Los Angeles Times,
January 29, 1934
"Lizard
People's Catacomb City Hunted
Engineer Sinks Shaft Under Fort
Moore Hill to Find Maze of Tunnels
and
Priceless Treasures of Legendary Inhabitants
By: Jean Bosquet
Busy Los Angeles, although
little realizing it in the hustle and bustle of modern
existence, stands above a lost city of catacombs filled
with incalculable treasure and imperishable records of a
race of humans further advanced intellectually than the
highest type of present day peoples, in the belief of G.
Warren
Shufelt, geophysicist mining engineer now engaged in an
attempt to wrest from the lost city deep in the earth
below Fort Moore Hill the secrets of the Lizard People
of legendary fame in the medicine lodges of the American
Indian.
So firmly does Shufelt and a little staff of assistants
believe that a maze of catacombs and priceless golden
tablets are to be found beneath downtown Los Angeles
that the engineer and his aids have already driven a
shaft 250 feet into the ground, the mouth of the shaft
being on the old Banning property on North Hill street,
overlooking Sunset Boulevard, Spring street and North
Broadway.
And so convinced is the engineer of the infallibility of
a radio x-ray perfected by him for detecting the
presence of minerals and tunnels below the surface of
the ground, an apparatus with which he says he has
traced a pattern of catacombs and vaults forming the
lost city, that he plans to continue sending his shaft
downward until he has reached a depth of 1000 feet
before discontinuing operations.
LEGEND SUPPLIES CLEW
Shufelt learned of the legend of the Lizard
People after his radio X-Ray had led him hither and yon,
over an area extending from the Public Library on West
Fifth street to the Southwest Museum, on Museum
Drive,
at the foot of Mt. Washington.
"I knew I was over a
pattern of tunnels," the engineer explained
yesterday, "and I had mapped out the course of the
tunnels, the position of large rooms scattered along
the tunnel route, as well as the position of
deposits of gold, but I couldn't understand the
meaning of it."
Then Shufelt was taken to
Little Chief Greenleaf of the medicine lodge of the Hopi
Indians in Arizona, who's English name is L. Macklin.
The Indian provided the engineer with a legend which,
according to both men, dovetails exactly with what Shufelt say he has found.
FIRE DESTROYS ALL
According to the legend as imparted to
Shufelt by Macklin, the radio X-Ray has revealed the
location of one of the three lost cities on the Pacific
Coast, the local one having been dug by the Lizard
People after the "great catastrophe" which occurred
about 5000 years ago. This legendary catastrophe was in
the form of a huge tongue of fire, which "came out of
the Southwest, destroying all in it's path," (continued
on Page 5, Column 2) "...the path being
several hundred miles wide." The city underground
was dug as a means of escaping future fires.
The lost city,
dug with powerful chemicals by the
Lizard People instead of pick and shovel, was
drained into the ocean, where it's tunnels began,
according to the legend. The tide passing daily in
and out of the lower tunnel portals and forcing air
into the upper tunnels, providing ventilation and
"cleansed and sanitized the lower tunnels," the
legend states.
Large rooms in the domes of
the hills above the city of labyrinths housed 1000
families "in the manner of tall buildings" and
imperishable food supplies of the herb variety were
stored in the catacombs to provide sustenance for the
Lizard folk for great length of time as the next fire
swept over the earth.
CITY LAID OUT LIKE LIZARD
The
Lizard People, the legends has it, regard the lizard as
a symbol of long life. Their city is laid out like a
lizard, according to the legend, it's tail to the
Southwest, far below Fifth and Hope streets, it's head
to the northeast, at Lookout and Marda streets. The
city's key room is situated directly under South
Broadway, near Second street, according to Shufelt and
the legend. (click image left)
This key room is the directory to all the parts of the
city and to all record tablets, the legend states. All
records were to be kept on golden tablets, four feet
long and fourteen inches wide. One these tablets of
gold, gold having been the symbol of life to the
legendary Lizard People, will be found the record of
history of the Mayans and on one particular tablet, the
southwest corner of which will be missing, is found the
"record of the origin of the human race."
TABLETS PHOTOGRAPHED
Shufelt stated he has taken "X-Ray pictures"
of thirty-seven such tablets, three of which have their
southwest corners cut off.
"My radio X-ray pictures
of the tunnels and rooms, which are subsurface
voids, and of gold pictures with perfect corners,
sides and ends, are scientific proof of their
existence," Shufelt said. "However, the legendary
story must remain speculative unearthed by
excavation."
The Lizard People, according
to Macklin, were of a much higher type of
intellectuality than modern human beings. The
intellectual accomplishments of their 9-year-old
children were of equal of those of present day college
graduates, he said. So greatly advanced scientifically
were these people that, in addition to perfecting a
chemical solution by which they bored underground
without removing any earth and rock, they also developed
a cement far stronger and better than any in use in
modern times which they lined their tunnels and rooms.
HILLS ENCLOSE CITY
Macklin said legendary advise to American
Indians was to seek the lost city in an area within a
chain of hills forming,
"the frog of a horses
hoof. The contour of hills surrounding this region
forms such a design, substantiating Shufelt's
findings," he said.
Shufelt's radio device consists chiefly of a
cylindrical glass case inside which a plummet
attached to a copper wire held by the engineer sways
continually, pointing he asserts, toward minerals or
tunnels below the surface of the ground, and then
revolves when over mineral or swings in prolongation
of the tunnel when above the excavation. He has used
the instrument extensively in mining fields, he
said."
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