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00:00I don't know.
03:55when I discovered this map I wasn't sure what to think I'd seen it before it's
04:02called the disternal map an expert I met received one too along with the same
04:08cryptic message please put this to good use I came across it while investigating
04:15whether Aztecs from Mexico had an American connection either through an
04:19ancient homeland in the southwest or underwater pyramids in Wisconsin
04:31now that's a trip I remember vividly I got stuck at the bottom of Rock Lake under
04:38thousands of pounds of water
04:42and I came up empty no Aztec pyramids
04:50but maybe the map means my investigation into the Aztecs isn't over
04:56the Aztecs dominated the central region of Mexico between the 14th and 16th centuries
05:03their most famous leader was Montezuma
05:06according to legend the Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan in the north
05:13the disternal map places it near the four corners region where Arizona Colorado New Mexico and Utah
05:20meet but on the map I received there was another reference to the Aztecs
05:27the words Montezuma's curse over Utah
05:33if this was more evidence that the Aztecs got their start in the United States
05:37not Mexico I had to check it out the first clue I wanted to understand was the
05:43name inscribed in the back of this gold trinket Freddy Crystal
06:03I get a lot of tips but not usually one so tantalizing and cryptic
06:09who was this Freddy Crystal and what's his connection to Montezuma
06:16I managed to track down one person who just might know
06:20and we're meeting in the middle of the Utah desert
06:31Lois yeah this mysterious package that I received
06:35the name Freddy Crystal was in there tell me a little bit about him
06:39Freddy Crystal showed up almost a hundred years ago in Canab and with him he brought a map that he
06:46said he'd found in a Mexican monastery
06:48and he thought that map showed evidence that the Aztecs had come back to Utah
06:53and the topography on that map matches the topography of this place where I brought you today
06:58okay what is it that Freddy was looking for
07:02well Freddy was looking for gold gold Aztec gold yeah here when the Spanish
07:08conquistadors made contact with the largest empire in South America the Aztecs
07:13they also wrote about the massive treasure they found there according to one account
07:18the sheer quantity of valuables was breathtaking golden face masks and necklaces
07:23incredibly ornate weaponry silver plates and cups and the list goes on the Aztecs
07:29gave the Spanish so many of these gifts it took the conquistadors three whole days
07:34to examine them eventually war broke out between the Spanish and Aztecs and legend
07:39has it the huge treasure just disappeared so he was in this area and what was he looking for
07:47well he believes that the Aztecs had gone back to Utah and he was looking for evidence of them some
07:52tunnels rock art stuff like that oh really is this something that I could see you bet it's on
07:58government land but I've I've gone ahead and got some approval for us to go there today grab your
08:02stuff and I'll show you where alright this part of Utah is considered Canyon country
08:24it's beautiful and remote
08:29the perfect place to hide something you wouldn't want anyone to find
08:44Lois you talked about that Freddy had maps that he got down in Mexico that led him to here obviously
08:50he thought that was the gold right that the gold was here somewhere can I see these maps no they're
08:56gone I've done lots of research can't find the maps in fact Freddy himself disappeared after 1922
09:03disappeared yeah killed maybe committed suicide maybe took on an alias so has anybody else tried to
09:10find this treasure in this area a number of people have most of them stopped looking though because bad
09:16things start happening to them bad things like what well some of them have almost died some of
09:21them have died really oh yeah plenty more recently we've had people scuba dive for the gold wait a
09:28minute where are they gonna scuba dive I mean there's no water here there's actually an underground water
09:34cave not too far from this area oh there is yeah and they went scuba diving inside this cave they
09:41tried
09:41to every time they went down professional divers they'd go down equipment failures lights go out
09:48one of the guys that went down he claimed a mouthpiece was torn out of his mouth and another felt
09:52hands around his neck it freaked him out that they didn't want to dive anymore they don't even want to
09:56talk about it are you talking about a curse
10:17somewhere in this vast expanse of utah desert montezuma's treasure is supposedly buried
10:29at least that's what i've learned since receiving a mysterious map with a cryptic message
10:40stories about sudden death mysterious disappearances and ill-fated scuba dives have led many to believe
10:48that the aztec treasure is cursed
10:54but i have to wonder what's the real story behind what seems like a myth
11:02so these divers actually had the regulators torn out they felt like they were being choked and
11:08all these things were happening are you talking about a curse well a lot of people believe it is cursed
