Finding the Peralta Treasures

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Jim_b
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Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by Jim_b »

DesertUSA has just published a new story on the Peralta Stone Map and the Treasure of the Church of Santa Fe. This five part article was written by Robert L. Kesselring and Lynda R. Kesselring. I am posting a link to the article so that the forum members can get the first look at what they have found.

Intro

These five articles are about how we made our discovery, and our journey to the treasure's site. Five people died attempting what we accomplished, in the same time interval. We walked past where they died many times. We encountered many suspicious people and our final location is within a mile of where Ruth's bullet-riddled skull was found.

We have broken our story into five parts to make it easier to understand.

History of the Mines and the Treasure - Gold bar caches and gold mines.
Peralta Stone Map and Cross - What they are and why they are important.
Research and Planning - How we went about determining what the stones led to and why they were made. How we used Google maps to plan the ground trips.
Ground Trips - How we used the maps and what equipment we used to verify our findings.
Summary - What we found and why we can’t dig without a permit. What we did to try to get one. The dangers that are involved in any search. What people can do to help in the search.

http://www.desertusa.com/lost-dutchman/ ... ones1.html


CAUTIONARY NOTE: Health Advisory and Legal Disclaimer
Caution: Many people have died trying to find this treasure. The authors of this story prepared thoroughly with provisions and emergency planning prior to undertaking their trips. DesertUSA does not advise anyone to try to replicate their journey without a guide and extremely thorough preparations to include plans for water, food, shelter, guidance and communications. No amount of gold or treasure is worth your life.

NOTE: The Superstition Mountains are east of Apache Junction in Arizona and the area has been designated a Wilderness Area by Congress. This means all things within are protected by law. Anything other than hiking, camping and taking photos will require a permit from the National Forest Service. Therefore when we discuss the presence of treasure and mines please keep the law in mind, do not disturb archaeological sites.

PS It very hot in the summer don't go looking now.
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by deducer »

Interesting interpretation of the Stone Maps.

Hopefully will make for some good discussion here.
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by Matthew Roberts »

Jim_b, deducer,

I was privileged to meet Robert Kesselring in 2012 and sit down with him while he showed me his theory and how he planned to go about proving it out in the field.
I was altogether impressed with his knowledge and technical abilities and how he was using some of the highest tech equipment and programs available to the modern treasure hunter. Being an engineer his explanations on using the equipment was mostly over my head but his reasoning and application was rock solid and I went away thinking if anyone is going to find something out there in the Superstitions, it was this man. I have his two books, Reading Peralta Maps Volume's I and II. and I would highly recommend them to anyone interested in the Peralta stone map treasures and Latin Heart. What he found is truly amazing, the ore sample is absolutely genuine and the site has all the qualifications of a treasure trove permit.

Matthew Roberts
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by cubfan64 »

Interesting story, theories and evidence, but I'm struck by something written near the very end...
First we’ve noted evidence of people impacting the Superstitions. This is a grave problem as noted by the National Forest Service and we want the Wilderness Act used to preserve the area and its wealth in natural flora and fauna.
The author obviously had to make a decision as to whether he wanted to give away "too much" information within the article. The first thing people always scream for when presented with a theory is "proof" - give me locations, show me pictures, etc... He made the decision to do that as well as provide GPS coordinates. I understand why he might have done such a thing, but considering the history of "treasure hunting" in the Superstition Mountains, I think that was probably not a good choice. Odds are pretty good that at least some of those areas he specifically pointed out will now be subject to damage and exploitation.

Considering the concern the author shared about preservation and following the law, I believe sharing the locations was a bad idea
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by somehiker »

In the "Summary", the Kesselrings answer your question.

["HELP REQUIRED

We first contacted the Head Ranger, Gary Hanna, of the Mesa Ranger District Office for the Tonto National Forest. We were invited to provide a briefing and Robert met with Gary at that same office.

Gary acknowledged the evidence appeared archaeological in nature and that it is covered by both the Wilderness Act and the Antiquities Act. That meant any request for professional archaeological activity required permits and studies. Gary was interested in performing the work because it would provide a means to reduce human impact and lives lost due to the legends and stories we have discussed. Gary attempted to procure a permit but those with the authority to grant the permit declined and the only official reply in writing was “there is nothing to be removed”. Of course this has many plausible interpretations and we won’t go into the legal aspects of language because the main issue is that the National Forest Service declined to take any action. We advised Gary that we would have to take the matter to the public through publishing and he had no comment.

