Original subtitles

[suspenseful music]

- [Jorge] History is full of stories

that sound too strange to be true,

[dramatic music]

too improbable to believe,

and too incredible to forget.

[dramatic music continues]

Now, we're revisiting the most memorable of them all.

From a diamond in the rough.

- He's been around diamonds enough

to know a raw diamond when he sees one,

but he has no idea

how big this discovery is actually gonna be.

- To an ancient gold mine.

- There are some people who believe

that everything of value was hidden away.

- The riches would be worth about $3 billion today.

- [Jorge] To a missing masterpiece.

- Suddenly, we have

an international bidding war on our hands.

- [Jorge] Tonight, we're opening up "History's Mystery Files"

on the world's most incredible hidden treasures.

[dramatic music continues]

- When you buy an old house,

you never really know what's hiding inside.

For one man in Minnesota,

the surprise wasn't mold or bad wiring,

it was something else worth a fortune.

[dramatic music continues]

- In 2013, in the small town of Elbow Lake, Minnesota,

a guy by the name of David Gonzalez

buys a home that was built in 1938 for $10,100.

[hammer thudding]

[wall creaking]

He is a house flipper,

and while the house has good bones,

that's about it.

[drill whirring]

- He begins demo on the investment property,

but he soon notices something strange within the walls.

- The house isn't insulated like you would expect.

It's not foam or fiberglass.

There's a lot of crumpled newspapers in between the studs.

- [Kavitha] Today, of course,

we know that stuffing paper in your walls

is not the best method of insulation.

Too dry and it's a fire hazard,

too wet and there's a serious potential for mold.

- [Sami] Now, for David, this is just another day at the office.

So he starts pulling out the crumpled pieces of newspaper

section by section

until he sees something colorful

in between all of that black and white.

- [Savitha] He pulls it out from the newspapers

and realizes it's a comic book.

And on the cover

is none other than the man of Steel himself, Superman.

[dramatic music continues]

- The comic is showing its age.

It's beat up on the corners.

It's yellowed.

But David immediately notices something startling.

The date on the cover, June 1938,

the same year the house was built.

- David isn't a comic book collector,

but he obviously knows that Superman

is one of the most iconic comic book heroes of all time,

so he figures a really old Superman comic

has to be worth something.

- [Jorge] David leaves the newspapers in a pile

and jumps online.

What he finds nearly knocks him off his feet.

- [Sami] In David's hands is Action Comics #1.

This is the Holy Grail of comic books.

- [Steve] This comic isn't just the origin story of Superman.

It's like the big bang for the modern day superhero genre.

- [Sami] Without Action 1, you don't get Batman,

you don't get Wonder Woman,

you don't get Spider-Man,

you don't get all of DC Comics, Marvel Comics,

you don't get superhero comics at all.

The creation of "Superman" by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

in the pages of Action Comics #1

leads to a multi-billion dollar industry

that continues to exist

and excite audiences today.

Do not dismiss comic books as a low piece of literature.

They are an important part

of the American pop culture zeitgeist.

[dramatic music continues]

- [Jorge] But before he kickstarted

a multi-billion dollar superhero empire,

Action Comics #1

was just another novelty on the newsstand.

[dramatic music continues]

- [Sami] Back in 1938 when Action Comics #1 was released,

it was selling for about 10 cents a copy,

which in today's money is around 2 bucks.

- [Austin] At the time,

nobody would've thought anything of its worth

beyond its inherent entertainment value.

You read it, you enjoy it,

you throw it out,

or in this case, stuff it inside the walls of a new house.

- [Kavitha] Around 200,000 copies were originally printed,

and today only about 100 are believed to still exist.

So David could be sitting on a gold mine

worth far more than the house flip.

- [Sami] A pristine condition version of Action #1,

which I know it's dated June 1938 on the cover,

but in reality comes out on April 18, 1938,

it sold for $6 million

at auction, okay?

Needless to say, the man is thrilled.

And so he brings it home

and he wants to show it off to his family

and they're all just as excited.

- [Austin] They invite friends and more family to come over

and see this rare find

and everything is going well

until his wife's aunt shows up.

