All language subtitles for Gold Greed The Hunt for Fenns Treasure 1. Sezon 2. Bölüm

It's the Rocky Mountains.

There are certain rules
that you need to observe

when you go into the forest.

I would urge people to
know where you're going.

The mountains can be
terribly unforgiving.

But, you know, the American people
should not have to be told those things.

There are always exceptions,
and they learn the hard way.

Randy Bilyeu's death was
huge news, international news.

Fenn told Inside
Edition it's not his fault

people are risking their lives.

Now, we asked Forrest Fenn if
he would stop the treasure hunts

to try to save lives. He
wouldn't give us an answer.

You might think all
this bad news about the hunt

would've been a cautionary tale

and that the number of
hunters would've dwindled…

…but, instead, in effect,

it was a tremendously
successful advertising campaign.

The more national attention it got,
the more people poured into the hunt.

Santa Fe has
seen a dramatic influx

of what we're calling treasure tourism
since this first death occurred.

All the media
attention just meant

that there are more and more searchers
hearing about this for the first time.

I mean, one guy dies,

and now there's 50,000 more people
that year going out into the mountains,

not knowing what the hell they're
doing, and risk their lives.

It drew in, like, a whole new
wave of desperate characters to it,

and it's not just a few people
now who are searching for it.

You know that there are tens of thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands, of people

doing the exact
same thing you are.

You're all in competition, and
only one person's gonna win.

So it brought in a
new group of people,

but it also brought
a lot of trouble,

and it's a much more competitive,
high-pressure situation.

I have to wonder, if Forrest
knew everything that would come to pass,

would he have hidden
the treasure again,

and would he have done
things differently?

"Treasure Hunter," huh?

All right, so you weren't lying.
This isn't a totally different show.

- It's not a Love Island-type thing.
- It's not a prank show.

Well, I'm waiting for the
ex-girlfriend to jump out.

That kid looks sorta like me.

Good Lord.

I'm not a treasure-hunt guy.

It wasn't like I was
looking for a treasure hunt.

The treasure hunt found me.

People are literally dying
to find Forrest Fenn's hidden treasure.

I first found out about the
whole thing by watching the news.

I think a treasure hunter
died during that period.

Now, that's not on him.

They… you know, they
did what they did,

and whatever happened,
I wouldn't blame him.

The fact that it had started ten years ago
and nobody's found it in all these years.

I'm like, "Well, hold on a second.
This is findable. I can do this."

I've been a 747 captain
for almost 25 years,

and I like to video things
that go on in my life.

Yeah, he just bit my face.

All right, well, how
cool was that encounter?

I have a YouTube channel.

It's a crazy pilot looking
for snakes all over the world.

And if you subscribe, I'd really
appreciate it. No, I'm kidding.

So I was always looking
for new adventures.

When I first found out
about the treasure hunt,

I read Forrest's book,
like everybody else,

and Forrest mentioned that he was
a pilot. That kinda stuck with me.

Maybe the pilot thing, since we're
sort of a brotherhood of pilots,

maybe there's something I can
relate to that nobody else can.

Maybe something to do with
latitude and longitude

because, when he
navigated in the war,

everything's done on a grid
of latitude and longitude,

and that's what people have
overlooked for the last ten years.

They didn't think
quite like he did.

I was on a trip, sitting in
cruise for eight, ten hours.

There's a lot of time to
think. I'm like, "Okay."

"I'll give this poem a shot."
All right, "warm waters halt."

Then I started thinking of the
definition of what warm is.

I'm like, "Well, everybody's
definition's a little different,

but they all measure
it in degrees."

Anything above your body
temperature is warmer than you.

Anything colder than your body
temperature is colder than you.

So warm waters do halt right at
body temperature, 37 degrees.

Soon as I thought that, I'm like,
"Let me look at the map of the Rockies

and see where 37
degrees happens to lie."

I opened a map, I looked at it,

and 37 degrees is the exact border
between New Mexico and Colorado.

And a light bulb went off.
I'm like, "This is it."

There was five canyons.

I went through all of them,
drew lines 30 miles down,

which was "not far,
but too far to walk."

And I happened to find one that goes
right into a place called Beaver Creek,

and I'm like, "That's my spot."

So that's where we're
going, Beaver Creek.

We are on the freeway.
We are heading eastbound

on the 405 freeway to
Orange County Airport.

- Got the family with me. Here's my wife.
- Hi.

My daughter, my son.

Chance is back there.
Can you wave, Chance?

Getting ready to go on
a secret treasure hunt.

- Secret treasure hunt.
- Sh!

Anyway, let's do it.

Here we go.

I think Lou's got a good
head on his shoulders,

and so I didn't doubt him.

He came up with something that
no one else had thought of yet.

He was sure.

I was like, "Okay,
I'm going with you,

and the kids are
too."

Starbucks. No treasure hunt
begins without a trip to Starbucks.

It was a beautiful day.
The weather was great.

Once I figured where we were gonna park,
it would take us a half hour, maybe, tops,

to walk in, grab it, and bail.

We weren't gonna hang out and see scenery.
We were there to pick up the treasure.

