My First Trip

The Background

The story of Rocushé, is believed to have been first recorded in writing sometime between 1860 and 1880 in an undated letter written by a believed French immigrant known only as “Rene” to his beloved wife Marthe (who was with child at the time). It is assumed from the letter that Rene was exploring the northern deserts of Nevada for a future homestead to start his family’s legacy in the free world. Unfortunately, the letter never made it to Marthe, and it is assumed that this was the last correspondence Renee ever penned. It was just recently discovered in 1987 (without an envelope) inside of an unearthed letter box beneath a shade tree about 8 miles southeast of the ruins of the historic Dunn Glenn Mining Camp.

Here is what Rene wrote:

My dearest Marthe,

I hope this letter finds you well. I love and miss you and look forward to your warm embrace once again. We have made it a four nights walk from Dun Glen. Myself and 12 other men decided to move south and establish our own camp and find gold. Awan, our Indian guide is of the Numo tribe and has let us to an area where he says his ancestors have for centuries made jewelry from the gold in the ground.

This area is like a sand desert; full of rocks and gullies but surrounded by treed mountains. The nights here are as dark as molasses, and Awan will not let us take cover under the trees or in the gullies; he says it is only safe to camp in the open and surrounded by a circle of fire. Each night we must light the fire starting at the northern point and move in the path of a clock until fully lit and once again at the northern point.

Awan's people have lived on these lands for 10,000 years and believe in the creation of man not as we believe, but as a bird that survived a great flood and when the waters subsided, turned into a man. He was a cannibal who resembled a man, had a face like a wolf, and feet the size of a giant man and toes that look like fat talons. This man called Numozaho searched the land and found others hiding in the peaks of the mountains, where the flood water had never reached. Numozaho was so scared of these people that he killed everyone except for a single young woman who had the skin of silk, eyes like the stars, and hair the color of the night. Numozaho bedded the woman and she bore children; two normal looking girls and a one boy, and another boy directly resembling Numozaho, but his skin was rough like rocks. Numozaho was so angry with the last boy's appearance that he named him Rocushe, killed the mother, and cursed Rocushe to wander the unfertile desert forever. Cast out, orphaned, and cursed for eternity because of his father's looks, Rocushe rage towards Numozaho is such that as he wonders, he began and has continued to kill anything that resembles his likeness; man, bird, and wolf, all except women. Awan, says his people believe that the descendants of Rocushe continue to walk the land today carrying out Rocushe's revenge.

I tell you this story, because every morning we wake to a the loud deep screeching of what sounds like a baby teething, but with moments of a wolf's howl coming from the trees towards the east. And when we put out our fire, we see man size deep prints of what look to be bird's. I have not seen this creature but the sounds we hear at sunrise and the footprints which become more apparent down by the gullies are starting to scare the men. If we do not strike gold here within the next 2 days, we plan on moving southwest towards the next camp for safety and supplies.

Your forever love,
Rene

This letter was orginially written in French and the English translation was provided by martheletter.com

This letter is all there is to prove or disprove the existence of Rene. The references of the Dun Glen Mining Camp and a guide named Awan should place the date of this letter to be between 1860 and 1880. The limited availability of records from the Dun Glen Mining Camp can only allow one to guess if the letter is authentic or not, and who exactly Rene was, however the legend of Rocűshé, is deeper rooted in culture than previously expected.

When I first learned about this letter, it was pure rumor. As I followed my quest to learn more about this letter and Rocűshé - the mythical ‘Rockhound’, I began to learn that the local native Numo tribe has this legend cemented into their history and continue to believe its existence to this day. The Numo tribe was once a well-respected, non-waring tribe of hunters, farmers, religious and medicine men. Due to their loving pacifist way, they lost over 70% of their population during the Plateau War of 1632 against the neighboring Quato tribe. After the war, the remaining Numos retreated into the mountains of Pershing County, Nevada, and today the tribe has dwindled down to only one remaining family of six living in an unknown location. As my research did not turn up any more evidence other than the Numo tribe, their beliefs, and several people’s statements of seeing a ‘Rockhound’, I began to give up my completing my quest – that is, until I was contacted by my long-time friend, Chris, and my obsession was reborn.

The Rebirth of My Obsession

Chris and I had been friends since grade school and talked often, but the mining company he worked for was off exploring some remote dig location with poor cellular coverage, so I hadn’t heard much from him over the last couple months. Chris sent me a single, low-resolution camera phone picture of a “carving” in quartz he claimed they discovered in a cave located at the base of the mountains where his mining company was digging. Glancing at the picture and reading the text description sent with it, my initial thought was that it the “carving” was probably an Egyptian hieroglyph Chris made playing around to poke fun at me and my Rocűshé hunt for a long-distance laugh, so I didn’t really study the picture – I just replied “Haha” and didn’t give it much thought afterwards. Then, a month or so later, quite unexpectedly, Chris called me panting and yelling “You HAVE to get out here! You HAVE to see with your own eyes what we have in our possession! And I mean NOW – RIGHT NOW!”

