Treasure Marker, Sign, Symbols, and Monument Rant

[gollum]

While I will gear this post towards newbies, I think EVERYONE should read this! Newbies will get some truth, whackos will get some light, scammers will get a wake up call (hopefully).

Due to a lot of questions I have seen asked and some conflicts I have had recently (actually the same conflicts with different people over the years I have been a member here), I just got the idea to get a few things regarding Treasure Hunting, Mine Hunting, Cache Hunting, Treasure Signs/Symbols/Markers/Monuments out in the open, and above board.

For the rest of this thread, I will substitute "marker" for "Signs, Symbols, Markers, Monuments."

FIRST: That bent tree, rock pile, strange crack, or whatever it is you found, is probably not a man made marker (unless it has VERY obvious carvings on it). Mother Nature makes many strange and wonderful rock and plant formations. Enough trips to the mountains and deserts will show you that.

SECOND: In the FIRST paragraph, I said PROBABLY, and PROBABLY means just that. It means that there is a chance that what you have found is man made. IF it is man made, there will ALWAYS be a mark to show it was made by man and not nature (most times it will be an arrow, >, A, or S), but I know time and the elements take a toll on everything exposed, so............ IF what you have found IS man made, THERE WILL BE MORE! All those markers do is show how to get to the next marker. That is another way to be sure yours is real! FIND THE NEXT ONE! If you find more than one, then CONGRATULATIONS! you have found markers. Do they mark a treasure? 99% likely THEY DO NOT. Because the Spanish had tons of trails through the SouthWest, you will likely find thousands of TRAIL MARKERS. You will also find many markers that lead to water (which in some areas was more valuable than gold). Here is a man made monument that leads to water:

Some of you may recognize this marker. You may have seen a black and white picture of it. It says: "Follow the pointer for ONE LEAGUE (2.16 miles) to find water." How do I know that? I know that a "FISH" monument is one that leads to water. How do I know THAT? Because Charles Kenworthy spent many years and a small fortune getting copies of Spanish Documents that said so. I recommend getting his books if you are seriously going to do this.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION TIP HERE!!!!! When someone says that something means a certain thing, ALWAYS ask them how they arrived at their conclusion. ALWAYS! I have seen one person interpret a symbol from Colorado as a Jesuit Treasure Symbol. Problem is, the Jesuits weren't in Colorado!!!

Follow the numbers on the pic:

1. The EYE
2. The TIP OF THE SNOUT
3. The Gill
4. The MOUTH
5. The BOTTOM JAW (POINTER)
6. The single DOT symbol (to the left of the 6) that means ONE LEAGUE
7. The ARROW (to the left of the 7) that points to the Distance Symbol

Now, without giving away the location, I can tell you that a little over two miles away, there IS a water source. This is a REALLY great monument, but has NOTHING to do with any treasures. This monument probably took all of three or four hours for 4 or 5 guys to carve into the sandstone.

THIRDLY: IF you have found a real honest-to-goodness treasure marker, BE VERY CAREFUL! Real honest-to-goodness treasures and rich hidden mines were USUALLY booby trapped (see my thread on Death Traps).

Here is an honest-to-goodness treasure sign. It is a 50 foot tall heart carved into the bedrock on the side of a mountain. A heart was MAINLY used as a treasure marker for gold (there are other meanings, but none apply at this site).

If you really are a newbie, and want to know what it is you have found, then feel free to post it and get opinions. You will find that there are some people that think it is all BS, and they are just rocks and interesting natural cracks and erosion. You will also get whacky stuff (Solomon's Mines, Templar Treasure, etc). BE VERY CAREFUL TAKING ADVICE FROM PEOPLE! Many people who claim they hold all the secrets don't! FREE ADVICE IS WORTH EXACTLY WHAT YOU PAY FOR IT! When somebody tells you something, take that info and file it away. Do your own research to see if that is possible.

Now, we get to me and what I think. Contrary to what some whackos think, YES! I do believe there are still treasures waiting to be found out there. Can anybody find them? ABSOLUTELY! Not wanting to get all cryptic and conspiratorial sounding, but there are some things that nobody will ever read online or in print. The people that have gained that knowledge, have done so over years of researching and countless dollars spent (in the right places). Nobody does it with Philanthropy in mind! They do it to make money! To find treasures! They rarely share all that they know, but are usually more than happy to assist people in helping evaluate what they have.

