Eerie California: Strange Places and Odd Phenomena in the Golden State

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A Gold Country house haunted by a phantom flasher; a weird ancient city buried beneath downtown Los Angeles; a lovely lake thats home to a terrifying monster . . . these are just a few of the strange and fascinating places youll visit in Eerie California

Reviews

Finalist, Travel Books Category, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award. From the book: Deep beneath the heart of Los Angeles financial district, hundreds of feet below the huge edifices that house banks, corporate offices, and government agencies, lies another city remembered only in obscure Indian legends, an underground world built by a strange race that vanished five thousand years ago. At least thats what mining engineer W. Warren Shufelt claimed in the January 29, 1934 Los Angeles Times. According to reporter Jean Bosquet, Shufelt was ready to dig up downtown L.A. in search of this ancient civilization. Shufelt had first heard of the city in a Hopi legend about the Lizard People. They were a fabled lost race who had built 13 great underground cities on the Pacific Coast after a huge holocaust swept the Southwest back around 3,000 BC. A Hopi chief told Shufelt that the vanished races capital city was located under present-day downtown Los Angeles. After surveying the area, Shufelt showed up on the Banning property at North Hill Street and sank a 350-foot shaft straight down, digging for what he said was a treasure room directly underneath. Shufelt said he had located gold in the catacombs below with the aid of his radio x-ray. He said that the subterranean city was shaped like a giant lizard, with the tail tapering out beneath the Central Library, and the head in the vicinity of Chavez Ravine (now Dodger Stadium). The key room, the chamber that contained the map of the city and the directory to the gold tablets, lay several hundred feet under the present site of Times-Mirror Square.

Author Bio

Mike Marinacci is a lifelong California resident fascinated by the states unique history and culture, Mike Marinacci is the author of Mysterious California (Los Angeles: Panpipes, 1988), and co-author of the bestselling Weird California (New York: Sterling, 2006). Mr. Marinacci also contributed to Weird Hauntings (New York: Sterling, 2006), The Book of Sacraments: Ritual Use of Magical Plants (Berkeley: Ronin, 2015) and Explorations in Awareness (Berkeley: Ronin, 2016), and wrote the Foreword to The Shadow over Santa Susana (New York: Creation Books, 2009).