But as we started going
on these dirt roads

and they turned
into rocky roads,

I started thinking, "Okay, this
is a little more than I thought."

I'm telling you, we walk out of here
with $2 million, it'll be well-earned.

- Oh no.
- Private property.

All right, so we've stopped
because, uh, ran into this.

Oh man. I am three miles
from where I wanna be.

I really wanted to keep going,

but I was in such a remote
place with my family.

You know, the whole "trespassers
will be shot" type thing.

I wasn't gonna risk
our lives over it.

It was emotional.

I remember Lou threw his hands
up in the air and was like,

you know, "Could I… could I be wrong?
Why would… why would there be, uh…"

You know, he wouldn't hide it and make
us trespass to find this treasure.

That's gonna do it
for this one, guys.

Uh, not the trip
we started out to…

…not the trip
we were starting out for.

I was disappointed.

I just felt like I let everybody
down, especially for my kids.

Like, "Hey, Dad… Dad knows where this
is. Dad's gonna go grab it," you know?

I sorta owed it to them
to be right as a father.

Like, they look up to you, you know,
as the person who knows things,

and I don't wanna be the wrong…
the wrong person, I guess.

So…

Kinda ran into a roadblock,

but… I wasn't gonna
let it stop me 100%.

You know, I still thought I was
right. I just couldn't get there.

The private property was a big flag
of, like, something's not right.

I went home. I didn't
think about it for long.

I got on the computer right away.

I looked up the owner of the land
first. The guy's name is Don Mullins.

Is there any relationship between
Don Mullins and Forrest Fenn?

Google search, "Fenn Mullins."

Get a hit right away.

Fenn and Mullins coauthored
a couple books together,

but the guy's name
was Mark Mullins.

So I Google searched
Mark Mullins.

He named one of his kids Fenn.

Like, who would name
their kid Fenn, right?

That still doesn't help
me with Don Mullins. I…

You know, it's not Don
Mullins. It's Mark Mullins.

So I look up the
parents of Mark Mullins.

Mark Mullins's dad happens
to be named Don Mullins.

And I was like,

"Okay, this is too strange."

I've taken the entire
Rocky Mountains,

came to all these
intersections of clues,

came to a gate that kept
me out of a property,

and it's tied to a guy that
wrote a book with Forrest Fenn

out in the middle of
all the Rocky Mountains.

And I'm like, "That
can't be a coincidence."

"It… it just can't be."

There was enough to it where I'm
like, "I… I've gotta go back."

Like, "I've gotta go back," and…
and that's exactly what I did, and

it didn't stop us.

That is a rainbow.

- We found Forrest's rainbow!
- The pot of gold.

See that rock?

- That's where the gold is.
- Look at that.

We knew the treasure
was under the rock.

He placed the chest
right about here.

Unfortunately, it's
under a big-ass rock.

We're gonna dig the bank out,
gonna get rid of the boulder.

My dad is not the type of guy
to go look out for a treasure for fun.

Yep.

He's the type of guy that'd
go look for a treasure

'cause he knows where it's at.

So I'm… I'm starting
to take it serious.

- He wants his cut.
- Yeah.

Day two on the boulder.

- Day three.
- We'll chip this rock away, Dad.

Chip away.

What did a day look like?
You get up crack of dawn…

Good
morning to you. Coffee?

…drink fucking
coffee grounds,

Yeehaw!

…and then start walking
all the way up the canyon.

Like a wolf with his pack.

Makin' sure they're okay.
We'll follow them in.

I had no liner in my
boots, couldn't feel my toes.

Digging all day,
hands blistering.

He's wearing Dorito bags on his feet
'cause his socks are wet!

Best socks around,
baby. Best thermal.

- You don't have socks under those?
- No, didn't have none.

I was walking in snow out there.
I had to run to the truck.

We were consumed by it. Oh my God.
We lived there all year round.

Day eight. Day 12.

Sixteenth day out
here on the boulder.

Yeah, we were out
there a full year.

And I'm going out there with
four-wheelers, backhoes.

- Pickaxes.
- Oh, everything.

- Jackhammers.
- Jackhammers.

We were really just
pissed off at it.

- How deep is the hole, Forrest Fenn?
- Too fuckin' deep!

How deep is the hole, Fenn?

How deep is the damn hole?

It sucked,
yeah. We were freezing.

We might've died.

I risked my life out there. We
both risked our lives out there.

We were in the middle of the
canyon, freezing to death.

It's snowing on us.

- Separate the boys from the men.
- Yes, sir.

We did all this just so
my sister and my mother…

they need a comfortable
house. They need to live well.

They need to be taken care of.

A more comfortable life for
my little sister Angelina.

She has Down syndrome.

And my mother.

'Cause she's… Man,
it makes me sad thinking about it.

She has worked hard for
our family. Very hard.

She was the
main motivation too.

We wanted to set them
up for early retirement.

We wanted to make sure they
have everything they wanted.

Not just simple things,
but extra things, you know?

Saturday, the 11th,

day before Mother's Day
and my wife's birthday.

