Curse of the Civil War Gold is a popular and intriguing theory that suggests a hidden treasure of gold from the American Civil War remains undiscovered today. According to the legend, Union soldiers transporting the gold were allegedly ambushed and killed by Confederate soldiers, and the gold was buried somewhere in the wild and treacherous terrain of Pennsylvania. Over the years, several individuals, including treasure hunters and historians, have been captivated by the idea of finding this legendary treasure. The theory gained significant attention in recent times due to the popularity of the History Channel reality television series also titled "Curse of the Civil War Gold." The show follows treasure hunter Kevin Dykstra and his team as they explore various theories and attempt to uncover the hidden gold. While many dismiss the theory as purely fictional, others believe that there may be some truth to it.

New witnesses share what they saw in the woods during a secretive FBI hunt for Civil War gold

New eyewitness accounts are raising questions about the FBI’s secretive 2018 dig for a legendary cache of Civil War-era gold. Eric McCarthy says a heavily loaded armored car left the Pennsylvania site. (Oct. 7) (AP video:Michael Rubinkam)

This 2018 photo released by Federal Bureau of Investigation shows the FBI’s 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold at a remote site in Dents Run, Penn., after sophisticated testing suggested tons of gold might be buried there. (Federal Bureau of Investigation via AP)

This 2018 photo released by Federal Bureau of Investigation shows the FBI’s 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold at a remote site in Dents Run, Penn., after sophisticated testing suggested tons of gold might be buried there. (Federal Bureau of Investigation via AP)

Eric McCarthy, an elk guide, poses for a photo at a hunting camp in Penfield, Pa., Aug. 23, 2023. McCarthy says he and a client heard loud clanking noises and saw a loaded armored truck during a 2018 FBI operation to recover a legendary cache of Civil War-era gold, which the FBI insists came up empty. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam)

Eric McCarthy, an elk guide, poses for a photo at a hunting camp in Penfield, Pa., Aug. 23, 2023. McCarthy says he and a client heard loud clanking noises and saw a loaded armored truck during a 2018 FBI operation to recover a legendary cache of Civil War-era gold, which the FBI insists came up empty. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam)

Treasure hunter Dennis Parada, left, and elk guide Eric McCarthy are shown at a hunting camp in Penfield, Pa., Aug. 23, 2023. McCarthy says he and a client heard loud clanking noises and saw a loaded armored truck during a 2018 FBI operation to recover a legendary cache of Civil War-era gold, which the FBI insists came up empty. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam)

Treasure hunter Dennis Parada, left, and elk guide Eric McCarthy are shown at a hunting camp in Penfield, Pa., Aug. 23, 2023. McCarthy says he and a client heard loud clanking noises and saw a loaded armored truck during a 2018 FBI operation to recover a legendary cache of Civil War-era gold, which the FBI insists came up empty. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam)

FILE - Treasure hunter Dennis Parada, owner of Finders Keepers, talks about the FBI’s 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold in an interview at his office in Clearfield, Penn., Jan. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam, file)

FILE - Treasure hunter Dennis Parada, owner of Finders Keepers, talks about the FBI’s 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold in an interview at his office in Clearfield, Penn., Jan. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam, file)

FILE - An FBI photo portraying the site of its 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold is seen on Dennis Parada’s laptop in Clearfield, Pa., Jan. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam, file)

FILE - An FBI photo portraying the site of its 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold is seen on Dennis Parada’s laptop in Clearfield, Pa., Jan. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam, file)

PENFIELD, Pa. (AP) — In the heart of Pennsylvania elk country, Eric McCarthy and his client, Don Reichel, got up before sunrise to scour the forest floor for so-called “brown gold” — a rack of freshly shed antlers to add to Reichel’s collection back home.

One hill over, a team of FBI agents was also hunting for gold. The metallic yellow kind.

The FBI’s highly unusual search for buried Civil War-era treasure more than five years ago set in motion a dispute over what, if anything, the agency unearthed and an ongoing legal battle over key records. There’s so much intrigue that even a federal judge felt compelled to note in a ruling last week: “The FBI may have found the gold — or maybe not.”

Now, two witnesses have come forward to share with The Associated Press what they heard and saw in the woods that late-winter morning, raising questions about the FBI’s timeline and adding plot twists to a saga that blends elements of legend, fact and science – and a heavy dose of government secrecy.

The FBI insists nothing came of the March 2018 excavation in Dents Run, a remote wooded valley about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh. But a treasure hunter who led FBI agents to the hillside where an 1863 gold shipment might have been buried is challenging the government’s denials. How could the dig have come up empty, he asks, when the FBI’s own scans showed the likelihood of a buried metal mass equaling hundreds of millions of dollars in gold?

