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What Was Your First Interest In Fortean Topics?

There was an Adventure Book in the toybox on the landing with a section on lost treasures. Not Fortean as such but it fired my imagination even before Dennis Wheatley and the like. Don't recall its title or if it was part of an old Annual (likely rescued from the back of the Cart by friendly Dustmen and passed on). I do remember three distinct stories : one was a map showing the putative location of famous sunken treasure ships - I think Blaze TV must have got hold of the same map as they regularly show salvage attempts.
Secondly there was a bit on the lost treasure wagon of King John (of ye olde England) as he crossed the Wash in 1216. I read this more than 50 years ago and it seems that every 10 years since then another investigator catches the headlines by claiming to know which field the gold lies under (the Wash has got smaller). All he needed was a little project investment and Council permission to dig.
Thirdly was an attempt to drain a lake somewhere in South America to retrieve the golden votive offerings thrown in by the Aztec/Incas/Mayans. The water was successfully removed but before the 4 foot of mud could be searched, the sun baked it to brick/concrete and only one small object was recovered. The story was accompanied by an illustration of a man (or men) in a hard hat with a pneumatic drill and a frustrated expression. I misremembered this as lake Titicaca (bit too big to drain maybe) until I saw a prog yesterday on the origins of the legend of El Dorado. This would suggest the story was of Lake Guatavita in Columbia, with the votive offerings coming from the Muisca people - but the last attempt to drain the lake was in 1898 (Wiki) whereas the illustration was more like a scene from the 1960s. Have just looked up the history of the pneumatic drill - yeah they were around in the 1890s. Book long gone but still prompting thought and interest.
 
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