[shuffling]
[man clears throat]
[Forrest] So there's over 2,000 hits on the blog in… in the past 15 minutes.
[Shiloh] Mm-hmm.
[phone ringing]
Yeah, it's a big deal.
[mysterious music playing]
[Forrest] Hello?
- [man] Hey, Forrest. - Yeah.
Hey, I'm sorry to call you so late.
Who is… who is this?
I just wanna know if it really has been found.
It has been found, yes.
Really?
Uh-huh.
Um…
Well, thank you.
Well, you're certainly welcome, sir, and good luck to you.
[triumphant music playing]
The hunt is officially over.
The unfindable has been found.
Someone has apparently claimed the Forrest Fenn treasure worth millions.
I was like, "Holy cow."
- [adventurous music playing] - Like, you're joking, right?
Like, this isn't true.
I thought, "Oh boy. What's going on here?"
[woman] The coveted prize, sought after for a decade,
now found in the Rocky Mountain wilderness.
My phone started dinging and blowing up, getting messages from all sorts of people,
and I thought, "Oh boy. Somebody's making something up."
But then Forrest put a message on his web page
to say that the treasure had been found
under a canopy of stars
in the lush… forest of the Rocky Mountains.
[music fades]
[Cynthia] It sucked.
Let's just come right out and say it sucked
because all he said was it was found,
and there was no other details to go with it.
[intriguing music playing]
[man] When I spoke to Forrest Fenn,
he said he was partly relieved, partly saddened,
but there is no doubt in his mind that his treasure has been found.
[Shiloh] You get an email every other day saying that somebody found the treasure.
- How is this different? - [Forrest] He sent me pictures.
[Shiloh] And is it as you remember it? The photographs are as you remember it?
[Forrest] Yeah.
- Just so compelling. - [Shiloh] Okay.
I bet it's gonna go fast.
Tomorrow morning's gonna be a different world for you.
[music intensifies]
[Cynthia] It was so frustrating, and it sucked doubly
because we had no answers.
We didn't… we didn't know where it was.
We didn't know what the solutions to the poem were.
And, of course, the other thing was...
Who found it?
[music fades]
[man] Did you find Forrest Fenn's treasure?
Did I? Oh man.
[all chuckling]
That's a whole different story, brother.
[mysterious music playing]
- [tinkling] - [whooshing]
[triumphant music playing]
[music fades]
[man 1] For years, I would see Forrest around Santa Fe,
and I would always say hello to him at lunch or whatever, just to say hi,
'cause it's the way people are here.
And then one day, he showed up at my office,
and this is the first I'd ever heard of the chase or the hunt.
He said, "I've hidden a box somewhere in the country."
"Can I get some advice?"
- I was like, "Wow." I was blown away. - [mysterious music playing]
[man 2] You were like, "This will not be like a normal client."
- [both laughing] - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Then, couple years later, I can't remember exactly,
Forrest gets an email,
and it says, "Dear Mr. Fenn,
I think I found your property."
I think it lays out, "I don't wanna go get it without your permission,
and, certainly, you can tell me what to do," and that sort of thing.
Well, Forrest had received hundreds of emails
of "Mr. Fenn, I found your property."
"Mr. Fenn, I found the treasure chest. Mr. Fenn, I'm the finder."
And Forrest always would say, "Send me pictures."
[camera clicking]
Once we bisected the triangle, I'm just going crazy
'cause it's… everything's kinda synchronizing.
The F, the cipher, the blaze markers.
[Forrest] If you've been wise And found the blaze
Look quickly down your quest to cease
- [bear snarls] - [Christopher] I'm like, "No fucking way."
A fucking bear sculpture.
[mimics explosion]
That's when we sent him everything. "Hey, this is the art. We're done."
Blah-blah-blah.
That night, when we got back to town… [snaps]
…boom, he calls it.
"Treasure's been found. Treasure's been found."
- [man 3] Right after you had emailed? - Yeah. Yeah.
[Karl] And so, you know, Forrest made the call,
and he said, "Let's… let's disclose it."
[woman] Now we've learned someone found the treasure
and sent a picture of it to Fenn.
I really wanna know who it was.
And we're like, "Oh my God."
"That's us."
What a day today has been.
[man] Who found the treasure? Fenn refuses to say.
"The guy who found it does not want his name mentioned."
He did offer this one clue.
"He's from back east."
- [Sherri] This is picturesque, right? - Yeah.
