The medium (who had refused to help all night, opting instead to lounge on a bed of dead leaves) was re-hypnotized and told to explain himself. When a large rock emerged, the brothers excitedly flipped it over. Clayton Hart thrust his pick into the red, iron-rich dirt and heard a hollow thud. As daybreak loomed, tendrils of morning fog began to roll between the ridges. Guided by lanterns and moonbeams, the Hart brothers dug. Clayton hypnotized the mystic, who led the brothers up Goose Creek, over a fence, and across a burbling stream to a slumped depression in the earth. Joining them-reluctantly-was their trusty medium. Months later, under the cover of nightfall, Clayton and George steered a buggy full of shovels, ropes, and lanterns into Montvale. After resting at Buford's, Beale and his men buried that gold, silver, and jewels deep in the Virginia woods, approximately four miles from the tavern.Īs the medium described its location, Clayton clung to every syllable. Five covered wagons followed him, some hauling iron pots of gold and silver. Lucky for them, the medium claimed to see the pioneer's every move: Beale had arrived at Buford’s tavern on horseback with a rifle resting on his lap, a pair of pistols on each hip, and two jewel-filled bags slung from his saddle. The Peaks of Otter tower over the purported location of Beale's treasure. The readings were the Hart brothers’ last-ditch effort to divine its location. The two were trying to gather potentially life-changing information: Seventy-nine years earlier, Thomas Beale had reportedly buried millions of dollars of riches in the foothills near Montvale. Clayton’s brother George, a skeptic, stood nearby in silence. The light receded.īack in 1898, Clayton Hart watched the medium with jittery anticipation. Inside the crystal ball, Beale stared at the gems, smiled, and gingerly tucked the saddlebags under a pillow. “Jewels, by gosh! Diamonds! Rubies! Pearls! Emeralds!!” The medium shielded his eyes and shrieked. Beale eyed a pair of saddlebags resting on the bed. Inside, a lone frontiersman named Thomas J. Shades blanketed the windows and a wad of paper was plugged into the door's keyhole. The medium claimed he could see into the upper bedroom of Paschal Buford's tavern, an old watering hole below the Blue Ridge Mountains near modern Montvale, Virginia. But inside the mysterious orb, the year was 1819, and the scene was about to become blindingly bright. The year was 1898, and the room in which he sat was dimly lit. The medium gazed into the crystal ball and looked deeply into the past. Which raises the question: Are the ciphers and the treasure even real? For the past century, the quest to break these codes has attracted the military, computer scientists, and conspiracy theorists. A set of 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver, and jewels buried in rural Virginia.
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