Out here trying to make it happen
for her birthday, Mother's Day.

Oh, Lord help us.

Lord help me.

Every seven years, her
birthday falls on Mother's Day.

And it was her birthday
or Mother's Day,

and I was out there digging,
talking in the phone.

"I'm trying to bring
it home to us, Mama."

"If we can get this, boy, we can… we
can actually get the house you want

and lay down somewhere."

Basically was choosing
that over her.

And she wanted a divorce.

She's like, "You either
gotta choose or I'm gone."

And I was like, "I'll
live in the mountains."

"You'll get over it
when I bring it home."

That's what I told her.

She hated it, but she's just trying
to make the best of it with us.

She knew we were going
through something,

and it… it was… it
upsets her, too,

to see us going through the
stuff we were going through.

So, after six months of
hitting boots on the ground,

we knew we wasted
all our resources,

and we knew we had
to regroup then.

"We need to figure
out a better system."

"This is knocking the fight
out of us. Too much work."

We kinda just
backed off a little bit.

Packed our tools and,
boom, we were outta there.

I went back home. Take a
break, give your mind a rest.

I really didn't take a break.

I really still was
constantly on my phone,

digging and reading
up on history, and…

- We were consumed by it, for sure.
- Yeah.

We didn't wanna let it go.
We were stuck on it hard.

Treasure hunter Randy
Bilyeu has been found dead.

And new tonight, his wife...

And we're watching YouTube.
We're watching Forrest Fenn.

We were consuming Forrest
Fenn's interviews.

I… I
don't feel responsible.

I… I don't feel
like I'm to blame

for any… any… any of those
things that happened.

At that point in time,
the treasure hunt was fucking nuts.

If I was in his position,
I would have called it.

That's how crazy this shit was.

Forrest had always
been this media darling,

and it really… the tone did
change after Randy Bilyeu died

because there was no romance

to the fact that this poor guy had
drowned looking for the treasure.

It just completely changed how you
could look at that treasure hunt.

You started seeing headlines

like, "The book that lures
readers to their death."

And it turns out that Randy
Bilyeu's death was not a one-off.

It was a sign of things to come.

It was only a year ago
when 54-year-old Randy Bilyeu died

while looking for treasure
in the Rio Grande.

Now the body of Colorado
pastor Paris Wallace,

found 80 miles away,

marks the second confirmed
death of the treasure hunt.

Then other people died.

Eric Ashby was reported
missing on June 28th by his friends

after a rafting accident
on the Arkansas River.

2017, it was like the year of death.
Three different searchers died.

At that point, you have
to be extrapolating out,

like, "Okay, one, three…"

Like, "What's next? I mean,
it's gonna get really bad."

And people started just asking Forrest,
"Why don't you call off the hunt?"

"How can you continue now that
we know that people are dying?"

Control is a large part of
what we do in law enforcement.

We wanna control the
outcome. That saves lives.

And I had no control, right?

I did not know how to stop this.

I wanted to quit sending in
people to save the searchers.

It was a colossal waste
of resources, I felt.

I think I'd done an interview
with a local newspaper,

The Santa Fe New Mexican.

I said that the Forrest Fenn
treasure hunt was stupid

and that the treasure
should be pulled,

and that's when Good Morning
America grasped onto it.

Pete Kassetas, head of
the state police in New Mexico,

went on Good Morning America.

He implores Forrest to end it, and
then he calls Forrest live on air.

I also wanna know what the
GMA producers told Forrest

'cause clearly they're like, "We're
gonna call you with a special guest,"

and look, the guy,
like, ambushes him.

And again, I call for
you to… to pull it.

I'm not gonna give a clue
to help people find the treasure.

I'm gonna give a clue to try
to keep them out of trouble.

- Yeah, yeah.
- To make them safer.

As… as the call winded down, um, I
realized it was kind of a stalemate.

He was understanding of my position,
so he said he would think about it.

At that point, I'm agreeing, like,
"Okay, let's see how this one ends."

Like, "Let's see what
happens, what's the result."

Forrest explained, "I have given
a lot of thought about ending the search,

but I am not sure what
that would accomplish."

Forrest's basic response was

this kind of, like, American,
self-sufficient, bootstraps, libertarian,

uh, you know, "We're
all grown-ups here."

If somebody drowns in a swimming pool,
should… should we drain the pool,

or should we teach
people to swim?

It's amazing how quickly the
narrative for something truly amazing

can shift so dramatically.

Forrest was getting pressure at
that time to just call this off.

I wrote a letter to Forrest,

and I told him that,

while we are in the
wake of a true tragedy,

don't forget the
vision that you had.

I know that you didn't want
to imperil anyone's life,

but it felt like we had a
very fleeting window of time

in order to find the treasure.

After I had created that
facial-recognition software,

I had a strong belief that the treasure
was located in Yellowstone National Park.

I knew it was there somewhere.

All the data had lined up.

Now, there's a story
in… in the book

where he talks about going
to fish with his father

on the Firehole, the Madison,
and the Gibbon River.

I can't remember how many times
that I could hardly wait in Yellowstone

to go trout fishing on the Madison River,
the Gallatin, the Firehole, the Gibbon.

