Indian Jones and Lara Croft have enthralled fans worldwide but did you know there are real indies and tomb raiders in the world with no less daring having accomplished considerable feats in archeology, pilfering tombs, diving for pirate gold and also making huge discoveries in the bargain. Take a look at 17 of the real-life treasure hunters who were also real-life Indiana Jones.
If there ever was a young Indy, then it is Dr. E. Lee Spence who turned out not only the youngest treasure hunter but also the most successful one at that. His first discovery was an old shipwreck found with diving gear he designed when he was just 12 years old. Spence has been attacked underwater twice and made many enemies but has yet managed to find artifacts and treasure worth $100 million.
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The circus strongman who became an archaeologist for the money and ended up being a real-life tomb raider pillaging Egyptian Tombs and selling the artifacts to museums. Battista died young when he was just 45 while travelling to Timbuktu.
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Mel Fisher was a chicken farmer who was obsessed with treasure hunting. He discovered coins, jewelry and gold bars worth thousands of dollars during his obsessive quest for the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a ship which sank in 1622 off Florida. Ironically, it was discovered by his son in 1985 and approximately $40 million in treasure was recovered from it which was shared by the Fisher family.
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It was John Chatterton who discovered the RMS Lusitania and the Titanic and the Turkish ship Struma that was sunk by a German Submarine while escorting Jews escaping the Holocaust. His quest to find the 17th century Greek Ship, the Golden Fleece, was successful in 2008 but not before he had to fight off hostile treasure hunters and other governments.
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Phillip Masters was a regular cab driver with a strange obsession of researching about the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Masters even learnt Spanish for researching the Seville library when he found a clue to a pirate ship named the Queen Anne’s Revenge which was ultimately found by Masters and his group off the coast of North Carolina. It turned out one of the most complete pirate ships ever.
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This treasure hunting duo discovered Spanish Gold to the tune of $1 million in a shipwreck discovered off the coasts of Florida. A few months later they found another haul of 350 coins that fetched them $4.5 million. The treasure was from a Spanish fleet that had sunk in a hurricane in 1715. But! Here’s the interesting part. The treasure was found in just six feet of water near Vero Beach where people had been swimming around for years without noticing.
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This real-life Indian Jones escaped death several times during his quest for treasure form lost shipwrecks off Nova Scotia. The area near Cape Breton Island is known as Death Coast due to the dangerous reefs and current. Surprisingly, Mckinnon found treasure and Silverware from President Madison’s table which was stolen by British and Canadians who had raided the White House during the war of 1812.
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Bayerle with his eye patch looks like a real-life pirate and was also convicted of manslaughter for murdering his wife’s lover. After being released from jail in 2009, he went on to discover the wreck of The Republic, the largest ever ship at the time just off New England. Bayerle didn’t find the rumored $2 billion god treasure that ship was said to be carrying but he found a very well stocked wine cellar with 100 year of wine and champagne.
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Thompson was obsessed in looking for the SS Central America that carried three tones of Californian gold. He actually found it but didn’t want to share it. He was pursued by the Feds till he was arrested in Palm Beach. He claimed he couldn’t remember where it was. He was jailed and fined $1, 000 a day.
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William Montgomery McGovern is well known for his death defying exploits rivaling Indiana Jones. Like Jones, he worked in the Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural history as a curator. McGovern had explored the Himalayas, the Amazon and even entered a forbidden Tibetan city. During WWII, he detailed his observations behind enemy lines in a paper which he handed over to President Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs.
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Donald Miller had collected an impressive collection of artifacts that he raided from tombs from several countries however he ended up losing a lot of it when the FBI raided his home. They raid yielded thousands of artifacts like an Egyptian Sarcophagus, Ming Vases, Aztec figurines, and Chinese Jade which the BI returned to their respective countries. Miller wasn’t charged but died in 2015.
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Braidwood was regarded as the inspiration behind Indiana Jones and the coincidence was that both taught at Chicago University. Braidwood was known for his archaeological research in countries ravaged by war such as Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Although he didn’t find much, he did find the first trace of human blood, the oldest piece of cloth ever found and early examples of natural hand worked copper.
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Danny Douglas was hired to track down the Reliquary of St Maurus that was regarded to have contained the bones of St John the Baptist after it was allegedly stolen by Nazi collaborators. Just like Indiana Jones and the last crusade, the Nazi secret service followed him and also sent a female agent to seduce him into revealing the location of the treasure. The treasure was found beneath the floorboards of a church but he was made to give it up with the agents taking credit for the discovery.
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Hiram Bingham II was credited for an amazing discovery that happened to be Macha Pichu, the ancient Quechua city and birthplace of Inca kings. The discovery was made in Peru in 1911. Like a regular Indy, Bingham also delivered lectures on archaeology in Yale. Bingham uncovered more than 40, 000 artifacts from the Macha Pichu find that included bones, artifacts, ceramics and Inca mummies.
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If you’ve seen Indiana Jones and the crystal skull, then this guy discovered the real thing in Belize in 1920. Fredrick Mitchell-Hedges was an English discoverer who was obsessed with myths and legends and believed that the crystal skull he found belonged to an alien. At one time he worked as a Mexican spy and also was known to have fought leopards and crocodiles while trying to find lost treasure.
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T.E. Lawrence was one of the most famous figures of his time spending several years in Northern Syria disguised as an archaeologist when he was actually a spy for the British government. He led Bedouin guerillas in a revolt during the 1916-1918 revolt including the most dramatic attack on a Turkish military train.
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Among real-life treasure hunters, Brenton Easter is an unconventional Indiana Jones who dresses up like him every Halloween. While there are many tomb raiders around, his job at Homeland security is to catch them. Till date Brenton has recovered almost 2,500 artifacts worth $250 million which have been returned to their respective countries.
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