Chris knew better than anyone about my obsession with the Rocűshé lore, and between the excitement and urgency in his voice, and him knowing I am was going to have to spend a few thousand dollars of my own money to get out there, I immediately realized three things: Chris was not playing a trick or pulling a prank on me, It had to be related to my Rockhound quest, and that it was most likely related to that quartz “cave carving” they discovered. Was the carving in the photo he sent actually real? Could they have found something else? How did this relate to Rocűshé? I got a text from Chris with his location coordinates and tried calling him back several times to get details, but only got fast busy tones - meaning he was out of cell signal range. 5 minutes later, I was booking flights while cramming clothes and my Rocűshé research into my travel bag.

When I arrived onsite in a rented Jeep 4X4, I quickly found Chris and his co-worker Bob standing at a tree right on the edge of a mining pit they were starting to dig. Chris said, “Look, there it is.” I said, “It’s a hole. You got me to come all the way out here to look at a hole?” Chris replied, “It’s not about the hole, it’s about what was found on this exact spot in 1987, and what we now have in our possession. What was pulled out of the ground right here by David Cooper”.

Bob then told me to get in his truck and we headed down to a trailer; the kind of trailer you see at a construction site. When we walked into the trailer, Bob handed me a pair of gloves and begun to open a drawer behind one of the desks, and out came ‘The Marthe Letter’. I read the letter voraciously, and to my astonishment, the creature in the letter sounded a lot like the carving in the quartz that Chris had previously sent me. After reviewing and examining the letter, I didn’t question its authenticity; this area of the country is full of found, never mailed letters by writers who never returned home from their quest to strike it rich in gold. Chris opened a small safe in the office and pulled out a piece of fragile quartz measuring about 16 inches by 26 inches, on it was the carving of the Rockhound that I he had previously sent the picture of. Afterwards, Chris placed the carving back in the safe and took me to the exact location it was pulled from; a now marked and closed off cave surround by mining pits.

Bob, a local resident of over 40 years, looked me square in the eyes and said, “I believe in the Rockhounds.” I said “Rockhounds”? Bob said, “Yes, the name ‘Rockhound’ is what miners have called Rocűshé for decades. Miners have even adopted the Rockhound name to represent themselves.” I asked him why and Bob said, “Because of Rocűshé’s rock-like skin and wolf-like appearance, and the fact we gold miners break rocks all day and basically “sniff out” gold”. I thought to myself, “Really?” with a small chuckle. Then Bob said, “Tomorrow, we will have more to show you, and if you’d like, I can introduce you to the last surviving family of the Numo tribe.” Hearing this, I’m TOTALLY geeking out inside but trying to play it cool, so I just said, “Yeah, that would be great, Bob.”

The following day began my quest at learning more about the so called ‘Rockhounds’ and how could this creature still exist without the general public having verifiable knowledge of its existence. Although my excitement barely let me sleep, I awoke from a dream just before sunrise that morning to what I believed was the strangest sound I had ever heard… Was it a Rockhound’s yell, or was it the last sound of my dream before becoming fully awake? Would I ever know? What I do know is that our camping area was outlined by a perfect circle of flood lights. Weird.

Bob, said we were going to go to the ‘Eugene mine’, so I was like “Ok”, thinking it was right down the dirt road. Well, it wasn’t, and after 45 minutes of bouncing around in the back of his truck on dirt roads seemingly turning into rock roads, I started singing “Where The Streets Have No Name” in my head. but Then another 25 minutes later, reality kicked in and I became aware that there actually were no “roads”. We were bouncing around on lands seemingly untouched by man or vehicle following GPS to get to a location. Looking out the window, I realized it is possible for something to live out here without being found. Hell, I even started looking for Bigfoot. Pulling up to a ravine, Bob stopped the truck and said this is would be one of 3 stops today. He pointed down the ravine to what looked to be a tunnel covered by steel door with a lock. Heading down I asked, “What’s up with the steel door?” and Chris replied, “When mines are not in production, we close them off for public safety.” I thought to myself “What public? Google can’t even find us!”

Walking deeper into the tunnel, it’s makeup changed from a very man-made tunnel to what looked to be a natural cave - with a bit of light shining from the other direction. As we continued to walked through the (now) cave heading towards the light, I noticed carvings on the right wall where the light was shining towards. When we reached the cave exits, Bob stopped and said, “Look.” I started looking down at a vast land about 200 feet below me, when Chris said, “No, look at the wall.” I turned my head and there it was; another carving of Rocűshé or the so called “Rockhound’ carved into what looked to be hard granite.