McCarthy, a 45-year-old elk guide, had never met treasure hunter Dennis Parada. But he watched from afar as Parada took the FBI to court and told his story in the media. McCarthy recently decided to share his own story because he thought Parada, who spent years looking for the gold before approaching the FBI with his findings, has been treated unfairly.

“I just felt like I needed to say what I saw, you know?” McCarthy explained. “I have no ties to anybody here. It’s just I felt like they were wronged.”

In an interview at a remote hunting camp about 25 miles (40 km) from Dents Run, McCarthy recalls hearing the unexpected clang of heavy equipment as he worked his way up the mountain in near-darkness, a dusting of snow on the ground from a recent squall.

Later that day, while breaking for lunch, McCarthy and Reichel watched a trio of armored trucks rumble past. One of the vehicles rode low, as if it was carrying a full load.

“They took something out of Dents Run,” McCarthy insists now. “Something heavy.”

Reached by phone, Reichel, McCarthy’s 73-year-old shed hunting client, corroborated his account of hearing early-morning clatter and seeing a loaded truck on March 14, 2018. Their recollections echo earlier statements from residents who told the AP of hearing a backhoe and jackhammer overnight and seeing a convoy of FBI vehicles, including armored trucks.

Parada, co-founder of the treasure-hunting outfit Finders Keepers, views the eyewitness accounts as important because they could bolster one of his main contentions — that the FBI conducted a secret overnight dig for the gold and spirited it away. The FBI’s warrant to excavate the site limited work to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day.

The agency strenuously denies it dug after hours, saying FBI police merely conducted nighttime ATV patrols to secure the site.

“No gold or other items of evidence were located or collected. The FBI continues to unequivocally reject any claims or speculation to the contrary,” said spokesperson Carrie Adamowski.

Indeed, there’s little historical evidence to substantiate apocryphal accounts that an Army detachment lost a gold shipment in the Pennsylvania wilderness, possibly after an ambush by Confederate sympathizers. But the legend has inspired generations of treasure hunters, Parada among them.

Scientific testing suggested he was on to something.

The FBI said in a 2018 court document that its own geophysical consultant identified an underground metallic mass weighing up to 9 tons, with the density of gold, at the site identified by Finders Keepers. A federal judge approved a search and seizure warrant, and the FBI set up camp in Dents Run, later describing it as a possible “cultural heritage site containing gold belonging to the United States government.” Parada hoped to earn a finder’s fee from the potential recovery.

On the second day of the FBI dig, McCarthy and Reichel awoke at 4 a.m. and were on a mountain that parallels the narrow Dents Run valley sometime between 5 and 5:30.

By then, the FBI’s presence had become the talk of the backcountry, with speculation running rampant that agents were hunting for gold. The FBI had shooed McCarthy away from a different part of Dents Run a day earlier. But he was determined to help his client find an elk shed. Splitting up to increase their odds, McCarthy dropped Reichel off then parked more than a mile away.

He said he could hear the distant hum of a running engine as soon as he got out of his truck. The noise grew louder as he made his way up the hill and he heard metal on stone, or metal on metal — what sounded to him like heavy equipment meeting earth.

McCarthy said he got to the top of the ridge and started back down the other side. That’s when he laid eyes on the FBI operation, on the opposite slope, about 400 yards (meters) away. He saw lights powered by a generator. A parked excavator. A smaller piece of equipment, perhaps a skid-steer or quad, moving up and down the hill. A brown-black gash in the earth surrounded by snow. People huddling under a makeshift canopy.

“It looked to me like they were wrapping up a dig,” he said.

Reichel, who was farther away from the dig site, said he heard machinery when he crested the ridge.

“I can hear some machines, or something, clanging and banging and roaring and all that stuff,” said Reichel, a retired manufacturing worker. He said he was too far away to be able to see anything.

An FBI timeline says the search team didn’t arrive at the dig site until 8 a.m. that morning, and an excavator operator arrived even later. That’s well after the time that McCarthy and Reichel say they detected signs of activity.

The pair reconvened for lunch several hours later. It was then, they said, that a convoy of unmarked black SUVs and armored trucks drove by them on Pennsylvania Route 555, heading out of Dents Run. McCarthy and Reichel said one of the three armored trucks seemed to be weighed down — more squat than the other two and lagging behind.

“Eric and I both made the comment that one must be loaded.” Reichel said.

“It was loaded to the gills,” said McCarthy, adding he’s driven overloaded dump trucks and “I know what it looks like.”