She grabs Action Comics #1

and starts waving it around.

David attempts to grab it back.

[dramatic music continues]

- [Jorge] In the chaos of the moment,

the back cover rips.

[dramatic music continues]

- [Sami] Damaged or not,

this is still one of the most sought after comic books

in the world,

so David puts it away for safekeeping

until he can put it up for sale at auction.

- [Austin] Even in less than perfect condition,

it sells for a whopping $175,000.

But experts think that the tear

cost David anywhere between 50 and $75,000.

- [Sami] So without that tear,

this copy of Action Comics #1

could have sold for a quarter of a million dollars.

Thanks, auntie.

- [Kavitha] It was a costly mistake,

but David bought the house for just over $10,000

and he's walking away with more than 17 times that

from something that he literally pulled out of the wall.

- [Sami] All in all, it's a much better return

than any house he could have flipped.

[dramatic music continues]

- [Jorge] Next up, another surprising find

tucked away where no one thought to look.

[dramatic music continues]

- While browsing at a local flea market

in Adamstown, Pennsylvania,

a man spots a dull and worn painting of a country scene.

It's so worn that he can't even make out

the artist's signature on it.

But he's not interested in the painting,

he's interested in the frame that's around it.

- It's gilded and ornately carved,

and he wants it for a different picture he already has,

so this guy plunks down $4 and buys it.

- [Jorge] The man takes it home

and begins to remove the painting from the frame.

That's when he sees something strange.

- There's something wedged

between the painting and the wood backing.

It's about the size of an envelope.

He unfolds it and he realizes

it's the Declaration of Independence.

- [Don] He doesn't think much of this at first.

I mean, it's the Declaration of Independence,

and there are copies of this everywhere,

but it looks like a pretty old copy.

- [Jorge] Curiously, this copy is not signed.

- [Martin] He has a friend who's a bit of a history buff

who encourages him to go and get it appraised

just in the off chance

that this might be something valuable.

- [Alex] He takes it to Sotheby's to have it examined,

and their experts know immediately

he's found something special.

- [Jorge] It turns out this isn't just any copy,

it's a pristine first edition.

- [Martin] When we think of the Declaration of Independence,

we think of the signed version of the document.

The most famous signature among them

is the signature of John Hancock.

But that version was actually signed and completed

on August 2nd, 1776,

four weeks after the original

Declaration of Independence was issued.

- [Don] You see, when the Continental Congress

adopts the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776,

it has a Philadelphia printer John Dunlap

print 200 copies that evening

to carry the news of independence out to the people.

- Over the next few days,

they're distributed to several colonial assemblies

and leaders, including George Washington,

and they become known as the Dunlap Broadsides.

- [Martin] Finding one of the original 200 Dunlap Broadsides

is a pretty amazing thing,

but then finding one that's in perfect condition,

now that is extraordinary.

- [Jorge] But how did it end up behind a painting?

- [Alex] In 1776, the colonies were still under British rule.

Having a copy of the Declaration of Independence

in your back pocket would lead to treason,

so it's some theorized that the original owner

stashed it behind the frame to hide it from the British.

- [Don] Most of the Dunlap copies

are owned by institutions,

mostly in America, a few in the UK,

but this is only the third to be held in private hands.

So when it goes up for auction at Sotheby's in 1991,

it sells for $2.4 million.

This is the highest price ever paid

for a piece of Americana at the time

and a heck of a return on a $4 investment.

[dramatic music continues]

- In Amman, Jordan, there's a mysterious artifact

unlike anything ever discovered.

It's known as the Copper Scroll,

and it may point

to one of the greatest hidden treasures in history.

[suspenseful music]

- [Sami] The Copper Scroll is

one of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls,

which is this unbelievable

and extraordinary collection of texts

discovered in Qumran, Israel

near the West Bank City of Jericho.

- Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are found in 1947.

It's one of the greatest archeological finds ever.

15,000 fragments of ancient texts

dating from between the third century BC

and the second century AD.

- A lot of them are copies of scripture

or religious texts,

including some of the oldest manuscripts ever found

of the books of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] But the Copper Scroll

isn't found until March of 1952.

