[originally posted on dalneitzel.com 12/10/20]

When I posted my statement revealing myself as the finder Monday, I left an email address fellow searchers could use to reach me. I figured it would be a sort of release valve for pent-up frustration and would become full of hate mail pretty quickly. But what I received surprised me.

Over the past few days, I’ve been overwhelmed with hundreds of kind, heartfelt, and congratulatory emails, and now I feel like a lousy cynic for thinking most searchers would hate me. When I interviewed with Dan Barbarisi, he told me, from his reporting the…

My name is Jack Stuef, and I am the finder of the Forrest Fenn Treasure. I searched for it for two years, and on June 6 of this year, I retrieved the treasure from the place I found it in Wyoming, the same place Forrest hid it 10 years ago. I now own the treasure chest.

Forrest died this September, and it was a tremendous loss to many thousands of people, including those like me who were enamored with his treasure hunt. I posted my feelings on his passing here.

For the past six months, I have remained anonymous, not…

My friend Forrest Burke Fenn passed away at the age of 90 earlier this month, and if I have anything to say about it, far too soon.

September 8 was certainly not the first time Forrest made me cry.

I am the person who found Forrest’s famed treasure. The moment it happened was not the triumphant Hollywood ending some surely envisioned; it just felt like I had just survived something and was fortunate to come out the other end. For so long, I thought I might be haunted for the rest of my days by knowing where the treasure was…