All of which are
relatively warm bodies of water.

Firehole and the
Gibbon end abruptly,

and the Madison begins.

And so, when you talk about
"where warm waters halt,"

waters is plural.

You've got three major
bodies of water on the map.

So that's a very compelling
starting location.

The second clue is "And
take it in the canyon down."

Well, he's a fisherman.
What does down mean?

Down means downstream.

That's Madison Canyon.

From there, it's "Put in
below the home of Brown."

I think immediately
about fishing holes.

Great places to fish
for brown trout.

Furthermore, he's got his father
standing in front of this large rock.

That's Nine Mile Hole.

I was so excited, I immediately
called my brother Brandon.

Okay, let's
start over here.

You go first, Brandon.

Um, I'm Brandon from
Tucson, Arizona.

And I'm Justin from Tucson,
Arizona, and I'm his brother.

Brandon was three
years younger than I was.

He followed me everywhere,

and we were always on the verge
of the next great discovery.

When I started
this treasure hunt,

I had probably shared hundreds
of solves with Brandon,

and, up until that time,

he hadn't really been
all that invested.

But, that time, his response was, "Huh.
That actually might make some sense."

After I told him about the solution, he
wanted to come out and search together.

It was more than just
a treasure hunt to him.

It was a way for us to
spend time together.

We slowly worked our
way down the canyon,

and I could see, as
I walked through it,

his excitement continued to grow
to the point where he was invested.

We walked right up to that
rock, and it was an aha moment

because it was directly
out of the book.

Well, when we made it to
the other side of the river,

it was all new growth.

Uh, a lot of them are chest
height to head height on me,

and you're just
wading through them.

You're covered in sap,

torn up from head to toe.

That was probably weeks of work.

Anything?

The hunt
continues. Still no luck.

However, I didn't have the confidence
that I could safely eliminate this.

Tucker would sniff
out bronze anywhere.

The problem was the law.

Yellowstone does not
allow dogs on trails.

Jump up. There ya go.

And without Tucker
there, it was, uh…

…it felt like you
were searching blind.

Speak of the devil.

After weeks of speculation,
Forrest reaches out to the media

with his final decision
on the treasure hunt.

I mean, even the reporters
seemed skeptical.

Fenn tells me, regardless
of the loss of life,

he won't call off
the treasure hunt.

He wasn't gonna budge.

Forrest was a worthy adversary.

I thought I could take this old man on
and get him to do what I wanted to do,

but I couldn't get him to
stop and pull the treasure.

It had come too far for
him. He couldn't turn back.

After I went on TV, I inadvertently
caused this wave of, essentially, outrage.

I knew there was gonna be fallout. I
didn't realize how big it was gonna be.

Some people are apparently not happy
with Police Chief Pete Kassetas's call

for Forrest Fenn to end…

Police Chief
Kassetas has become a pariah.

There was this onslaught
of calls and emails.

People, like, literally
making death threats

because of the position I took.

I'm outraged by
your public comments,

and I'm gonna tell you to mind your
own business and shut up.

But it was just the beginning of
the craziness around Forrest Fenn.

It's a lot to expect that
someone who would be…

the kind of person who would
start this thing would give it up

under almost any circumstances.

Hey! Forrest Fenn!

He was having the
time of his life,

but he also becomes
kind of a godlike figure

in the treasure community, and
that's a lot of power to have.

So why is he not ending it?

I come back to relevance.

It's… it's really hard to… to stay
relevant into your late eighties.

And if he were to end the
hunt, that's kinda the end.

That's his last chapter.

Why do you engage with searchers?

- Why do I engage with them?
- Mm-hmm.

That's the only
thing I have left.

Cynthia was
ubiquitous in the chase.

She was very well-known.

- Cynthia Meachum.
- …Cynthia Meachum.

Cynthia
Meachum, I made…

Cynthia Meachum, una…

Amateur treasure
hunters like Cynthia Meachum…

And so by virtue of just
getting to know Forrest,

uh, you'd have to get to know Cynthia
'cause she was there a lot of the time.

I never really knew,

out of the hundreds or thousands
of searchers that he met,

why did he let me come into his
life to the extent that he did?

Forrest and
I were like playmates.

I'd get up in the morning, and
I'd send an email to Forrest

and say, "Can you come
out and play today?"

Our friendship, you know,
just got more and more intimate.

I got to know
Forrest Fenn the man,

and it's like he… he reached
in and grabbed my soul.

- Can you elaborate?
- No.

We'll just keep it like that.

I never went
there hoping to get clues.

But, as a searcher,

any time that Forrest told
me stories face-to-face,

I always listened like,

"Is he telling me something
that I need to analyze?"

And I remember one time
when Forrest looked at me

and he said, "You should go spend
the summer in Yellowstone Park."

And to me that was
like, "Holy cow."

And then there were media
people taking our pictures.

And I said to him,

"Whisper something in my ear
like you're giving me a hint."

He leaned over, and he whispered
in my ear, "Go to hell,"

and then he laughed his ass off.

