We looked at three properties. One in Bulverde, one in Boerne, and the other, 20 miles west of San Antonio, out Potranco Road. Both the houses in Bulverde and Bourne were very nice masonry homes on several acres. The one out Potranco Road was on 2.3 acres but the house was an older 1200 square-foot simple house that needed a LOT of work... some people called it the hunters cabin... but it did have an incredible view.
For some reason, which I may never understand (it was the 1970s) my Dad and my sister-in-law decided to ask the Ouija Board what to do.
So, my Dad and my sister in law sat down and used "the board" in the "normal way" - they sat in chairs facing each other, knees touching, board on their laps, and all fingertips on the planchette (pointer). - and it started moving.. and man was it moving... My step mom got a pad of paper out and wrote down each letter, as my Dad called them out.
Here are the actual words/letters from that very first session...
Spanish riches hill top treasure Juan Casas 1811 Down to face of big tree questions confuse me mind transmits my sight does not help me cannot say more than I know stood face north shot back and head fell over trunk behind u cedar I knew 2 months ago u would come 1811 needed land papers none believed him Juan Casas I dug hole chest went shot fell over cedar tree trunk drug and thrown on chest facing north west of hill bags skins and papers sacks 93 coins mex Texas would be Mexico owned
It was unbelievable. I watched that session with my own eyes.
Then we asked - are you talking about the hill we looked at? The planchette quickly, and forcefully moved to Yes.
We had NO clue who "Juan Casas" was.
I was 13 at the time, 7th grade. That session was on a Saturday so the next Monday morning I went to the school library, but couldn't find anything about a "Juan Casas".
I remember that evening thinking there is no way that we made all those words up. What the board spelled out was too specific!
So the next day I went back to the library and kept digging. I checked out the largest almanac on Texas history I had ever seen, and started with the date January 1st, 1811.
January 2nd, January 3rd, then I got to January 22nd, 1811, and read something to the effect of... "Juan Bautista de las Casas marched into San Antonio and arrested the Governors and appointed himself Governor".
I started shaking.
This was pre-internet days - and history books in my school library didn't even have Juan Casas in the indexes! I would venture to say he was not covered in 99% of school history classes in Texas.
We certainly didn't have the ability to click on a link, and learn all this!
So who was Juan Casas?
The question historians need to ask is: "Why did the troops follow Casas' command?". De Oro Muchacho!
(expect some additions here someday)
In short, (I could add a lot more weird stuff here) we bought "The Hill". (the house located on the NE quadrant of Loma Alta)
Once settled into the house, we started "working the board" on a regular basis. I now have a stack of "writings" about an inch thick.
Not long after settling into the house we ordered a USGS topo map. There in the middle of the map, The Hill was an obvious promontory with the bold print "Loma Alta". Years later I learned that it is one of the earliest named hills in South Texas. Well that was interesting!
The Hill is located 4. something miles inside of Medina county out Potranco road for you locals - if you want to take a peek. ;-) Speaking of Potranco Road, somewhere in my research I read that at one time it was known as Smugglers Road, but more interesting to me is, it's basically an extension of Commerce Street.
1975 to 1977 was when we "worked the board" the most. I personally never worked it. 99% of the time it was my Dad and (interestingly) epileptic sister in law who worked the board. I was just a witness.
Throughout the mid 70s to mid 80s we metal detected, dug holes, dowsed a little, and worked the board.
We found the following knife blade quite early in our search ('78?). According to UTSA archaeologist Anne Fox (RIP), it's an excellent example of a Spanish colonial "beak point" blade. I do have to say myself, it is in much better condition than the one in the Bob Bullock museum in Austin!
Through the years the board repeatedly talked about 2 things. The treasure buried in 1811 by Juan Casas, but it also talked about underground rooms, a shaft, and tunnels in the Hill - 2000 years old.