So now I am up to 2 carvings and a letter and I began to wonder what is was all this adding up to? After taking a few pictures, Bob said we were losing day light and it was time to go, I looked at my watch and realized how far out we were, because it was already 11am.

Heading to the next location, Bob made a quick stop at the Thunder Mountain Monument in Imlay, NV, and said, “Take a look at this; if a someone’s mind could build this in the 1960’s, just image what was in people’s minds 100’s and 100’s of years ago.” I said, “This was built in the 60’s? It looks like some type of Indian ceremonial site.” Bob added, “Just image the type of imaginations people had out here 500 years ago, when there was nothing but yourself and the sounds of nature.” And then he laughed and said, “Or was it nature and not imagination”.
* Speaking about the Monument, If you are ever in the area you have to stop by the monument.

Heading to the next location, Bob said, “It’s almost 3, lets grab something to eat.” Pulling off the road near Mill City, NV., Bob said “Welcome to the world’s most expensive Taco Bell.” He was right, just inside the gas station was a Taco Bell and I can’t believe I paid $7 for a Taco Bell Chicken Quesadilla (but that’s another story)... We left the Taco Bell inside of a Gas Station (which also was a casino), headed to the area just North East of the old Dun Glen Mining Camp.

After about another 30 minutes down a dirt road and then no road and just bouncing across fields, Bob stopped the truck and said, “We’re here”. I looked around and saw nothing but open land to my left and trees in the distance at the base of the mountains. I said, “So where are we going?” Chris looked at Bob and laughed, saying “We are here. Walk 10 paces to your left and look down on the ground.” So, I did just that, after ten paces there was a large boulder barely sticking out of the ground. The boulder had an area that I eyeball measured to 10 inches wide by 24 inches long and was sticking out 4 inches from the soil. Bob came over and poured water on the rock and when he did, I saw it; another carving of Rocűshé!

So now I am up to 3 locations where I have seen (almost) never before seen carvings of Rocűshé. Mapping the GPS coordinates of each location, they were all with a 40 mile radius, and all on the lands the Numo tribe called Home at one time. At this point I am beyond intrigued and asking Bob like a small school boy, “Can I meet the family?” Bob said, “Yes, we will go there tomorrow, and I am bringing a surprise.” I thought to myself, “A surprise? PLEASE let it be a caged Rockhound, cause if it is, we will be rich!”

Well, its day 3 of my trip and I awoke to a sound - not the sound of a screaming baby, or a wolf howl, but the sound of what I thought initially was a freight train. The wind was blowing so hard it was creating a roar as it moved through the nearby mining audit shafts. Looking to the south I saw a helicopter heading towards our camp and out of the side of my left eye I see two guys traveling up on a side-by-side. The guy driving pulled up and asked Chris, “Is this the Rockhound guy?” and I blurted out “Yes, that’s me.” He said, “You got to see this.” and I thought to myself “Why is everyone saying that to me?” Chris said let’s go see what they want to show us and then we will get on the chopper. I said No - that chopper has no doors! It was like one of those old military helicopters. Chris just said to come on so we followed the 2 guys to a ditch about a mile away. The ditch was about 15 feet deep and about 50 feet wide, looking like something that might have been created from 100s years of a water runoff from the melting snow. Looking down into the ditch I did see something, but what exactly I saw I don’t know. It looked like bird feet but they were super-large; like a size 13 shoe - and they were about 3 feet apart from each other. I laughed and said guy’s you got me, and they looked at me and said, “we didn’t do it, we see these all the time”. Looking at them more from above, and not seeing a safe way to get down there, I am going to just say “maybe” on these tracks. That and I had somewhere more important to be, meeting the last living family of the Numo tribe.

The Last of the Numo Tribe

Getting back to the camp and aboard the helicopter, we flew southeast to the other side of Mt. Tobin, and landed in a cattle field. When we arrived, we were greeted by a man named “Saco”. Saco was the head of the family and welcomed me with open arms, then asked Bob, “Do you have the results?” Confused, I looked at Bob and he just said “Surprise”… this guy is really starting to get to me. We all piled into Saco’s SUV and he took us to meet the family.

While we sat around the kitchen table, I showed Saco a copy of the Rene letter, as he read it his head just kept shaking forward, like he was agreeing with what he read. Saco, looked up at me and said, “that’s pretty much it”, I said “what”, and he replied, “the story of Rocűshé, that is what my ancestor’s believed”. I asked him what he meant by ancestor’s and is Rocűshé dead. He said, I say ancestors because what you see here is the last of our tribe, my parent’s brothers and sisters, my siblings, and my cousins all have married outside. I asked again, is Rocűshé dead? Saco said “I can tell you what we know; Rocűshé has been roaming this land since the beginning, and is still alive and has been breeding for thousands of years.”

