Psychic Australian February 1977
Australian Marine Colossus
By Rex Gilroy
Lake Galilee
There have been some mysterious and unexplained happenings around Lake Galilee in far western Queensland that need explaining. Livestock have disappeared without trace, strange marks have appeared on the shore, fishing boats have been overturned, and sightings of an enormous animal have been made by local farmers as well as the occasional visitors to this isolated region. The Lake itself is 2 miles wide and over 3 miles in length. It is described as "bottomless", its exact depth being unknown. Situated amid thick mountainous bush country accessible only by four-wheel drive vehicles, the lake has always possessed an aura of mystery about it even before the arrival of the first European settlers in the area in the 1800's.
Aboriginal Accounts
The aborigines who once wandered about its shores preserved accounts of a strange water monster which they said inhabited the lake, and that it had done so for centuries. It was said that, the creature was 20 to 30 feet in length. It had a long serpentine neck and head, along large bulky body and long eel-like tail and propelled itself with two pairs of flippers. The aborigines had long since ceased fishing far out in the middle of the lake for fear of the creature, which they said often surfaced, overturning the aborigine's canoes. The tribesmen also wary of camping near the lake at night for the monster was known to come out onto the shore. It had more than once forced the aborigines to flee their camps.
European Stories
Naturally, the early Europeans at first ridiculed such stories as fables, yet as the years passed many strange happenings were to change their whole attitude towards the lake and its mysterious occupant. This began during the 1870's with the unexplained disappearance of a local farmer who went fishing out on the lake in a rowboat. Although the boat was found smashed the farmer had disappeared without trace.
Sightings
Over following years shooters explored the bushland around the lakes edge and often reported finding unusual tracks and slide marks in the mud of some large animal. This was followed by stories told by campers who claimed to have seen some enormous dark shape either on the lake shore or lying among the trees of the shoreline at night. When approached, the mystery beast would quickly return to the water and disappear. Hunting parties were organised among the farming community who wandered the shoreline in the hope of shooting the "Lake Galilee Monster" as it was to become known, but without success.
Early Descriptions
Nevertheless, as the years passed, sightings of the beast continued to mount among the locals. Often a long neck and head was seen to protrude from the surface and a large hump-like back could also be seen. regardless of these goings-on little or no information about the Lake Galilee monster leaked to the outside world. Not even during the 1930's when there was a rash of sightings of the beast, this being at a time when the Lock Ness monster of the Scottish highlands had begun to make world headlines. Little more was seen of the Lake Galilee monster during the years of the second world war when few people visited the isolated area, but with the coming of the 1950's more sightings were made by locals who began to revisit the lake. Still the lake and its mysterious occupant had escaped the notice of the media, news of the creature which found its way to several university zoologists were dismissed as mere imagination on the part of the locals.
Ancient Cave Art
This attitude among our scientists continues to the present day. However, by this time the lake had begun to attract archaeologists interested in its former aboriginal occupants. Searchers discovered the ancient cave art of this vanished people and here speculation about the fabled monster of the lake began to return. The cave art, besides the usual ochre paintings of local animal life, also depicted hunting magic, natives shown spearing animals and fish. Apart from these scenes of ancient stone-age life the investigators found two large ochre paintings of almost unusual animal. The paintings were of a bulky long-necked creature, flippers were depicted and also a long tail. It did not take the locals long to recall and compare the aborigines' identical description of the Lake Galilee Monster with the likeness of these two paintings.
Plesiosaurus
Although most scientists were adamant to visit the lakeside cave art, one more open-mined and sympathetic individual did look at photographs of the paintings. His opinion was astounding to say the least. The two creatures depicted in the paintings were, he said, not unlike Plesiosaurus. The Plesiosarus! Are we to believe that a species of the age of dinosaurs has survived millions of years in an isolated lake hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean? Such a possibility seems absurd to say the least. And yet such a possibility is presently being given serious consideration by some of the world's zoologists and Palaeontologists.
