Mysterious Australia Newsletter - May 2011

“MYSTERIOUS “MYSTERIOUS “MYSTERIOUS “MYSTERIOUS

AUSTRALIA”AUSTRALIA”AUSTRALIA”AUSTRALIA”

Vol 1. Issue No 6

MAY 2011

INSIDE:

� ANTJI WESTRIP SPECIAL.

� THE MYSTERIOUS BLUE MOUNTAINS LION.

� THE LATEST GILROY SEARCH.

‘Mysterious Australia’ Newsletter – May, 2011

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Blue Mountains UFO Research Club. The Club meetings are held on the third Saturday of the month, at

the Gilroy residence, 12 Kamillaroi Road, South Katoomba, from 1pm onwards.

We are situated on the corner of Kamillaroi Road and Ficus Street, and as we always say, park in Ficus Street where there is safer parking.

ANTJI WESTRIP SPECIAL. by Rex Gilroy,

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011. This special article is to celebrate the achievements of the Gilroys leading [South Coast] field assistant, Mrs Antji Westrip, who together with her husband Allan, has been actively involved in all our field investigations on the New South Wales far south coast. Although unable to attend our monthly meetings due to distance, she has none-the-less kept a keen interest as an ‘out of town’ member, regularly receiving our newsletters and always being excited with every new discovery Heather and I have made and the Skywatch results of our Club etc. We first met Antji and Allan in 2000 on the occasion of the release of our first book under our newly formed URU Publications. The book was of course “Pyramids in the Pacific - The Unwritten History of Australia” and Antji phoned us to purchase a copy, saying “I can only talk for half an hour” as she had something else to do. Four hours later we were still on the phone, in the deepest discussion of ancient history that I have ever enjoyed! The Westrips live at Dalmeny just north of Narooma. Their home is a library and a haven for fairies, as well as the birds that come to the front verandah to be fed each day and the possums that live in the trees in the backyard. Antji invited us to visit when ever we were in the area, and I was so excited after our first marathon phone conversation that we delivered her book in person. Soon we were coming down for 2-3 days or so, during which the Westrip home became a ‘base of operations’ for investigations deep into the Wadbilliga mountain range where we would make great discoveries together, and when ‘back at base’ we would be discussing the Greek and Roman classics, history and archaeology. Exciting times lay ahead.

***** Since 2000 the district in which Antji and Allan live has proven to be a ‘treasure house’ of Australia’s ‘unknown’ history, both of fossil hominids of pre-Aboriginal times and visitations and long-term colonisation by ancient maritime civilisations long since turned to dust. Thanks to Allan’s 4-wheel drive vehicle we have been able to reach isolated places over mountain roads that are beyond our own car’s capability. Evidence continues to mount that Egypto-Phoenician Bronze-Age [2000-1400 BC] mineral-seeking explorer-colonists colonised the far south coast, exploring deep inland into the Wadbilliga and Deua ranges in search of gold, other precious metals and gemstones. On the last day of January 2002 the Gilroys and Westrips drove into the Wadbilliga wilderness. Our first stop was a flat area where in July 2001 I had found traces of ancient settlement in the shadow of a pyramid mount. On this day Antji made the first discovery within a few minutes of our arrival, in the form of a 37cm tall by 20cm wide and 9cm deep sandstone burial marker. Inscribed in Phoenician script it read:

“Mourn Talab, son of Gavin. Gone to Baal”.

Rex and Hea th e r G i l r o y , Aus t r a l i a ’ s t o p UFO and ‘Un exp l a i n e d ’ Mys t e r i e s Re s e a r c h t e am .

Pho t o c o py r i g h t © Rex G i l r o y 2004 .

‘Mysterious Australia’ Newsletter – May, 2011.

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I also made finds of burial markers, so that it is certain that we had uncovered remains of an ancient cemetery.

Antji entered apatch of scrub to uncover the remains of an ancient stone wall. The full story of this day of discoveries is to be found in our book “Pyramids of Destiny – Lost Pacific Colonies of the Bronze-Age God-Kings” [URU Publications 2009].

Among Anjtis’ other finds was a stone slab measuring 15cm long by 11cm wide by 3.2cm deep bearing the ogham stroke letter ‘B’ for ‘Baal’ and ‘Eye of Baal’ image.

To cover all of Antji’s achievements on our expeditions would fill a book on their own, and will when I get a chance to write it!

However, thanks to Antji and Allan the Gilroys have been able to demonstrate the massive extent to which ancient Middle-East men and women colonists settled this part of Australia, in the course of which thousands of people were involved in the establishing of a kingdom over which a local Pharonic class was created to rule its people.

In between all these adventures, Heather and I have thoroughly enjoyed our stays with the Westrips, during which Antji and I have engaged in endless intellectual discussions. Even breakfast has been looked forward to, for the delicious waffles that only Antji can make. I declare that Antji is the greatest, finest waffle maker in Australia!

