Did Alfred Isaac Middleton really discover a mysterious lost city in Sumatran jungles?

There have been rumours floating around in various online communities about a mysterious figure by the name of Alfred Isaac Middleton. This man is said to have been an extraordinary explorer from the late 1800s who vanished in the jungles of Sumatra while searching for the ruins of a city known as Dawleetoo.

According to a Smithsonian Magazine report, a former assistant of Arthur Conan Doyle, a friend of the explorer Sir John Morris, had a collection of documents about this man, and one of them revealed the explorer’s incredible story.

A copy of an email from a British consulate was sent to Doyle’s assistant, mentioning a lost cache of documents and a possible expedition by a Mr. Alfred Isaac Middleton, a contemporary of one Edward Allen Oxford. Did the two know each other?

Middleton was an explorer who was hunting for a forgotten city called Dawleetoo, which was rumoured to be on the route to a lake called Lop Nur, according to Doyle’s former assistant. It has been hypothesised that Middleton became disoriented and lost in that area. The email also mentioned a treasure that Middleton was said to have gathered and buried in a casket.

Evidentially, we don’t know much about Middleton’s account other than these photos above that have been circulating on the internet for a while.

Yes, some of these fascinating images might be not related to the actual event but the story of Alfred Isaac Middleton and the lost city of Dawleetoo could be of true origin.

According to the book, The Lost Casket of Dawleetoo (1881):

“The Search for One of the World’s Greatest Lost Treasures, the mission supposedly found a city in the jungle, named Dawleetoo. According to Middleton, there was a map that had a golden city that went all the way down to a lake, as well as a gold statue of a woman that came from a lost continent called Atlantis.

A group of people were sent by Middleton to find the city, and one of the men supposedly found a buried casket filled with gold. The report claims that according to a letter found in the church archives, Middleton was lost in the jungle and taken prisoner by a group of men that wanted the gold and the statue. Middleton apparently died in captivity.”

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A man by the name of John Hargreaves was said to be the second in command on the mission, and he led another team of people into the jungle to recover the treasure. In the end, what became of Middleton’s expedition is unknown.

Many mainstream historians have suggested the stories of Alfred Isaac Middleton to be a mere hoax and that Middleton’s mission to find Dawleetoo never took place; but many theorists are so convinced that the expedition was real, but that Middleton went missing and never returned.

Did Alfred Middleton really discover a mythical city lost in time? If so, to what mysterious civilization this city belonged? And what actually happened to Middleton, did he really get lost in the jungles of Sumatra, or did he never come back on purpose?