Recently disclosed FBI documents have revealed that an excavation almost three years ago was a search for lost Civil War-era gold.
The secret dig was carried-out in March, 2018 in Pennsylvania, after a father-and-son duo, Dennis and Kem Parada, provided a tip-off to the federal agency.
Documents revealing the FBI dig were disclosed in court documents in recent days, following a lawsuit brought by the father-and-son against the FBI, who claimed nothing was found at the location, which is about 135 miles northeast of Pittsburgh
The gold was sent by President Abraham Lincoln to pay Union soldiers but first had to make a stop at the US Mint in Philadelphia.
It was last spotted in St Marys, Pennsylvania, travelling northeast towards the capital.
When the wagon train didn’t arrive at the Mint, searchers were sent out who discovered empty wagons and the bodies of dead soldiers.
Various accounts say that the lieutenant charged with leading the wagon had fallen into a fever and divulged the secret of their cargo to the lower ranking soldiers.
Roguish elements within his own squadron are then said to have slain the rest and made off with the treasure.
In any case, despite the best efforts to track down the gold it was never found.
Until the lawsuit, the FBI had long refused to disclose why it went digging in the area, called Dents Run, and described the court-authorised excavation of what evidence suggested may have been a cultural heritage site.
But the Parada family believed the federal agency was hiding something about the dig, which recently disclosed documents confirmed as a search for a cache that was 3x5x8 (feet) to 5x5x8 in size.
The email, which was sent to the FBI by K.T. Newton, an assistant US attorney in Philadelphia in 2018, was marked Confidential, the Associated Press reported.
The Paradas also allege that an FBI agent revealed to them, as well as a geophysical consultant sent to initially investigate the site, that there was a mass. Both parties are due to press their claims further in a press conference on Wednesday.
The mass was described to them as being located one or two feet off Dennys sweet spot, in reference to the author of Rebel Gold, a book exploring the possibility of buried Civil War-era caches of gold and silver.
A spokesperson for the FBI said last week that The FBI unequivocally rejects any claims or speculation to the contrary.
Bill Cluck, the lawyer for the Prada family, is pressing further access to some 2,4000 pages of government documents in relation to the dig, which could reveal more information, through a Freedom of Information request.
The treasure hunters believe that a ground-penetrating scan carried out by the FBI at the site was evidence they must have thought something big was buried there.
“They had 50 agents there. We have witnesses that they were there all night with armored cars. So, what are we supposed to believe?” Cluck said.
“We are convinced that they found gold.”