Not so, the FBI says. While “appropriate vehicles and equipment” were brought to Dents Run, armored trucks were not among them, according to Adamowski, the FBI spokesperson.

Warren Getler, a consultant who has worked closely with Finders Keepers, argued the eyewitness accounts add up to one thing – a clandestine night dig.

“And why would you do a night dig,” he said, “unless you wanted to remove the gold under cover of darkness?”

Getler, co-author of “Rebel Gold,” a book exploring the possibility of buried Civil War-era caches of gold and silver, joined Parada in Dents Run for the 2018 dig. But the FBI mostly kept them confined to their cars at the bottom of the hill, showing them an empty hole when the work was done.

The agency subsequently stonewalled Parada’s Freedom of Information Act request for records on the dig, prompting him to file a lawsuit. In 2022, a judge forced the FBI to release a trove of photos and documents .

But the agency refuses to turn over its operational plan for the gold dig — which Parada and Getler believe might include information about an overnight excavation — and other records the government says are exempt from disclosure. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta told the FBI on Sept. 27 it needed to come up with a better justification for keeping the disputed records under wraps.

While Parada pursues the FBI in court, he hasn’t given up his search in the Dents Run area. He recently hired a New Jersey geophysical company that identified several underground anomalies near the site of the original FBI dig, one of which measures 25 feet (7.62 meters) by 8 feet (2.44 m).

Finders Keepers’ own equipment detected metal objects in the same location, perhaps 15 feet down, presumably in a tunnel or cave, said Parada, playing a video that shows a detector emitting a high-pitched squeal as it is swept across the ground.

He’s now seeking to partner with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which owns the land, on a new excavation in Dents Run. Parada, his lawyer and top officials from the conservation agency plan to meet later this month.

“It’s a part of our history that’s hidden away,” Parada said, “and I think it’s time that should be told.”

Treasure hunters allege the FBI made off with Civil War-era gold and covered it up

Dennis Parada, right, and his son Kem Parada stand at the site of the FBI's dig for Civil War-era gold in September 2018 in Dents Run, Penn. A scientific report commissioned by the FBI shortly before agents went digging for buried treasure suggested that a huge quantity of gold was below the surface. Michael Rubinkam/AP hide caption

Dennis Parada, right, and his son Kem Parada stand at the site of the FBI's dig for Civil War-era gold in September 2018 in Dents Run, Penn. A scientific report commissioned by the FBI shortly before agents went digging for buried treasure suggested that a huge quantity of gold was below the surface.

The FBI either lied to a federal judge about having video of its secretive 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold, or illegally destroyed the video to prevent a father-son team of treasure hunters from gaining access to it, an attorney for the duo asserted in new legal filings that allege a government cover-up.

The FBI has long insisted its agents recovered nothing of value when they went looking for the fabled gold cache. But Finders Keepers, a treasure-hunting company that led agents to the remote woodland site in Pennsylvania in hopes of getting a finder's fee, suspect the FBI found tons of gold and made off with it.

After Finders Keepers began pressing the government for information about the dig, the FBI initially said it could produce 17 relevant video files. Then, without explanation, the FBI reduced that number to four. Last week, under court order, the agency finally revealed what it said were the contents of those four videos — and it turns out all had been provided to the FBI by Finders Keepers co-owner Dennis Parada himself, weeks before the dig, at a time when he was offering his evidence for buried treasure.

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The FBI did not say it had any video of the actual excavation, which is what Finders Keepers is seeking. The treasure hunters say they have evidence the FBI indeed shot video of the dig — and they are seeking sanctions against the FBI for what their lawyer cast as a blatant, bad-faith effort to mislead.

On March 13, 2018, Parada's hidden trail camera captured what appears to be an FBI agent in front of a video camera at the hillside dig site, with other agents in the background. The trail-cam image was included in a legal filing late Friday by lawyer Anne Weismann, who represents Finders Keepers in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government.

FBI agents and representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources set up a base in March, 2018, in Benezette Township, Elk County, Pa. Katie Weidenboerner/The Courier-Express via AP hide caption

FBI agents and representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources set up a base in March, 2018, in Benezette Township, Elk County, Pa.

Katie Weidenboerner/The Courier-Express via AP

The photo "suggests either the FBI has falsely claimed to have no other responsive videotapes or the FBI illegally destroyed responsive videotapes in an effort to circumvent the FOIA's disclosure requirements," Weismann wrote.