***** 2001 was a year of major discoveries for the Gilroys and it was also a year in which we discovered the remains of an ancient stone-walled inlet at a secret south coastal New South Wales location from which the ocean has long ago retreated. The former inlet, now covered in forest, contained the remains of stone buildings now turned to rubble, a tall pyramid-shaped beacon and two 60 metre tall, flat-summited pyramids, upon which stones bearing Egypto-Phoenician inscriptions were soon uncovered. It was not long before we revealed our big find to Allan and Antji and they soon joined us on an investigation of the structures. We feared the steep sides of the four-sided pyramids would be too much for Antji, but before we knew it, there was Antji half way up with Allan negotiating the rubble stonework! Over the next few years many more finds were made on and about the base of the pyramids, assisted by Antji and Allan. Wet weather was no barrier to Antji either for on one cloudy day while we searched rainforest below the structures Antji and I came across a large upright stone bearing a lengthy Egypto-Phoenician inscription. It was a message for the workers on where the stones for the pyramids were to be placed. Antji was in her raincoat so was not all that bothered when rain began falling. By then I had recorded the inscription and photographed it. I had recently found an inscribed rock stating “City of Horus”, showing that beyond the inlet there had been a thriving Bronze-Age kingdom [see “Pyramids of Destiny – Lost Pacific Colonies of the Bronze-Age God-Kings” by Rex and Heather Gilroy, URU Publications 2009] so that a considerable population had to have existed here, the purpose being the mining of the gold, copper and tin deposits to be found further inland. The translation of the large ‘message stone’ read:

“Instructions for placing the stones at the Temple of Ra the Sun. For the Temple of the Sun Ra, the placing of the stones for the base of the Sun Pyramid must go from corner

to corner for the full length of the pyramid, the measurement of each side must be exact, the stones gathered here placed in position.

Declared by Cy-ma-I”.

The inscription obviously described the early foundation stage of this particular pyramid. It is still unknown whether this pyramid temple was built first, or both at the same time.

In September 2002 I discovered the latest of a number of Phoenician rock inscriptions at Katoomba, and showed this find to Antji when she and Allan visited us some time later. As usual Antji was thrilled to seeengravings that average people only expect to find overseas. The inscription stated in Canaanite Phoenician:

‘Hail Baal, Baal – the light of his lightning. To Baal of Canaan we give thanks in homage”.


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On our next visit to Dalmeny Antji got out some of her books on these matters and as usual we went into deep discussion on the many discoveries made by us all, which certainly challenged the ‘official’ history of this continent. Yet Antji herself would soon make a discovery in my presence which I regard today as being of world importance…

***** It was Wednesday 20th January 2004. Heather and I were staying with the Westrips at Dalmeny, when Allan drove us up into the Wadbilliga mountain range inland from Moruya. Having driven deep into the range we stopped to explore along a dry rocky creek. Heather and Allan were searching in the opposite direction to Antji and I. The search was for hominid fossils perhaps washed out of the old Pleistocene deposits of the banks. As I passed a large lump of conglomerate [ie fossilised mud and pebbles] Antji queried “Are you going to have a look at that rock?” At which I replied, “Yes on the way back”. “You’d better”, replied Antji, “it has two eye sockets”! I took immediate notice, and sure enough, it was indeed a skull, or rather an endocast of an undoubted giant hominid skull, whose vault had been filled with tightly packed mud and large creek pebbles, the outer bones having fallen away in ages past. The brain case was missing and there were besides the eye sockets, the outline of the nasal cavity, with the lower jaw fused to the upper. The remaining specimen measured 33cm long by 33cm wide across the facial area by 18cm deep. The eye sockets were 7cm long by 6cm wide. I estimated that the owner would have stood at least no less that 12ft [3.66m] in height. Antji had discovered the first known giant hominid skull-type anywhere in the world. Since then I have gone on to find two other giant hominid skulls in the same area, and three at other localities, but Antji’s find remains the first of its kind anywhere in the world. That all these giant hominid skull-types have been uncovered in Australia is significant. At present I regard them as representatives of a giant form of Homo erectus between 320,000 and 380,000 years old, although giant hominid fossil footprints are known from the Blue Mountains and elsewhere dating back millions of years! There is a skull endocast from the Wadbilliga locality found by me within months of Antji’s find of a much larger giant. The incomplete skull endocast displays massive eye sockets 12cm wide by 11cm high, dating about 380,000 years BP. Both races were contemporaneous. Antji and Allan live in a nice bushland-backed house with resident possums in their backyard pine trees where they get fed at night. Together with their ferny gardens fairies live there as a small sign says.. They have two cats and like the Gilroys, love animals. Recently our dog Andy paid them a visit and enjoyed his day there being love-bombed by the Westrips! Soon the Gilroys will be visiting the Westrips again, and I will be showing Antji all the ‘goodies’ we found on our recent searches in Central Australia, and other discoveries that I made virtually on a daily basis since returning from the ‘Red Centre’. Antji will as usual comment on the finds and study them. She is a living Oracle, the ‘Muse of Dalmeny’!