11:15what you're talking about sounds like something is protecting the gold from being found is there
11:20something to that well after montezuma was killed his successor sent warriors slaves with the gold some
11:28people estimate maybe 2000 had to travel north to get it away from the spanish yes get away from the
11:34spanish and then uh when they hid the treasure the aztecs believed in human sacrifice so they killed the
11:40slaves probably some of the warriors with the idea they would stay here and guard the gold what do you
11:46think do you think there's a curse here i don't really believe in curses but i've never had to look
11:51for
11:51the treasure i do know a fair number of people in kanab believe in it absolutely
12:10okay those have got to be the caves right there right yeah they're right up there
12:22when freddie arrived here the cave had been walled up with stone and mortar he didn't have any tools
12:28he flipped out a pocket knife and scraped away at the limestone then he had to call in other people
12:33three quarters of the town came up and helped freddie that was about a thousand people
12:38they finally did get the wall down got inside and the bulk of the cave had been backfilled with sand
12:44so the aztecs sealed it up to seal something inside yeah or to keep people out or to keep
12:51people out yeah i think we need to go in and take a look what do you think the government
12:55is a little worried about the safety of it but we can go peek in we just can't go in
12:58all the way all
12:59right let's do that look at these deep tool marks here this is excavation here that went on i mean
13:14you can see these deep gouges uh they were they made the cave they were tunneling and the thing
13:21about it is is this rock type this sandstone is perfect for tunneling it probably took advantage
13:27of some natural features that were here and they just extended them okay but there's no doubt that
13:32we've got tool marks here and you see them going all the way around we couldn't explore the cave
13:39but urban explorers have they found deep tunnel systems with small nooks that could have been
13:45used to hide treasure what's more there appear to be booby traps endless holes in the floor that seem to
13:52go on forever it makes sense that people aren't allowed in the caves anymore someone who doesn't know
13:58what they're doing could get hurt or even killed i have to say that that was incredible i mean we've
14:05got a very complex tunnel system and my mind is racing right now trying to put it all together
14:11but here's what i think we have this would be the entrance or the the original entrance probably
14:17it's clearly man-made this is a system of tunnels and booby traps and steps and what looks like
14:25a repository dwelling caves would be larger and they would be more compartmentalized these are
14:32tunnels yeah the aztecs if this was their ancient homeland they went to mexico they were under siege
14:38by the spaniards and they took their gold and brought it up here to me that makes the most sense
14:43i mean
14:44the evidence all comes together and it points to the aztecs yeah
14:55so what happened when freddy was here what exactly did they find well they did find bones they found
15:01some beads but no treasure i think that it was probably originally dug out and was thought to be
15:08the final repository but something could have happened that changed the plan i think montezuma's
15:14treasure was probably right here but it's not at this location so that means it has to be somewhere out
15:32here
15:34as part of what i received in this strange package was uh what looks like a petroglyph let me show
15:40it to you
15:44see if this rings any bells for you
15:53oh i've seen that before oh you have yeah it's uh carved in the walls by the place where that
15:58scuba
15:59diving incident happened okay so the petroglyph this curse it's all in the same place you know i'd
16:06really like to see this if i could oh not a problem i know a guy who knows a lot
16:10about petroglyphs
16:11you know lois the more i think about this this mysterious package is not just about
16:16this aztec america connection i think we know that's there but this is really also about montezuma's
16:23treasure and that treasure appears to be cursed
16:46it seemed to me that freddy crystal was on to something when he came to utah many years ago
16:52and found an ancient cave system that may have been made by the aztecs
17:02after talking to lois i met with the archaeologist she told me about
17:08he identified a petroglyph i thought could be the next clue to the mystery
17:15according to legend montezuma the last major king of the aztec empire sent his riches north of mexico
17:24evidence suggests they may have made it as far as utah
17:29an empty cave system there could be one of the places aztec warriors hid vast amounts of gold and
17:35silver that's what i ended up looking for here under water
17:44many explorers have searched for montezuma's cursed treasure some have even died trying to find it
17:51hopefully that won't happen to me one of the things that got me here was a cryptic clue on a
17:58mysterious
17:58map turns out this same symbol can be found on stones here in the desert well your friend lois recommended
