12. James Kidd Created a Contest To Inherit His Fortune
A copper prospector named James Kidd got in his car and drove away from his home in Arizona in 1949 to go to work, but he never arrived. Without evidence of a car crash or any disaster, and there was never anybody recovered near his copper mine. Everyone assumed that he ran away from home, or he fell down a canyon. Either way, he was never seen again. After years of being missing, he was presumed dead in 1956. Before he disappeared, he had been very obsessed with spiritualism and the occult.
His family began to go through his belongings. They found his will in 1971, which stated that his fortune would go to anyone who could come up with scientific evidence proving the existence of the human soul. It turns out that he was hiding a treasure worth $270,000. In the 1940’s, during the time he was saving up that money, that is more like the buying power of $4 million, after inflation.
This sparked what was remembered as “The Great Soul Trial”. For years, scientific institutions fought over getting the money, but it dwindled away with legal fees. Eventually, after 26 years, the American Society for Psychical Research was awarded what was left of the money in 1971.