♪ We were chasing the clouds away ♪
[Sherri laughs]
[somber music playing]
You know, I… I didn't wanna believe that it was found,
but… in my heart, I knew it was found.
I'm just like… You know, I… I was heartbroken.
I don't know what else to say. I was… I was… I was…
For myself, for my family.
But I still wanna know if it was found in my location, which it could've been,
see if I was right or wrong. That would've been satisfying.
But then, of course, we got a flat tire,
had to turn around and head back to the hotel.
- Funny. - [Sherri] It is a beautiful moon.
It'll be great when we're stuck here for four hours in the middle of the night.
Sadly, we weren't the ones to find it. Somebody beat us to it,
and I… assume that they went to the spot I was trying to get to and found it.
So I don't know any answers
that helped me just put it to bed where I don't ever think about it again.
I still think about it.
And I'm just hoping there's some brilliant ending
that hasn't been told yet.
[suspenseful music playing]
That would be awesome.
See, everybody thought it was a box of gold
that they were gonna find out in the Rockies.
- [music fades] - But what we figured out was the truth.
We found the bear statue that was intended to be found
at the end of the poem in the Lewis and Clark cipher,
and I believe that's… you know, it's a proxy treasure,
and once you solve the proxy treasure
and send him the information of how you got there,
then, and only then, will you be rewarded.
Kinda like Willy Wonka.
Charlie.
- [Christopher] I thought it was bigger… - My boy.
[Christopher] …than just a box of gold.
You won!
[man 1] We just didn't understand why Forrest hasn't reached out to us yet.
I mean, he's obviously talking about us.
[somber music playing]
[man] Online, a community of treasure hunters is going wild.
[woman] Social media, in particular, is in disbelief.
This poem was obviously written
to be solved, uh, any way you want it to be.
So, at this point, there's this large community of people
who've just spent years of their lives and made untold other sacrifices,
and there's nothing.
They don't learn who found it. They don't learn where they found it.
They don't learn, you know, how close they themselves came.
There's… there's nothing to just give them some taste of resolution.
We didn't have any answers to anything,
only that it was found.
The growing angst in the community was reaching a tipping point
where information from Forrest was becoming almost a necessity.
I said, "We have to get information out there
that would bring people a sense of certainty that it was over."
[music fades]
So that's when the photographs were released.
[intriguing music playing]
[Justin] Despite the frustration, I have to admit,
I felt a… a twinge of envy
when I saw what was in the chest.
Gold nuggets and coins
and all sorts of things that were just dazzling to the eye.
It was a big eye-catcher.
My first reaction, I think, was, like, I was angry
because there's just two pictures that come out,
and they're real close up of the chest with a log,
and Forrest said, "This is where it was found,"
a couple feet from where it was found, right?
With no other information.
I'm like, "What the hell?" Treasure's been found? We didn't find no treasure.
So get on there, let's see what they're saying.
Where's it been found?
What can we say? There's grass. I see wood.
[laughing]
We have a picture of a chest sitting on a dry ground
with no evidence of when the photo was taken,
no evidence of where the location was taken.
It was all erased.
Why would they erase all that if they had nothing to hide?
Do you see what I'm saying?
[man] The original picture, the PNG, the metadata had been erased, etc, etc.
Oh, come on, now.
Like… like, some… something is going on that we're… we're not aware of.
Oh, let's take some calls. Let's take some calls.
[Justin] Of course, you can imagine what that looked like to the community.
People went nuts.
[music intensifies]
[ringing tone]
[man 1] So I called Forrest.
- Forrest answers the phone. - [Forrest] Hello?
- I start crying. - [music fades]
- And he's like, "Can… can I help you?" - [somber music playing]
And I said, "Forrest, is it over?"
And he's like, "I don't quite understand."
I said, "Forrest, this is Chris Hurst."
"You very well know who I am and what I'm doing."
[as Forrest] "Uh, well, yes, sir. What can I help you with?"
I said… I told him, I said, "I'm calling your bluff,"
and he's like… he's like, uh, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"
He said, "Well, what do you want me to do?"
"The treasure's found," and he just hung up.
[rumble]
And that was it.
That was it.
[sniffles]
[Christopher] It was a defeat.
We were in such a slump. We were, like, so confused.
"What just happened?"
I begged Forrest to tell us we were wrong.
I begged him to.
You know, he did it for others.
He did it for other people.
He said, "No, you're wrong. No, you're wrong."