This was a particularly amazing session...
massive trullo not near as small forms of italy basically from style of undershelters made of stone and patchwork designed by earliest masons massive trullo not near as small as found in italy built early ad cliffside underground stone dwellings these found varied in depth and were much smaller edward allen has in depth book early stone shelters italy trulli and trullos have square stone covering entrance flush to ground nontranslinear illustrations in book shaft straight down big room built with fireplace for cooking and warmth straight down shaft walls nontranslinear to caves will same patch find down simple path left for u dig where simple sign was left for u to get out simply side of slab otherwise may fall to bottom u fall potash all around slab not completely factual to these indians but close nontranslinear watch closely will draw follow closely piramid shaped chimney with stone
At this point the planchette began moving in a peculiar way, as if it was trying to draw something. So we followed that movement and drew this... (this is the actual session!)
Well, we had NO IDEA what a TRULLO was, who Edward Allen was, or if a book called Early Stone Shelters even existed!
We called the book store the following Monday morning (pre-internet!) and asked "do you have a book called Early Stone Shelters by Edward Allen?". The response was "there is a book called Stone Shelters by Edward Allen, would you like us to order it for you?"
The book two weeks to arrive... I was the first one to pick up the book at the counter... and again, shaking, I opened it.
Then something happened that changed my life and perspective forever...
The VERY FIRST page I opened to was a line drawing very similar to what the board drew 2 weeks earlier - A FRIGGEN TRULLO!
I can not comprehend how The Board spelled out all that, drew that, and the very first page I opened to was a trullo - very similar to our drawing. I guess it will always boggle my mind. That was just impossible.
The board also spelled "nontranslinear" three times. (amazing by itself!) It is interesting to note the word "nonrectilinear" appears in the caption of that page. (I didn't even realize that until a few years ago) $%$#!@!
SO ANYWAY...
I spent 14 years searching for the burial sites... and tunnels from 1975 to 1989... most of my life, really. I was obsessed, bad. I BELIEVED the writings. Every time I tried to verify the information, it seemed plausible and most likely true.
No one besides a handful of useless sibings, my DAD, Sheryl, and Judy believed. (I love all my siblings but in this instance, they were all useless) At least THEY didn't think I was crazy!
I used everything I could get my hands on... metal detectors of all kinds, dowsing, digging (by hand!) in various places... I even used ground penetrating radar.
I moved away from San Antonio in 1989, having spent the last 15 years looking for buried treasure the Ouija board told us about and having nothing to show for it but a Spanish colonial knife one piece of chain... and now all my friends thought I was crazy.
In Seattle I got a delivery driver job, and a small car and tried to put it all behind me. But I couldn't. It was still dominating my thoughts. I had spent too many years thinking about and working on it - to not think about it. It was on tape! (so to speak)
I knew the nut was - how do you locate three iron chests buried 8 feet deep on 50 acres? Hindsight. (insert expletive here!)
While in Seattle - still obsessing over the writings - I went to the University of Washington - geesh I can't remember WHY the UW and not just a library - must be a reason - and researched remote sensing techniques.
I stumbled upon this technique called aerial near infrared photography. It had been used to locate Viking sites in England in the 50s.
So, using my Olympus OM10, Kodak IE135 film, and a Wratten 15 filter, I chartered a Cessna 172 out of Castroville Texas that had a hole in its belly, with no rear seats.
Once airborne I told the pilot to fly slow and low. I basically told him to fly some flight lines over Loma Alta.
So laying in the belly of this plane, I took a series of near infrared photos.
I gave myself less than a 50% chance of success. The film had to be kept refrigerated, then brought up the temperature, used, then put back on refrigeration. So I bought an insulated thermos, packed it with ice etc. But wasn't sure it was going to work.
When I got the slides back from the lab, I was stunned - they were in focus and extremely high contrast. Bright greens, blues and reds.
So I took the most pertinent images and blew them up to poster size.
I spent the next 4 months staring at these posters until I noticed my first anomaly. How could I have missed THAT? A perfect rectangle north west of Loma Alta with what appears to be a deeply worn cart trail and fire site marks.
