'AI HELPED SOLVE A 140 YEAR MYSTERY'

Michael's investigation was given a boost thanks to ChatGPT

- Words: Sarah Marinos, Emma Babbington.

It's one of Australia's most intriguing cold cases. In October 1880, five men vanished from the south coast of NSW during the gold rush. What happened to them is a mystery – but local historian Michael Brooke believes he may finally have answers, thanks to persistence, painstaking research and a little help from artificial intelligence aka ChatGPT. “I'd known about the Bermagui mystery for a long time, but it wasn’t until I moved to the town that I began digging deeper,” he tells Woman’s Day.

When gold fever arrived in the tiny town of Bermagui, Thomas Towers, William Lloyd and Daniel Casey left their families in Batemans Bay, further up the coast, and sailed to Bermagui to find their fortune. There, the three men simply vanished.

WITHOUT A TRACE

At the same time, Lamont Young, a government geologist with the NSW Mines Department, and his assistant, Max Schneider, also arrived in Bermagui. They'd been dispatched to the town to claim potential new goldfields on behalf of the state government. They also disappeared without a trace.

A short time later, the belongings of all five men were found in a boat that drifted onto rocks in nearby Mystery Bay. It contained Lamont Young's survey notes, bundles of clothes and a bullet lodged in one side.

The police who originally investigated concluded the men drowned but there were also rumours of foul play.