Scientists have quashed hopes of finding a long-lost Nazi train from World War II carrying some 300 tons of gold, precious stones and weapons buried deep in the hills of southern Poland.
Treasure-hunters flocked to the hills of Lower Silesia, Poland, in August after two people wrote to the local district council, claiming to know the location of the secret stash. Emergency services and the army all helped with the underground search amid a series of further revelations via the use of radar imaging.
However, researchers from Poland's AGH University of Science and Technology presented further findings on Tuesday afternoon and claimed that there was little evidence that a hidden train actually existed.
The research failed to dampen the optimism from other speakers at Tuesday's press conference, which included representatives from exploration company XYZ SC and the Discovery Channel. Other speakers at the conference had spoken of the possibility of there being an 92 meter "anomaly" underground and the existence of a large amount of metal, according to the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper.
The tunnels supposedly form part of the Riese Project (riese meaning "giant" in German). This was a construction project in Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1945 which was made using the labor of prisoners of war and prisoners of concentration camps.
A number of trains are believed to have been used by the Nazis in the 1940s to transport goods stolen from people in eastern Europe back to Berlin. While some might have made it to the German capital, others are believed to have been left behind as the Soviet troops advanced in 1945.
This particular mystery train is believed to be near Ksiaz castle, 77 kilometers southeast of the Polish town of Wroclaw, according to local media.