I showed this photo to an archaeologist in Seattle and he said "yeah, it looks like a structure had been there " so, I had no choice but to get on the next plane and fly down and see it, again, myself. I had actually walked on it hundreds of times as a teenager and young adult and never noticed anything at the location... but with this new found evidence, I was going to have another look!
So I flew back to San Antonio, metal detector in hand. My first reaction, walking back to the spot was wow, if you had a musket you could shoot in all directions. It was very very defensible.
So I metal detected the entire area... it was a very hot day.
I probably metal detected a 3 or 4 acre area around "the rectangle". I wasn't finding anything. Not even a piece of pottery. I started to doubt my interpretation of the photo.
Frustrated, hot, and ready to pack things up, I decided to try one last thing. I turned up the sensitivity and volume and went very slowly along the perimeter of the rectangle.
That's when I found 2 heads of square nails, and a dropped musketball.
Yowza.
I will let Texas historians and archaeologists decide what that fort was, but since Loma Alta was the northwestern point of the San Jose Mission Ranch, I would start there. ;-)
So having discovered a Spanish outpost, or a fort of some sorts, I went back to my photos.
It was probably another six weeks or more when (insert mental and emotional breakdown here) I located 3 burial sites 50 paces behind the fort. In fact exactly as the board described multiple times, in the direction of the sun leaving, passed the cedars. In hindsight it all seems so simple.
There are 3 main burials, exactly where the ouija board told us... in the direction of sun leaving, just past the cedar trees. (evergreens show in red)
Now The Bad News.
After 19 years of working the board, obsessing over the writings, detecting, digging, researching, and finally locating the fort and the burials - I made the biggest mistake in a thousand lifetimes.
I tried to do things legally and ethically... I tried to get permission from the land owner, and the help of UTSA... who to be honest, shunned me because I was a "treasure hunter". In those efforts, unfortunately, I showed the burials, in context, to my "attorney ".
Shortly after showing my infrared photos to him, someone crashed through a fence on a nearby highway, drove up to the burials shown on my infrareds, obviously using locating equipment far better than mine, found it and dug the chests up.
20 years of absolutely magical experiences, all up in smoke in an instant.
END THE COVER UP DUDES. PAY ME MY DUE. I WILL NOT SHUT UP. I HAVE DNA FROM THE BIG RED CAN - SHOW ME THE LAND GRANTS AND OTHER PAPERS THAT WERE BURIED WITH IT. SHOW ME THE PICTURES. MF'rs. YOU STOLE MORE THAN TREASURE - YOU STOLE HISTORY - YOU STOLE A MAN'S LIFE'S WORK AND YOU STOLE AN INCREDIBLE STORY - BASTARD, GRAVE ROBBING THIEVES.
I will NEVER forgive myself for it. Texas lost a MAJOR treasure and a HUGE part of their history.
You can see the fresh digging in this 1995 Google Earth image.... maybe I was standing right there in disbelief when this picture was taken. Almost all of these ouija board sessions occurred IN THAT HOUSE. I walked on top of the burials hundreds of times. No one else had been in there from 1974, when we moved in, until the day the site was looted...
I should probably insert here, I am exceptionally bad with time spans. Unfortunately I never kept a diary or notes, so this will have to suffice.
It would be my guess that I created TreasureNet.com in early 95 or late 1994. . It was the very, very early days of the WWW. It quickly became the most popular treasure hunting site on the net. Anyway I figured it was best to hold the keys to the forum and listen to what was being said. My government should've hired me.
About 10 years into running TreasureNet, and after having posted some, let's say, distressed messages, one member came forward and confirmed my greatest fears.
A long time employee of "Treasure Salvors", (who the atty represents) said "well Marc, I was just a fly on the wall when it came in, but when things like those guns are found, they are usually not found alone". He wouldn't go into further detail, but made clear to me that, yes, the attorney and company looted the site.
An interesting fact: I sold "TreasureNet" a few years ago, and ONE post, posted in 1995, out of 2 million posts - was immediately removed from the site - THIS POST!
