The Hopi Indians of northern Arizona have
traditions that recall a time when their "Snake Brothers"
built and occupied underground cities in Arizona, California,
Mexico and Central America. Once such underworld city is
believed to have been built on the west coast, near the
Pacific ocean, under Los Angeles, California.
Strangely enough, one engineer's search for LA's mythological
underground city gained enough credibility to have his efforts
presented as front page news in the Los Angeles Times newspaper,
January 29th, 1934.
Top, dead center of the front page is an artistic rendition
of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Below the image
is an article titled,
"Lizard People's Catacomb City Hunted: Engineer Sinks
Shaft Under Fort Moore Hill to Find Maze of Tunnels and
Priceless Treasures of Legendary Inhabitants."
Quoted in it's entirety, the article follows for your review:
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."