I will say one last thing about treasure hunting. You can take most all the books out there, and throw them in the trash. Take the basic stories, but when a Treasure Book Author tells you where to find the treasure, FORGET IT! I have found that 95% of the book authors made up a LOT of crap because they liked to see their names in print, and the other 5% shared only a portion of what they knew, and most changed the locations of many of the stories. THEY ALL HAD STORIES THEY WERE SECRETLY WORKING ON.

Best-Mike

 

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[CanadianTrout]

Thanks Mike, well said. Boy I couldn't for the life of me see that fish until u pointed it out.

Good post bro! 8)

 

[djui5]

Note how the mouth is open Great post Mike

 

[alfonso]

Oh my God the gang is almost complete they are just waiting for Springfield and SWR to sign in and the Negative Treasure Hunting Forum is born. hahahahahahehehehehehihihihihihohohohoho.

 

[desertmoons]

Thanks gollum for the thoughtful post.


I guess when gold fever gets in people blood they will tend to believe anything from any source.
A very good public service announcement.

 

[Springfield]

Oh my God the gang is almost complete they are just waiting for Springfield and SWR to sign in and the Negative Treasure Hunting Forum is born. hahahahahahehehehehehihihihihihohohohoho.

Sure as hell wouldn't want to ruin your party with reality.

 

[gollum]

Oh my God the gang is almost complete they are just waiting for Springfield and SWR to sign in and the Negative Treasure Hunting Forum is born. hahahahahahehehehehehihihihihihohohohoho.

Gee, Alfonso,

Did you actually read the post? You are starting to sound a lot like rangler

Maybe if you read the post you will get the drift. While I won't speak for anybody else, I will say that I am just realistic. If you want somebody to give an honest appraisal of a site or marker, I will be more than happy. If you are just looking for somebody to to tell you that you are "right there, almost on top of a fabulous treasure", then you are in the wrong place.

Best-Mike

 

[truckinbutch]

While I will gear this post towards newbies, I think EVERYONE should read this! Newbies will get some truth, whackos will get some light, scammers will get a wake up call (hopefully).

Due to a lot of questions I have seen asked and some conflicts I have had recently (actually the same conflicts with different people over the years I have been a member here), I just got the idea to get a few things regarding Treasure Hunting, Mine Hunting, Cache Hunting, Treasure Signs/Symbols/Markers/Monuments out in the open, and above board.

For the rest of this thread, I will substitute "marker" for "Signs, Symbols, Markers, Monuments."

FIRST: That bent tree, rock pile, strange crack, or whatever it is you found, is probably not a man made marker (unless it has VERY obvious carvings on it). Mother Nature makes many strange and wonderful rock and plant formations. Enough trips to the mountains and deserts will show you that.

SECOND: In the FIRST paragraph, I said PROBABLY, and PROBABLY means just that. It means that there is a chance that what you have found is man made. IF it is man made, there will ALWAYS be a mark to show it was made by man and not nature (most times it will be an arrow, >, A, or S), but I know time and the elements take a toll on everything exposed, so............ IF what you have found IS man made, THERE WILL BE MORE! All those markers do is show how to get to the next marker. That is another way to be sure yours is real! FIND THE NEXT ONE! If you find more than one, then CONGRATULATIONS! you have found markers. Do they mark a treasure? 99% likely THEY DO NOT. Because the Spanish had tons of trails through the SouthWest, you will likely find thousands of TRAIL MARKERS. You will also find many markers that lead to water (which in some areas was more valuable than gold). Here is a man made monument that leads to water:

Some of you may recognize this marker. You may have seen a black and white picture of it. It says: "Follow the pointer for ONE LEAGUE (2.16 miles) to find water." How do I know that? I know that a "FISH" monument is one that leads to water. How do I know THAT? Because Charles Kenworthy spent many years and a small fortune getting copies of Spanish Documents that said so. I recommend getting his books if you are seriously going to do this.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION TIP HERE!!!!! When someone says that something means a certain thing, ALWAYS ask them how they arrived at their conclusion. ALWAYS! I have seen one person interpret a symbol from Colorado as a Jesuit Treasure Symbol. Problem is, the Jesuits weren't in Colorado!!!

Follow the numbers on the pic:

1. The EYE
2. The TIP OF THE SNOUT
3. The Gill
4. The MOUTH
5. The BOTTOM JAW (POINTER)
6. The single DOT symbol (to the left of the 6) that means ONE LEAGUE
7. The ARROW (to the left of the 7) that points to the Distance Symbol

Now, without giving away the location, I can tell you that a little over two miles away, there IS a water source. This is a REALLY great monument, but has NOTHING to do with any treasures. This monument probably took all of three or four hours for 4 or 5 guys to carve into the sandstone.