- [Sami] French archeologists Henri de Contenson

is searching a partially collapsed cave

looking for more Dead Sea Scrolls.

But instead, he sees an object

that appears to be made of heavily oxidized metal.

- Copper is very precious in the ancient world,

so just the fact that this scroll is written into copper

means it was very expensive to make

and therefore quite important to whoever made it.

- [Jorge] Immediately, researchers are eager

to find out what it says.

- [Robert] At first, most of it couldn't be read

because the two pieces of the scroll are rolled up.

After oxidizing for centuries,

it's extremely fragile

and opening it would destroy the artifact.

- [Hugo] But the writing we can read on the edges

is very compelling

and very different from the other scrolls.

It's not Bible verses.

- [Jorge] Instead, it reads like a treasure map.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Sami] There are mentions of gold and silver,

so now, of course, everyone's dying to find out

what's inside the scroll even more so than before.

They call in a British archeologist

and Dead Sea Scrolls expert named John Marco Allegro,

and he suggests they cut the scroll into sections.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] In 1955,

the Jordanian government sends the Copper Scroll

to the Manchester College of Science and Technology

for careful dissection.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Robert] There, the scroll is painstakingly cut

into 23 narrow strips.

Then it's laid out,

and for the first time,

the scroll's full contents can be seen.

- [Jorge] The sheer scale of the treasure detailed

is beyond what anyone imagined.

- [Nicola] Hidden caches of gold and silver

buried in more than 60 secret locations

are methodically described in entry after entry.

- [Robert] Added up together,

the riches described in the Copper Scroll

would be worth about $3 billion today.

A billion with a B,

potentially making it the largest stash

of buried treasure ever in history.

- [Jorge] If this treasure really exists,

where could it come from?

- [Sami] The Copper Scroll leaves a few clues

to the treasure's origin.

Tithes are mentioned,

as are priestly vestments and sacrificial bowls.

And the scroll is written in the missionary Hebrew language.

This suggests that the treasures are religious in nature

and perhaps from a Jewish temple or multiple temples.

- [Jorge] For more answers,

experts look near Qumran,

where the Copper Scroll was found.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Nicola] Now, we don't know for sure

that the Copper Scroll was written in Qumran.

We don't know if the treasure came from Qumran either,

but we have to start somewhere.

Qumran is though to have been inhabited

by a sect of Jewish people

known as the Essenes from about the second century BC

to around the end of the first century AD.

- [Hugo] About 15 miles away is Jerusalem.

And that city had the biggest,

fanciest, wealthiest building in the region

that we know of,

the first Jewish Temple.

In the Bible,

it's described as a large and glorious structure

originally built on the Temple Mount

by the very wealthy King Solomon in the 10th century BC.

- [Robert] It's the sacred gathering place

and really is a symbol of prosperity for centuries.

The temple collects taxes

and receives all sorts of offerings from the faithful.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] But this temple

is destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.

- [Nicola] Most of what was in there

still remains unaccounted for,

unless of course it's accounted for in the Copper Scroll.

- [Sami] There are some people who believe

that everything of value in the temple

was taken and hidden away,

and the Copper Scroll is created to document

the hiding places so that one day

it can all be recovered to help build the temple.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] According to the Bible's Book of Ezra,

when the Jews are released from captivity in Babylon,

they return to Jerusalem with basins of gold and silver,

and they need somewhere to safeguard it.

- [Robert] In 516 BC,

in the same spot where the first temple stood,

they start building a second temple.

- [Hugo] As with the first temple,

the second temple's treasury

accumulates a vast amount of gold and silver

from local worshipers and pilgrims.

To keep the treasure and his people safe,

King Herod restructures

and fortifies the temple complex in 37 BC.

- [Jorge] But in 70 AD,

the second temple falls as well.

This time to the Roman army.

- [Robert] Once again, a whole bunch of treasures are lost

or maybe hidden instead.

- [Hugo] This timeframe of 70 AD

is very close to when experts believe

the Copper Scroll was created

and placed in the Cave in Qumran.

- [Nicola] There's even a chance that the Copper Scroll

lists treasures from both the first and the second temples

since neither has ever been found.

