It became known who exactly found the treasures of the American millionaire Forrest Fenn, reports The Guardian.
On Monday, December 7, Outside magazine published article a >, in which the identity of the treasure hunter is revealed for the first time. It turned out to be 32-year-old medical student from the American state of Michigan, Jonathan Stuef. The name was confirmed by millionaire’s grandson Shiloh Forrest Old in a statement published by on the website of Dal Neitzel, who was a close friend of Fenn.
Steph originally intended to remain anonymous, and Fenn did his best to help him with that. The treasure hunter had to give his name only because of a lawsuit. It was filed by 47-year-old Barbara Andersen, who unsuccessfully searched for Fenn’s treasure in New Mexico, spent thousands of dollars on it and found nothing. In court, she claimed that someone had hacked into her computer, stolen her transcript of Fenn’s poems, and followed her while traveling.
In 2010 Fenn announced that he hid a chest with treasures. The treasure consisted of ancient coins, gold nuggets, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds and other valuables with a total value of one to two million dollars (up to 137 million rubles). Its coordinates were encoded in verses that are quoted in Fenn’s book The Passion of the Chase.
Thousands of treasure hunters tried to find treasures, at least five of them died during search time. In June 2020, Fenn announced that the treasure had been found. According to him, the treasure hunter sent him a photograph of the chest as proof. At the beginning of September Fenn died at the age of 90.
After the death of millionaire Jonathan Steph published on the Internet memories of the search for treasures and subsequent meeting with Fenn. The treasure hunter did not mention his name, but admitted that the chest was hidden in Wyoming, and he himself belongs to the millennial generation. Due to the lack of details, many participants in the searches decided that the treasure was either not found, or never existed.