.
Though now attached to a marketing campaign designed to drive inbound tourism, by all accounts the hunt is real, and its agenda is singularly that of one unconventional man: local legend Forrest Fenn. Now in his eighties, Fenn is a Santa Fe resident rich in both life and capital. His savvy as an art dealer found him great wealth, but he was also an outdoorsman, a collector, a traveler, and a spirited adventurer taken by the natural bounties of his state. The world is surprisingly oversaturated with real-life Indiana Jones figures, but the romance in a comparison here is understandable, at least.
In 1988, Fenn was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and in the face of his ultimate fate, he decided to write the greatest chapter of his life into New Mexican lore. He also literally wrote it into his memoir, The Thrill of the Chase, and with the book's release in 2010, a few people who like books suddenly figured out Fenn had buried a 42-pound chest of gold and other treasures in the desert, simply for the fun of it.
Meanwhile, treasure hunter blogs, like Dal Neitzel's, have begun popping up, run by people who are almost comically enchanted by the prospect of buried gold. Stories of supposed near misses – like this one and this one – crop up time to time, but as far as Fenn knows, the treasure is still there.
With new clues coming out for the first time in this video, your next trip to New Mexico could finally be the start of your dream life as a treasure blogger. Start at Fenn's site with his poem and other clues. Watch the video. And good luck.