That… I don't understand that, you know?
[sniffles]
Even after it's all said and done. Why couldn't he just do that?
Yeah.
[sniffles]
[Forrest] Why are people asking me if it's been found
when I said in writing that it had been found?
- These people just don't wanna believe it. - [Shiloh] Yeah.
[Forrest] They've searched 50 times. They spent a bunch of money.
- I mean, there's no closure for them. - [Shiloh] Right.
[Forrest] It's gonna be hard to keep telling them no.
[uneasy music playing]
[Karl] There was a tension building.
You know, people were obsessed with a solution,
and that uncovered a whole raft of conspiracy theorists.
[man] Hey, guys, there is a lot of mysterious things going on,
and a lotta things that aren't adding up
to where and when this thing was even found.
[music intensifies]
The more time passed without any new information,
the more conspiracies were… were flying.
[woman] Okay, we're rolling.
[Ben] Was there a real treasure? Was there more than one chest?
Had Forrest really even hidden it?
Or, in an attempt to protect his family,
had Forrest actually sent his grandson to retrieve the treasure?
[camera clicks]
[Cynthia] There were so many people that really did believe
that Forrest sent Shiloh to get it.
I mean, he was approaching 89 years old,
getting 100 emails a day,
and people were dying.
And so the conspiracy started that he was ready for this to end.
Do you believe there was a finder?
Um…
"I don't know" is the answer, um,
but it's a good question.
A lot of people were saying, "This is a fraud."
"This isn't how it happened."
"This stuff isn't true."
"Forrest is lying."
Ask me one question at a time.
Read it again.
[Karl] So I said to him,
"Let's disclose the state
because you could… you could get rid of a lot of folks, right?"
So I thought, "That'll do it."
Right? "That'll get rid of a whole lot of folks."
- Didn't get rid of anybody. - [unsettling music playing]
Forrest Fenn still won't tell us exactly where his famous treasure was found,
but he has narrowed it down to a state.
Wyoming.
You know, I always thought that if I ever knew the state, that would be enough.
Hell no! That… that only made it almost worse.
Immediately, people were starting to file lawsuits.
A woman who claims she was on the cusp of finding Forrest Fenn's famed fortune
has filed a lawsuit saying her solution was stolen.
People became fixated on something they thought must be true.
And, for me, that obsession is unhealthy
because it has no end.
[somber music playing]
[Cynthia] The fact it was over was just such a bummer.
Just so disappointing.
The adventure of my lifetime had just ended.
Eight years, you know, later, it was over,
and we still had no answers.
All we got were a few more pictures
of Forrest, you know, with the treasure chest…
[intriguing music playing]
…and a lot of the pieces are there on the table,
but it still doesn't show a finder.
So, basically, it was just as vague
and as frustrating and disgusting as before.
And, yeah, it made me angry.
It made a lot of people angry.
[music fades]
We were like, "This is messed up."
"This sucks."
[whimsical music playing]
But then I was so, so lucky.
Forrest invited me to come to his house.
It was all very cryptic and mysterious, but I was so intrigued,
so I went to Santa Fe immediately, and I saw him.
[music fades]
I was just so excited
'cause it's like, "Holy shit. I'm gonna finally get some answers."
[adventurous music playing]
Of course, there was… the pandemic was still going on,
so he had the… the chairs out under the pine trees,
six feet apart so you could take your mask off,
and… and you could actually have a conversation.
And, um, he was… he was so…
even though he had just turned 90,
he was so, um, spry that day.
Mentally, physically,
still the twinkle,
the enthusiasm talking about it.
And he basically said,
"You know, Cynthia, you can't ask me anything about the treasure chest."
"Just be patient." He said, "I will tell you everything."
"I will tell you the end. It… it will all come out."
- [music fades] - And nine days later, he died.
[poignant music playing]
[woman] Forrest Fenn, the iconic creator of the ten-year treasure hunt,
has passed away at the age of 90.
[Justin] I remember feeling sadness
and some level of disappointment,
not in him, but just in the situation
and… the real potential that the truth may never be known.
I hope, and my intent of this interview is,
that everything that I say to you will be the truth.
Not my version of the truth,
not my family's version of the truth,
but actual fact as to what happened from my perspective.
[camera clicks]
My grandfather died on Labor Day shortly after his 90th birthday.
He turned 90 in August. Yeah.
It was, uh, just a massive heart attack. It was quick.
