The city of Los Angeles has a reputation for being a pretty wild place, a reputation that is often well-earned. Few claims about the city of angels are so wild, however, as those made by G Warren Shufelt.
In the 1930s he convinced much of the city that deep beneath its street lay tunnels filled with gold. Tunnels, he claimed, that were dug thousands of years ago by an extinct race of lizard people.
A mining engineer and inventor turned amateur archaeologist Shufelt claimed to know where this gold was hidden. Armed with a “radio X-ray” device, Shufelt embarked on a daring expedition to unearth this fabled metropolis, stirring curiosity and skepticism.
Why did Shufelt think this? And, more importantly, what did he find under the streets of LA?
Conman or Fool?
George Warren Shufelt was a geophysicist and mining engineer from the United States. Hailing from Missouri, Shufelt gained notoriety as an amateur inventor in the 1930s.
His most famous invention was a device he called a “radio X-ray,” which he claimed could locate underground tunnels and cavities. Shufelt gained widespread attention in 1930s LA for his bold assertion that a lost city inhabited by Lizard People lay hidden beneath Los Angeles, sparking a rush to find this hidden ruin.
Where did he get this rather out-there idea? Well, to be fair there are a lot of tunnels under LA, at least 270. But they weren’t home to a race of lizard people.
Instead, most of them were once used as safe street crossings for horses and people. Others are simply abandoned passageways like those below UCLA, a Bel-Air estate, and El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park. The latter has an interesting story all of its own, said to have been used by Chinese residents during the 1871 Chinese Massacre.
Shufelt wasn’t interested in any of these, however. His inspiration lay in ancient Hopi Native American folklore and stories that he believed indicated Los Angeles was home to 5,000-year-old tunnels. Tunnels that in 1933 Shufelt claimed his “radio X-ray” machine had picked up.
After “discovering” the tunnels Shufelt headed to Arizona where he interviewed a famous Hopi leader, Little Chief Greenleaf. Chief Greenleaf told Shufelt that the tunnels were dug around 3,000 BC by a highly advanced race of Lizard People who were related to the Mayans.
Apparently, the Lizard People were driven underground following a catastrophic meteor impact that nearly wiped them out. To survive they built three underground cities along America’s Pacific Coast, the most impressive of which was under LA.
Using chemicals to dig through the rock these Lizard people dug a network of at least 285 tunnels that once housed 1,000 of their families. According to the Hopi legend, these tunnels and rooms were filled with gold (a symbol of long life) and lined with cement better than anything mankind had come up with.
Shufelt never clarified whether these Lizard People actually looked like Lizards, but supposedly their underground city did. The tunnels were said to make up the outline of a great lizard, with its head located under Dodger Stadium and its tail somewhere under LA’s Central Library.
Searching for the Underground City
Upon hearing this story Shufelt returned to LA and used his newly invented X-ray machine to map out the Lizard People’s tunnels. He was soon telling the newspapers that he had found 1,900 feet (580 meters) of tunnels and rooms with 9,000 square feet (836 square meters) of floor space.
He also claimed to have found 16 places where the Lizard People had stored their gold, stating that the greatest treasure trove was a “key room” hidden deep beneath Times Mirror Square. This was said to hold a map of 37 great golden tablets, each 4 feet long and 14 inches wide (120 cm by 36 cm).
Now that he had his map Shufelt just needed permission to start digging up LA. Luckily for him, his next survey using the radio X-ray machine showed a previously undiscovered “treasure room” on Ft. Moore Hill. The fact that the hill had long been rumored to hold gold hidden by Spaniards during the mid-19th century led enough credence to his claims that the County Board of Supervisors gave Shufelt and his team permission to start digging.
The local newspapers lapped it up and were soon awash with spectacular reports of buried treasure in LA. The local government even got in on the excitement, the deal with Shufelt stated that he and his team had to split whatever they found 50-50 with the county.
Shufelt soon began a dig on North Hill Street. Just 28 feet (8.5 m) into his drilling the newspapers reported that the team had already struck gold and were ready to start bringing it out. The public was shocked: could these stories actually be true?
No, they could not, and in truth they hadn’t found a lot. “Experts” were on record stating that Shufelt’s dig would have to hit at least 1,000 feet (305 meters) before it turned anything up. Unfortunately, the drilling also didn’t go smoothly.
Dense boulders made it hard going and after hitting the water table the team had enormous amounts of mud to contend with. Somewhere between the 250 feet (76 meters) and 350 feet (105 meters) mark the team was forced to give up.
Exactly why remains unclear. Some reports claim a cave-in was the cause, but others simply state that after the newspapers lost interest in the story, funds dried up and Shufelt’s team ran out of money. Not long after, Shufelt pretty much disappeared, cropping up again in North Hollywood in 1957 but vanishing from history soon after.
His team never found any evidence of lizard people or lost gold. Was it a con? Some experts believe so. According to Chapman University professor Paul Apodaca, Shufelt’s version of the Hopi myth was “exaggerated and corrupted.”
Or maybe, the fanciful suggest, Shufelt gave up too soon. In 1972 a San Jose man hiking Mt. Shasta claimed to see a lizard person wearing a shirt and trousers also hiking on the mountain.
Furthermore, five weeks before Shufelt even began his dig a woman from Pico Rivera reportedly had a vision of a vast underground city built by an extinct but advanced race. Coincidence or proof that Shufelt had been on the right track?
Of course, most people would agree that Shufelt’s story was pseudoscience. No actual evidence of lizard people or a lost city has ever been found. No one besides Shufelt ever saw his radio X-ray machine in action either. Still, his tale continues to captivate imaginations and inspire curiosity about the hidden mysteries lurking beneath our cities.
Top Image: G Warren Shufelt claimed to have found tunnels filled with gold under the streets of LA, left by an ancient and extinct race of lizard people. Source: Elture / Adobe Stock.
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