- [Robert] While the scroll is very specific

about the treasures themselves,

it is intentionally vague about the locations.

Basically, whoever wrote this thing has encoded it.

- [Hugo] Albert Wolters,

a Professor of Religion at Redeemer University College,

suggests probably a high-ranking priest

was sitting there thinking,

"How can I prevent this treasure

from falling into the hands of the Romans?"

- [Nicola] Wolters believes that a plan is devised

to find hiding places on the outskirts of Jerusalem

and the Judaean Desert,

and this plan would've involved multiple people.

- [Hugo] First, the masterminds of this plan

identify the hiding spots.

Then a priest would have written the sites down

on a piece of parchment.

But the way he writes them is very careful.

Things like in the burial monument

on the third course of stones.

You wouldn't be able to identify where that is

unless you're really familiar

with the location he's referring to.

- [Robert] He makes it even more obscure

by writing in an uncommon style of Hebrew,

and he mixes in short groups of Greek letters occasionally.

- [Jorge] To ensure the locations remain secret,

the original authors hire an illiterate metal worker

to copy the instructions onto copper.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Nicola] Certain letters get confused graphically

because they have similar shapes.

And these are the sorts of mistakes

that a literate scribe would never make.

- [Jorge] Even with questions surrounding its authenticity,

the Copper Scroll ignites a worldwide obsession,

inspiring generations of treasure hunters

to risk everything searching for its hidden fortune.

One of the most relentless emerges in the late 1960s.

- [Nicola] In 1967, Vendyl Jones,

a Baptist minister turned amateur archeologist from Texas,

moves his family to Israel

and begins searching for the Copper Scroll treasures.

- [Jorge] 20 years into his hunt,

Jones finds compelling evidence

that he might be on the right track.

- Now, this is one of the bilateral walls.

- [Hugo] Jones and his team

unearth a small first century jug

wrapped in palm leaves,

which is speculated to hold the oil

used to anoint priests and kings in ancient Jerusalem.

- [Nicola] Then in 1992,

Jones finds more than 600 pounds

of this unique reddish powder in a cave.

So he has this powder analyzed

and it shows that the powder contains ingredients

for the incense,

which was used during rituals of the second temple,

which would make it more than 2,000 years old.

- [Sami] These two finds may prove something incredible,

that actual objects from the temple

did in fact make their way to Qumran.

And once they got here,

they were hidden away for safekeeping,

so maybe some of the treasure came along too.

- [Jorge] But despite decades of searching,

Vendyl Jones never uncovers the legendary hoard.

- To this day, no one has discovered

the Copper Scroll treasure,

so it may still be out there.

- [Hugo] Even though the Copper Scroll treasures

are over 2,000 years old,

we've only known about them since 1952.

Treasure hunters haven't been searching for that long,

meaning there's plenty of places

that haven't been explored yet.

It feels like the next new discovery

could be right around the corner.

It's an ancient mystery,

but it's a new one too.

- Hidden treasures don't always come from museums

or archeological digs.

Sometimes they're collecting dust

at a neighborhood garage sale.

[suspenseful music]

- [Kavitha] In 2013, Bruce Scapecchi visits a garage sale

in Des Moines, Iowa.

He's a history buff,

and he likes to see if there's anything of historical value

that he can then resell for pocket money.

- [Don] He's not looking for anything in particular,

but as he comes to the table full of sports gear,

he spots something interesting.

It's an old, beaten up wooden baseball bat

tucked underneath a few other metal ones.

- [Sami] The price tag for this bat is a dollar.

Now, most people wouldn't give this old wooden bat

a second look, but Bruce grew up watching the game

and something about this bat

just seems really familiar to him.

[suspenseful music continues]

- The grip of this bat is very distinctive.

It has a thick handle and base with a unique knob.

- [Jorge] And that's when it hits him,

he's seen a bat like this before.

- [Steve] Bruce is a baseball nut.

He knows most players' names

are burned into the barrel of the bat,

and he has a sneaking suspicion

of whose name is on this one.

- [Don] Excitedly, he approaches the woman

running the sale, Sue McEntee.