THIRDLY: IF you have found a real honest-to-goodness treasure marker, BE VERY CAREFUL! Real honest-to-goodness treasures and rich hidden mines were USUALLY booby trapped (see my thread on Death Traps).

Here is an honest-to-goodness treasure sign. It is a 50 foot tall heart carved into the bedrock on the side of a mountain. A heart was MAINLY used as a treasure marker for gold (there are other meanings, but none apply at this site).

If you really are a newbie, and want to know what it is you have found, then feel free to post it and get opinions. You will find that there are some people that think it is all BS, and they are just rocks and interesting natural cracks and erosion. You will also get whacky stuff (Solomon's Mines, Templar Treasure, etc). BE VERY CAREFUL TAKING ADVICE FROM PEOPLE! Many people who claim they hold all the secrets don't! FREE ADVICE IS WORTH EXACTLY WHAT YOU PAY FOR IT! When somebody tells you something, take that info and file it away. Do your own research to see if that is possible.

Now, we get to me and what I think. Contrary to what some whackos think, YES! I do believe there are still treasures waiting to be found out there. Can anybody find them? ABSOLUTELY! Not wanting to get all cryptic and conspiratorial sounding, but there are some things that nobody will ever read online or in print. The people that have gained that knowledge, have done so over years of researching and countless dollars spent (in the right places). Nobody does it with Philanthropy in mind! They do it to make money! To find treasures! They rarely share all that they know, but are usually more than happy to assist people in helping evaluate what they have.

I will say one last thing about treasure hunting. You can take most all the books out there, and throw them in the trash. Take the basic stories, but when a Treasure Book Author tells you where to find the treasure, FORGET IT! I have found that 95% of the book authors made up a LOT of crap because they liked to see their names in print, and the other 5% shared only a portion of what they knew, and most changed the locations of many of the stories. THEY ALL HAD STORIES THEY WERE SECRETLY WORKING ON.

Best-Mike

Don't know how you could have explained this much better.

 

[creolegirl]

thanks for the info. i agree with you. i have been trying to work out the meaning of signs at my site and got some info from people who just gave me the run arround. But the other day i sat there for hours looking into the symbols and realised that my gut instinct was right in the first place. now i cant wait to get out there and recover it...

 

[seekeroforo]

Gollum,

I am very new to this great topic of history unfolding in front of us. I have always been fascinated with this stuff and until recently never had a place to call my own. I will never convey the message of being a naysayer here, but can you please (please), inform me on your knowledge about the Jesuits abscence from Colorado?

I would be forever in your debt! Thanks in advance, I look forward to your knowledge.

Seeker

~The debtor is forever a slave to the lender~

 

[gollum]

Gollum,

I am very new to this great topic of history unfolding in front of us. I have always been fascinated with this stuff and until recently never had a place to call my own. I will never convey the message of being a naysayer here, but can you please (please), inform me on your knowledge about the Jesuits abscence from Colorado?

I would be forever in your debt! Thanks in advance, I look forward to your knowledge.

Seeker

~The debtor is forever a slave to the lender~

With the exception of French and English Jesuits on the East Coast, the Spanish Jesuit Mission System only went as far North as about Tucson, Az. or Santa Fe, NM. Granted, they were part of Spanish Expeditions that traveled all over the MidWest, but none of them ever stayed in any one place past the expedition.

Now, this is true for what I call the "Classical" Jesuit Colonial Period (1590-1767). After their reintroduction in 1814, they spread out a lot more, but all of their movements and goings on were well documented by that time.

The only secrets the Order has been able to keep are from the Classical Period.

I have said this many times to loads of treasure hunters: LEARN! LEARN everything you can about the known history of the subjects of your research. That helps you weed out BS that can't possibly be true because it goes against things we absolutely know to be true.

Say, for instance, you read a story that says the Jesuit Fathers buried a fortune in gold in 1773. Now, if you have done even the smallest amount of homework, you would know for a fact that all the Jesuits were arrested and shipped to Europe in 1767. So, either the story is BS or they got the dates wrong.

If you read a story that says Father Javier Saeta SJ oversaw the hiding of a load of silver bars in 1701, you would know this story is BS because Father Saeta was murdered in a Pima uprising in 1695.

I will say this: There are TONS of bull$hit stories about Jesuit Treasures. Most of them can easily be shot down with known facts about the Jesuits. Eliminate everything you can. Then segregate the possible from the probable, and spend your time researching the Probable Stories. You cut down your odds of chasing red herrings that way. It also saves you much time and money.

