In the Lost City of Ancient America's Monkey God

Morde went on to write a colorful travelogue of his experiences titled "In the Lost City of Ancient America's Monkey God" for The American Weekly. "I am convinced that we have found the site of the legendary Lost City of the Monkey God," he began the travelogue.[9] He described "penetrating far into little known Mosquitia Territory" and warding off "malaria, deadly snakes, vicious insects and jungle beasts" before coming upon the ruins.[9] "Towering mountains" flanked the "ideal setting" where he discovered a walled city with a monkey god that resembled Hanuman from Hindu culture.[9] The temple of the god was not found, but local Paya guides described what it once looked like in detail, allegedly passed down from their ancestors who had seen it.

In 2013, journalist Christopher S. Stewart wrote a book titled Jungleland about the legend of la Ciudad Blanca and Morde. He went to Honduras and undertook an expedition with archaeologist Christopher Begley in 2008 where he attempted to retrace Morde's steps using his original field journals. Stewart interviewed Morde's surviving family members and provided an account of his life.[15] In 2015 archeologists discovered a "lost city" in the region, thought to be associated with the civilization discovered by Morde. At the scientists' urging, the Honduran government dispatched army forces to protect the site from looters.[16]

In his 2017 book The Lost City of the Monkey God, Douglas Preston states that Morde fabricated all of his claims about finding a lost city. Preston obtained copies of Morde's expedition journals from the National Geographic Society, which had in turn obtained the journals from Morde's family in 2016.[17] The journals, written by Morde and Brown together, show that they never found any ruins, and indeed, they never searched for any in the first place. Their supposed archaeological expedition was actually a cover; the real purpose of the trip was to search for gold along the Río Blanco, nowhere near the reported location of the purported lost city.[18] Their search for gold was a failure, and the men left the jungle after their supplies ran low and a storm destroyed their equipment.[19] The artifacts the two men supposedly brought back from the lost city were acquired near Brewer's Lagoon after their return from the deep jungle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_of_the_Monkey_God