He asks for a pencil.

She hands one over

and Bruce gently rubs the pencil over the barrel of the bat.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Kavitha] Suddenly, something extraordinary happens,

as if by magic,

a name slowly appears,

Jackie Robinson.

In the 1940s and '50s,

Jackie Robinson played 10 seasons

in Major League Baseball.

He was a lifetime.313 hitter,

a World Series champion,

and now a Hall of Famer.

But today, he's much more known

for breaking all kinds of barriers.

- [Sami] Jackie Robinson was the first Black American

to play Major League Baseball in the modern era.

So he changed not only baseball,

but the country forever.

- [Jorge] Robinson's legacy is legendary,

so how did his bat end up at a Midwestern garage sale?

- [Don] Turns out Sue's uncle, Joe Hatten,

also known as Lefty Joe,

pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1946 to '51.

- [Sami] When Bruce discovers

Jackie Robinson's name on the bat,

Sue starts to connect the dots.

Her Uncle Joe played five seasons

for the Dodgers alongside Robinson

and was even the starting pitcher on the day

that Robinson broke the color barrier

during his Major League Baseball debut.

- [Kavitha] The two weren't just teammates,

they were friends.

They even roomed together on the road,

something a lot of Jackie's white teammates

wouldn't do at the time.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Steve] Sometime in their playing days,

he must have been gifted the Jackie Robinson bat

or traded for it because he ended up with it.

- [Don] It seems crazy,

but Sue just assumed

that this was just one of Uncle Joe's old bats.

She even let her kids use it

to hit balls and rocks around when they were younger.

- [Jorge] Thankfully, all that backyard batting

didn't take a hit on its value.

- [Kavitha] Sue gets the bat appraised

and the result is a grand slam.

In its current condition, it's worth about $20,000.

But it could be worth even more

if she has it professionally restored.

- [Sami] Sue has no plans to sell the bat,

saying, "It's something that belongs to our family."

- [Dan] It's incredible to think how close she was

to parting with this precious artifact.

But thanks only to the kindness of a stranger

who was doing the right thing,

this American treasure remains in her family's hands.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] Surprisingly, this isn't the only time

a family almost let an invaluable treasure

slip through their fingers.

And this one was staring at owners in the face

every night at dinner.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Sami] The Landau brothers hated the painting

that was in their dining room in their childhood home.

They found it kind of creepy.

- It depicts an unconscious young man

being tended to by two people,

one of whom is trying to resuscitate

the youth with smelling salts.

To the brothers and their dinner guests,

this painting is not the type of thing you want

to contemplate over dinner.

- According to family lore,

the grandfather bought the painting

before the Great Depression at an estate sale

and handed it down from generation to generation.

- [Andrew] In 2011, after the brother's parents died,

the painting ends up in the basement

where it's forgotten for several years.

- [Jorge] Then in 2015,

the brothers decide it's time to clean out the basement.

[suspenseful music continues]

And when they rediscover the painting,

they reach out to a professional appraiser, John Nye.

- [Andrew] Nye is not impressed with the painting,

which he calls remarkably unremarkable,

but he thinks it might be worth something.

- [Sami] So he goes, "Okay, on a good day,

maybe we'll get 500 to $800."

So in 2015,

Nye and Company set up the painting for auction.

- [Andrew] Now, the brothers are not expecting

anything to come of this.

Their expectations are in fact so low

that they don't attend the auction,

and because it's a Jewish holiday,

they have their phones off.

- [Bryant] The auction goes pretty much the way

Nye thought it would at first.

The bidding starts at $250,

then it goes to $500.

- [Andrew] A French bidder jumps in at $5,000.

Suddenly, we have an international

bidding war on our hands.

8,000, 10,000.

- [Sami] Now this painting is reaching into six-figure region,

100,000, 200,000.

- [Andrew] The bids continue to go up.

[gavel thudding]

- [Sami] When the final gavel strikes,

a French dealer walks away with this painting

for $1.1 million.

Needless to say, John Nye is in complete shock.

- [Jorge] It turns out Nye missed an important detail

in this work of art.

