Readers must have been shocked by the front page of the Jan. 29, 1934, Los Angeles Times, where Jean Bosquet wrote breathlessly about a search for a lost civilization of Lizard People and their buried treasure.

The headline contained an unfortunate misspelling, though: “Lizard Peolpe’s Catacomb City Hunted.” But the lede is a gem, not just for its length:

“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 and scientifically than even the highest type of present day peoples, in the belief of G. Warren Shufelt, geophysical 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.”

Deep breath.


The Times had covered other attempts to find these tunnels under downtown L.A., but this one carried an artist’s concept of the Lizard People at work (above, with part of the treasure map).

For more of the story and the map — maybe you want to search for gold yourself — head to L.A. Times Past: Lizard Peolpe’s Catacomb City Hunted

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