Heirs Reveal Plans for Treasure-Filled Shipwreck: Strange Inheritance Season 2

A family who inherited a 17th century shipwreck with more than $450 million in gold, jewels and historical artifacts -- thinks there’s a quarter-billion dollars in booty still down there.

That’s just one revelation by the heirs of Mel Fisher –perhaps the world’s most successful treasure hunter – on the FOX Business Network prime time series, Strange Inheritance. The episode airs Monday at 9PM/ET.

It was July 20, 1985 when Mel Fisher located the sunken treasure of Nuestra Señora de Atocha, one of a fleet of Spanish galleons that sank off the Florida coast during a hurricane in 1622. Fisher’s discovery came after a years-long search that nearly bankrupted him. “Every day my father would say, ‘Today is the day we’re gonna hit it, we’re almost there, it’ll only take us a few more months and we’ll have it all!’” Fisher’s daughter Taffi Fisher-Abt told host Jamie Colby. “But then it would kind of piddle off and he’d say, ‘That’s all right, we’ll find it tomorrow.’ “And then the next day he’d declare again, ‘Today is the day.’”

The darkest day of the search cost Fisher a son, Dirk, when his vessel capsized in 1975. “I think if there was ever one time that my parents considered not continuing, that was it,” Fisher-Abt said.

When Fisher finally found the “mother lode” of the wreck site, the treasure was estimated to be worth $450 million. In a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, he was declared owner of the site.

Fisher died in 1998, and his wife Deo in 2009 – leaving the wreck to their children.

Strange Inheritance follows the heirs’ ongoing efforts to recover more of the 400-year old treasure.

Kim Fisher, Mel’s son, estimates $250 million more may still be on the ocean floor.

Strange Inheritance is in its second season on the FOX Business Network. New episodes premiere Mondays at 9PM/ET, with encore presentations Tuesday through Thursday 9PM-11PM/ET.