Maybe not the way that he would've liked to have gone,
but not bad either.
[somber music playing]
I mean, no hospitals, no tubes.
No drama.
I thought maybe this was the end of the story.
Of course it was not.
[uneasy music playing]
I thought maybe that he had left something in the will
for the person who had solved the treasure by the proxy treasure.
That was my hope.
[somber music playing]
So I emailed Karl, and I gave him our names,
and I said, "Is there absolutely anything in the will
that's supposed to be coming to us?"
Dozens of people believed Forrest had taken care of them
in his will or in his trust
and that they would be by to sign the documents
and to receive their reward,
and I was like, "Wow."
"Uh, no. I'm sorry. I don't know who you are."
[Chris] And that's what… that's how I got more mad than anything.
I was like, "That's it. You're not gonna play games with me."
"We ran your cipher. We ran the poem."
"We went to the X. We dug there. No treasure."
Bullshit. Bullshit.
[tense music playing]
[Shiloh] There were people that were becoming very threatening,
saying really vile things to us.
And I remember thinking to myself,
"I don't know what else more there is to explain."
[music fades]
It's probably nothing but bills, but sometimes we get lucky.
[closes mailbox]
This… this is something that's probably from a… from a searcher.
They spelled my name wrong. There's no return address.
As a matter of fact, I recognize this envelope.
This same person has sent me multiples of these in the last two weeks.
Let's see what it says.
"I'm confused as to what to do next,
but I keep thinking that the cats in the book
were skinned and on the roof,
on the roof of a house."
"Your house is your home, and you 'died' at home,"
in quotation marks.
"I guess we will wait for something with instructions
telling me what to do next."
"Take care and thank you again for EVERYTHING," in all caps.
"Me."
[unsettling music playing]
Okay.
[Ben] The Shiloh theory, for me, still seems like a reasonable one.
I mean, it was unlikely
that Forrest himself would've gone and gotten the treasure.
Shiloh was sort of the obvious person he would have get it for him,
and
that made a lot of sense to me.
People are certain that he and I together went and retrieved the treasure chest
out from under their noses.
No!
In fact, before my grandfather died, the finder did come to the house,
uh, did introduce himself,
sat on that couch right there.
It was just me
and the two people in the world that knew where it was hidden.
And that's the truth.
[camera clicks]
The only request that was made by the finder
was that his identity continue to remain a secret,
which, of course, my grandfather was very happy to oblige,
as was the family, uh,
rightfully so.
But, after a while,
that became a much more complicated request.
- [tense music playing] - [dog barking]
[man] I'm not trying to creep on your house, man, at all.
I'm not trying to--
[Shiloh] I've been watching on my camera for three minutes.
You guys are out here literally walking around.
- Yeah, we are. We were. - Okay, so why are you here?
Um… Like I said, I was...
[Shiloh] I guess I just don't understand what your purpose is.
- What are you trying to accomplish? - [man] I…
[Zoe] People would constantly show up at the gate,
and I would say, "You know what? I'm… I'm really sorry my dad died."
"I'm really sorry that my dad died and left you hanging."
I'm trying to accomplish, um, how I complete
what… what your, uh, relative created, is all.
[Shiloh] You gotta give me more information. I can help you--
- [man] The treasure hunt, basically. - [Shiloh] I mean, it was found.
- [man] And the ending. - [Shiloh] Okay.
Well, we understand… that that's what they say, yeah.
Please, please, please just… get a life.
Move on.
[smacks lips]
And all they care about is why didn't the family say anything?
[somber music playing]
You know, back the hell off for a little while, you guys.
You know, give us some time, for crying out loud.
Anyway, uh, basically, we decided, as a family,
that it was better for us
to write a statement
confirming the identity of the finder
than it would be to keep his identity hidden.
And that was that.
- [man 1] Desperate times? - Desperate times.
[triumphant music playing]
[man 2] Now we know who found that famous million-dollar hidden treasure chest.
He's a 32-year-old medical student named Jack Stuef.
This is him after delivering the chest to Forrest Fenn.
[woman] Fenn's family says,
"We can confirm that Jack is the legitimate finder of the chest,
and we wish him the best."
The day the name Jack Stuef came out as the finder of the treasure,
it was like, "Who's this guy? Is he one of us?"
It was like, "Who is this… who is this person?"
[Ben] There were people who cheered for Jack
and said, "Good job. Good for you."