18:08i talk to you about a mysterious symbol let me show it to you sure
18:14have you seen that before oh yeah i've i've seen that many times what do you know about it well
18:19i know
18:19that it's uh unique to this area okay and uh i've dubbed it the key symbol the key symbol yeah
18:26i think this
18:27might be the key to the discovery of montezuma's treasure well if this is related to montezuma's
18:35treasure i really need to see some of these well i can show you one not too far from here
18:39all right
18:39i'm in cool let's go let's go let's do it
18:45so
19:10uh-huh this is the glyph wow
19:15so there's a bunch out here right well this is more of an oval
19:20would you say that most of them are ovals or circles i'd say most are circle it's interesting this
19:27oval shape comes all the way around this line here comes to the edge of the oval and then it
19:35drops down
19:36and it's deeper here and it goes all the way off the edge
19:42i can tell you this this was pecked very deeply and it's very weathered
19:49i think it has been here for a while decades for sure maybe a few hundred years
19:55you know this could be native american what do you think i've talked to some of the uh kaibab piutes
20:01and some of the shibwits and they say that this isn't part of their culture oh really right so this
20:07is not native american at least the natives in this area that you've talked to right okay let me show
20:13you
20:13some photographs what do you see there on that one photograph well this one is more of a circle
20:20there's another pit on the opposite side right there's always one or two holes within the circle
20:28or the oval and some of them are quite deep like you could stick pegs in them and do a
20:34side alignment
20:34or something like that okay you said most of these were circles right right that's interesting because
20:40we're talking about the aztecs here possibly coming up here with this montezuma's treasure
20:44these glyphs could be related here's a possibility it's called the latitude exercise
20:51this ancient knowledge was passed on in cultures all around the world going back thousands of years
20:58and basically what they could do is they could navigate they could figure out what latitude they
21:04were at simply by using a stick if the aztecs did come here maybe bringing montezuma's treasure
21:11the way that they could find their homeland by traveling north is to figure out their latitude by using
21:18this exercise interesting now i don't know if that's what they're doing here but that's another
21:24possibility it certainly is can you see how important and powerful this could be
21:34this one is interesting because it's got the lichen and the lichen growth on there is old we've
21:41done a lichenometry test on it and it dated over 500 years okay fall of the aztec empire was about
21:48500 years ago take a look at this photo scott it has a double line coming off the circle that
21:53actually leads to a burial a burial it was excavated and there was three skeletons found one on top of
22:02the other now what was amazing about these skeletons is they were all on their left sides in the fetal
22:08position with no artifacts their legs were broke off just above the ankle and laid next to them
22:18the aztecs believe that most people who died went to mictlon ruled by the god mictlon to cutley
22:24it was a dark place without any light or windows kind of like a wound that may be why the
22:31aztecs buried
22:32their dead in a fetal position to represent leaving the world in the same position they arrived
22:38one thing's for sure that fetal burial position suggests that the skeletons i saw pictures of could have
22:45belonged to aztec people let me guess they're gone they're gone do you think that based on this style
22:51of burial that this could have been a sacrifice i'm not saying it's not i'm not saying it is i
22:57just don't
22:57know now the aztecs they certainly did practice ritual sacrifice in fact it was very important in their
23:03culture and their religious activities to some of the people it would have been an honor to be sacrificed
23:08and if we are talking about montezuma's treasure and aztecs coming into this area then the possibility
23:16exists that there would have been some sacrifices going on
23:25you know scott there's another place that you need to visit there's a cave an underwater cavern that
23:31has this glyph in the ceiling that's been painted on many people think that this is the site of montezuma's
23:40treasure really under the water there's one of these circle glyphs over there right i gotta check this out
24:06when i went to the utah desert to investigate a very real but possibly cursed aztec treasure the
24:13last thing i expected to find was an underwater cave where the riches may have been stashed
24:21the legendary montezuma the aztecs last great king
24:26is rumored to have ordered his warriors to hide his empire's treasure in asla their northern homeland
24:34some people say the land i'm on now is asla and that there are maps to prove it like the
24:40one that
24:41has led me here turns out the man who owns this land is all too familiar with the legend
