Upamanyu Biswas
After setting his treasure hunt in motion around 2010, Forrest Fenn started something that grew bigger with every passing year left unsolved and more treasure hunters joining the cause. As explored in Netflix’s ‘Gold & Greed: The Hunt for Fenn’s Treasure,’ the existence of the treasure compelled obsessed hunters to devote years of their lives to uncovering the elusive chest buried somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. However, it all came to a staggering halt when news was unveiled that a medical student and amateur sleuth named Jack Stuef had uncovered it. For some, it was a crushing moment of defeat, while for others, it only propelled a feeling of being cheated out of something as secrecy was maintained over Stuef’s identity, leading to a host of conspiracy theories surrounding his existence and whether the Fenn treasure had been found at all.
Jack Stuef Decoded the Answer to Fenn’s Treasure Through His Words
Before the dreams of discovering Fenn’s treasure ever found him, Jack Stuef moved across different disciplines, looking for something he loved. While attending Georgetown University, the Michigan native served as editor-in-chief for a campus magazine centered around light-hearted themes, Georgetown Heckler. He formally became a writer upon his graduation in 2009, working for publications like the Onion and other traditional media outlets. However, a couple of controversies in his writing job compelled him to leave the media business and look for something else. He enrolled in a postbaccalaureate program, which he followed up with medical school. The training left him unfulfilled, and soon, reports of Forrest Fenn’s treasure started capturing his attention. Before long, he was obsessed like all the other hunters.
The deep dive into treasure hunting reminded Stuef of his younger years when he was excited by the 2002 show ‘Push, Nevada,’ a program that encouraged viewers to solve complex problems for a chance at winning a great fortune. The same was the case when he read David Blaine’s ‘Mysterious Stranger,’ an autobiographical narrative that offered readers the opportunity to engage in a treasure hunt with a valuable reward at the end. They signaled the same message he felt when reading Fenn’s poem and his memoir. The clues were all hidden in the text, and all he had to do was unscramble the meaning. However, his obsession ran deep, and he was embarrassed at the prospect of his family finding out. Stuef poured over Fenn’s interviews and his words, convinced that the answer lay somewhere in his personal stories.
Jack Stuef Faced Controversy After Finding the Treasure
On June 6, 2020, Forrest Fenn treasure hunters received the monumental news that the chest had been located and the finder’s identity was to be kept a secret as per the latter’s wishes. Jack Stuef had done what others had not and discovered the real treasure. However, the aftermath of his discovery was less pleasant than initially expected. After retrieving the chest from its Wyoming resting spot, Stuef drove to Fenn and delivered the box to him on the day of his discovery. Subsequently, a blog was published on Fenn’s website to notify all the hunters to cease their search. Some took it warmly, while others were apoplectic, unhappy at the lack of closure that was given due to the sparseness of information. They were convinced that they had been duped one way or another.
The pushback from the masses left Fenn and Stuef in a difficult spot. To allay people’s concerns, they decided to be slightly more forthcoming about some details. First, some photos of the chest were released with Fenn rifling through its contents. When that was not enough, they even gave up the name of the state where the treasure was resting. The small trickle of information appeased some folks but left others disgruntled still. The biggest change to Stuef’s stance on keeping his anonymity alive took place when Fenn, the father of the treasure hunt, passed away in September 2020. With Fenn gone, the lawsuits filed against him also implicated Stuef as a defendant because of his status as the finder. As such, it became difficult to keep his anonymity alive with the host of problems on all sides.
Eventually, Stuef decided to come forward with his identity. A lawsuit by an attorney named Barbara Andersen claimed that the finder had hacked her mail and texts to find the treasure, which she believed was located in New Mexico. While Stuef denied all the charges, it was evident that it was only a matter of time before his name wound up in public because of the nature of the court cases. In December 2020, a report was published in Outlook Magazine that talked about the story from his side and how he’d located Fenn’s treasure. He expressed his concerns about the treasure’s obsession and how it led to some deaths over the years. He also claimed to be worried about revealing his identity as he had seen the effects of fame on Fenn’s life.
Jack Stuef Sold the Treasure and Receded From the Public Eye
Intriguingly, Jack Stuef explained his reasons for not disclosing the site’s location – he did not want it to become a tourist spot for Forrest Fenn treasure lovers. Instead, he expressed his desire to eventually auction off the treasure and leave it for people to view in some public place. In the same report, he stated that he was planning on leaving his medical line and trying his hand at equities investing. The treasure and the ensuing publicity had ensured that he was financially in a much better spot. Later, in 2022, Fenn’s treasure was auctioned off for a total sales figure of $1,307,946. The auction house obtained the treasure from Tesouro Sagrado Holdings, LLC, which in turn acquired it from Stuef. He later posted in a blog that he no longer owns any part of Fenn’s treasure.
Today, Stuef stays under the radar as much as possible, a possible by-product of his time in the limelight and people making up conspiracies about his existence and the validity of his search. In November 2024, he posted a blog stating that a man named Jon Collins-Black was preparing a treasure hunt of his own, which includes some of Fenn’s treasure pieces. The details of the hunt are encoded within Jon’s book ‘There’s Treasure Inside,’ which mirrors how Forrest Fenn set his treasure quest into motion. According to Stuef, the man was in part inspired by his love for Fenn’s treasure and what it meant to so many people. The finder, who is likely 37 today, wished the new hunters good luck on their journey and urged them to be safe.