- [Bryant] In the upper right-hand corner

of the painting, there appears to be some writing,

but it's hard to make it out.

The dealers think the writing is a monogram

that spells out RHF.

- [Ssami] Rembrandt Harmenszoon fecit,

which stands for Rembrandt,

son of Harmen, made this.

- [Andrew] The French dealer believed

that this is one of Rembrandt's "Senses,"

a series that the artist produced early in his career

when he was only 18 years old.

The five senses being a popular theme at the time

for artists to depict.

This painting depicts the sense of smell.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Bryant] The French dealer gets the painting.

He has it authenticated,

and it turns out that it is one of the missing Rembrandts.

- [Jorge] That $1.1 million windfall turns out to be nothing

compared to what happens next.

- [Sami] The dealer now turns around

and sells it to Thomas Kaplan,

who is a collector of fine art from the Dutch Golden Age.

And it's reported that Kaplan buys it for around $4 million,

which is a profit of $3 million to the French dealer.

- [Bryant] For Kaplan, the painting is invaluable.

He already has three

of the other Rembrandt "Senses" paintings,

and the last one about taste is still missing.

- [Andrew] So if you have a creepy painting

hanging in your dining room

depicting a woman tasting something,

might be worth having that appraised.

[gavel thudding]

- Finding out that something in your home

dates back thousands of years

and is worth a fortune sounds farfetched,

but that's exactly what happened

to a woman in New York City.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Hugo] In 2013, Roman art expert Dario del Bufalo

holds an event in New York City

to celebrate the release of his new book.

- The book is about porphyry.

Porphyry is a reddish purple mineral

that has incredibly fine crystals

that creates a faint iridescence.

And it was used in Fresco's paintings

and mosaics throughout ancient civilizations.

- [Sami] While he's signing copies,

he overhears a couple

as they're thumbing through the book.

"Oh, Helen, look.

That's your mosaic."

- [Hugo] From the corner of his eye,

del Bufalo can see

that they're referring to a 2,000-year-old Roman mosaic

that's been lost since World War II.

He's completely in shock.

- He starts off after the couple.

He points to the picture and asks if this is the mosaic

in particular that they were talking about.

And the man confirms that his friend, Helen Fioratti,

has it in her house as a coffee table.

- [Adam] Right there in Midtown Manhattan

is this piece of the ancient world,

and she's using it for coasters and her remote control.

- [Jorge] del Bufalo believes the coffee table

may be a missing artifact

tied to the infamous leader Caligula.

- [Hugo] Caligula is a notorious Roman emperor

from between the years 37 to 41 AD.

The histories describe his reign

as being filled with murder,

sex scandals and outrageous behaviors.

- [Sami] He even makes his favorite horse a senator

from the Roman Senate as a way to insult other senators.

He might have legitimately been insane.

- [Adam] So in addition to all the madness,

he constructed these two lavish, massive party barges

where he would continue his activities at sea.

- [Hugo] And right in the heart of this hedonistic vessel

is the mosaic that becomes Helen's coffee tabletop.

- [Jorge] By 41AD,

even Caligula's guards have had enough of his antics

and conspired to assassinate him.

- After Caligula is stabbed to death,

the vessels are sunk

to erase any trace of his brutal rule.

- [Jorge] They remain underwater for nearly 2,000 years

until a notorious dictator goes looking for them.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Hugo] In the late 1920s,

Generalissimo Benito Mussolini

is looking to find whatever pieces

of ancient Roman glory he can to boost his own cred,

so he's on a mission to dig up old ruins.

He orders Lake Nemi drained,

hoping to find Caligula's fabled floating pleasure palaces.

- [Adam] It is an unbelievable Herculean undertaking,

but eventually once the lake is drained,

they retrieve two massive structures,

each the size of a modern jumbo jet,

but they are Caligula's pleasure barges.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Sami] Once these barges are cleaned and examined,

they find art, they find weapons,

they find coins, and they find these mosaics.

Mussolini is so thrilled with this find

that he opens up a museum in honor of these barges.

- [Jorge] Then on May 31st, 1944,

as World War II rages,

the museum burns to the ground

and everything inside is thought to be lost.