She asked a judge to order the Justice Department to pay a portion of Finders' Keepers legal fees to compensate for the legal wrangling over the videos, and hold the FBI accountable for "covering up the results of its excavation . that highly advanced scientific technology indicated contained multiple tons of gold."

A message was sent to the FBI seeking comment Monday.

The government's initial court-ordered release of documents last month included a geophysical survey commissioned by the FBI that suggested an object with a mass of up to 9 tons and a density consistent with gold was buried at the site. The FBI used the consultant's work to obtain a warrant to seize any gold found at the site at Dent's Run, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, where legend says an 1863 shipment of Union gold was either lost or stolen on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.

The agency has adamantly denied it found anything. The treasure hunters say the FBI has consistently stonewalled.

"For the FBI to now say it has no videotapes of the dig strains credulity and takes this whole affair to the next level," Warren Getler, who has worked closely with Finders Keepers, said Monday. "We have incontrovertible photographic evidence of them videotaping the dig and interviewing their operational leader at the site. It raises a lot of serious questions."

In addition to seeking legal fees, Weismann also asked the court to give Finders Keepers the ability to depose three FBI officials: Jacob Archer of the FBI's art crime team in Philadelphia, who oversaw the dig; the unidentified videographer shown in the trail-cam still; and Michael Seidel, the FBI section chief for records dissemination.

"We want to answer two questions. Did the FBI create videotapes during the excavation? The picture certainly seems to answer that question. And if so, what happened to those videotapes? It seems to me these are the people best situated to have that information," Weismann, a veteran FOIA lawyer who formerly worked at the Justice Department, said in an interview Monday.

Weismann indicated in court documents that the Justice Department opposes both requests.

Curse of the civil war gold

The Curse of Civil War Gold

A deathbed confession made by a lighthouse keeper in the 1890s leads Kevin Dykstra and his team to believe there is Civil War gold to be found in Michigan. more

A deathbed confession made by a lighthouse keeper in the 1890s le . More

Starring: Kevin Dykstra

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While many dismiss the theory as purely fictional, others believe that there may be some truth to it. Some pieces of evidence, including signed affidavits and alleged treasure maps, have been presented to support the theory. Further adding to the allure of the story, the legend of the Curse of the Civil War Gold speaks of a curse placed upon anyone who finds the treasure, resulting in misfortune or death.

The Curse of Civil War Gold

A deathbed confession made by a lighthouse keeper in the 1890s leads Kevin Dykstra and his team to believe there is Civil War gold to be found in Michigan.

Starring: Kevin Dykstra

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About this Show

The Curse of Civil War Gold

A deathbed confession made by a lighthouse keeper in the 1890s leads Kevin Dykstra and his team to believe there is Civil War gold to be found in Michigan.

Starring: Kevin Dykstra

Although no concrete evidence has been found to confirm the presence of the hidden gold, the mystery and excitement surrounding the Curse of the Civil War Gold continue to capture the imagination of many. Whether it is a mere legend or a true tale of forgotten riches, the story serves as a reminder of the lasting impact and fascination the American Civil War has on people's lives..

Reviews for "Battling Supernatural Forces: The Curse of the Civil War Gold Unveiled"

- John Smith - 1 star

I was really disappointed with "Curse of the Civil War Gold". The show was poorly researched and lacked any real evidence or supporting facts. It felt more like a fictional drama series rather than a serious investigative show. The constant use of cliffhangers and exaggerated reactions from the cast only further detracted from any credibility the show may have had. Overall, I found "Curse of the Civil War Gold" to be a waste of time and would not recommend it to anyone seeking a genuine historical documentary.

- Emily Johnson - 2 stars

I had high expectations for "Curse of the Civil War Gold" as someone who is fascinated by history and treasure hunting. Unfortunately, the show failed to deliver. The entire series felt scripted and staged, with forced drama and contrived conflicts between cast members. The so-called "discoveries" and theories presented lacked substantial evidence and were based on flimsy speculation. It's a shame because the concept of searching for lost treasure during the Civil War is intriguing, but "Curse of the Civil War Gold" missed the mark completely.

- David Thompson - 1 star

I have watched many treasure hunting shows in the past, but "Curse of the Civil War Gold" was by far the worst. The cast seemed more interested in creating drama among themselves than actually conducting a serious search for treasure. The constant bickering and infighting became tiresome and made it difficult to focus on the supposed mission at hand. Additionally, the show lacked any real historical context or expert input, making it feel more like a staged reality TV show rather than a legitimate documentary. I highly advise against wasting your time on this poorly executed series.

Mysterious Deaths and Ancient Prophecies: The Curse that Surrounds the Civil War Gold