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Antji on the pyramid summit. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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The “Talah, son of Gavin” inscription. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Antji with the “Eye of Baal” image she found while on a search of a Bronze-Age [2000-1400 BC] Phoenician site on the edge of the Wadbilliga wilderness with the

Gilroys. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Antji holding a small Baal image recovered by the Gilroys from a Proserpine, Queensland Phoenician Baal worship

temple in July 2000. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

A close view of the “Eye of Baal” image. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Rex with Antji and Allan Westrip in September 2004. As this photo was being taken by Heather, Rex was experiencing the first effects of a heart attack which put him in

Moruya Hospital for four days! Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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With here giant hominid skull endocast assisted by Rex due to the weight of the specimen, in her home. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Two giant hominid skull collectors with their finds. The large eye socket specimen was found by Rex in the same watercourse some months after

Antji’s big discovery. Photo copyright (c0 Rex Gilroy 2011.

Antji’s favourite skull from the Gilroy collection is ‘Yorick’. Here Rex holds it while describing its features. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Antji with ‘Yorick’. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Skull endocast of the ‘Wadbilliga Giant’.

Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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The large stele at the pyramid base contains instructions for the workers. Rain did not stop Antji taking part in this big find!


Sketch plan of the two crumbling [basalt] pyramids and pyramidal beacon erected around the stone-walled inlet. Traces of settlement continue to be found by the Gilroys at the “City of Horus”.


The chalked-in inscription, necessary due to poor lighting in the dim forest.


This Phoenician inscription, found at Katoomba by Rex, and later shown to Antji reads: “Hail Baal, Baal – the light of his lightning. To Baal of Canaan

we give thanks in homage”. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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THE MYSTERIOUS BLUE MOUNTAINS LION.

by Rex Gilroy. Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

[NB. This article is a Chapter from our forthcoming book – ‘Big Cats of the Australian Wilderness’.]

t has a massive front pair of paws measuring as much as 21.5cm long by 22.5cm wide with large clawed toes, and the rear of the paw pad displays a three lobe formation typical of marsupials. The monster’s back pair of paws measure around 17.5cm long by 18cm wide across the outstretched claws. The

animal’s legs are muscular and the entire body of powerful build, with a dog-yet-cat like head of large enough size to house its great powerful jaws and teeth. The body fur is often fawn to yellowish-grey and can be shades of brown. This creature has all the features of a giant marsupial carnivore, which is what it is. The argument has raged for many years as to whether or not this mysterious species is surviving remnant populations of the Marsupial Lion, Thylacoleo carnifex. This is of course impossible to say without actual specimen material, but the authors believe it to be a surviving relative of its famous forebear. It is known as the “Blue Mountains Lion” for its ‘mane’ of long neck hair and cat-like pricked ears. Known to the early tribespeople for thousands of years, it was one of the terrors that the early European settlers of the Wollondilly district and Joadja Valley, the Burragorang and Megalong Valleys had to face, in those early days of settlement of the ranges in the 19th century. The “Blue Mountains Lion” has left its mark on these valleys. Known as the Currobung merrigang, the fearsome ‘rock dogs’ of the tribes that roamed the Blue Mountains, they earned their English name from the early settlers of the region. In fact, giant carnivores answering to the same description were then, and still are, known from as far south as the fringe of the Snowy Mountains and on through the Monaro district to Goulburn into the Southern Highlands. Northwards from the Blue Mountains the same creatures have long been known to the Hunter-New England districts as far north as the Queensland border country at least. This chapter concerns itself with the mountain country inland from the Bowral district, particularly the Wollondilly regions northwards into the Burragorang/Kanangra Boyd wilds and on into the rest of the rugged, vast Blue Mountains. The authors would like to think that, one day the true identity of the “Blue Mountains Lion” will be revealed, somewhere within the Blue Mountains where it first made its presence known to our early pioneers…

***** In 1880, a Mr Willis Reid claimed he shot a “huge furry lion-like beast” at Hogans Flat while in the company of four other men prospecting for gold. The area lies roughly south of the Abercrombie River. In those days the country thereabouts, from the Wingecarribee River northwards into the Wollondilly River country, which then included the Burragorang Valley through which it flowed to eventually meet the Nepean River, was known not only for ‘lions’ and equally mysterious big ‘black cats’, but also the notorious “hairy man”, so that farmers and prospectors alike never went about these wilds unarmed. Timber cutters in Burragorang Valley in 1890 were forced to scatter when one of these snarling animals emerged from a large dead hollow tree trunk, where it had been resting, before being disturbed by the arrival and axe sounds of the workmen. The Blue Mountains had always been the scene of many ‘lion’ sightings. Then a decline in reported encounters set in, beginning on the lower Blue Mountains with the spread of settlement in the first half of the 1950s. Until then, campers, bushwalkers and others had made frequent reports of encounters, and there were many cattle mutilations over an area extending from the Kings Tableland of Wentworth Falls down to the Lapstone escarpment. During 1953 a group of army officers and privates undertook a cross-country march from Ingleburn Army Camp to Katoomba, during which they kept a lookout for a ‘lion-like’ beast which, about that time, had been reportedly seen prowling at night through bushland between Warragamba and Katoomba townships. Loggers working near Mt Harris, 15 miles from Katoomba, informed the soldiers that the beast was covered with long shaggy hair and was about the size of a lion. They had named it the “Erskine Gap Monster”. Large paw prints were found in the Mt Harris-Erskine Gap region – and these tracks are still occasionally found thereabouts today. During June 2000 a “monstrous, brownish, shaggy-haired beast” was claimed