Evidence
Not long after the site was looted, I would say mid-late 1995 - maybe later - I found these guns for sale online - without any provenance, and priced way too cheaply....
When I first saw these, I immediately had a gut feeling they came from Loma Alta, and I myself, don't feel I am very psychic! I could literally smell the dirt on the Hill and in a really weird way and I recognized them all. (for what that's worth)
So, I called this place up, a site called richestreasures.com, out of sebastian Florida, owned by Richard VanZyl, (who I found out just last week - Oct., 2016 was the captain of Mel Fisher's dive boat!) and confronted them... I asked if the guns came from Texas, and the guy said "it's possible". My gut sank. I came pretty unglued with them. It is NOT a coincidence, that this website was completely removed within a day or two of me confronting them!
I also confronted the attorney, shortly after the looting took place, and his exact words were "I'm sorry Marc, maybe there's more there". His wife's exact words when confronted were "Well Marc, all I can tell you, is that when there's a lot of money involved, people do strange things". These are not words people say when you are accusing them of stealing your life's work!
Thoughts About Texas History
Through my research, I learned how the Battle of the Alamo was merely the end of a 25 year process of Spanish loss of control of Texas.
What Texans need to ask themselves is "why were "Texians" defending the Alamo in the first place?" In 1810 it was defended by Spanish soldiers.
The answer to that question is the Hidalgo revolution of 1810-1811... It began with "El Grito" (Cry For Freedom) of Father Hidalgo, and a subsequent revolutionary raid on the treasury of Guanajuato Mexico in September of 1810, and the "Casas Revolution" which started January 22nd, 1811.
This is a newly posted and excellent account of the raid on Guanajuato by Hidalgo's forces.
Here is more good info...
https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/r/i/t/William-T-Ritchie/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0293.html
Juan Casas was commissioned (given treasure) stolen in the raid at Guanajuato in December of 1810 by Hidalgo. Casas was eventually overthrown and tried for treason... he was executed in Monclova Mexico, August 3rd, 1811, and his head was shipped back to San Antonio and put on a pole to deter others with similar motives. He never directly revealed the location of his treasure. Although if someone finds out what he told the priest shortly before he was executed, I predict we will learn that he did tell the priest about it.
After this debacle, the Spanish Crown lost confidence in the security of Texas, and it's capital San Antonio.
A GREAT history lesson can be found here and here.
Jose Antonio Navarro, a resident of San Antonio was 16 years old in 1811.. meaning he was 41 at the time of the battle of the Alamo. He was THERE. In his own words he says "forget the Battle of the Alamo" the real event in Texas history occurred January 22nd, 1811... prior to that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of pesos were being shipped into San Antonio EVERY month to pay the troops. After the Hidalgo-Casas revolution, that money stopped.
That is why "Texians" "defended" the Alamo.
Perhaps now it's time for someone else to uncover the underground shelters. I KNOW there are rooms and tunnels on The Hill. I have seen too much to not believe this - one of the main thrusts of what The Board "said". The rooms are there. Although they could have been looted in recent years... the rooms are there. Anyone up for an adventure?
Here's a quick video of my search for the shelters - near the top of The Hill... it begins by showing a cache of tools I found in the mixed up dirt you will see... for the record - all those rocks strewn about, outside the hole, were already there. Evidence of past occupation for sure.
In other sessions, writing about the Casas treasure, it spelled out (paraphrasing a little) "was for the people of spain not sent another to overcome as viceroy" "Diaz became hard handed with indians to work in mines that were theirs anyway" "oscar thomas shultz I dug it and was put with it save my soul by finding me" "the texians were up in arms to get treasure as well" "down simple path left for you"
...and ultimately it was - from the day we moved in, until the day it was all lost, there was always a mysterious little trail leading from the house to the burials ... wtf.
Regrets
Frankly, I am more disturbed about these experiences than ever before. And to lose it all for trying to do the right thing is a punishment I may never understand.