Uh, and then there was everyone else who thought he was a terrible person,
thought he was a tool of the hoax,
thought, you know, everything they could think
to project their own theory onto it.
Some student in some bumfuck place just randomly finds the treasure?
It seems kinda flimsy to me.
100% I believe Jack's a liar.
Jack, be afraid.
I know you. I know what's happening,
and we're figuring you out.
I think that certain people just don't buy the ending
because they don't like the finder. I promise you, folks,
if my grandfather had hired somebody to find the treasure chest for him
to, uh, remove it from the community on his own terms,
Jack Stuef would not have been that person.
[tense music playing]
But, my goodness, he was a die-hard.
Boots on the ground all the time.
Energetic, intelligent.
The guy's a bright dude.
Hey, guys. This is Jack.
This is a new YouTube channel about the Fenn treasure hunt,
and the topic today is cognitive bias.
[Justin] The video of Jack really did move the needle for me.
It was clear that Jack was maybe the only person on the planet
who knew the solution.
[Jack] I'd love to hear your comments. Thanks for watching.
[Justin] He also made it clear he didn't wanna give any further information,
and so the community did what the community does.
They started digging in deep,
and they found the Reddit handle that he used from years prior,
allegedly thecondor2,
and that meant I could go back and garner a lot of additional information.
There were some really interesting tidbits there.
Specifically, he calls out Madison Canyon, where I had searched.
He calls out Nine Mile Hole,
where I spent lots of time with my brother,
and he does so very specifically.
- [music fades] - [adventurous music playing]
And so, thanks to the community
and the evidence gathered from other searchers,
I went back.
I was determined to know where Forrest had hid that treasure.
This is amazing. Look at this.
I felt that, by finding the location,
I would actually have
the closure that I would need to move on
and the… the completion of that pact that I had made to find this.
My brother always told me, he says,
"If anybody's gonna find that thing, it's you,"
and, uh, I wanted to make that happen for him.
So I returned to Nine Mile Hole, the place where we had searched together,
to finish what we had started.
But without that ten inch by ten inch by five inch chest out there,
what is there? What do you have?
Well, I had a heavily cropped photo that showed some detritus,
pine cones.
[Justin laughs]
And that was about it.
Okay. Into the creek.
[dog barking]
Let's see…
if anything jumps out.
[intriguing music playing]
[chuckles]
I had pretty high confidence that I was in the right general area.
[sighs]
But knowing the general area wasn't enough for me.
I wanted to point to a spot on the ground
and say, "It was sitting right here, and here's why."
So I kept searching.
[music intensifies]
Come on. Let's go.
- [dog barking, sniffing] - Day after day after day after day.
Yeah.
Twig after twig after twig after twig.
Just a crazy man looking for a stick.
[laughs]
But I just couldn't find it.
[music becomes unsettling]
[man] And did you ever consider quitting?
You must've.
Yes.
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
[water burbling]
- [man] But did you? - Hmm.
[chuckles]
[Justin] Slowly but surely wins the race.
We made it to the bank.
Okay.
All right. Methodical.
Start down here.
Okay. Gosh, it's thicker here.
Gonna check the other side.
[grunts]
Nothing in here looks… remotely close, to me.
[mysterious music playing]
I'm not seeing any matches.
- Hello. - [music intensifies]
Ribbon.
Oh man. I know I'm right on top of it now.
I mean, it must be just right in front of my nose.
[music subsides]
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
I gotta compare photos.
[clears throat]
Okay.
[stirring music playing]
I think this is it.
[chuckling] In fact, it just damn well lines up perfect, guys, I think.
I think this is it. I really do.
If you were gonna put me on the spot
and say, "What are the nine clues? Walk me through it,"
I would say...
[Forrest] Begin it where warm waters halt
And take it in the canyon down
[Justin] That's Madison Junction
as the Firehole and the Gibbon converge downstream into Madison Canyon.
After that, you were driving.
[Forrest] Not far, but too far to walk
Put in below the home of Brown
[dog barks]
[Justin] What is home of Brown? That is Nine Mile Hole.
That is the home of the brown trout, where Forrest used to fish.
[Forrest] There'll be no paddle Up your creek
Just heavy loads and water high
From there, it's no place for the meek
The end is ever drawing nigh
[Justin] "No place for the meek," that is going into the woods.
You're off the beaten path.
[Forrest] Finally…
If you've been wise and found the blaze
Look quickly down your quest to cease
I believe the blaze was a tree that has since fallen over
and that the treasure was buried at the base of the tree.