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seen by several men and women campers as it bounded from bushes across a track in front of them to disappear into nearby scrub from Erskine Gap. During 2001 three calf-size animals of this description dashed across a bush track at Erskine gap, frightening a rover scout unit on a camping trip. In October 1955, Blue Mountains residents spent considerable man-hours ‘lion hunting’. Large parties of locals, together with police searched extensive areas of bushland between Wentworth Falls and the Blaxland-Glenbrook area for a large, shaggy-haired lion-like animal which had been causing concern. In the Sydney press in 1953, a Mr W.B. Wilson of Cremorne Point wrote that, 36 years before, he had been prospecting on the main Dividing Range west of Katoomba. One day, on climbing a small hill covered with granite boulders, he was confronted by what he took to be a full-grown female lion emerging from the mouth of a cave. As soon as it disappeared, Mr Wilson climbed to the south of the cave, and entered it to see if there were any more of the creatures there. He then followed the tracks of the strange animal into a rocky scrub-and-tree covered area, but failed to find any further trace of it. About two years after this experience, he said that four men and some schoolchildren had seen another animal resembling a lion. It emerged from the bush and crossed an open space leading to a pond, where it proceeded to drink before it once again returned to the bush. This incident, at Sodwalls, was not the only such experience among the locals. Mr Wilson recalled how, around Sodwalls, children used to be kept at home from school whenever the animal was reported in the vicinity. In those times it was generally agreed among bushwalking circles, that there existed a small pack of these animals, their lair being situated somewhere between Breakfast Creek, Mouin Creek and Cox’s River. Prior to 1934, this region was described on maps as the “Wild Dog Mountains”, and there are a number of reports of these big, shaggy-haired creatures having been encountered thereabouts. Back in October 1937 on White Dog Ridge, a group of bushwalkers found the decaying body of a huge animal, about 1.2m long, which had apparently fallen over a cliff known as Kelpie Rocks. Ten days after this find was reported, Mr Eric B. Gilmel of Ashbury, New South Wales set out with three other bushwalkers in an effort to photograph the remains, but found nothing. Instead they came across large tracks which they followed for about 55 yards in the direction of Mouin Creek where they petered out. In April 1945, another bushwalking party descending the Korrowal Buttress of Mt Solitary must have been astonished to watch through their binoculars, four of these lion-like ‘warrigals’ loping across Cedar Valley. In July 1947 a party of timber cutters working in a gully of tall gums in what is now Kanangra Boyd National Park, south-west of Katoomba on the western side of Burragorang Valley, stopped their activities to watch what they all later agreed, was a “monstrous lion-like beast the size of a cow”, walking along the top of a granite outcrop above the gully. Similarly, in 1957 two campers inadvertently cornered a calf-size ‘lion-like’ animal on a cliff edge as they approached it to take photos of the view overlooking the Grose Valley near Mt Hay, north of Leura. The animal sprang at them, making its escape as the men jumped aside! Cattle roam half-wild around the scrubland south of the former Jamieson Valley farm and also around the more remote outlying regions of the Megalong Valley, just as they have done for many years past. In 1948, on two occasions three months apart, Mr L.A. Adams found the freshly killed, mutilated bodies of calves on the Cox’s River near Konangaroo Clearing. That year, campers found a number of these wild cattle, killed and mutilated in the Jamieson and Megalong Valleys, and for some months most bushwalking groups avoided these areas until the killings and sightings abated. In recent years, between the mid-1990s and 2001 many people have reported to me that they have heard weird howling and wailing sounds, both day and night, in the Mouin Creek area. These same sounds have been claimed heard in the Wentworth Falls, Lawson and Springwood scrublands bordering the Grose Valley; the sounds, many believe, are those of the “Blue Mountains Lion”.

***** During March 2003 I found prints of a huge, five-digit pawed marsupial carnivore out in the Narrow Neck Plateau scrub south-west of Katoomba. The prints measured 21.5cm long by 22.5cm wide. At the time there had been no new sightings reports of “Blue Mountains Lions” locally for the past few months, although one had been sighted in the Joadja Valley west of Mittagong by a number of farmers and other people throughout November 2002.