One of the more difficult aspects of my search was - All throughout those 19 years, I wanted to talk about my search, I was amazed by the whole thing - but I knew if I did, people would think I am crazy... and they did in droves. I understood that reasoning!
Unfortunately, I found it, and then I fooleshly gave it away... which reminds me of other words the board spelled...
It is one thing to dig all over and find nothing but when something is really found words can not said to many less you want every one of his friends here
I FUCKED UP.
Marc
marcATneuz.com replace AT with @
p.s., 1. In the Bible of Texas treasures, Coronado's Children by J. Frank Dobie, in the chapter "Down The Nueces" there's a story about "Loma Alta". My best guess as to the "Drummond" Dobie mentions; it's Thomas Drummond. Maybe heard of buried Spanish treasure in his travels. His writings are in archives at a university in England, the name of which escapes me at this moment. I tried to get a copy but they said they were too busy.
2. On the south east slope of Loma Alta there is a large hole - probably 50' x 50' and 8+' deep. It is my opinion that this hole was dug as early as the 18teens to 1835... in search of the treasure. Probably based on conversations Casas had with the first priest,.. just before his execution... in Monclova Mexico. This,large,unexplained hole is on the EXACT opposite side of The Hill as the burials!
update 4-16-22.....
I’ve had several theories about that hole.
1. People came digging for the treasure around 1811 or 1812. The hole was after all, on the exact opposite side of Loma Alta as where I eventually located the burials.
2. It was a natural sinkhole.
3. Jim bowie and his gang dug there in 1835ish
4. The soft chalky material was dug out to make bricks at some point..
I was traipsing around the area one day, in 2014, and found a broken hand painted bowl.
I might have pictures of the bowl, on an external hard drive, and I might not!
Anyway, I was watching a video on YouTube the other day. There’s a house in Dolores Mexico, which is Miguel Hidalgo‘s old house. Miguel Hidalgo is the father of Mexican independence. He is the guy at the head of the forces that raided the treasury in Guanajuato and other places starting in December 1810. Juan Casas received the gold from Hidalgo‘s forces.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r79KFJwJWr8
anyway, there is a picture in that video that shows a table set with dishes. As it was an 1811. The bowl that I found on the Southeast slope of Loma Alta is exactly like the bowls at Hidalgo‘s dining room table! Bingo! 3.Lidar is in order for this hill.
4. Early on, we got a USGS topo map and realized how significant Loma Alta was, geologically and geographically speaking. From what I have seen it is one of the first hills named in Central Texas by early explorers. It is labeled on the earliest maps I can find. It should have been a state park.
5. The only other person that I showed the infrareds to was Frank Buschbacher, who made headlines in San Antonio searching for Jim Bowie's treasure at the Alamo. Odd how he just disappeared.
Update Friday, March 24th, 2017 - a few days ago, I watched this...
Somewhere in this contemporary, documentary video it shows 3 chests of gold... and this statement "the revolutionaries retreated to Béjar".Ever since, I have felt like I have been set afire. For what it's worth.
Update Wednesday, March 24th, 2021 (complete coincedence that it's March 24th again - I think!). mainly some re-organization and cleaning things up - maybe a tidbit or two added.
Update Thursday, July 1, 2021 since I am posting this for posterity this tidbit of information popped in my head today. Bob Steinle showed me this. I saw it with my own eyes. On the southside of Potranco Road on the Steinle ranch, there used to be a line of piles of stones - small lime stone slabs stacked upon each other. this line of rocks ran from Loma Alta to at least almost Highway 90. Each pile was spaced far enough apart to be seen from each other. Sometimes 50 sometimes 200 feet apart. This line of "marker stones" must've been partially destroyed with the new subdivision(s). Bob Steinle or his sons can corroborate this line of stones. I am assuming some of them can still be found. This may just be the western boundary of the San Jose Mission Ranch, or it may be connected to J Frank Dobie's story in Coronado's Children about the line of rocks and Loma Alta.
Update Tuesday, December 27, 2022: That was some pretty fucked up shit.