He thinks Staten Island is treasure island.
At 6 a.m. this previous Saturday, David Hager, 58, and spouse Michelle, 51, and two sons, Tyler and Ryan, 21 and 17, began digging in a small park within the forgotten borough.
Hager, who lives in Colorado, believes he has accurately deciphered clues pinpointing buried booty on Staten Island from Byron Preiss’s 1982 e-book “The Secret: A Treasure Hunt.”
“There have been two issues [in the book] that no person might determine,” Hager, a former geologist and science trainer who now owns a college-planning service, advised The Submit. “We have now this so dialed in. It needs to be right here.”
Within the early Nineteen Eighties, Preiss supposedly buried casques and keys in plexiglass circumstances in 12 North American cities. He put elaborate clues within the e-book as to their whereabouts. Solely three of the treasures — in Chicago, Cleveland and Boston — have ever been discovered. It’s broadly assumed that there’s loot someplace within the 5 boroughs, but it surely’s by no means been positioned. Preiss died in a automobile crash on Lengthy Island in 2005.
Hager and household travelled from Denver to spend the vacation weekend digging. They introduced battery-operated energy drills, shovels and underground cameras with them.
If Hager finds a casque and key, he might alternate the important thing with the Preiss property for a selected gemstone — a topaz in response to his interpretation of the clues — with an estimated worth of $2,000.
The Hagers needed to do their digging within the park — the precise title and site they requested not be revealed — on the sly, since they weren’t licensed for the excavating.
When a passerby occurred by and requested what they have been as much as, Michelle cagily advised him, “We’re on the lookout for Grandpa’s time capsule.”
At numerous factors, Hager counted off steps and advised his sons the place to dig, as he himself is recovering from a shoulder damage
“Earlier than coming right here, we practiced within the yard,” he stated. “We examined completely different instruments and methods.”
Early on, it appeared as if the household had hit one thing utilizing the probe, which has a digicam hooked up. Trying on the monitor, Hager stated, “It seems just like the plexiglass case.”
However, alas, it turned out to be a rock.
Undaunted, the household – mother Michelle dubs her brood “Staff Hager” – saved digging, overlaying a slender path of roughly 30 ft.
After 5 hours, everybody was hungry for lunch, the drill batteries have been lifeless and the underground digicam display was busted. Holes gave the impression to be all over the place. Because the Hager children took to digging with their fingers, David admitted {that a} break was so as.
“We’re heading to the Airbnb to recharge,” he introduced.
The household returned to dig on Sunday and Monday, however they didn’t have any luck. Nonetheless, Hager isn’t deterred.
“We’ll be again,” he advised The Submit on Monday night, simply earlier than his return flight to Colorado.
“We simply ran out of time. We’ll return with extra gear, extra batteries and be able to go once more.”
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