According to legend a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz wandered out of the Superstition Mountains with a sack of high grade gold. Ever since his death in the 1890’s people have been searching for his mine and the mother lode. So far nobody has found it.
Some of Our Research:
The basic overview
A lot of extra details
Was it found?
This week Team Sideways tackles three separate mysteries with one common theme: Lost Treasure!
Lost Galleon of Pearls
For over several hundred years stories have circulated that a Galleon was stranded in the Salton Sink in Southern California. Native peoples and settlers alike have been claimed to have spotted it. Now that the area is filled with water we may never know if it was truly there.
A little about the area
So many stories
Poverty Island Treasure
According to legend a vessel smuggling French gold to the Confederates sank in Lake Michigan just off of Poverty Island. For over one hundred years people have claimed to have snagged to treasure just to lose it again at the last minute. Is it real or just a legend?
An overview
A local write-up
Lasseter’s Reef
Harold Bell Lasseter announced in 1929 that years before he’d stumbled upon a huge deposit of gold in the middle of Australia, and assembled an expedition to go find it again—a journey which Lasseter would not survive. Did Lasseter’s Reef ever really exist?
From Wiki
New facts?
According to lore the Soviet Union launched people into space who never made it back to earth alive. Not wanting to lose face in the space race the existence of these cosmonauts was covered up. Did the Soviet Union really send people into space never to return or is this all a flight of fancy?
Some of Our Research:
Strong support for the theory
A look from both sides
Against the theory
This week we look at three similar nautical mysteries and try to get to something to float to the top.
The Fate of the crew of the Sara Jo
The Sara Jo and her crew left on a clear morning for a day of fishing and never returned. 10 years later the Sara Jo and the body of one of the crew were found on an atoll. Where had the boat been and what had happened to it all those years ago?
Bouvet Island
Bouvet island, an uninhabited subantarctic island, has never had any residents yet somehow in 1964 a wooden dingy was found in it’s lagoon. How did it get there, who did it belong to, and where were they?
The story
The island and it’s history
The MV Joyita
The MV Joyita, a nearly unsinkable ship, was found adrift in 1955 in the South Pacific. The 25 passengers and crew were missing as was some of the cargo. What would drive them off of a ship that was never going to sink?
On August 7th, 1973, radio operators in California picked up the terrified cries of a young boy who identified himself as Larry. Larry was unable to tell authorities where he was, or even what state he lived in. As the days drew on, the signal from his radio became weaker, the search for Lost Boy Larry was called off as he was presumed dead. Was this a hoax, or did a young boy get cooked to death in an overturned truck?
Some of our Research:
Just the basics
Some of the original newspaper articles
The Websleuths take on this story