Mel Fisher spent 17 years searching for the wreck of the 1622 Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha

NEED TO KNOW

• Mel Fisher spent 17 years searching for the wreck of the 1622 Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha
• The discovery included silver bars, gold coins, and artifacts worth hundreds of millions, confirming Fisher’s long-held belief
• Fisher overcame financial struggles, legal battles, and personal tragedy to become one of history’s most famous treasure hunters

Mel Fisher had been on the hunt for years — 17 in fact — imploring his team of divers to just keep going, all in what seemed a futile attempt to find buried treasure.

Fisher’s promise of stacks of silver lined on the ocean floor off of Key West seemed too good to be true. A longtime maritime explorer, Fisher had persuaded a team of investors to finance his quest to the tune of $1 million a year. The goal? To find the wreckage of Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish ship sunk in a hurricane in 1622, with hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and silver on board.

Critics lambasted the treasure hunter as his dives 35 miles off of Key West continued to turn up nothing – and worse: lead to their own death and destruction in 1975, when one of their own salvage boats sank following a pump failure. Fisher’s son Dirk, Dirk’s wife Angel, and crew member Rick Gag all died in the sinking.

“After the Northwind sank and my son drowned, I was disheartened,” Fisher told PEOPLE in 1985. “I thought, ‘Maybe it just ain’t worth it.’ But my son would have wanted me to complete the search, so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll keep it up until I find her.’”

So, the crew kept exploring even after the deaths, with Fisher convinced that the Atocha was still hiding on the ocean depths.

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As PEOPLE reported in an August 1985 story, Fisher’s pleas came even as he, at times, couldn’t meet payroll, promising his crew, “Just wait until you see the main pile. There’ll be stacks of silver bars lined up like a brick wall on the ocean floor. There’ll be bars of gold and treasure chests filled with gold and silver coins. It’s all there, believe me.”

On July 20, 1985, his hypothesis was confirmed.

Fisher’s son, Kane, was the one to radio in that the crew had found it, per PEOPLE: “Put away the charts! Silver bars! We’ve hit the main pile!”

The main pile, it turned out, was a Spanish king’s fortune that had been plundered from the mines of Mexico, Colombia and Peru more than three centuries prior.

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Diver Pat Clyne, who had worked with Fisher for 12 years, told PEOPLE at the time, “People called Mel a fake. They said he was luring investors with ridiculous claims, but he was right. This is what Robert Louis Stevenson meant to write about. Now kids’ll grow up on Mel Fisher stories.”

Then 64 years old, Fisher told PEOPLE his hunt for the Atocha began in 1968, after Fisher read about the wreck, and grew curious about the 550-ton vessel said to be carrying 250,000 silver coins, 1,200 silver ingots and 161 pieces of gold bullion at the time of its sinking.

“I read about the Atocha and liked it,” he told PEOPLE. “The wreck was in 50 or 60 feet of water, so you’re not likely to get the bends. It looked to be in one piece, so I figured it would be a quick and easy job.”

Easy, it was not. And unlike Fisher’s theory, the vessel was broken into various pieces and scattered over about 10 miles of ocean floor.

And while it took 17 years for his crew to find it, they did so with a mix of sonar and a crew of 20 divers and archaeologists. Two years in, they found what appeared to be two musket balls and felt they were on the right track.

Fisher himself dove down and then found the neck of an olive oil jar, telling PEOPLE, “It was circa 1622, and that’s when I knew for sure.”

Over the next decade-plus, the crew found more signs of the Atocha: three 76-pound silver bars, two anchors, lengths of gold chain, and more musket balls.

And on that fateful day in 1985, they found the bulk of the treasure: an estimated $400 to $450 million in gold, silver coins, and emeralds.

There were legal issues, of course, After Fisher’s company, Treasure Salvors, Inc., located the legendary 1622 Spanish galleon, the State of Florida claimed ownership, demanding a 25% share of the recovered artifacts. Fisher fought back, and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in his favor, deciding that the state had no right to the property because the shipwreck was located in waters off of Florida’s lawful jurisdiction and considered abandoned.

As for what Fisher did with his plunder — 5% of the multimillion-dollar hoard —he told PEOPLE at the time that he had no plans to sell his shares.

Per PEOPLE’s reporting at the time, most of his divers got 0.1% of the take, while a few longtime employees were given 1%, making them “instant millionaires.”

Per diver Clyne, the camaraderie and shared goal were as important as the cash. “Sometimes we’d go as long as 24 weeks without pay,” he told PEOPLE. “If you went to Mel for money, he’d give you a gold coin. But what the hell, you couldn’t buy food with it. Mel would say, ‘Men, I don’t know what I’m going to do. There’s no money. I have to lay you off.’ Nine out of 10 guys would stay on.”

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