We went as far as the law allows. We had attempted to acquire solid physical evidence and turn it over to the NFS for safe keeping and to use to initiate the funded research and protection of the site. We had been told that unlike England the United States does not care to award anything to the discoverer of treasure on Federal Property and that we would never get anything in return for our discovery. That may seem unfair to everyone but that is the legal fact in our ‘democracy’. That being the case we completed our two volumes on the subject in great detail and published it.

We told Gary Hanna we would do so and give him a full year to prepare. "


There have been other posters/claimants over the years, at several web sites, who have made similar threats to "go public" if denied a Treasure Trove Permit from the FS.
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by cubfan64 »

Hi Wayne - I wasn't really asking any question, and I had read that part in the summary. It was just a statement that in my opinion being so specific as to give out GPS coordinates wasn't a great idea and it probably was not an easy choice for them to make.

I'm still reading the story and trying to connect the dots so to speak, so can't really say anything about what they found.

The Rover UC made by OKM is definitely both an interesting and highly controversial electronic instrument. Trying to dig into unbiased reviews and unbiased investigations of it's effectiveness is pretty tough to find online - it's almost as controversial as the LDM itself :). I always thought the best way to test an instrument like this out would be to go to a known cave/tunnel system underground at a depth that the instrument is capable of working in, stack up a bunch of silver bars or other bullion in 2 or 3 different locations and then have someone who knows how to work the instrument come and see what they can find. If it can pinpoint those items and "map" the tunnel/cave system, I'd say it would be worth it's weight in gold!
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by somehiker »

Paul:

Seems it is...at least in what the thing costs. And the smart phone is extra.
I don't own a detector, which would be of little use where I usually find myself out there, but Frank has a deep seeker which might work in a couple of places that would like to check out later.
Been really busy since my last trip at the end of march, and working some OT as well, so haven't had much time to respond to most of what has been going on so far. It's always interesting though, to see what others' efforts have wrought.

Regards:Wayne
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by deducer »

Matthew Roberts wrote:Jim_b, deducer,

I was privileged to meet Robert Kesselring in 2012 and sit down with him while he showed me his theory and how he planned to go about proving it out in the field.
I was altogether impressed with his knowledge and technical abilities and how he was using some of the highest tech equipment and programs available to the modern treasure hunter. Being an engineer his explanations on using the equipment was mostly over my head but his reasoning and application was rock solid and I went away thinking if anyone is going to find something out there in the Superstitions, it was this man. I have his two books, Reading Peralta Maps Volume's I and II. and I would highly recommend them to anyone interested in the Peralta stone map treasures and Latin Heart. What he found is truly amazing, the ore sample is absolutely genuine and the site has all the qualifications of a treasure trove permit.

Matthew Roberts
Would be interesting to know his grounds for rejecting the H/P stone.
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by Matthew Roberts »

Hello deducer,

I can't speak for Robert and why he rejected the H/P (Horse-Priest) stone. I'm not sure he totally rejected it, more that it was not needed as a piece of the puzzle as he interpreted it. Some people believe Tumlinson carved the Horse-Priest stone after he fond the other red sandstone maps. I don't know if he did or didn't.
If he did carve the HP stone it doesn't make it worthless or a fake or fraud as some have assumed. He very well could have carved it following some other map(s) or it could be a combination of all the other maps, or something entirely authentic and unique to it's own treasure. That is just my personal opinion on the subject.

Matthew
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Re: Finding the Peralta Treasures

Post by deducer »

Matthew Roberts wrote:Hello deducer,

I can't speak for Robert and why he rejected the H/P (Horse-Priest) stone. I'm not sure he totally rejected it, more that it was not needed as a piece of the puzzle as he interpreted it. Some people believe Tumlinson carved the Horse-Priest stone after he fond the other red sandstone maps. I don't know if he did or didn't.
If he did carve the HP stone it doesn't make it worthless or a fake or fraud as some have assumed. He very well could have carved it following some other map(s) or it could be a combination of all the other maps, or something entirely authentic and unique to it's own treasure. That is just my personal opinion on the subject.

Matthew
Or he may have carved additional details on it, to either mislead or to force fit it to a treasure legend of some sort.

That being said, I wonder how old the Peralta legend is, as well as the LDM story. Were these around and well known by the time Tumlinson drove by the Supes?
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