A tour of the Florida Panhandle, its history and natural attractions.

A guide to visiting the odd and less known tourist attractions in the state of Florida.

The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

The story of the search and discovery of the treasure wreck--Nuestra Senora de Atocha.

A compelling argument that connects the lost treasure of the Knights Templar to the mysterious money pit on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, that has baffled treasure hunters for two centuries • Fascinating occult detective work linking the Cathars, the Scottish Masons, and Renne-le-Chateau to the elusive treasure pit on Oak Island • Draws on new evidence recently unearthed in Italy, France, and Scotland to provide a compelling solution to one of the world's most enduring mysteries When the Order of Knights Templar was ruthlessly dissolved in 1307 by King Philip the Fair of France it possessed immense wealth and political power, yet none of the treasure the Templars amassed has ever been found. Their treasure is rumored to contain artifacts of spiritual significance retrieved by the order during the Crusades, including the genealogies of David and Jesus and documents that trace these bloodlines into the royal bloodlines of Merovingian France. Placing a Scottish presence in the New World a century before Columbus, Steven Sora paints a credible scenario that the Sinclair clan of Scotland transported the wealth of the Templars--entrusted to them as the Masonic heirs of the order--to a remote island off the shores of present-day Nova Scotia. The mysterious money pit there is commonly believed to have been built before 1497 and has guarded its secret contents tenaciously despite two centuries of determined efforts to unearth it. All of these efforts (one even financed by American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt) have failed, thanks to an elaborate system of booby traps, false beaches, hidden drains, and other hazards of remarkable ingenuity and technological complexity.

Collects legends of buried treasure in Texas, including the gold of Haystack Mountain, a missing Incan hoard, and the Deer Island shipwrecks

“Spooky tales of vanished sailors, wandering phantoms and lost treasure scattered across the ocean floor” from Florida’s husband and wife ghost hunters (TCPalm). The Treasure Coast is such a popular destination that some choose to never leave. From the spirits of ancient Indians who once inhabited the beaches to the pirates who spied for passing victims from the safety of the inlets and coves, the region is infused with eerie, tragic history. A phantom widow keeps watch from the Boston House window for men long ago lost at sea. Spirits of the victims of a murderous cop linger at the Devil’s Tree, where their bodies were found. The dreaded pirate Black Caesar still steers his ghost ship toward Dead Man’s Point in the St. Lucie Inlet. Authors Patrick and Patricia Mesmer navigate through spooky tales of vanished sailors, wandering phantoms and lost treasure scattered across the ocean floor. Includes photos!

Twentieth-century sleuthing methods are linked with the romance and mystery of the past in this true story of a treasure hunt that has yielded millions. Over 250 years ago a Spanish treasure armada was wrecked on the Florida reefs, and ten richly laden vessels were sunk. In time they were forgotten. In the l 940's Kip Wagner, then a Florida construction man, picked up the first clues to the location of the wrecked ships. They were scarce: occasional blackened silver coins discovered here and there along the beach. But Kip Wagner's imagination was fired, and with the help of his friend and physician, Dr. Kelso, he began the long research and search operations that are described in this engrossing book. They were joined by a small group of other men and formed the Real Eight Corporationappropriately named for the Spanish ocho reales, or piece of eight. Most of the team had other jobs, some of them at nearby Cape Kennedy, and could hunt treasure only in their spare time. But they persisted. The work was arduous, at times dangerous. There were setbacks, disappointments, grueling underwater ordeals. But in time the rewards were sensational -thousands of silver pieces of eight and golden doubloons, silver bars and bullion, gold ingots, gold rings and pendants, priceless Chinese porcelain, a gold necklace appraised by a museum at $50,000, three million dollars in treasure recovered so far by this band of hard-working, adventurous, persistent men.

"In real life-especially off the Florida coast-things can have fatal consequences. Fatal Treasure is a truly compelling read." -Aphrodite Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Cruel Sacrifice and All She Wanted In 1622, hundreds of people lost their lives to the curse of the Spanish galleon Atocha-and they would not be the last. Fatal Treasure combines the rousing adventure of Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea with the compelling characters and local color of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It tells the powerful true story of the relentless quest to find the Atocha and reclaim her priceless treasures from the sea. You'll follow Mel Fisher, his family, and their intrepid team of treasure hunters as they dive beneath the treacherous waters of the Florida Straits and scour the ocean floor in search of gold, silver, and emeralds. And you'll discover that nearly four centuries after the shipwreck, the curse of the Atocha is still a deadly force. "On this day, the sea once again relinquished its hold on the riches and glory of seventeenth-century Spain. And by the grace of God, I would share the moment of glory . . . . I was reaching for my eighth emerald, another big one, when the invisible hands squeezed my trachea. In desperation, I clutched at my throat to pry away the enemy's fingers. But no one had hold of me." -From the Prologue