Treasure Hunters Believed They’d Found $500 Million in Civil War Gold. Then the FBI Swooped In.

We climb in the humid afternoon up a rutted and overgrown logging road, the sky mostly sealed off by a canopy of tree branches, sunlight leaking through dense greenery in elongated shafts. The hike up Dents Run is not quite a half mile long, but the six representatives of Finders Keepers LLC, a Pennsylvania-based treasure-hunting business, string out as climbers on Everest. Co-owner Denny Parada, 69, brings up the rear, hobbling a bit and breathing forcefully. He’s wearing a Finders Keepers polo and a camo baseball cap and shorts and has a handgun strapped to his hip. “Snakes,” he’d explained. Dents Run is an unincorporated community in Benezette Township in rural Elk County, in northwestern Pennsylvania. We’re on a wooded slope, one knobby vertebra among thousands along the spine of the Appalachians. The overgrown road we’re ascending, known locally as Snooks Trail, is a lingering scar from a decades-old logging operation, though most recently it has served as the access point to Parada’s lifelong obsession. About halfway up, Denny’s 37-year-old son and business partner, Kem, hollers and points. An elk is perched on a steep slope above the trail, 50 feet up. It stands unmoving, staring us down, as the group stops to gaze back. A few of us snap photos and turn uphill; the elk stays locked on us as we trudge away. Anyone who is inclined to anthropomorphize might infer some type of omen in this. Dents Run has an enigmatic history—a lump of new-growth forest that’s unremarkable in every way, except that it birthed a tale of, among other things, a psychic, a cache of buried gold, Confederate sympathizers, an army of FBI agents, and a furtive overnight dig. Once we reach our destination, Parada points to the slender cave opening that first propelled his quest, and the location maybe 15 yards away where four years ago the FBI authorized a sizable excavation. Parada is a paunchy nub of a man with a gray mustache and goatee. He uses an early-aughts-style flip phone and chews tobacco. His recitations of his exploits blend boyish wonder with the copious f-bombs of a case-hardened cynic. At the moment, he’s describing the extensive testing he did on this very ground to confirm the presence of gold. “I just think beyond any other treasure hunters,” he says, “because… I’m not going to claim I’m smart, but I do more experiments than anybody.” As he speaks, Dwayne Kelly, a member of Parada’s entourage of full-timers, part-timers, and volunteers, is circling a nearby slope with dowsing rods. Parada describes Kelly as a kind of savant with this ancient if scientifically debunked method of searching for underground metal. “I need everybody’s opinion here,” Kelly says. The rest of the group clusters around him. [View in Browser]( [Popular Mechanics]( [SHOP]( [EXCLUSIVE]( [SUBSCRIBE]( [Treasure Hunters Believed They’d Found $500 Million in Civil War Gold. Then the FBI Swooped In.]( [Treasure Hunters Believed They’d Found $500 Million in Civil War Gold. Then the FBI Swooped In.]( We climb in the humid afternoon up a rutted and overgrown logging road, the sky mostly sealed off by a canopy of tree branches, sunlight leaking through dense greenery in elongated shafts. The hike up Dents Run is not quite a half mile long, but the six representatives of Finders Keepers LLC, a Pennsylvania-based treasure-hunting business, string out as climbers on Everest. Co-owner Denny Parada, 69, brings up the rear, hobbling a bit and breathing forcefully. He’s wearing a Finders Keepers polo and a camo baseball cap and shorts and has a handgun strapped to his hip. “Snakes,” he’d explained. Dents Run is an unincorporated community in Benezette Township in rural Elk County, in northwestern Pennsylvania. We’re on a wooded slope, one knobby vertebra among thousands along the spine of the Appalachians. The overgrown road we’re ascending, known locally as Snooks Trail, is a lingering scar from a decades-old logging operation, though most recently it has served as the access point to Parada’s lifelong obsession. About halfway up, Denny’s 37-year-old son and business partner, Kem, hollers and points. An elk is perched on a steep slope above the trail, 50 feet up. It stands unmoving, staring us down, as the group stops to gaze back. A few of us snap photos and turn uphill; the elk stays locked on us as we trudge away. Anyone who is inclined to anthropomorphize might infer some type of omen in this. Dents Run has an enigmatic history—a lump of new-growth forest that’s unremarkable in every way, except that it birthed a tale of, among other things, a psychic, a cache of buried gold, Confederate sympathizers, an army of FBI agents, and a furtive overnight dig. Once we reach our destination, Parada points to the slender cave opening that first propelled his quest, and the location maybe 15 yards away where four years ago the FBI authorized a sizable excavation. Parada is a paunchy nub of a man with a gray mustache and goatee. He uses an early-aughts-style flip phone and chews tobacco. His recitations of his exploits blend boyish wonder with the copious f-bombs of a case-hardened cynic. At the moment, he’s describing the extensive testing he did on this very ground to confirm the presence of gold. “I just think beyond any other treasure hunters,” he says, “because… I’m not going to claim I’m smart, but I do more experiments than anybody.” As he speaks, Dwayne Kelly, a member of Parada’s entourage of full-timers, part-timers, and volunteers, is circling a nearby slope with dowsing rods. Parada describes Kelly as a kind of savant with this ancient if scientifically debunked method of searching for underground metal. “I need everybody’s opinion here,” Kelly says. The rest of the group clusters around him. [Read More]( [Yes! These Reel Mowers Can Get the Job Done]( [Yes! These Reel Mowers Can Get the Job Done]( Give you outdoor area a fresh cut with these quiet, low-maintenance mowers. 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