Just sitting there for ten years,
only 500 feet from the road.
[music fades]
That's crazy.
It is.
[sobbing]
[sniffles]
[sighs]
[sniffles]
[shudders]
2016, my brother came to Yellowstone with me.
[sniffles]
We searched this canyon.
We searched.
[sighs]
We searched right through here. We walked through here. I...
[sniffles]
[exhales sharply]
We took a break right here.
[sobbing]
[sniffles]
I just wish my brother was around to see it.
[shudders]
[sighs]
[sniffles]
But I'm thankful for the time that we had to search together.
'Cause that's what this is all about.
So here's to you, Forrest.
Thank you.
That's what life is all about. Living it.
[adventurous music playing]
[Cynthia] After Justin found the nook log,
I was thinking, "Holy hell."
"I'm actually able to go stand in the sacred place
where Forrest Fenn had hid the chest."
Those who believed treated that spot with reverence.
It was like, "That spot should not…" It's like, "Don't stand in that spot."
"Stay on the outside of the logs," or whatever.
So, yeah, there was somewhat of a closure.
But, to my surprise,
the biggest twist was still yet to come.
[man] Well, you now have the chance to own Forrest Fenn's treasure
because it's now up for auction.
Heritage Auctions opened up bidding on Friday.
The hidden treasure includes 476 gold pieces,
coins, jewelry, and other items.
That auction is open until December 12th.
At that point, I felt that I might be in a position where
I could buy the chest, I could buy the treasure,
and then, um,
re-hide it. [laughs]
[laughing]
That's… that's basically it. [laughs]
[suspenseful music playing]
Yeah.
Kinda makes you wonder
how I'd ever find a ten by ten by five inch box in the Rockies.
Can't find the Heritage building in Dallas, Texas.
There it is.
Okay.
- Hi, guys. - I'm Erin.
- Justin. Nice to meet you. - Lovely to meet you as well.
- We're gonna go right in here. - Sure.
Thank you.
[Erin] If you'd like to have a seat right here…
- [Justin] Okay. - …we can bring the items in for you.
And we're going to turn the lights off as well,
so you can see the items a little bit more clearly under these lights.
Yeah.
[gentle adventurous music playing]
- So you can feel the weight of it. - [laughing]
Jeez!
- It's heavy. Imagine that. - [laughs]
I mean, it's so dense.
Wow! I mean, I still see the original dirt on it.
That is amazing.
Did you guys do any sort of restoration on it at all?
- [man] Nothing's been done to anything. - That's fantastic. Oh!
[sighs contentedly]
[chuckles]
That is so cool.
Wow.
And the rusty key
right inside.
Probably doesn't work in here any longer. I'd be afraid to try.
- [man] I don't think I'd try. - No.
[music intensifies]
[tinkling]
Wow. It's pretty crazy.
You don't really realize just how many pieces there are
until you start laying them all out. It's just kind of overwhelming.
[man] For the heft, the two biggest nuggets.
[Justin, chuckling] My gosh, the weight.
It's amazing. [chuckles]
[man] And this is an interesting piece, um, for different reasons.
It's just… it's just so stunning.
[Justin chuckles]
[tinkling]
Oh my goodness. Beautiful.
Everything you'd imagine plus more.
[man] Anything else you wanna see?
[Justin] No, I think that'll do it. Really appreciate your time.
- Thank you. - [man] Absolutely.
[Justin] What Forrest created was something more than a treasure.
It was something magical.
It was something… pure.
It was something…
that captured…
your youth.
- [man] What the heck did you get, son? - [woman] What is it?
- It's gold. - [man] Show me.
[woman] Gold?!
[Justin] And I wanted a way
for others to experience the highlights of what I experienced
and to have that classic adventure.
I didn't, uh…
I didn't want that to… to end.
Is the plan to put it in a museum first and then re-hide it?
I thought it was re-hide.
I'm guessing maybe he would do the museum thing,
give searchers who wanted to see it see it and then re-hide it.
After I visited the treasure,
a verbal offer was made at that time,
and, uh, it was accepted.
And then something changed.
[tense music playing]
Forrest Fenn's treasure has sold for more than $1.3 million at auction.
The treasure was auctioned off in 476 lots
with more than 1,500 people bidding on the items.
It was really gutting when it didn't work out afterwards.
