Is there anything as exciting when you're a kid as the thought of finding buried treasure? For that matter, is there anything more exciting than the thought of finding buried treasure as an adult? Probably not - especially if it actually exists.
As it turns out, the treasure hidden by eccentric millionaire Forrest Fenn more than a decade ago has finally been found - and was real.
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As LADBible reported before, Mr Fenn, a well-known art and antiquities collector, hid a bronze chest filled with gold coins and nuggets, jewels, antique jewellery with rubies and emeralds, pre-Columbian animal figures, prehistoric 'mirrors' of hammered gold and more - said to be worth over $1 million - in the Rocky Mountain wilderness over ten years ago.
Fenn presented clues as to its whereabouts in a 24 line poem that was published in his autobiography, The Thrill Of The Chase, in 2010.
It's said that at least four people have died attempting to locate it, but finally the treasure has been successfully found.
In a statement on his website, Mr Fenn confirmed that the treasure chest had been successfully found, though he didn't reveal the exact location of it.
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"It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago,' Fenn said in the statement. "I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot."
'Begin it where warm waters halt / and take it in the canyon down. / Not far, but too far to walk. / Put in below the home of Brown' is how the poem begins, so kudos to whoever found it. It can't have been easy. Although Fenn did remind people on his blog few years ago that it wasn't in an impossible to reach location.
"The treasure chest is not under water, nor is it near the Rio Grande River," he wrote. "It is not necessary to move large rocks or climb up or down a steep precipice, and it is not under a man-made object.
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"Please remember that I was about 80 when I made two trips from my vehicle to where I hid the treasure. Please be cautious and don't take risks."
Now 89, Fenn told the Santa Fe New Mexican on Sunday that the man who found it did not want his name released, but that he discovered the chest few days before.
The discovery was confirmed by a photograph that the man, who apparently said he was from 'back East', sent Fenn.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: US News