He was
so tickled by this.

Forrest never cussed
in front of me,

and so it's like, "Well,
this is really weird too."

And I got to thinking about…

…if you look up the
history of Yellowstone,

the early explorers described
Yellowstone as being hell.

And I'm thinking, "Oh my God. Is…
is he directing me to Yellowstone?"

So I drove to Yellowstone
the very next day.

It was, like, the most
incredible place ever.

You go in there and you see
it, and you're gonna understand

that's where Forrest is going
to hide that treasure chest.

I was convinced the
treasure was in Yellowstone.

That summer, I searched
all over the park.

I started searching around
the Ojo Caliente area.

I went upstream to
Pocket Basin there

that had all these hot springs.

I searched Sunlight
Creek and Sunlight Basin.

What made Yellowstone so special

was the fact that there was
this added danger to it.

In New Mexico, I never worried about
black bears or even rattlesnakes,

but searching in Yellowstone,
that's a different ball game.

When you're searching and there's
the possibility of grizzly bears,

you're just so on
edge and… and alive.

And one time I saw
a grizzly bear.

It's like, "Okay, I'm gonna
be really careful today."

And I took the trigger
guard off my bear spray,

put that canister in my pocket,

and I scrunched down.

Oh fuck.

And all of a sudden,
I heard this "pssh."

And I'm thinking, "It sounds
like they have sprinklers here,

but there can't be sprinklers,"
and then I felt the pain.

Oh my God.

I just sprayed myself
with bear spray.

The burn.

Holy fuck.

And I had sprayed my crotch.

I got the crotch, and it burns.

And then it's like,
"Okay, now what do I do?"

I will now be taking my pants
off and washing out my pants.

Well, I'm not not gonna search. I
went there to search. I don't care.

So I put a clean pair of pants
on, put my boots back on,

and hiked across the river.

When I got back to the hotel,

I'd send an email to Forrest

and say, you know, "I'm
back home. I wasn't killed,"

and he'd say, "Well,
the night's not over."

He would ask me to let him
know when I got back safely,

and I would give him a little highlight
of where I searched, what I saw,

and he would say, "That's nice,"
whatever, "but there's no fish there."

And, the first time he said that, it's
like, "What the hell does that mean?"

There's tons of fish there.
I saw fish. There's fish!

And then I noticed,
other times after that,

it'd be like, "If you want
fish, go to the grocery store."

It was definitely a hint,

and he was telling me I needed to
go to a different search location.

There were times that he would
talk really, really candidly

about my, uh, my
solutions and whatever,

and, basically, it… there
was an understanding

that you don't repeat
what we say to each other.

"This is for you only."

"You are not to share
this with everybody else."

Somebody asked me
was he playing fair?

The fairest thing that could've
been done in the treasure hunt is

Forrest Fenn hides the treasure,

he writes that book,

and he does nothing more.

He does no interviews.

He never exchanges emails.

He never has all these
people come to his house.

But who the fuck
said life is fair?

I think Forrest just
couldn't help getting involved.

He was a bit of a
prankster that way.

He was doing things that kept putting
him back in the center of the race.

He was still appearing on TV

and giving out mysterious answers
to the simplest questions.

People have been
within 200 feet,

and I know that because
they send me emails,

and they tell me
exactly where they are.

Like, so that's just tormenting to
people who are like, "Was I that person?"

Like, he didn't… he
doesn't say who it was.

Holy fucking shit.

So searchers have been about 200 feet
from the treasure chest and not known.

- No. Shut the front door!
- What the hell?

- Holy shanky doodles!
- Oh my gosh.

This is so insane!

1After we found the
boulder, I've been emailing Forrest.

He would read our
email within minutes.

Minutes. Every time.

Notification popped
up on the phone.

"Forrest Fenn has
read your email."

I screenshotted them. Crazy.

Whoo-ee!

- Once we found the rock…
- Everyone thought we found it.

Our… our hometown
thought we found it.

- Everybody who's in Cody.
- They were rooting for us.

They were all ready to come together as
a team and finish this once and for all

by funding us and
working with us.

- And helping us.
- To get this treasure hunt done.

Some people
threw in money for gas,

but mainly, it was
a lot of manpower.

At that point, we knew
the treasure was under the rock.

We were like, "We need to
figure out a better system."

I… I said, "The
boulder's gotta go."

I figured we'd blast
it with dynamite.

You first
tried to move it,

and then, when you couldn't
move it, you tried basically…

Blowing it up.

Rocks are flying!

I'm a little aggravated.

I thought…

I didn't think it'd be that much
work after the… the boulder had gone

fucking out of the hole.

This is tomfuckery!

Complete tomfuckery.

When we finally
moved this boulder

and nothing was there…

oh my God, it's the hardest work
that I've ever did in my life.

He could've just said,
"No, you're wrong, son."

I wish he could've just said that,
you know? He told other people that.

Why couldn't he
just tell me that?

It was a defeat.

Pretty sad.

Pretty sad. Yeah.

- I love you.
- I love you too.

We kinda just backed
off a little bit.

We moved back east to Kentucky.