- [Adam] So when Dario Del Bufalo

hears that something from this museum

is in Midtown Manhattan

and is in this lady's apartment,

he's taken aback, to say the very least.

- [Jorge] del Bufalo alerts New York authorities

who decide to pay Helen a visit.

[hand knocking]

- [Sami] In 2017, Helen gets a knock on her door.

It's the Manhattan District Attorney's Office,

and they're here about the mosaic.

They start peppering Helen with all sorts of questions.

- [Hugo] The authorities suspect that the mosaic

was stolen from the museum

before it burned down in 1944.

She explains that back in the 1960s,

she bought it from an aristocratic Italian family

and that even an Italian police officer

had helped broker the sale.

- [Sami] Unfortunately for Helen,

the Italian government wants that mosaic back.

And since she has no way of proving

that it wasn't looted before she bought it,

the New York DA's office confiscates the coffee table.

- [Adam] And ultimately,

this mosaic that was owned by Caligula and Mussolini

and a lady named Helen

finds its way back to the Museum of Roman Ships in Nemi.

- Most major discoveries take time,

planning and a lot of effort.

But every once in a while,

something viable turns up completely by accident,

in a weird and unexpected place.

[suspenseful music]

- [Kavitha] Wesley Uncle Sam Basham

is a hardworking laborer in Arkansas in 1924.

He uses a high-powered hose

to remove mud from some rocks where he works,

the Arkansas Diamond Company.

- Diamonds were found in Arkansas in 1906,

and that creates a huge rush of people

who are trying to get rich quick.

But unfortunately,

most of the diamond claims pinch out very quickly.

And a lot of these claims don't really produce enough money

to even cover the cost of the equipment.

- [Kavitha] So Wesley's firm is in trouble.

There are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

And Wesley is all but out of a job.

- [Jorge] Suddenly, as Wesley sprays down the rock pile,

a flash of light grabs his attention.

- [Steven] He's been around diamonds enough

to know a raw diamond when he sees one.

He's getting excited.

He starts to holler, "Oh boy, this could be the big one."

But he has no idea

how big this discovery is actually gonna be.

- [Jorge] Wesley Uncle Sam Basham

has just discovered the largest diamond in America,

weighing over 40 carats.

- [Kavitha] This is obviously a gigantic find.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Steve] Historically, we hear a lot of stories

about these huge diamonds being cursed,

but this diamond turns out to be a lifesaver.

It saves the firm.

It saves Wesley's job.

He is basically a hero for finding this diamond.

- [Jorge] And as a reward,

the discovery is named after him,

the Uncle Sam diamond.

- They take this massive raw 40-carat diamond

and craft it into a perfect emerald-cut diamond.

It's still enormous at over 12 karats.

- [Steven] The Uncle Sam diamond has bounced around for decades.

It's eventually sold for 1.75 million,

and it is now in the Smithsonian Gem Collection.

It is still one of the largest diamonds in the world

and the largest diamond ever discovered in America.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] It's not often you get to save

your whole town from bankruptcy with a hose,

but even rarer

is stumbling across buried treasure in your own backyard.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Sami] It's 2013,

and you've got this Northern California couple

that are just chasing their dog around the yard,

having a good time,

playing around what you will,

when they start to notice that their dog

comes across one specific spot

and starts just furiously digging.

- [Kavitha] And that's when they see a rusty old canister

protruding from the dirt.

They're intrigued,

and they start to dig around the can with a stick.

But when they try to lift it,

it's really, really heavy.

- [Greg] They pop it open,

and lo and behold,

there are golden coins inside this canister.

[suspenseful music continues]

It is truly buried treasure.

- [Jorge] Then they find more.

Not one can, but eight.

- [Sami] 1,500 gold coins in all,

all minted around the mid-1800s,

so you're talking prime California gold rush time.

- [Greg] Who leaves behind eight canisters with 1,500 gold coins?

That's not something you forget about.

- [Jorge] Even more surprising,

these coins seem to be uncirculated

and in mint condition.

- [Greg] So the fact that these coins haven't been circulated

kind of screams lifted, stolen.

