An old ship stranded on Adak Island, Alaska.
The Adak Islandin Alaska, United States, is a volcanic formation that was the home of the Unangan people and which sheltered from the myth of a large hoard of gold coins buried by pirates, to a US base during World War II that left the ground riddled with hidden bombs.
This area has attracted the attention of treasure hunters over the years and Netflix has dedicated a series of documentaries to them, The gold of the island of Adak.
The place is located in one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet. It is located halfway between Seattle and Tokyo and was developed as strategic base of the US military after the Japanese bombing of Dutch Harborin 1942, and the occupation of the Attu and Kiska islands.
The complex later became a Cold War air and submarine surveillance station to monitor what was happening in the Soviet Union. Even at the time Adak was one of the largest cities in Alaska.
Treasure hunters on the island of Adak. After the gold coins buried by the pirate Gregory Dwargstof.
About 6,000 soldiers and their families lived there in colorful duplexes with schools, restaurants, a hospital, a ski resort, a cinema and even a McDonald’s.
However, the island was abandoned and practically ended up in ruins.. And with much of its territory plagued by bombs and ammunition hidden a few meters deep. Regardless, pirate gold has continued to motivate 21st century explorers.
The treasure of Adak Island: myth, reality or Netflix scam?
Legend has it that in 1892 a pirate named Gregory Dwargstof hid on the island $ 365 million in gold coins in 150 cans of food and milk. She was on the run and found this isolated territory the best place to hide his treasure. But he died before he could return to find him.
Dwargstof was said to have been born in Russia, the exact date is unknown. According to the Netflix series, he was a captain who buried something priceless, although rumors have always circulated about lost treasures in Alaska. Above all, gold.
When on the island, during World War II, the United States began building a military base, a group of soldiers, while digging trenches, They found old jars full of gold coins.
This is the closest starting point in time that serves as an incentive for docuseries The gold of the pirates of the island of Adak following the expedition team in search of the hidden treasure.
Current researchers are Burke Mitchell, Jay Toomoth, Brian Weed and the island’s mayor, Thom Spitler. They want to find the gold coins to alleviate the island’s seedy economy. And to get the best pay of their life.
The backdrop of a dead treasure hunter on the island of Adak
In 2008, US Army veteran Samuel Dee Arrington returned to the military base to live there but disappeared without a trace.
Gold Coins. The main focus of researchers on the island of Adak.
The bulletin of National Directory of Missing Persons of the United States claims he was last seen “in the Adak community” on July 15, 2008, just five days after arriving on the island.
Arrington, according to several local testimonies, was “in town shopping for camping gear and supplies and was last seen at the start of the trail to Lake Betty“.
When the search was activated, they found an “expedition rest area” on the north side of the lake, with a camp to the south. “Both belonged to Arrington and appeared to be abandoned”, Specifies the missing persons bulletin.
Until the summer of 2014, there was no other clue as to where Arrington was he couldn’t even find out what had happened to him.
At that time, two employees of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, who were studying the behavior of local birds, They found the man’s remains in a ravine on June 18, 2014.
“We didn’t have the resources to recover the body,” current Adak mayor Thom Spitler explained on the Netflix series. “For his extraction there were only three boys. Me and two others … who knew this part of the island, one of the toughest“.
Spliter continued: “We didn’t know what to expect, really. The boy had been there for six years, we thought there would only be a skeleton, but because he wore chest-high neoprene boots, there was still enough of his body preserved and that made him quite heavy. ”
At that moment, unable to carry the entire body, the three rescuers made a drastic decision: “We cut it into three parts to be able to take it to the top of the ravine… It was very difficult“.
The end of the island of Adak in Alaska
Equipped for the treasure hunt on Adak Island.
Major earthquakes occurred on the island in 1957, 1964 and 1977. Something that made the inhabitants’ tranquility unstable.
The army gave up everything in the late 1990s, officially on March 31, 1997, leaving about $ 3 billion in military resources.
The people who stayed the island waited for its deep water port to attract cruise ships or for its shacks to become a prison. None of these things happened.
Although the 2010 census recorded a population of 326, only about 80 full-time residents remain.living in the ruins of a more prosperous time.
Today it is practically a ghost town and in ruins. Still the few inhabitants of the place organize pirate treasure huntseven if for this they have to deactivate the hundreds of bombs that lurk underground.
Source: Clarin
