By Tim Binnall
A treasure hunter in search of an apocryphal stash of lost pirate riches believes that he has located the horde's hiding spot in a Cincinnati park. According to a local media report, Adam Means' quest began two years ago when the personal trainer found himself out of work due to the pandemic and began looking into tales of legendary lost treasures. "It was something else to kind of occupy my time," he recalled, "but then I got more into it." One particular story that piqued Means' interest was that of a horde of riches that a steamboat pirate had purportedly hidden in what is now Cincinnati's spacious Eden Park. Intrigued by the possibility that the account could be true, the trainer-turned-treasure hunter set about trying to find it.
Descending upon the 186-acre park with a metal detector, Means scoured the site until he stumbled upon a spot that made the device produce a powerful sound unlike anything he had previously heard. Suspecting that perhaps the lost pirate treasure could be buried there, he proceeded to dig around the area and then inserted a camera into the ground in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the riches. "The things that I saw, they just do not look natural in my mind," he declared, "it's faces. It would be like the top of a crown, a head of a lady. I saw reds and blues and greens that should not be there." While the curious shapes (which can be seen in the video here) are undoubtedly open to interpretation, the treasure hunter is fairly confident that he has found the lost loot.
To his credit, rather than try to retrieve what he believes to be the pirate's treasure on his own and keep the hypothetical riches for himself, Means has actually turned his findings over to the Cincinnati Parks Department in the hopes that they will conduct an excavation of the area. "I'm not trying to do anything deceitful," he said, "I want to help and, you know, the good that comes out of it will be good for everybody." As of now, however, the department has not indicated if they will pursue the treasure hunter's tip or if they will pass on investigating the matter, which one imagines might be a particularly maddening scenario for Means, given his belief that the treasure is there waiting to be recovered.