Author Denver Michaels

Rumor has long held that a lost city lays in a cave in one of today’s most often visited national parks . On April 5, 1909, the Arizona Gazette ran a piece which told of the incredible discovery of a lost city in the Grand Canyon. This story is covered in depth in my book Detours Into The Paranormal: Canyon Country and is reprinted below in its entirety: EXPLORATIONS IN GRAND CANYON Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Being Brought to Light JORDAN IS ENTHUSED Remarkable Finds Indicate Ancient People Migrated From Orient The latest news of the progress of the explorations of what is now regarded by scientists as not only the oldest archeological discovery in the United States, but one of the most valuable in the world, which was mentioned some time ago in the Gazette, was brought to the city yesterday by G.E. Kinkaid, the explorer who found the great underground citadel of the Grand Canyon during a trip from Green River, Wyoming, down the Colorado, in a wooden boat, to ...

In 1957, Billings, Montana journalist Kathryn Wright broke the story of Custer’s missing payroll. According to the story, about a month before the ill-fated Battle of Little Bighorn, the army paid out $25,000 to the men of Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. This was the equivalent to four months of back pay. The army paid the troops while they were out in the field, far away from any town, to deter potential deserters and to avoid having to round up men who had went into town and had too much to drink. Paying soldiers in this manner was standard practice in the day. So, essentially, the U.S. soldiers who fought at the Battle of Little Bighorn had a total of about $25,000 on them. Little Big Horn The army suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn. According to Wikipedia: The 7th Cavalry suffered 52 percent casualties: 16 officers and 242 troopers killed or died of wounds, 1 officer and 51 troopers wounded. Every soldier of the five companies with Custer was killed (except for s...

Throughout the American Southwest there are dozens of tales of lost mines and caches of hidden treasure. For hundreds of years, the tales have infected many with gold fever. The stories have lured countless treasure hunters to their doom, while financial ruining an endless line of investors. Modern-day treasure seekers are still combing the mountains and desert landscape of the Southwest hoping to hit it big. There are rumors of a lost mine in El Paso, tucked away in the Franklin Mountains. Known as the Lost Padre Mine, this story has lured many into the Franklins searching for a cache hidden by monks in the 1600s. According to the story, priests from the mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (our lady of Guadalupe), across the Rio Grande in Juárez, worked a mine in the Franklin Mountains. The industrious monks extracted both gold and silver ore from the mine and they smelted the raw material into bars. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 forced the F...

"Pieces of eight" from a sunken treasure fleet still wash ashore along Florida's Treasure Coast especially in the areas close to Sebastian Inlet. The coins come from the legendary 1715 Treasure Fleet—a sunken Spanish treasure flotilla. For some background, a piece of eight is a Spanish silver coin that served as the first international currency due to its uniformity. The piece of eight, or Spanish dollar , was legal tender in the United States until 1857. In 1792, the United States based its dollar on the standards that the Spanish piece of eight had set. In colonial America, when coins were in short supply, people would cut Spanish dollars into eight pieces, like pieces of a pie, to make change and to have smaller denominations of currency. Many countries even counter stamped pieces of eight and used them as their official currency. Kip Wagner Ohio-born Kip Wagner (1906–1972), a construction contractor, moved to Florida in the late-1940s after signing a contract to build...

The History Press  released my latest book Strange Tales from Virginia's Foothills to the Coast   on March 13, 2023 .  In the book, I briefly covered the tales of the Bruton Vault. According to legend, the Bruton Vault contains the lost works of Sir Francis Bacon. The vault lies beneath the Bruton Parish church in Colonial Williamsburg. Sir Francis Bacon Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) is an interesting character. Bacon was a statesman, philosopher, and is the father of the scientific method. Some call Bacon “the true founder of America and guardian of her history,” “founder of Freemasonry,” and “guiding light of the Rosicrucian Order.” Additionally, many believe that it was Bacon who wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. Another theory suggests Bacon was the mastermind behind a group of intellectuals that authored the Shakespearean plays. In her book Foundations Unearthed, Marie Bauer Hall wrote: It is revealed that in the authorship of the Shakespeare plays...