Loch Ness Monster
Let us digress from Lake Galilee and examine another seemingly identical monster, the enigmatic Loch Ness Monster of Scotland. For centuries the monster of the Loch Ness has frequented the folklore of Scotland but no serious attempts have ever been made to study the beast until well into the present century (1900's). Nowdays with modern photography, radar and other devices scientists have come to accept the fact that there is indeed some mysterious animal lurking in the depths of the loch. All that is needed now to verify the creature's existence is a skeleton or carcass. From the available photographic evidence and descriptions by eyewitnesses many researchers believe the Lock Ness Monster is indeed a latter-day form of Plesiosaurus. This contention is further supported by the mass of evidence gathered from numerous Irish lochs where the creatures have been known for centuries also.
Plesiosaurus Around The World
In fact, strange creatures answering to the description of the plesiosaur have been reportedly seen throughout the world. Plesiosaurus like sea creatures have been a sighted off the coasts of mainland Europe, Africa, America, New Zealand and also Australia. Yet if indeed the Plesiosaurus, how are we to account for its survival since its dinosaurian relatives supposedly became extinct 70 million years ago? How could such a creature have survived this long without having been captured and identified. My answer to these questions is that for one thing, unlike the land surfaces of this planet which have been subjected to considerable geological change in Earth's long history, the oceanic environment has changed little.
Therefore there is no physical barrier whatsoever to have prevented the survival of Plesiosaurus or any other aquatic creatures from the past to present day. As scientific dogma teaches that Plesiosaurs and their kin did not survive the Cretaceous period then it is only natural that scientists have never bothered to even consider the possibility that Plesiosaurs, or latter day variation of them, might still exist in the depths of the world ocean, and therefore they have never attempted a proper search for the creatures. On the other hand, Dr William Swinton, the world famous paleontologist, has admitted there is no reason why there should not be enormous, unknown creatures, unknown, or "extinct" creatures inhabiting the sea. He has been critical of the Plesiosaur theory.
These beasts he says were oviparous and must therefore have come ashore to lay their eggs. Nobody has seen them doing so or even found a single egg. He points out that plesiosaurs are believed to have been fresh water animals, However, although their remains have been discovered in marine strata, mainly in the estuaries of the rivers where they lived, there is no reason why they should not have undergone in the course of their history a radical change in their physiology. In fact many Palaeontologists are of the opinion that the Plesiosaurs were indeed adapted to life in the sea.
Geology Theories
But how could such a creature have found their way deep inland from the north Australia coast to isolated Lake Galilee? Geologists have demonstrated that at the time of the dinosaurs a great inland sea penetrated deep into what is now the arid centre of Australia, which would have enabled creatures such as Plesiosaurs to exist there. With the eventual recession of the inland sea some of these creatures could have become isolated and a colony could easily have survived in "bottomless" Lake Galilee. While the Lake Galilee Monster was still very much unknown outside of its scattered farming community Tasmania was rife with stories of strange creatures sighted off the rugged west coast.
Mysterious Sea Creatures
On April 20th, 1913, Mr Oscar Davies and a friend were walking along the beach near Macquarie, a remote town on the Tasmanian west coast late one afternoon. Half a mile ahead of them they sighted an enormous dark object lying among the sand dunes. Believing it to be one of the mysterious sea creatures that had been reportedly seen off the coast they began making their way towards it. They managed to get within forty yards of it when the creature suddenly rose and rushed down across the dunes and into the sea.A short way off shore it paused, glanced round at the men and then dived out of sight. The men were able to describe it later as having the now familiar long neck and serpent-like head, large broad body with two sets of flippers and along eel-like tail, being blackish in appearance.
South Coast Sightings
A similar creature was seen on several occasions during 1936 by Mrs... M. McCord from her house overlooking the sea at Milton on the far south coast of N.S.W. The South Coast of N.S.W has for generations been the scene of a great many "sea serpent" reports. Perhaps the strangest occurred back in 1942 when the Lambs Point "monster tracks" were discovered by surfers. The scene of the mystery was the beach between Lambs Point and Huskison in the vicinity of Jervis Bay. The tracks consisted of a trail of big fin-like prints which appeared to have come up from out of the sea and in an horseshoe fashion extended up on to the beach before turning round and going back into the water. The prints were a good 2 ft in width but the monsterous creature that made them was never identified.
