Voting Station

Forrest Fenn

Please vote to return to collections.

Entrepreneur

The Resume

    (August 22, 1930-September 7, 2020)
    Born in Temple, Texas
    Owned an art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico
    Hid a 13th-century bronze chest containing gold nuggets, gems, rare coins, and artifacts worth between $1 million and $3 million (2010)
    Wrote ‘The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir’ (2010), which contained a poem with nine clues as to the treasure’s location
    Announced that the treasure chest had been found (June 6, 2020)
    Said that the finder was a man from the eastern US who did not want his identity disclosed
    Revealed that the chest had been hidden in Wyoming

Why he might be annoying:

    He attended Texas A&M for less than a week, until the registrar discovered that he was not actually enrolled in any classes.
    He admitted to not knowing much about art before starting his gallery: ‘Art is a business and what I love is the business. I am not particularly into art.’
    Five people died searching for the treasure.
    The chief of the New Mexico State Police, Pete Kassetas, urged him to call off the treasure hunt, saying ‘He’s putting lives at risk.’ (2017)

Why he might not be annoying:

    He earned a Silver Star as a combat pilot in Vietnam.
    Celebrity customers at his gallery included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Gerald Ford, Cher, Steve Martin, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg.
    He said he buried the treasure partly to inspire people to explore the great outdoors: ‘I’ve had so much fun over the last 75 years looking for arrowheads and fossils and strange things out in the forests and along the river banks, why not give others the opportunity to do the same thing?’
    He tried to keep people from risking their lives by publicly stating that the chest was not hidden anywhere dangerous.
    He also noted that he hid the chest alone, so it had to be located someplace an 80-year-old man could reach while schlepping 40 pounds.
    He had to call 911 on three occasion when frustrated treasure hunters showed up at his house and threatened him.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 70.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 53 Votes: 52.83% Annoying