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A ‘lion-size’ fawn-coloured animal, complete with a shaggy-haired mane and 2m in body length, with a tail about 61cm long was seen crossing a Megalong Valley property in broad daylight a month before my discovery of these paw prints. My discovery when reported in the media revived a few old tales of a “giant animal” that left huge, five-toed tracks in mud in the vicinity of shale mines at Newnes in the early 1900s into the 1920s. It was claimed seen many times. Surely more than one animal was involved in these sightings. The fifth digit is not always shown in Blue Mountains Lion paw impressions, due to its placing a little higher than the others [like the Thylacine], so that it is mostly found in paw prints that had been embedded deep in soft mud. On Tuesday 15th March 2005, Heather and I, together with Greg Foster our leading field assistant, drove out to a location on Narrow Neck Plateau, where we were to be interviewed by an ATN7 news crew on our ‘Big Cat’ research. While we were there, I discovered three faded large ‘lion’ paw impressions in a mud patch. Each of the tracks showed four digits each and had been distorted in the mud as the animal strode through it some days before. One track measured 18cm long by 28cm wide across the toes, the other two were 14cm long by 21cm across the toes and 22cm long by 21cm across the toes. The surviving three tracks were arranged in a triangle formation; any others made by the animal had been on harder ground and had disappeared. The rear track, the largest, was spaced 1m apart from the [right] track ahead of it, whereas there was a space of 1.7m between the rear track and the [left] one ahead of it, these in turn being spaced 1.1m apart. From these measurements we reasoned that the animal had a stride of from 1 to 1.7m, a big animal indeed. Upon inspecting this site at a later date I found a maze of paw prints, left by two of these animals as they drank from a pool of water. A large round cast was prepared of these tracks, which I was later able to juggle alone with difficulty into the boot of Heather’s station wagon! Our search for tracks to cast has taken us on numerous field searches deep into the Wollemi and Newnes forests. In one area where I uncovered several ‘lion’ tracks unfortunately faded away in dry sand, only days before. On Tuesday 30th November 2004, two trail bike riders saw one of these huge carnivores bound across a track ahead of them not 15m away. It was, they said to me later, about 1.6 to 2m long, had dark brown fur colour with a ‘mane’ of long hair down it neck, a large dog-cat looking ahead and large paws. As this book is being written, in March 2007 there are fresh sightings claims of ‘lions’ in the Mulgoa scrub south of Penrith and northwards in the Grose Valley-Kurrajong foothills and nearby Yarramundi region, property owners are concerned at the number of sightings of these creatures. Large tracks have been found on farms where poultry has been disappearing. Their tracks periodically turn up in the Kenthurst area, where sightings of both the ‘lion’ and ‘panther’ are frequently reported. The “Blue Mountains Lion” will continue its periodic rampages, emerging from its mountain scrubland lairs in the future, just as it has for generations past. It remains perhaps the foremost enigma of mystery animal reports on the Blue Mountains, where it/they will always remain free of human interference, inhabiting the depths of some of the most impenetrable bushland this continent has to offer. Yet the mystery remains as to where this carnivore fits into the Australian marsupial cat picture, with its superficial lion-like bodily features, further confused by two long ‘sabre’ or shearing teeth projecting from its upper jaw. When in 1980 I published my own crude sketch of the ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ based upon eyewitness descriptions, I was immediately attacked by more than one university zoologist with the usual ‘off the cuff’ dismissal that such a large animal could possibly exist. Now, 30 years later, I have been vindicated by the discovery of fossil remains of a small sabre-toothed marsupial cat by scientists working in the Riversleigh fossil deposits of Queensland’s north. This discovery implies the probability of one, perhaps more, larger sabre-toothed marsupial carnivores yet await discovery in the Australian fossil record. The following account of the discovery comes from a News Limited release on the Internet, Friday 9th July 2010:

Australian scientists have unearthed the remains of a bizarre, prehistoric, sabre-toothed cat in an ancient former rainforest, where specimens

stretch back 25 million years.

Lead palaeontologist Henk Godthelp said it was the first time the carnivore, with fangs half the length of its skull, had been seen in

Australia, calling it an exciting and unique discovery.


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“Its sort of like a native cat with a broad flattish head with large canines”, Dr Godthelp said. “It’s an animal

we don’t think we’ve seen before up at Riversleigh, so it was quite a nice find for us”.

Riversleigh, in Queensland, was a prehistoric rainforest which is now a

rich hunting ground for fossils and ancient remains, after creatures were trapped and ossified in its lime-rich pools.

Carnivorous kangaroo, gigantic flightless birds and ancient platypus

species are among the more unusual finds over the past 35 years, along with tree-dwelling crocodiles and primitive ancestors of the koala and wombat.

Many of its thousands of species have “never been seen anywhere else in Australia let alone the world”, Dr Godthelp said, adding that the skull of the newly found cat was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

“It wasn’t a voracious carnivore leaping around chewing the heads of

things or anything of that nature”, he said.

The world Heritage site also has one of the globe’s richest mammal deposits from the Oligo-Miocene era, between 15 and 25 million years ago. There deposits from about 200 separate pools spread over an 80 square

kilometre area.

Scientists will now use acid to dissolve a huge chunk of rock which Contained the skull, in the hope of find the remains of its body.