Best-Mike

 

[gollum]

thanks for the info. i agree with you. i have been trying to work out the meaning of signs at my site and got some info from people who just gave me the run arround. But the other day i sat there for hours looking into the symbols and realised that my gut instinct was right in the first place. now i cant wait to get out there and recover it...

Creolegirl,

Where are you located? Your name got my attention as I am from New Orleans. I moved to SoCal in 1995.

Best-Mike

 

[seekeroforo]

Gollum,

Thanks for the info!

So they may have been part of an expedition outside of their "norm", would their presence be known through monuments and markings from those or were the originators of said expeditions responsible for the trails?

~Seeker~

 

[ghostdog]

Mike ,what happened to the heart photo ?, b,did you personally follow the fish clue to the water source and was it dried up ?,thanks,and good post.

 

[ghostdog]

Oh ,and 1 more very minor insignificant comment from me, the Jesuits were in Colorado in there travels,only it wasn"t Colorado at that time, and they interacted various Indie tribes,collected imformation and gave out trinkets. A black robe, F. Kino,was one of the AAA,A-list travelers. Pizza anyone.

 

[gollum]

Seeker,

I wouldn't count on the Jesuits spending any time making monuments during a Spanish Expedition. One thing you have to remember about expeditions: they were one time travels. They may have made markers to help guide them when heading back to the South. The only times they would build intricate monuments is for trails that would be traveled over and over again. A good example of this would be the Anza Trail from the Santa Crus River Valley in AZ to Monterrey, Ca. Beginning in 1776, Capt. Juan Bautista De Anza took groups of Spanish Settlers to the Pacific Coast of California via the Anza-Borrego Desert and Santa Rosa Mountains. I have driven and hiked the route from near the Mexican Border to Coyote Pass (beyond that it is a private ranch). The entire route is well monumented. That fish monument is actually one of those monuments. There's probably not a 100ft square patch of Anza-Borrego Desert that I haven't hiked or driven over.


Father Kino never traveled further North than the Salt River in Arizona, nor further West than the Colorado River (by land). He did go to Baja via a ship, but never made it by land. He did go to a point close enough to where he could see that California was not an island as was previously thought. Why do I know this to be fact? EASY! Father Kino kept detailed diaries of every one of his expeditions. They have all been translated and are available for purchase at any time. I have them and have read every one.

Best-Mike

 

[desertmoons]

Yep..i think it might be how you define colorado today vs back then. This is one from mid to south co today.

Which might be a different story than other areas. To me this looks Spanish. Does not mean it is very old.

 

[Shortstack]

desertmoons,
That is a fantastic photo. I see at least 2 death trap possibilities so be very careful. Can you give us a good idea of the scale of this area? Are those shrubs or trees?

 

[desertmoons]

I realized I might have come across as abrupt or wrong conclusions drawn

Let me say i have nothing but respect for Gollum and his thoughts on things. I've never seen him be anything but helpful to people even if they do not realize it at the time hehe Hard truths hard to take sometimes. When he speaks I listen intently lol


That being said, this monument seems on the face of it to bely the findings no extensive Spanish operations found during research.

But does it?

Several questions come to mind. What period is this formation. During the 1800s and especially after the US took over the colorado/nm territory were spanish crews hired or funded to do mining? what is the history of this place.

Note gollum mentioned their Mission system did not extend into colorado. He did not speak of other things.

So draw your own conclusions, do your own research. This monument is just one piece of the puzzle.

Short stack i do not want to hijack Gollums excellent thread - so will move this pic to a new post.

 

[gollum]

I realized I might have come across as abrupt or wrong conclusions drawn

Let me say i have nothing but respect for Gollum and his thoughts on things. I've never seen him be anything but helpful to people even if they do not realize it at the time hehe Hard truths hard to take sometimes. When he speaks I listen intently lol


That being said, this monument seems on the face of it to bely the findings no extensive Spanish operations found during research.

But does it?

Several questions come to mind. What period is this formation. During the 1800s and especially after the US took over the colorado/nm territory were spanish crews hired or funded to do mining? what is the history of this place.

Note gollum mentioned their Mission system did not extend into colorado. He did not speak of other things.

So draw your own conclusions, do your own research. This monument is just one piece of the puzzle.

Short stack i do not want to hijack Gollums excellent thread - so will move this pic to a new post.

Hey DM,

I said it was not Jesuit from their Colonial Period (1590-1767). It could be Spanish or made sometime later.

.................and Thanks

Mike