24:49and the curse thanks to the stories passed down from his dad
25:04hey lon how you doing good hi scott good to meet you i'm sure you've heard a lot about
25:08the mystery of montezuma's treasure uh many people believe that the aztecs brought that treasure back
25:15to their original homeland which was believed to be in the four corners area and all indicators that i
25:20have seen point to right here in 1990 my dad he had been doing a lot of research about the
25:25aztecs
25:26and one of the things that he read about was that the aztecs like to hide their treasure in what
25:32was
25:32called water traps he'd read that the lakes had to be 35 feet deep so he came up with a
25:38canoe and he
25:38measured it out it was exactly 35 feet deep so that really piqued his interest and my dad purchased the
25:45property and so he started to do a lot of exploring so this is where your dad was in the
25:59boat this is
26:02one of the three lakes he wanted to get some divers in here see if there was any um caves
26:07so they started
26:08diving along the wall and they found a cave they started going back into the cave and the woman
26:14came swimming up to the side of the man and grabbed his auxiliary mask and started breathing out of it
26:20so they came out and dad was on a boat they checked out her gear and her tank had been
26:25turned off
26:26what yeah and her tank had been turned her tank had been turned off somehow
26:32as they turned it back on they checked their gear all out and they went back in
26:37they got way back into this cave and the same thing happened
26:42apparently he had a microphone and he started screaming i'm being choked out i'm being choked
26:47out i'm seeing ghostly figures they came up to the boat and her tank had been turned off again
26:53they packed up their gear and they took off and to this day they don't even admit that they even
26:58dove
26:58the pond my dad came to believe that there is a curse and um you know i think there is
27:05too
27:08so the diving thing established that there was a cave what was the next step dad hired a company
27:15out of salt lake to come down and do ground penetrating radar up here what did the gpr find
27:21a series of caves and caverns so dad hired a well driller the well driller drilled down with the four
27:27inch hole and when they brought the drill bit back out there was gold on the tip of the drill
27:32bit
27:33so do you think that that spot is where montezuma's treasure is the evidence shows that it probably is
27:40dad asked the driller if he could come back with a 10 inch drill bit so they got down about
27:4550 feet
27:46and the drill bit broke off so they had to quit he went home that night and had a heart
27:50attack and died
27:52do you think this is part of the curse absolutely yeah i really do well the idea of drilling is
27:59a really
27:59good one would you allow me to do some more drilling here i don't want any more drilling here we've
28:03had
28:03you know too many tragedies every time we've tried that so all right well maybe we should rethink the
28:09diving thing would you allow me to do that you're welcome to go into into the pond and dive
28:23so that's that's where the cave is yep lon you mentioned water traps before right and is that what
28:31you think is going on here yeah the geological features here are perfect for a water trap if i
28:36was an excavator originally this water would just flow all the way down through this canyon
28:41so what the aztecs did once they got the caves and caverns built they put their gold in the cavern
28:47they blocked it off and then they backfilled the channel to flood the area engineering with water
28:54is something that wasn't foreign to the aztecs their homeland in mexico was basically built on a swamp
29:01right you mentioned a ground penetrating radar that was done up on the top side right what they discovered
29:07was a cavern system the cave came off the bottom of the pond and went in about 200 feet and
29:14there was
29:14a big cavern then from this cavern there was a cave that came off of this and then on this
29:20side there
29:21was a cave that came off and it went up and there was a big cavern right here now the
29:28first thing i'd like
29:28to do is put on my gear and jump on that lake and go check out that tunnel but when
29:32you talk about diving
29:33in tunnels it's very dangerous so i have a buddy that i can call who could bring out an rov
29:39put it
29:39in the water and it can scout out the cave before we go down sounds good to me let's get
29:43him you know
29:44what lon if we go down in there and we find evidence of man-made tunnels then they could be
29:50connected to
29:51the caverns i've already looked at and if that's true montezuma's treasure could be right down there
30:12it's been 100 years since a man named freddy crystal biked into canab utah with a tattered
30:18treasure map in his hand he was convinced that this is where the aztecs hid montezuma's treasure
30:26my investigation turned up a lot of clues too man-made tunnels with spots for hiding treasure
30:34petroglyphs which could have been part of an aztec navigation system to find the treasure
30:39and a history of bad things happening to people who search for montezuma's mountains of gold