The above report of a marsupial species new to Australian palaeontology could be the first of further fossils of this kind from the Riversleigh fossil deposits. The little skull is 8cm in length and Professor Michael Archer, who leads the research group at UNSW, believes the species probably ate small animals, fruits and seeds, and used its fangs to help grab its prey or puncture fruits.

Geologist Phil Creaser from the UNSW team said that the fossil as at least 18 million years old, and most likely fell into an underground cave where it died. “The site is a grave deposit and is rich with small mammal fossils. We know that by looking at the geology [and] using a new method of dating stalagmites”, he said. Phil Creaser said that, at the time the sabre-toothed marsupial cat lived, northern Australia was covered with dense rainforest and was home to many extraordinary and dangerous animals.

***** Could it be that, like the species of marsupial lions described in Chapter One, which range from the size of a small house cat up to dot-size, the latest Riversleigh fossil might eventually turn out to be a small member of more than one much larger sabre-toothed marsupial lion species? It does no harm to theorise. And, considering the reported sizes of sabre-toothed marsupial carnivores described in this book claimed seen in widely-scattered regions of Australia, what ghostly genetic link, if any, might there have been with those better known South American sabre-toothed marsupial cats? For example, Thylacosmilus, whose remains come from the Pliocene and was as large as a jaguar with a long tail and Smilodon, a short-tailed beast much more heavily built than the modern African Lion with a massive body and strong, heavy legs, and which lived during early Pleistocene times. The newly discovered miniature sabre-toothed marsupial cat from Riversleigh may represent more than one form of carnivore which evolved on to large species which gave rise to the fearsome sabre-toothed ‘Big Cats’ featured in this book. The jaws of the South American sabre-toothed marsupial carnivores could be opened extremely wide, which freed the sabre [ie canine] teeth to be employed as daggers when attacked their prey. As the Australian finds possess much the same characteristics, we may assume that their jaw structures are very similar to the South American cousins. There was time, not too long ago, when the ancient traditions of our Aboriginal people concerning the marsupial carnivores described in this book were, together with the sightings and close encounter claims of European eyewitnesses, dismissed out-of-hand by a conservative scientific establishment which consigned these mysterious ‘unknowns’ to the realm of the impossible. However, in the light of recently commissioned Government reports, backed by national parks and Wildlife Service investigators earlier disinterest has been replaced by an urgent need to learn everything


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possible about the ‘Big Cats’ that haunt the Australian wilderness; and scientific bodies are becoming aware, not only that ht e ‘panthers’ and ‘lions’, ‘cougars’ and ‘tigers’ of this continent, as the authors demonstrate in this book, are a very real, if elusive group of marsupial carnivores whose ancestors are to be found in the fossiliferous deposits of this timeless land.

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In 1980 Rex Gilroy produced this rough sketch of a ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ based upon eyewitness descriptions. In the light of recent

fossil finds by Australian scientists, his over 30 years research of into this mysterious species has

been vindicated. Similar sabre-toothed marsupial carnivores have been reported from

other parts of the continent. Sketch copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

These two fragments of stone contain the skull and teeth of the small sabre-toothed marsupial cat. A larger chunk of rock from which these fragments cam may contain more of the creature’s skeleton, and is being dissolved with acetic

acid in the hope of finding it. Illustration courtesy Agence France-Presse.

The sabre-toothed marsupial carnivore Thylacosmilus, which lived in South America during the Pliocene period, and which was as large as a jaguar.

Illustration Strange Phenomena magazine.

The skull of a scimitar cat – of the sabre-toothed cat genus – at the Venezuelan Institute of

Scientific Research in Caracas. Illustration Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research.


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Smilodon, a sabre-toothed marsupial carnivore of the South American early Pleistocene period. Note its jaws, which could be opened so wide as to free the ‘sabre’ [canine] teeth for use as daggers.

Illustrations Strange Phenomena Magazine.

Narrow Neck Plateau, extending south-west of Katoomba, with Megalong Valley flanking its western side and Jamieson and Cedar Valleys on its eastern, its far end overlooking the vast Burragorang Valley. The Plateau has periodically been the scene of ‘panther’

encounters and sightings of the notorious ‘Blue Mountains Lion’. These carnivores are believed to reach the Plateau summit via a steeply descending gully down which a creek flows, fed by isolated swamps. This same route was used by early Burragorang-Megalong Aborigines.

Sightings of ‘panthers’ and ‘lions’ on the Plateau often coincide with sightings of these marsupials and reports of stock attacks on Megalong Valley properties. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

At this muddy [sometimes shallow water pool] section of a disused dirt fire trail out on Narrow Neck Plateau, Rex Gilroy and Greg Foster, in the course of a television news interview by ATN Channel 7 crew on Tuesday 15th march, 2005 found three large ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ paw

impressions in mud. On a later visit here together with Heather the Gilroys discovered a ‘maze’ of paw prints and other markings made by two of these carnivores when they emerged from the

nearby bush to drink at the pool. Rex attempted to follow the tracks up the fire trail and into the bush, but they faded away in the forest leaf litter. A large heavy round plaster cast was shortly

afterwards made of these impressions. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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The three large ’lion’ paw impressions found by Rex and Greg on Tuesday 15th March 2005. Two of the paw

impressions measured 18cm long by 28cm wide across the toes and 14cm long by 21cm wide across the toes.