But, anything you put in front
of us, we have perseverance.

- We're not gonna stop.
- Chaos.

I was never gonna give up,
no matter what it took.

So many people
believed it was them.

"I must be this close."

"What if this is me?"

And, yeah, I thought
about that too

because I would
send Forrest emails,

and so he knew the areas
that I was searching in.

So when he would
come out and say,

"Oh," you know, "there's somebody
who's within 200 feet," or something,

you know, everybody wonders,
"Is that… is that me?"

The search season for me
would depend on snow melt,

so February, March,
started getting itchy.

So you'd be on the computer

checking the snow-depth
reports at different areas,

trying to figure out
when it's gonna clear.

That's when the search
season would begin.

In early January,

I was prepping for the next season.

I was headed toward Yellowstone

to search the Nine
Mile Hole area again

when I got a call
from my mother.

She was very upset.

My brother Brandon was missing.

So I hopped on the first plane
out and went… and went to Tucson.

I was just kinda
frantic to find him.

He had left a note.
It had a symbol on it,

and I figured out it was basically a
mile-marker post just east of Tucson,

so that's where I went.

I pretty quickly found his pack
and towel up on a mountainside.

I was pretty concerned at that point,
and so I called search and rescue.

He had left some messages in the
area that I knew came from him,

and the last one that I found
was the name Forrest Fenn

with a X marks the spot.

But I, um,

I couldn't find him.

Uh…

Just couldn't find him.

Eventually, he was found
up on the mountainside.

He, uh…

…he…

…he, uh, he shot himself.

The autopsy report showed

that if I had figured
out that message sooner,

it would've probably
been a different ending.

Um…

He was my responsibility.

Um…

I was disappointed in myself,

but I made a pact with myself at that
time that I would keep searching.

I felt that I owed
it to him to find

what we had started to hunt for.

I went back to Wyoming…

and I tore that place up.

I searched an area I
probably shouldn't have

in weather that I
know I shouldn't have.

I really did throw personal
safety to the wind.

I didn't have any other
thought than finding that.

A million-dollar treasure
is easy to get obsessed about.

And in fact, 10%
of the searchers

said that their connection to the
hunt might qualify as an addiction.

This gave them meaning
in their lives,

and it led people to give up
everything in pursuit of the treasure.

People were going through their
savings to fund their searches,

relationships ending, some
people going to prison.

I mean, so many
crazy things happened

that tells you the level of
obsession for some of these people.

It started getting
personal for Forrest too.

For a period, it was like

some of the more zealous and
inexperienced treasure hunters

were getting into
physical trouble,

but at a certain point, like, Forrest
and his family started suffering, right?

They started experiencing
their own threats.

When he started the
whole treasure-chest thing,

it really was to get people
outside and doing stuff together,

and… and it really did.

It really, um, changed a lot
of people's lives for the good.

I don't think it really hit me

that people were so crazy and
obsessed with the whole thing

until it hit

my family personally.

People would constantly
show up at the gate.

Shiloh's had to… to throw people
out that have jumped over the gate

'cause Shiloh lived here.

He was the keeper of the
gate for many, many years.

I don't believe things
ever spun out of control,

and I don't believe that
anybody was at fault.

I think, at a certain point,

the Forrest Fenn treasure story
took on a life of its own,

and it was its own beast.

Not a monster. Just a beast.

And, uh, nobody was in control.

Nobody was driving the ship.

About the time that the search
really started to heat up,

my family felt that it would be
best if somebody were to live here,

and I agreed with them.

One day,

my mother and my grandparents were out
and about running errands around town.

After having been gone
for a couple of hours,

they returned to the property.

And just about the time she
looked over to the guesthouse,

this guy was walking
out of the front door.

Uh, walk forward, sir.

- Get on your knees. Get on your knees.
- I am.

Cross your…
cross your feet.

All right, you gotta
go in handcuffs.

Sorry.

213. One detained.

So what the hell is going on?

I thought the poem
directed me into here.

- I thought it said…
- Poem?

Yeah, the… the treasure map,
the treasure hunt, you know?

He had broken through the gate.

I have a hatchet there,

and he took a hatchet and broke
through the glass on this front door,

let himself in.

He'd opened up my refrigerator
and helped himself to a beer.

He'd used my facilities
and not bothered to flush.

And, as my mother and grandparents
were driving through the gate,

he was walking out of the
door holding this chest,

which is just full of linens.

And sees my mom, who has just gotten
out of the car with my grandparents.

I don't know the guy.

I've got my 88-year-old dad
standing in the driveway.

So I stood there with
my gun on the guy

because I wasn't gonna take a chance
that… he could've hurt somebody.

Ma'am, can you put the gun away?

We're almost down
the road, okay?

- So you broke the window to get in there?
- Yeah.

Why would you
do that? Over a poem?

It told me to do it.

He was struggling.

He was trying to
provide for his family

and, you know, figured if he
could find that treasure chest,

that it would… it
would change his life,

change his kids' lives.

But a treasure chest that is
worth millions and millions,

you know, it… it does
cr… it does crazy stuff,

really crazy stuff to people.

