Reactions to the announcement by eccentric millionaire Forrest Fenn that his hoard had been found range from surprise to delight and disbeliefTreasure hunters have reacted with shock, delight and disbelief to the news that a chest containing gems, gold and antiques worth up to $2m has reportedly been found in the Rocky Mountains.“I’ve had every emotion under the sun,” said Sacha Dent of Kansas, who dedicated years to a quest that resulted in the deaths of up to five people.“First it was shock and sadness, then on Monday a mix of happiness, relief and excitement,” said Dent. “I’ve invested six years into this. Now it’s finally over. I am very happy for the person who found it.”An eccentric New Mexico millionaire named Forrest Fenn said he hid the bronze chest in the Rockies in 2010. The only clues to the prize’s whereabouts were located in a cryptic 24-line poem written by Fenn and added to the last pages of his autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase.“Begin it where warm waters halt / And take it in the canyon down, / Not far, but too far to walk. / Put in below the home of Brown,” reads the second stanza of Fenn’s poem that would send treasure hunters to scour five western states. On 7 June, Fenn, a former air force fighter pilot turned art and antiquities dealer, told the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper that a man from the eastern US had recently located his treasure, which has variously been valued anywhere from $1m to $2m. According to Fenn’s website, it was found “under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago”.Neither the name of the finder nor the location of the treasure has been disclosed. “I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot,” Fenn wrote on his website. The discovery marks the end of a modern-day treasure hunt unlike any in history.“This has been a horrible ending to something that has been so extremely important in my life for eight years,” said Cynthia Meachum, who is part of a vibrant “chase” community of Fenn treasure seekers. “It has affected me a lot more than I thought it ever would.”According to Fenn, the idea that came to inspire so many was conceived in 1988 after he was diagnosed with cancer. The prospect of death made him think to leave part of his fortune, and even his own bones, in a treasure chest somewhere in the mountains. When Fenn recovered, the idea persisted, and he meticulously curated the contents of the chest for years. Fenn described a “necklace that’s about 2,000 years old, and it has fetishes made out of quartz crystal and cast gold jaguar claws, and it’s absolutely wonderful”, in a 2018 interview with the Guardian. “There are two ancient Chinese jade carvings of human faces. You just want to cry when you see them.”Fenn hoped the treasure would be an adventure that could get people “off the couch” and into the outdoors. “He provided us all with great adventure,” said Dent, who searched twice a week for years in northern New Mexico.Yet in the course of looking for Fenn’s chest, as many as five people have died, and Fenn has been criticized for endangering lives, enabling an unhealthy obsession, and even lying about the treasure’s existence.“I would implore him that he stop this nonsense,” the New Mexico state police chief, Pete Kassetas, said after a treasure hunter’s body was retrieved from the Rio Grande River in 2017, days after he had gone missing. He told ABC: “I want people to have fun, and I want people to be adventurous, but the reality is when you have $2m or so, as it’s rumored to be, at stake, people make poor decisions.”There are the stories of people quitting their jobs and emptying their bank accounts to join the chase. Fenn himself has received death threats and been the victim of break-in attempts at his house. Others have claimed the whole thing is an outright hoax. “I believe there never was any hidden treasure,” said Linda Bilyeu, the ex-wife of Randy Bilyeu, who died searching for the treasure. “Fenn is a corrupt man who seeks attention any which way he could achieve.”The controversy has continued even after its purported discovery. The absence of photos or information on the location of the chest has led some to question whether it was found at all – though Fenn has promised to elaborate in the coming days.“Give us something, so we know if we were close,” said Meachum, who made 200 trips and invested thousands of hours. “ I have no closure at this point.”“A third think it’s a hoax,” said Dent. “A third think it was never found. And then there are the rest of us that think this is great. Someone found it. Now let’s move on with our lives.”Dent, who estimates she has taken 300 trips in search of the treasure, added that no good can come of knowing its location. “What if you were 100% right and just missed it? Or what if you find out you didn’t have anything part of it right, and had wasted all that time? As long as we don’t know the location, we can each be right in our own minds,” she said.Even so, she felt enriched by the quest, if not the actual treasure.The victor “did something tens of thousands of people have failed to do. If I could say anything to the finder, I would tell him congratulations. We wish you all the happiness in the world.”
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