Photo copyright t© Rex Gilroy 2011.

The third paw impression measured 22cm long by 21cm wide. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Rex Gilroy and Greg Foster with the large round cast the Gilroys prepared of the ‘maze’ of ‘lion’ paw impressions at the Narrow Neck Plateau pool.

Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011. As the impressions do not stand out clearly in the white plaster they have been outlined in pen for

photographic purposes. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

A close up of the huge paw impressions. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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The Narrow Neck fire trail, heading towards the fire tower, situated roughly at the half-way point of the Plateau. Hikers and campers have reported finding paw prints of large size - thought to be those of the ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ - as well as smaller ‘panther-

type’ tracks over the years along this trail. Campers relate stories going back many years, of weird loud feline-like howls and screeches, coming from the dense bush at night. There have also been sightings of large dark ‘cat’ or ‘lion-like’ creatures seen moving across the trail or in open areas in the scrub on moonlit nights. Such tales go back to well before there was a fire trail in the early 1930s. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Two plaster casts of ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ paw prints, displaying the three characteristic lobes

typical of marsupials discovered on Narrow Neck Plateau in April 2003. These huge mega-marsupials have roamed the Blue Mountains

since Ice-Age times. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011

The Narrow Neck fire trail, extending out to the far end of the ‘Neck’ where it overlooks the southern end of Megalong Valley and the Burragorang Valley to its south stretching

from east to west. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy

2011.


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The Burragorang Valley, home to so many mystery creatures, such as the

‘Australian Panther’ and sabre-toothed ‘Blue Mountains Lions’.

Any unknown creatures could easily survive hidden

in this wilderness. Photo copyright © Rex

Gilroy2011.

The Wild Dog Mountains, situated to the west of the end of Narrow Neck Plateau, give the appearance of a barrier separating the Megalong from Burragorang Valley. The

Wild Dogs have a long tradition of ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ activity. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy

2011.

Just to the north of the Wild dogs is a wilderness of dense scrub-covered gullies which lie on the fringe of a deep valley known as ‘The Cauldron’ [middle top of picture]. It is an eerie region according to those who have penetrated it on camping expeditions. The tracks of ‘Big Cats’

have been found on and off for generations, and sightings reported of fearsome, large sabre-toothed lion-like animals. From this region across to the Jenolan Range there have in fact been tales by early settlers of encounters with these animals and claims have been made in the past of attacks by them upon lone bushmen. People have vanished without trace in these wilds, often as victims of the

‘Blue Mountains Lion’. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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A close view of ‘The Cauldron’.


The Megalong Valley, now largely settled by cattlemen, still contains vast tracts of forestland form where the notorious ‘lions’ of that valley

periodically emerge to carry off stock. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

A bush track leading to a remote Megalong Valley property [the cliffs of Narrow Neck Plateau rise up in the distance]. In this area in 1987 Mr and Mrs Leslie and Carol Grayson were

taking a stroll from their campervan one afternoon in August, when they both

spotted a ‘tan-coloured furry beast with a big head and thickset body’ moving through long paddock grass about 60 metres from them. They described the

animal as being about 2.6 metres in body length with a straight kangaroo-like tail of about 80 or so centimetres length. The animal appeared to have a long mane extending down its neck. It quickly vanished into scrub on a hillside. They thought that it appeared to be heading in

the direction of a nearby creek at the foot of the hill.



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The Kanimbla Valley, directly north of the Megalong Valley, where both ’panther’ and ‘lion’ sightings reports have occurred for over a century. In 2001 ‘John’, a truck driver, almost ran into “A huge sabre-toothed cat-like monster” as it sat on a dirt road

leading to a farming property. “I turned a corner driving through scrub and suddenly encountered this dark-furred creature about 2 metres from head to tail. I spotted two big fangs projecting down from its upper jaw and it snarled at me with its big wide open jaws as I pulled up. The monster rose up on four powerful legs and bounded off the track and down through some dense timber to a rocky creek out of sight. It gave me a shock. I was only visiting friends there, and if big things like this live there I’m gland I’m a Sydney

man”!, he told Rex Gilroy. Photo copyright © Rex Gilr0y 2011.

On Sunday 20th September 2009 Rex Gilroy and Greg Foster carried out a search in clifftop scrub inland from the Bells Line of Road, overlooking the vast Wollemi wilderness. Campers who have penetrated this wilderness have reported finding large cat-like

tracks in creek mud or along the Colo River. There have been claims also of sightings of large lion-like animals as well as ‘panthers’ which roam this National Park free from human interference.

