I'm glad you finally responded Mike. I figured if I provoked you enough, you would post something! At least I know you haven't kicked the bucket. You don't know me but I worked with John Grasson for years on the Lost Ship story and I've inherited all his files after he passed away. We are talking about a lot of stuff! I know you guys were friends and I'm sure you miss him like I do. He was a "one of a kind." But you are correct that there is a lot of BS surrounding the Lost Ship story. You are also correct that there is probably no treasure involved. My motive for spending years researching this story is because I'm a history buff and if a European ship did visit what is now Imperial Valley over 300 years ago, it rewrites the whole history of that region.
Regarding Capt. Iturbi, all the Lost Ship book/magazine stories about Iturbi and his pearling ship can be traced to a 1939 fictional book. We know that because there are no stories about Iturbi until after that book was published. Moreover, both John and I scoured the travel accounts from Iturbi's crew and there's no evidence he sailed up that water channel to Lake Cahuilla. Nor did he die there. In fact he went on to have an illustrious career after that.
Yes, there are many stories about lost ships in the desert but many of them have to do with ships that were pulled away from their moorings in Port Isabel near the Colorado delta in the late 1800's and a storm and tidal bores then washed these adrift ships up the various rivers, like the Hardy river. To this day, you can find wrecks of these ships scattered all over the Laguna Salada and south, but these are ships from the late 1800's and nothing to get excited about.
The "Old Prospector" story you mentioned is about a desert rat named Butcherknife Ike. He was a real person and he may have found the wreckage of a ship. However, he never found any pearls and he saw the wreckage in the Split Mt. Canyon area not Coyote Canyon. We've tracked down descendants of the family who used to allow him to camp out on their property and they confirmed he never found any treasure. He is long gone and no one has ever been able to corroborate his story.
The Norwegian guy you refer to is Nels Jacobson and he was a real rancher and his story may actually be the best documented story. We have obtained an audio tape of a 1966 interview with Jacobson's former ranch hand. This ranch hand was in his 80's at the time but gave many details about finding the wreckage of a ship on the property and using some of the word to build a pig pen. We also know that Mrs. Jacobson did find some jewels in small chest found deep inside the wreckage and that Nels took the rubies to L.A. and sold them to a pawn shop. We've confirmed that the pawn ship in question did exist. We also know that a short time later, Nels sold his ranch and moved to L.A. and lived very well the rest of his life. After many years of digging, we have identified where this property was and have received permission to excavate the area where we think remnants of the ship may still be buried a few feet underground. However, we don't know if this ship was THE "lost ship of the Desert" from the 16th century or a more modern smaller ship that a storm washed up the New River, which flows right next to the Jacobson farm.
I think the most interesting and credible stories are some stories we've traced to Indians from the 1800's. We give these stories more credibility because they were around before the "lost treasure" books, magazines were published and before all the sensationalism hit. My team does think that sometime between 1600 and 1700, a European ship from either England, Holland or Spain did sail up a water channel that geologists we've interviewed believe existed prior to 1700, but came and went several times over the last 1,000 years. This water channel did connect at times to Lake Cahuilla and when a ship or ships sailed up this channel, it certainly created some vivid Indian stories. Geologists also tell us the lake was very unstable in terms of the sea level and this may have been the result of earth quake activity in the area. In any case, we believe at least one ship was grounded and that this is the "Grand daddy" of all the lost ship stories. And yes, there could have been more than one ship involved.
Finally, a few words about the guy who found a ship and used it to build something in his house. Our sources told us he was a former soft drink company distributor who worked in Brawley and who is now retired and still alive. We tracked him down and actually visited him at his home. He had heard about the lost ship story but denied finding ship wreckage or using any wood from a ship to build anything in his house. We have checked the location where ship remnants are allegedly buried under the sand dunes but without GPR, there's no way anyone is able to detect wood that far below the surface. I would like to compare notes with you about this story Mike. Can you email me at
scbaldwin7@gmail.com?
? Ceramic dishes were relatively rare in that period, in fact dishes were, you simply ate out of the common cooking vessel.
are looking at a story that evolved over about 15 years! It started with the BS Juan Iturbide Pearl Ship. That didn't have any info you could use to look for anything any way. There are A CRAP-TON of Salton Sink Lost Spanish/Viking Ship Stories. READ A FREAKING BOOK SOMETIME! LOL Iturbi was just the first. Another is supposed to be NorthWest of Borrego Springs, around Coyote Canyon/Desert Gardens. This is where the baskets of pearls come in when the old prospector took cover from a sandstorm. After the storm stripped off the sand, he saw he was protected by an old ship. He found baskets of pearls in the hold, but when he went back, the winds must have buried it again. Another BS Story. Another Lost Spanish Ship Story is the Norwegian Sounding Guy that had crops out by Cibola (IIRC) that supposedly found his ship underground on his farm and it supposedly had a buttload of precious jewels and pearls (Oroblanco knows that one best), but its another BS Story.