30:50i wasn't about to let rumors of a curse stop me from trying to solve this mystery
30:59hey eric hey scott how you doing hey good to see you man yeah thanks for coming on such short
31:03notice
31:03i really appreciate it you see that cave over there i want to get down to the base of that
31:09thing i think
31:10it's about 30 feet deep now here's the story uh you've heard of montezuma's treasure well yeah but i
31:17never took it seriously well i think we might have to in this case back in the early 1900s a
31:22guy
31:22named freddy crystal came out to this area brought a bunch of the townspeople to a system of caves he
31:28was looking for montezuma's treasure these tunnels are definitely man-made and it looks like a repository
31:34to me maybe they put the gold up there but it's not there now i think it was moved and
31:39it's quite
31:40possible after talking to some of the local people here it could be down there in the interest of
31:45safety i'd like to take the rover down before we send anybody into the water well they say if it's
31:50a dirty dangerous dull or distant it's better to have a robot do it i like that let's show you
31:55what
31:55you have you want to grab that laptop sure get the table over here so this is the latest and
32:07greatest
32:07stuff yeah we just built it a few weeks ago and it hasn't even been in the water yet i'm
32:11really
32:11excited take me through it okay well uh this is the rov and um it's got this camera in the
32:18front it's
32:18actually just a usb webcam like you have for your computer and that sends live video up to the surface
32:23so you can drive it around using this gamepad controller okay should we get this thing in the
32:28water let's do it all right here we go
32:36flying here yeah i think that's gonna be enough should we put her in put her in
32:48all right okay
32:54well the camera's working i can see water water but what else is down there
33:04you know if you want you can run right into the rock and then we can just go down that's
33:08a good
33:08idea all right let's keep going can you go down a little bit yeah i'm initiating a dive now okay
33:37can you go to the left a little bit there yeah yeah let me go there
33:46all right there we are uh why don't you tilt the camera down uh press the z button there all
33:50right
33:50all right there we go yeah that's great perfect
33:57all right so we're on the rock here can we go to the left and down a little bit
34:07there we go okay there we go look at that you can even see the layers in the rock
34:12keep going down
34:15okay it keeps going it does can you go back to the right a little bit i mean keep going
34:20down yeah there we
34:21go okay yeah that's all right there we can see the bottom yeah okay look at all that sediment wow
34:32now go down a little farther the sediment is in the way that looks like that could be an opening
34:39wow
34:41oh man damn it that sediment just gets in the way you know what eric there's something down there i
34:49gotta
34:49get in there this has been great this has helped me so much i think it's safe enough i'm ready
34:55to go
34:55down there bring in a team of divers there's only one way to find out what's down there you have
35:00to get wet
35:13a while back i got the strangest piece of mail i'd seen the map before an old treaty document showing
35:20the american southwest as the aztecs ancient homeland but there was more a strange symbol
35:26and a trinket that led me to canab utah
35:31legend says the last great king of the aztecs ordered his warriors to gather the riches of the
35:36empire and head north and people around here think his treasure is in an underwater cave that i
35:43think i got a glimpse of with an rov i've done some diving in the past but cave diving is
35:50a whole
35:50different dangerous story but this is my best shot in finding this treasure so i found a local guy and
35:58his team to help me out hey wolf hey scott how are you man you've heard of montezuma's treasure right
36:04yes
36:04well all indicators point to that cave right there i have personal friends who built this and have had
36:11weird experiences i've talked to a number of people here and they said some pretty interesting things
36:17like people pulling the regulators out they felt like they were being choked some people think it's
36:23a curse i don't know i know for sure i'm going to drive home real careful fair enough all right
36:28guys let's
36:29dive let's go
36:50all right
36:51all right guys can everyone hear me
37:06yep we hear you scott
37:10all right well here's where the rov showed what looked like a cave entrance
37:22it looks like there's a very narrow entrance to the cave between the bottom of the lake and the top
37:28of
37:28the cave it's pitch black in there
37:43damn it i really want to keep going but the entrance it's just too narrow
37:55hey scott i've lost visual with you turn around
38:02i hear you i'm in what looks like a tunnel entrance but there's too much silt
38:10while i don't believe in curses i definitely believe in bad luck
38:15if we want to see anything down there we're going to have to do something about all this silt
38:21we're going to have to dredge it out
38:24so
38:28so
38:38so
38:58Guys, there's something wrong with the hose.
