Free Republic

PENFIELD, Pa. — 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...

A father-son duo of Pennsylvania treasure hunters have sued the FBI for failing to produce records chronicling a top-secret excavation the agency administered in the state nearly four years ago that may have yielded a $400million cache of Civil War-era gold. Court documents unsealed earlier this year revealed that the bureau had in fact engaged in the previously undisclosed dig in Elk County in search of the fabled treasure, lost by the US government in 1863. The filing attested that agents engaged in the dig came up empty-handed.Fortune seekers Dennis and Kem Parada, however - who together comprise the lost...

A pair of Pennsylvania treasure hunters and their lawyer are accusing the FBI of playing games and acting suspiciously about a dig at a rural site believed to contain a massive stash of Civil War-era gold -- which may be worth up to $250 million. The accusations from Dennis and Kem Parada, and their attorney, Bill Cluck, came months after the bureau said it dug a hole in Dents Run and found nothing. The father-and-son duo felt convinced that area of state-owned wilderness northeast of Pittsburgh holds a hidden stash of gold and the pair claim the FBI went back...