The minute it got
out of control for me

was when a stalker, one
of the treasure hunters,

decided to start
stalking my daughter.

Paco is a treasure hunter that had come
to my dad's gate a couple of times.

Very odd guy.

He rang the doorbell,

and my grandfather
cautiously opened the gate…

and he stood there this far away
from him and didn't say a word.

Just blank face. Just creepy.

My dad, at the beginning,

thought it was very harmless,
and it… it was not harmless.

After that,

he began sending envelopes
addressed to my grandfather,

the contents of which, however,
were addressed to one of my sisters.

There were some really vile things
that were put in these envelopes.

On the very, very low end
of the scary spectrum,

there were stickers of duct tape

and machetes and bloody dolls.

Just really disgusting,
dangerous, messed-up stuff.

It became very clear that he believed
that my sister was the treasure.

That the treasure was not a physical
chest full of golds and jewels,

that the treasure was my sister.

And as the poem says, it's
yours to take if you find it.

So he believed that this
girl was the treasure,

and he was gonna find
her and take her.

My dad called me
in and gave them to me,

and it really freaked me out.

I turned into a mama bear

because you don't
mess with my kids.

You don't mess with my family.

We have had some threats
made against my daughter,

and I would like to
speak with somebody.

Okay. Are they making
these threats over the telephone?

No, it's via a package we received.

There were security
measures. My grandfather had guns

just about in every room in the
house and knew how to use them.

There was a restraining order,

and he wasn't allowed to come
within a certain distance of her,

which he, of course,
rapidly broke.

Santa Fe 911.
What is your emergency?

We have a gentleman
at our gate stalking my niece,

and there's a restraining
order against him.

His name is Paco.

And he's been
stalking your niece?

My dad's going to
talk to him through the gate.

This is just a bad situation. Can
you just send somebody right away?

We're sending somebody
as soon as possible.

- Does he seem intoxicated?
- No.

He seems emphatic, like he has a plan.

He was
extradited to Nevada.

He was let out of jail in due
course with an ankle monitor,

which he then very
quickly cut off.

We had the SWAT team at our
house and my parents' house.

They wanted to take us all
into protective custody.

All because of Paco.

There had been a roadblock
set up looking for him,

and they caught him
coming into New Mexico.

Inside of the vehicle, they
found suitcases full of clothes

as if he were planning
on going on a long trip,

weapons, including
a long machete,

rolls of duct tape,
quite a bit of cash,

and some other things that I care
not to mention on camera, frankly.

Obviously that put him back in jail
for a much longer period of time.

I think my dad really
didn't want us too much involved

because he… he was… he was a little
bit frightened by… by some of it,

and with good reason.

Did you ever think,
"I wish this could be over"?

You know,

I'm not one to wish things

that I know aren't gonna happen
and have no control over.

And, you know, the things
I have no control over,

I leave in the hands of
God, and he's carrying me.

There was a belief
that Forrest's family held a…

they called it an intervention

and had asked him to stop the
treasure hunt for their own safety.

I certainly would not have faulted
them if they had done that.

He probably thought that,

by continuing with
this treasure hunt,

"I risked my own
personal safety,"

and probably more importantly
to him, his… his family.

I think he got
in a little over his head.

His family's looking at him like,
"Don't leave us with this shit show."

There was more and more
pressure for him to call it off,

and I'm not even a mom.

Well, I was a mom to my dogs,

and my God, if I had
someone threatening my dogs,

I would've certainly
taken action.

It wasn't our
decision. It was his decision.

It wasn't the family ganging up
on him. It was never like that.

However, the… the…
the topic arose

about the possibility
of finding a way to

change the ending

so that we became less
of a target for people.

But the more we
thought about it,

there were already people
that were obsessed.

There were already people that had
spent many thousands of dollars

that maybe they shouldn't have.

What would you say
to those people?

Would it have been
fair to those people

if my grandfather had decided
to go retrieve the chest?

I say absolutely not.

But I had, never in my life…

at least I don't remember him
being as challenged as he was

during certain points
within the treasure hunt.

No matter what decision he made,
it was going to have consequences.

Everything I do today is
as a result of that treasure chest,

and it was fun to begin with,

but I'm trying to figure
out now how I can get out.

I mean, tell me what I can do.

How can I get out now?

There are signs that
something's going on with Forrest,

that he's changing how he is
viewing the hunt and his role in it

and even the decision of
whether or not to keep it going.

At this point, four people have died.
Your granddaughter's being stalked.

You know, people are
breaking into your home.

Why on earth would you continue…
a… a game, a treasure hunt?

Here's a wonderful artifact.

This is a lantern.

And that's when
he goes on Nightline.

Fenn says this may
be his last TV interview.

I just don't feel like I
have anything to say anymore.

And then, in 2018, he types a
short little message for an interview.

This was a very strange thing to say
for someone who earlier had said,

"I think it will take 900
years for people to find it."

If you're a searcher,
you have to…

I mean, it's very reasonable to
interpret that as, "This is the end."

Fenn has
created a situation

where people are scrambling
to find the treasure.