Bellambi Reef Sightings
During June 1930 four men were fishing on the Bellambi Reef 50 miles south of Sydney when they spotted what appeared to be a very long animal which they thought was a sea serpent. Overcoming their fear they rowed nearer to have a better look at the creature. The head they all agreed looked like a serpent. Several days after this event a "sea serpent" was reported seen at Scarborough a few miles away; perhaps it was the same animal. Many witnesses saw it undulating lazily in the direction of the Bellambi rocks. It was at least 80 ft in length and swam with its head in the air at the end of a long snake's neck. What appeared to be a bulky body and long tail was detected below the surface.
Hawksbury River {Central Coast}
Some very unusual things have been happening lately around the central coast and Hawksbury River district north of Sydney. Throughout 1975-76 there have been several reports of sightings of "longnecks" thereabouts. During May 1976 a husband and wife of Woy Woy decided to go fishing in their rowboat in nearby Brisbane Waters. They had rowed out 200 yards from the shore and begun fishing. Suddenly their craft was caught up in some unusual disturbance. It was then that the wife noticed a large greyish creature swimming alongside of their boat and about 3 ft below them. In the clear water she detected what she later described as a 30 ft long animal with the familiar long neck, broad body with flippers and along eel-like tail. The "thing" had swum rapidly past their boat when a few yards distant it raised its snake like head above the water to a height of 3 ft and continued heading towards the open sea. It was then that the would-be fishermen began rowing hastily for shore.
Hawksbury River Sightings
Within a couple of weeks other people began reporting having seen the same beast near Ettalong. One woman who lives near the headwaters of the Hawksbury River watched for fifteen minutes with binoculars late one afternoon as an enormous dark shape moved inland up the river. As it passed offshore the creature raised its head at least 4 ft out of the water. It was then that the woman also detected part of its back breaking the surface. She said later, immediately reminded of the creatures similarity to photographs she had seen of the elusive Lock Ness Monster. Could these and many more sightings thereabouts have anything to do with the large fin and slide marks that have turned up on the banks of the Hawksbury River near Wisemans Ferry and the disappearance of whole boating parties that have gone out on the river never to return?
Deception Bay {Queensland}
There have been many similar happenings around Deception Bay out of Redcliffe, Queensland. Early in 1960 a fisherman, Mr Ron Spencer, said he had seen this same creature five times and that it had surfaced near his boat and his companion with "strange staring eyes". He said that its head was 3 ft long and 2 ft wide and that it had a long neck and large body.
A much smaller creature was seen later in the same region by a Mr Nigel Tutt of Hendra. The beast swam within 8 ft of his boat. He described it as being of mottled brown colour with a squarish head the size of a full cornsack, a body 3 ft across and 20 ft in length. The beast appeared to have nostrils, a yellowish mouth and flippers 6 ft back from the head.
There was a rash of sightings of a large Plesiosaurus-like sea creature around Deception Bay and Redcliffe during the period 1969-70. On one occasion a party took a fishing boat outside the bay. Suddenly they were surprised by a long-necked "thing" which appeared from out of the water nearby their craft. The creature turned its head to look in their direction and then submerged. The event terrified the group so much that ever since they have kept clear of fishing out of the bay.
Cairns Sightings
Further northand outside Cairns in far north Queensland fishing boats and other craft have been seeing strange sea creatures for the past 50 years. it was here during 1975 that a young skin diver working in 20 ft of water searching relics of old shipwrecks observed large bubbles of air 3 ft in width rising from beyond a nearby cliff. Upon investigating he saw that the bubbles were rising from an enormous long-necked dark shape further below him and which he estimated to be 35-40 ft in length. Wasting no time he returned to his boat and left the area.
Conventional Science
It seems pretty obvious that the descriptions of all these mystery beasts compare favourably with the Lake Galilee Monster and his Loch Ness counterpart. Clearly we are still a long way from finding the answers to the perplexing problem of these enigmatic creatures. Although sightings of mysterious monsters of the deep have plagues the records of maritime history, conventional science has always remained skeptical. Too often when sightings of unusual creatures have been reported to the authorities they have been lightly brushed aside as either being known species such as seals or whales, or else the imagination of ship's crews. These explanations do not however always stand up to serious argument. it is evident that the scientists still have much to learn about the creatures inhabiting the worlds oceans, for it is obvious from the growing mass of evidence that creatures thought long extinct may still inhabit the murky depths.
Psychic Australian March 1977
Vikings Visited Cairns
By Rex Gilroy