Just this super excitement to just… [splutters]
[music fades]
Bummer. [laughs]
[intriguing music playing]
But I'm generally not deterred by those situations.
There's always a more creative solution.
[man] What do you mean? What do you have in mind?
[Justin] Uh…
- Well, there's a new plan. - [safe locks]
[music fades]
[man] When you reflect on the treasure hunt,
and, obviously, you didn't find the treasure,
what was the treasure for you?
Right, so when you just said I didn't find the treasure,
sure I did.
Ten years of it.
[poignant music playing]
Yeah.
[man] What do you mean?
Look at this now.
My God, here it is.
Ten years after I got into it,
I'm still talking about it.
Um, I still have friends,
so there was… there was a lot… a lot to it.
[man] Do you regret it at all?
Hell no. Oh my God, no. No regrets.
Tell you what… [sighs]
…the treasure is where you find it.
I mean… I got my family
right next to me.
We had an amazing time.
- Nobody died. We're all alive. - [Chris laughing]
Come… come close a couple times.
Yeah, we came close a little bit here and there.
But, I mean, at the end of the day, it's all about family.
- [uplifting music playing] - And my treasure is my family.
[Lou] The treasure, it wasn't the… it wasn't the money.
It was about the challenge and the excitement
of trying to make it come true,
especially for my kids.
How… how often does a father get to take his family out
and go look for buried treasure?
You live for your family and the… the memories you make.
And if you don't actively try and make those memories,
they're not just gonna come find you. You gotta go find them sometimes.
And this treasure hunt was one of those things.
[girl] We'll see you.
[Lou] We created a whole chapter of our lives
that is just really meaningful and deep.
Like, part of my life is forever changed.
[poignant music playing]
Me and him never had a great relationship.
You know, that changed that, so…
It… it got me clean.
Um, yeah.
Came a long way.
That's for sure.
If it wasn't for Forrest… [exhales sharply]
…I'd probably be dead.
Probably dead by now or something.
You know, he's changed my life.
Taught me a lot.
[Shiloh] I think the only item
that my grandfather ever… regretted putting in the treasure chest
was a bracelet that he always said fit him perfectly.
It was a row bracelet, prehistoric beads from Mesa Verde.
It was beautiful in… unimaginable ways to him,
and he always said, "I wish I hadn't put that in there,"
and, uh, fortunately,
it wound its way back home.
- [man] And you'll wear it forever? - Absolutely.
[man] All right, and one final question.
Would you ever start your own treasure hunt?
No, absolutely not. I would not.
I think it would be ill-advised of anybody to start their own treasure hunt.
[laughing]
[mischievous music playing]
[Justin] Okay, my stick works.
Okay, I think mos…
We're gonna start that over. [gibbering]
[clears throat]
I think most of us can agree,
Forrest's treasure hunt didn't have the best ending,
but there's no denying it,
the treasure hunt itself was a true adventure.
So I've just returned from a different kind of adventure
in the American West.
This summer, I orchestrated a daring plan.
Not to discover a treasure,
but to leave one hidden for someone else to find.
This is not a parable or a metaphor.
It's a real physical treasure that weighs about 60 pounds.
It's filled with one kilogram gold bars, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, gold coins,
even a good-sized meteorite.
Of course, it wouldn't be complete without a piece of Forrest,
so I included some things from his treasure, like his dragon bracelet,
and it's sitting out there somewhere right now,
just waiting for someone to discover it.
So consider this the start of the race.
The time's ticking, and we all know true adventure waits for no one.
Good luck.
Uh!
There's one more thing you should know.
I managed to sneak in some hints during the filming of this Netflix series.
No one knows what the hints are besides me, not even the producers,
so it's worth your time to watch and listen closely.
I think Lewis Carroll said it best.
In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take.
Happy hunting.
[closing theme music playing]
- [music stops abruptly] - What the fuck?
[closing theme music resumes]
[music fades]
[gentle music playing]
♪ The known world ends in faded lines ♪
♪ Where certainty no longer shines ♪
♪ Mmm ♪
- ♪ Possibilities ♪ - ♪ Oh yeah ♪
- ♪ Fall in front of me ♪ - ♪ They do ♪
♪ Every breath, I'm breaking through ♪
♪ To you ♪
♪ So here I go ♪
♪ Map inside my head ♪
♪ No fear to know how the journey ends ♪
♪ Oh, what lies ahead I wish I could guess ♪
♪ We'll see on the message ♪
♪ On the message ♪