A facial recognition expert claims an elderly man living in Australia is a definite match for runaway murderer Lord Lucan, as the algorithm linking the accused killer to a man in Oz is "never wrong". The frail man living in a small town just outside Brisbane, capital of the state of Queensland, has been reported as Lucan, who would now be 87 - and the image has been blurred for legal reasons.
There have been reported sightings in Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand previously, and there were even claims that he fled to India and lived life as a hippy. Another sighting was reported at an ex-Nazi colony in Paraguay, so here we've rounded up some of the conspiracy theories surrounding his disappearance.
What do you think happened to Lord Lucan? Let us know in the comments...
November 7th marks the 48th anniversary of the day Lucan was accused of murdering family nanny Sandra Rivett before he disappeared and was never found.
Lucan lived as a hippy in India called 'Jungle Barry'
Former Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLaughlin claimed in 2003 that Lord Lucan had lived as a hippy in India until his death in 1996.
He claimed Lord Lucan had lived under the name Barry Halpin and was known as Jungle Barry.
A photograph claiming to show a bearded, dishevelled Lucan in 1991 also bared a strong resemblance to the missing peer.
It eventually emerged Halpin was very real - but that he was from St Helens and a well-known figure on the Merseyside folk music scene of the 1960s.
He lived in the New Zealand outback with a goat called Camilla
Local residents deep in the New Zealand outback claimed in 2007 that a British ex-pat Roger Woodgate could be Lord Lucan.
He was said to have an upper-class English accent and a strong resemblance to the fugitive peer - as well as a pet possum and a goat called Camilla.
Mr Woodgate has continually denied the claims ever since and points out that he is five inches shorter and 10 years younger than Lord Lucan.
'Captured by police'... but turned out to be Labour MP who faked his own death
Australian Police swooped just months after Lord Lucan's disappearance and arrested a man they announced they believed was the missing peer.
But the arrest took a more incredible twist when it emerged they'd actually found 'dead' Labour MP John Stonehouse alive and well.
Stonehouse had faked his own drowning off the coast of Miami earlier that year because of financial problems.
He was deported back to the UK and the search for Lord Lucan continued.
He was fed to tigers after shooting himself
Philippe Marcq - who was part of the same gambling set as the notorious peer - says one of Lord Lucan's best friends confirmed the gruesome story to him 40 years ago.
He claims the peer was given a shotgun to shoot himself before his body was fed to a tiger owned by friend John Aspinall at his private zoo in Kent.
He told the Daily Mail: "I was stunned when Stephen told me this, absolutely stunned.
"But I believed what he told me 100 per cent. He was telling me very seriously and him telling me was a sign of considerable trust.
"I felt sworn to secrecy. It was a secret I could not betray — and, until now, I have not."
Other sightings
A number of people have reported seeing Lord Lucan in a range of bizarre locations and scenarios.
Such sightings include on an ex-Nazi colony in Paraguay, at a sheep station in the Australian outback, backpacking on Mount Etna and working as a waiter in San Francisco.
One couple also reported seeing him in a private hospital in Johannesburg in 1995.
The very first reported sighting of Lucan after his disappearance was in January 1975, when he was supposedly spotted in Melbourne, Australia.
Then later that year he was allegedly seen in the French ports of St Malo and Cherbourg.
In 1978, Barbados police were asked by Scotland Yard to investigate reports that a British resident was sending money to Lord Lucan in South America.
In South Africa, police examined fingerprints left on a beer glass by a man alleged to be Lucan in Cape Town.
Sightings were reported as far away as Mozambique and Zimbabwe but also closer to home in Greece and Switzerland.
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