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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