- [Kavitha] Uncirculated coins were issued by a bank

for deposit into another bank,

so the fact that these were found buried in a backyard

means that at some point they were intercepted

probably from a stagecoach on transit.

Around the time that these coins are minted,

there are some very famous stagecoach robbers.

[gunshots banging]

And one is a guy named Black Bart.

From 1875 to 1883,

Black Bart robs 28 stage coaches in Northern California.

- [Jorge] Charles Boles, a.k.a. Black Bart,

was called the gentleman bandit.

He never cursed,

and sometimes left poems behind after his robberies.

The other prime suspect

has a reputation that's slightly saltier.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Greg] Jesse James is a notorious robber,

one of the most famous in the country.

And in fact, in 1864, Jesse James is in the area.

Just 10 miles away from where these gold coins are found,

he hits a stage coach,

so it's very plausible

that he is the man behind these coins.

- [Jorge] Since Black Bart and Jesse James

are both long dead,

this loot is pretty much finders keepers.

- [Sami] So this couple

who decide to keep their names anonymous

and just go by John and Mary,

they take their coins to an expert

who tells them that these coins collectively,

all 1,500 of them,

add up to about $10 million.

Not bad for just hanging out with your dog

in your backyard one day.

[suspenseful music continues]

- In 2010, Forrest Fenn has his book

"The Thrill of the Chase" published.

In it, he makes an unusual claim,

that he buried a chest filled with treasure

somewhere in the Rocky Mountains,

and he challenges the world to find it.

- The treasure chest that Forrest hid

has actually been photographed and put in his book.

It was a bronze chest,

10 inches by 10 inches by 5 inches deep,

and it contained hundreds of gold coins

worth more than half a million dollars.

- [Jorge] To entice treasure hunters

to look for the hidden gold,

Forrest Fenn composed a cryptic poem

with nine clues pointing to its location.

And just as Fenn hoped,

the poem inspired people to take him up on this challenge.

[suspenseful music continues]

- Forrest Fenn's treasure became a real phenomenon,

a worldwide phenomenon.

People would come from everywhere

to seek this treasure.

Forrest Fenn liked to say

that he though there were something like 350,000 people

looking for his treasure.

There were some people who became a little too obsessed

with Forrest Fenn's chase,

and it cost them their lives.

A man fell down from a mountain.

Another was washed away in the river.

And a third man died from exposure to the elements.

And so at a certain point,

there were a lot of calls for Fenn to end the hunt.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Sacha] Forrest begged people not to go

where a 79 or 80-year-old man could not go.

Unfortunately, I think the larger the financial incentive,

the more common sense goes out the window.

- [Jorge] After 10 years,

a 32-year-old medical student named Jack Stuef

finally finds it in the Wyoming Desert.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Daniel] After it became known that Jack was the finder,

initially people were very excited.

And then they figured out that he wasn't gonna tell them

where the treasure was found,

and so that put him in opposition

to the community in lots of ways.

And that's a perfect ground

to breed conspiracies and questions and all that

because you don't have all the answers.

Probably the most prevalent conspiracy theory

is called the nudge,

which is the hypothesis that in some way,

Forrest Fenn quickened the end of his treasure hunt,

that he singled out Jack Stuef

and in some way pushed him towards

the actual spot where the treasure was.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Jorge] Some wonder if Fenn helped lead him to it

to prevent more deaths.

But Stuef isn't talking,

and Fenn died in 2020

so we may never know for sure.

[suspenseful music continues]

- [Sacha] Whether or not Forrest helped Jack,

in the end, there could only ever be one winner,

which meant there would be hundreds of thousands of losers.

It's mysterious that people will devote their time

and energy to something

where they are in all likelihood going to fail

and will do it with such energy and life

as if they know they're going to win.

But treasure hunting is innately human.

It's part of our curiosity.

It doesn't matter if the treasure

is really out there or not,

it's the adventure of it that matters.

- From lost masterpieces to buried gold,

history keeps proving that its greatest treasures

aren't always hidden far away,

sometimes they're right in front of us

in the most unexpected places.

I'm Jorge Garcia.

Thanks for watching "History's Mystery Files."