From the depths of the Wollemi these sabre-toothed carnivores have been reported over the years to have visited properties on the edge of the National Park near Colo, Howes Valley, the Bulga area, the Rylstone district west of the park, glen Davis and the Capertee

Valley. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

This fire tail, situated deep in the Newnes Forest, was the location of ‘lion’ print discoveries on two Gilroy expeditions to this wilderness during

2005. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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GIANT MARSUPIAL CARNIVORE AND MEGALANIA ROCK ART

DISCOVERY IN THE HAWKESBURY RIVER DISTRICT, NEW SOUTH WALES.

On Thursday 5th May 2011, Rex Gilroy uncovered faded Aboriginal rock engravings of Australian megafauna, thousands of years old, on a sandstone shoal deep in the bush inland from the Hawkesbury River on the fringe of the Blue Mountains. The rock art describes what appear to be two massive marsupial carnivores of marsupial lion-type appearance, engraved 2.73 metres apart towards the western edge of the shoal. Not far to the south of these engravings, Rex stumbled upon another badly weathered engraving, being that of an apparent giant monitor lizard, Megalania prisca Owen. The monster goanna is depicted with spears embedded in it, and there is an Aboriginal shield engraved above the head, demonstrating that this monster had been killed by Aboriginal hunters. The two monstrous marsupial carnivores if not other ‘kills’ of the tribesmen, show that the artist/s described a species of giant marsupial lion-like species. The westernmost ‘Big Cat’ engraving measures 2.2 metres long head to tail tip, by 1.27 metres wide across the outstretched front legs. The second ‘cat’ is 1.89 metres head to tail tip, by 1.14 metres across the outstretched front legs. The monster reptile, like the ‘Big Cats’ is engraved on an south to north axis. It measures 4.5 metres long from head to tail tip by 2.2 metres across the outstretched front legs. The marsupial lions would have hunted many other marsupial megafauna species, even Stone-Age humans, but when it came to Megalania, the ‘Big Cats’ would themselves have become the hunted!

-0-

In this reconstruction in 1950 a horse was claimed to have been killed by two lion-like cat-like monsters on a Capertee valley property, the sabre-toothed carnivores dragging their ‘kill’ into bushes, where they devoured much of the animal before vanishing back into the Wollemi forests. The incident was observed by a housewife with binoculars at some

distance. Original sabre-tooth tiger image by Zdenek Burian modified by Rex Gilroy to resemble the sabre-toothed ‘Blue Mountains Lion’ marsupial carnivore.


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THE MEGAFAUNA CARVINGS FROM VARIOUS ANGLES.

1. The west side ‘Big Cat’. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011

2. The west side ‘Big Cat’ head close up


3. The east side ‘Big Cat’. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy

2011.


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The Giant Monitor Lizard Engraving Photographed from Various Angles at the same

time as the Previous images. Photos copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

4.Close up of the east side ‘Big Cat’ head. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011. 5. View of the section of sand stone shoal containing the ‘Big Cats’ , the west side image is in the foreground, the east side ‘cat’ is engraved in front of the backpack.

Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011. 6. A view of the sandstone shoal containing the engravings. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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THE MOST RECENT GILROY SEARCH. by Rex Gilroy

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

On Friday 13th May 2011 Heather and Rex Gilroy carried out a search for ancient Aboriginal rock art in the

Kariong region, near Gosford, north of Sydney, New South Wales. They were rewarded with the discovery of three faded engravings of apparent marsupial lion engravings, two were together and the third was 4.8m distant from them on a sandstone clifftop in dense bushland. The engravings have to be at least several thousand years old. There will be more about this search in another newsletter.

`

On Friday 13th May 2011 Heather and Rex Gilroy carried out a search for ancient Aboriginal rock art in the Kariong region, near Gosford, north of Sydney, New South Wales. They were rewarded with the discovery of three faded engravings of apparent marsupial

lions, two were together and the third was 4.8m distant from them on a sandstone clifftop in dense bushland. The engravings have to be at least several thousand years old. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

One ‘lion’ measures 1.3m long from head to tail tip, 1.34m wide across the outstretched

front legs. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.


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The second ‘lion’ carving describes a creature 1.34m long from head to tail tip, by 74cm wide across the outstretched front legs, and 76cm wide

across the back legs. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

Close view of the head of the second creature. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2011.

A close view of the head of the third animal. These fading engravings demonstrate that Aborigines of the

New South Wales Central Coast lived contemporaneously with large

marsupial carnivores several thousand or so years ago.


The third animal measures 1.14m long from head to tail tip,

by 1.9m wide across the outstretched front legs and 1.18m

across the back legs. Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy

2011.


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Coming Soon! The latest Gilroy Book.


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Please Note

Our previous meeting was a huge success and we look forward to seeing you at our next one.

Our next meeting will be held on SUNDAY 19th June, 2011 same time, same place – 12

Kamillaroi Road, Katoomba.

So until our next meeting –

Watch the Skies!

exå tÇw [xtà{xÜexå tÇw [xtà{xÜexå tÇw [xtà{xÜexå tÇw [xtà{xÜ

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Mysterious Australia Newsletter - May 2011

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