39:01The damn thing's not working.
39:03I'm coming back out.
39:11I don't know about you, but I am cold, I'm tired, and I'm frustrated.
39:17It's just not pulling out enough silk.
39:19You're right, and I think I know what's going on.
39:21Roger, bring me that core sample.
39:23We always sample the cores.
39:24Oh, yeah.
39:25This is sand.
39:26It's halfway full.
39:27Yeah, so what's happening?
39:29It'll suck, but it's not pushing.
39:31It's not doing what it's supposed to do.
39:33Well, it's doing all it can do with sand.
39:35You know what?
39:36There is a tunnel there.
39:37And if this is a water trap that was made by the Aztecs, it's a damn good one.
39:43That was disappointing.
39:45But at least my mask wasn't ripped off my face by some unknown force.
39:50Something the landowner told me happened to divers before me.
39:53Hey, Scott, how did it go?
39:54Well, we went down into the tunnel, and it just got so murky when we got to the bottom.
40:01I got to the point where I was literally on my knees, and the tunnel kept going back.
40:06And it was kind of creepy, I have to be honest with you.
40:09I wasn't being, my regulator pulled out or being choked or anything like that, but I felt
40:14this urge to want to keep going.
40:16And I did go in a ways, and then I stopped, and I said, this is too dangerous.
40:20I can't go in.
40:21It got tighter.
40:22We brought in the dredging equipment, and quite frankly, we didn't have enough equipment to
40:28do it.
40:28But to heck with that.
40:30The simplest way to get in there is to drain that lake.
40:33The problem is, have you heard of the amber snail?
40:36Amber snail?
40:37No.
40:37Well, this is the habitat of the amber snail.
40:40The amber snail has been put on the endangered species list.
40:43In fact, if you hurt one of these snails, it's a $50,000 fine.
40:48$50,000?
40:49$50,000 a piece.
40:50Well, we're not going to be draining the lake, though.
40:52You know how I told you about those early divers?
40:54Yeah.
40:55When they went into the cave, they located these square blocks.
40:59You can see, obviously, these blocks have been worked.
41:02Absolutely.
41:02They have definitely man-made blocks.
41:04Well, that's very interesting, because Freddy Crystal said that he found a stone and mortar
41:09wall sealing the caves over at the other site.
41:12Exactly.
41:13The other interesting thing about it is, as you can see, there's cement on it.
41:17Though it's proved nearly impossible to get into that cave, the best piece of evidence
41:22to solve this mystery might be the mortar on these rocks pulled from the lake a few years
41:27ago.
41:28By analyzing this sample in my lab, I can figure out if the mortar was made using a modern
41:33cementing material like Portland cement, or something much older, which could date to
41:38around the time when the Aztecs would have been in the area.
42:10You know what, Lon?
42:11He's worried about Montezuma's curse.
42:14I can't blame him.
42:15And because of that rare endangered snail, draining the lake is not an option.
42:21There's good reason to believe that the Aztec treasure might be hidden in an underwater cave
42:26in Kanab, Utah.
42:28The trouble is, for now, there's no way I can prove it.
42:34Next time on America Unearthed.
42:36Chief Two Moons was at the Battle of a Little Bighorn.
42:39This guy here is the key to finding Custer's treasure.
42:42There's a map buried in a vault.
42:44What happened next?
42:45This vault was robbed.
42:46That treasure has to still be out there.
42:50If you have a mysterious artifact or site I need to see, I want to know about it.
42:55Go to history.com slash unearthed.
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