I said, hold on. Are you saying there is more than 1? Right then Marie, Saco’s 8 year old daughter, just blurted out, my brothers do not go outside after dark. Saco looked at her, laughed, and asked his wife (Judy) to take her out of the room. With the youngest gone, I said, “I have seen carvings, I have read the letter, I have seen your reaction to the letter, and now I hear your daughter’s comment. Is the Rocűshé real or is it just a belief?” Saco replied saying, they are everywhere, just by different names, look into my culture and our beliefs. Look at our history and where we came from. This was not always America - it was my ancestors land, and we come from the south.

Right then Bob, steps in and said “this is the perfect time to open the envelop,” and Saco agreed. I ask what’s in the envelop and Bob said “Saco allowed us to run a DNA test on Marie to help them understand the true heritage of the Numo tribe and where it’s geographical roots came from. Bob opened the envelop and to my astonishment Saco was right, they come from the south, somewhat. Marie’s test showed she was native American - having a proportional make up of DNA that resembled Navajo, Cherokee, Wa She Shu, Paiute, Apache, and get this - Maya, Aztec, and Quechua! That’s right; they are descendants of the Mayan and Incas. This is so crazy, he said they came from the south and the DNA agrees.

I asked him his family’s story and how his tribe came to be here. Saco replied with, “as your letter said we all came from Nűmozaho, that’s all we believe and know. There were men before Nűmozaho but the ones that survived the big flood were killed by Nűmozaho, so he is our beginning. As Nűmozaho breed with one of his daughters, after 14 winters, he demanded his son to breed with the other daughter, and the growth continued. After 26 winters Rocűshé came across one of the young girls and stole her. Together they breed 26 children, and those children continued to populate. We are descendants of Nűmozaho not Rocűshé. The Rocűshé children are evil, and in every generation, there have been exactly 26 children born that 100% resemble Rocűshé. In Rocűshé culture, those non-humans are seen as godly spirits, so the baby is raised with the birth family for 26 months and then released into the mountains where it can flourish in its natural state. There are Rocűshé in every tribe, and they continue to be born.”

I stopped him and said, are you telling me that people are hiding these babies from the public? He replied they are not babies, they are gods to the descendants of Rocűshé, and they believe they are honoring their creator.

I followed up my question with, “so is Rocűshé still out killing people?” He replied, “As many Rocűshé descendants go to the woods every winter and bring the Rocűshé gifts to honor them, they have become use to interacting with humans. But don’t get me wrong, if they feel scared or cornered they will attack, every once in a while, there will be people who go missing and we know it was a Rocűshé. When the white man came here, the Rocűshé would attack as they thought the white man was raping the land. There are many true stories of mining camps in this area where all the men disappeared all throughout history. Saco, went on to add, “in 1913, in northern Arizona, a group of 26 men thought they had found one of our ancestors hiding places, and all 26 went missing and were never heard from again. Those men were thought to have just died from illness, but not bones were ever found. To this day their disappearance is still a mystery, but our people know the truth; it was Rocűshé.

Saco, went on add, “they are all over the mountains. we see them, and we respect them by keeping our distance. We stay safe by knowing the harm that can come to us if we get to close to one”. I asked, If you know where they are can you show me a picture to prove their existence? All of a sudden, his wife, Judy, spoke up for the very first time and stood up with both hands on the table and yelled “No”. Saco looked at me and said, that is not allowed, and I asked why? Saco replied “it is our belief that if you look at one through a translucent rock or piece of glass, Rocűshé spirit will transfer to you through your looking eye, then you become a Rocűshé. Now adays, it’s the same for cameras, if you take its picture, you will grab a piece of its spirit and that spirit will be stuck to you.

I thought to myself, ok so no pictures for me, I don’t want to become a Rocűshé. I did ask Saco the question I was dying to ask: If your ancestry tracks back to ancient Mexico, and this area back in history was your tribe’s northern territories, could you possibly help me out and tell me where Montezuma’s treasury is really buried, cause I believe it is in Nevada. Saco, gave me the weirdest look, laughed, and said, “if I knew I wouldn’t be here talking to you”. I laughed with him.

Heading back on the helicopter from Saco’s house, I was sad, cause the next morning it was time for me to head home. Speaking with Chris and Bob, they promised to keep me in the loop on any new finds that they learn of that could be associated with Rocűshé (the Rockhound).

The Quest Begins

Now that my trip was over and I was back home, I have begun scoring the internet and reaching out some of my connections for access to some pretty secret historical archives. In my personal experiences with different tribes throught the world, I have learned that how and what they believe is their reality and I have seen some very unexplainable events in my time with them.