In 1934, G. Warren Shufelt told the Los Angeles Times that he had discovered the remains of an ancient reptilian civilization beneath Los Angeles, USA.
Deep in the heart of Los Angeles’ financial district, hundreds of meters below the towering buildings filled with banks and corporate offices, lies another city only remembered in the urban legends of Americans—an underground world built by a strange race that vanished thousands of years ago.
At least, that is what mining engineer G. Warren Shufelt claimed in the Los Angeles Times on January 29, 1934. According to journalist Jean Bosquet, Shufelt excavated in downtown Los Angeles in search of this ancient underground civilization.
The lizard people are believed to have inhabited an underground city for over 5,000 years. They possessed highly advanced technology and had connections with the Maya. After fleeing a catastrophic meteor shower around 3000 BC, the Maya relocated along the Pacific coast, where they encountered these strange beings seemingly from another planet. Stories of the lizard people are still recounted in Hopi mythology. They were highly intelligent, possessing advanced technologies.
The Lizard People
Shufelt first heard about this city in a Hopi indigenous legend about the “lizard people.” They were an ancient race, nearly wiped out after a meteor shower struck the Southwestern United States around 3000 BC—the famous Winslow Crater in Arizona is believed to be the site of this meteor shower.
According to Hopi legend, the lizard people constructed 13 underground settlements along the Pacific coast to protect their tribe from future disasters. These underground cities housed thousands of families along with food reserves.
According to the tale, the lizard tribe used a “chemical solution” to melt the solid rock and drill tunnels to create their underground shelters. In addition to providing refuge during disasters, the tunnels were also designed to house massive gold tablets telling the story of the tribe, the origins of humanity, and the history of the world since its creation.
In 1933, the Los Angeles Times published Shufelt’s quest for the lizard people’s treasure, and another publication, the Associated Press, spread the news across the United States. The underground city was said to resemble a lizard, stretching from Elysia Park to what is now the Los Angeles Central Library.
A Hopi Native’s Story
An elderly Hopi, leader Little Green Leaf, told Shufelt that the lizard people’s underground city lay beneath present-day downtown Los Angeles.
In 1933, after surveying the area, Shufelt purchased the vacant land of Banning at 518 North Hill Street, which he believed was the treasure room below. Shufelt claimed he had pinpointed the location of gold in the tomb below with the help of a “radio X-ray machine.”
This was a device he invented to survey underground, searching for oil, gold, and other valuable resources, helping Shufelt map the location and extent of the underground tunnels. He stated that the underground city resembled a giant lizard, with its head near Chavez Ravine (the current site of Dodger Stadium) and its tail tapering off under the Central Library.
A map detailing the extent of the underground city in Los Angeles, published in the Los Angeles Times in the 1930s. Shufelt claimed he found the exact location of an underground complex measuring 1,765 square meters along with 16 rooms hiding gold. He discovered structures beneath Fort Moore Hill in Los Angeles thanks to his X-ray machine.
“The key room”, which contained the city map and a catalog of the gold tablets, was located beneath what is now Times-Mirror Square. Shufelt also claimed he traced passageways extending around the Southwest Museum area, stating that the ventilation tunnels stretched westward, opening to the Pacific Ocean.
Despite all the maps and detailed diagrams of the treasure-filled underground city, Shufelt never found it. Newspapers speculated that the treasures were the gold brought over by the Spanish during colonial times. However, the deeper he dug, the more he encountered difficulties from mud and dense rock. Some experts suggested digging down about 300 meters, but Shufelt could only reach over 70 meters, and he still found no tunnels or treasures.
After years of sensational headlines in Los Angeles, Shufelt’s miraculous X-ray machine and the detailed map of the lizard people’s underground city vanished without a trace, adding to the mystery of this strange tale. Over time, the incident quickly faded from memory.
