Lasseter’s Reef - Unresolved Mysteries From Down Under

Born in Victoria in 1880, Lewis Lasseter had a rather ordinary life as a maintenance man, writer, inventor, and carpenter. He quarreled with the local planning council, married a nurse, and was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force due to bad health.
Then, in 1929, he approached the Australian government with an absolutely audacious plan. He wanted to survey a 1,280-kilometer (800 mi) stretch of the Australian Outback to lay out the route for a pipeline to carry water from the Gascoyne River to a gigantic quartz reef he claimed to have discovered. According to Lasseter, the quartz formation held at least £5 million in gold—he just needed someone to help finance his trip to exploit it.
Lasseter claimed to have found the gold reef 33 years before he came forward with his plans. Although the government denied him funding for the project, he did find some people willing to back him and eventually led a party out into the outback in 1930. The expedition was a disaster—their horses died, their camels ran away, the men bickered and argued, and the whole thing was plagued by accidents. Most of the party turned back before the end of the year, realizing that they weren’t going to find the gold mine. Lasseter continued with one other man but was left alone in the desert after another argument and ultimately died there.
So just what was Lasseter up to? Well, it’s not really clear. Some claim that Lasseter was delusional and had obviously never even been in that part of Australia. Others suggest that he was financially ruined, so decided to talk his way into a last-ditch effort at finding some gold.
But others insist that the gold reef is very, very real—and that Lasseter drew a map to it in his diary. Thanks to Google Earth, treasure hunters from around the world are trying to match Lasseter’s description of the gold reef with the terrain of central Australia. While some have even journeyed into the desert in pursuit of it, no one’s found the gold reef so far.
Or if they have, they’re not telling.