I think Forrest wanted someone
to find it and for it to come to an end.

It was like, "Holy cow."

"I've got to do one
last boots on the ground

before the chase is over."

All of a sudden, it was clear I was
running out of time to find the treasure.

All right, so
remember this gate.

The fact that that
private property

belonged to somebody that I believe
had strong ties to Forrest Fenn

was… too much of a coincidence
to be a coincidence.

I'm like, "This is the place,
and we are going back."

What made
Yellowstone so special

was the fact that Forrest basically
told me to spend my summer there.

I mean,

how could I look
at anything else?

It's really rare for me

to find a situation where
data drove me to a location

that also coincided with,
dare I say, a feeling.

Yellowstone feels like Forrest.

- Happy treasure-hunt day.
- Yeah.

This was gonna be a different
adventure than the first one.

Now we're gonna come from
the back of the creek

and then all the way back
to where the treasure is,

and I wasn't gonna let
another gate stop me.

All right, let's go
find some treasure.

I was like, "This is it. We're
gonna find it." Like, "It's here."

I felt very confident that there was a
shortlist of places where this could be.

And as I walked
around Yellowstone,

I just felt myself getting
closer and closer and closer.

Absolutely,
there was hope now.

I mean, I would often say, "Is this the
day we're gonna find Fenn's treasure?"

We wasted a lot of
time and energy on that boulder.

How long were
you guys there for?

Two years.

- Two years on the boulder?
- Yeah.

God, that was so absurd.

I wish we would've never told
you that because, like, that is…

looking back on it now,
that was just, you know…

that was gold fever for sure.

And this is where it
gets a little bit tricky.

This is bizarre.

This is absolutely the
most mind-blowing thing

of all of the
thrill of the chase.

What if the definition of
treasure for Forrest Fenn

is different than the
definition you think?

See what I'm saying?

Imagination
is better than knowledge.

Doesn't matter what it is. It
only matters what you think it is.

Maybe the treasure that
he speaks of is not the box of gold.

It's a treasure of another kind.

But… that's out of his
own mouth, not mine.

If you had to
summarize your message,

what would that message be?

How do you know where the edge is
if you don't go out there and look?

And that's
when it hit me.

The treasure was not what
we… what everybody thought.

You think he's gonna be
some crackpot, and just…

No, he's… a very,
very smart guy.

He knew geography, geology.

He knew literature.

So it's much deeper than just
words on a piece of paper.

That's the tip of the iceberg.

So we went back and read one
of the chapters in his book

called "Me in the Middle."

And I said, "Holy cow."

"Whatever this thing
is, it's in the middle."

I realized we had three points.

We had our point A here,

which is the F on the
side of the mountain.

You see it?

Okay, that
was my F, my gray F.

And then
we had our point B,

which was Cascade Creek,
just like the poem says.

"There will be no
paddle up your creek."

Cascade
should be in there.

And then Kirwin.

Yeehaw!

So what we do
then was bisect the triangle.

Boom, boom, boom.

What it means, the
treasure is dead center.

We're making it happen,
Fenn. You already know it.

All right, so, yeah,

we're searching what I consider
a really, really good spot.

Where's my blaze?

My guess would be one of these
downed trees here has a mark in it.

Here's where it gets crazy. The
center of the triangle, boom,

dropped us dead on
a new blaze marker.

Well, you can see the
hatchet marks where he made.

You know what I mean?

So we stood at the blaze
marker and took pictures…

…because we knew we were
looking for something.

We knew we were supposed to be
finding something significant.

Now, we're studying
these photos for days.

And I was like, "What the
hell? Ain't nothing here."

But finally I see it.

No way.

That's a… that's a bear head.

Bears have many connections
to Forrest Fenn.

He has even told stories

about him and his brother
cutting off the head of a grizzly

and putting it in someone's
bed, playing a joke on 'em.

It's an
amazing correlation

because the treasure hunt was
ended in the exact same way.

We are led to a
grizzly bear sculpture,

and what do we do?

We cut off the head
of the grizzly bear.

It was all destiny. It was all destiny.

That this was
something he treasured.

That art, that story,
is what he treasured.

- The bear statue?
- Yeah.

I started to think it was something
like a Willy Wonka ending.

I thought it was all about
finding someone to fill his shoes,

and I thought,
once you solved it,

you know, he says, uh, "I give
you the riches." You know?

This was the key to solving it.

As soon as we found the bear,
I sent him pictures of everything.

And then, that night,
when we got back to town,

he called it.

It was like news reporters were
like, "What the fuck is going on?"

The search for Forrest
Fenn's treasure is now over.

Forrest Fenn
confirmed with News 13

that someone has found the treasure
he hid more than ten years ago.

When the news comes out, you know,
everyone's texting each other,

it's on all the
forums and the blogs,

and people are… are en
route to their search zone,

they get the news, and
it's just suddenly over.

Oh my gosh.

"There's just no
way. There's no way!"

"No, no, no. No, no, no."

"That's not… that's not
true You're lying to us."

And we're like, "Oh my God."

- "That's us."
- Yeah.

"We did it."