In 1929 and again in 1930 Lewis Harold Bell Lasseter (1880–1931) made different (and possibly conflicting) claims that either in 1911 or in 1897, he had discovered a rich gold deposit.
[1][2] On 14 October 1929 he wrote a letter to Kalgoorlie federal member, Albert Green, claiming to have discovered "a vast gold bearing reef in Central Australia" 18 years earlier and that it was located at the western edge of the MacDonnell Ranges.
[2] According to the story told to Bailey, Lasseter was about 700 miles (1,100 km) west of Alice Springs in a line towards Kalgoorlie.
[3] He claimed that subsequent to this discovery he got into difficulties and was fortuitously rescued by a passing Afghan camel driver who took him to the camp of a surveyor, Joseph Harding.
By 1930, when Australia was in the grip of the Great Depression, the attractions of desert gold were much greater, and Lasseter succeeded in securing approximately £50,000 in private funding towards an expedition to relocate the reef.
Accompanying Lasseter were experienced bushmen Fred Blakeley (leader) and Frank Colson as well as George Sutherland (prospector), Phil Taylor (engineer, driver), John Blakeston-Houston (governor-general's aide, 'explorer') and Errol Coote (pilot).
One afternoon Lasseter returned to camp with some concealed rock samples and announced that he had relocated the gold reef.
[1][3] A search for Lasseter was conducted by the Eclipse Gold Expedition, which primarily sought to locate the reef, and his body was discovered by bushman, Bob Buck in March 1931.
Buck found Lasseter's emaciated body in a shallow, oval shaped grave, in which the Pitjantjatjara had buried him.
Maier, H.M. Howard and R.H. Smithies likened the southern part of Lasseter's search area to the Bushveld Complex in South Africa where gold deposits do occur and said the region has high potential, quoting a 2002 report of copper-gold vein style material found north of the Cavenagh Range.
It inspired a sub-plot in the film, Strike Me Lucky (1934), and Lasseter's fate was recreated in the movie Phantom Gold (1936).
[19] In January 2017, an episode of Expedition Unknown on the American Travel Channel, titled "Lasseter's Gold", examined the mystery.