Dedication

This book is affectionately dedicated to my wife, fellow researcher and constant companion in the field, Heather.

This book is also affectionately dedicated to my late father W.F. [Bill] Gilroy [1904-1996] An experienced bushman and gold miner. Although the big gold strike always eluded him, he unearthed the Tarana Skull No 1, [archaic Homo sapien], a 300,000 year old endocast fossil, which demonstrated that the first modern humans evolved in Australia. “Gone to the Grand Lodge Above”.

This book is also dedicated to: The open-minded, freethinking visionary, who does not know the meaning of the word “impossible”. The field-working, rugged adventurer who never stops at the foothills, and always wants to see what lies beyond the next mountain. The dedicated individualist who has the courage and fortitude to defend his ideas, regardless of overwhelming opposition. All those who against all reason, dare to dig deeper than anyone before them, in their search for the truth.

Background Image © Barry Taylor

The Mysterious UFO photographed by noted UFOlogist, Barry Taylor, from the then California Guest House, Katoomba, as it flew high over Wentworth Falls to the east, at 8.30pm on the night of July 15th 1972 - Photo kindly provided by Barry Taylor

Chapter Eight
UFO Abductions Past and Present

The many UFO sightings and landings reported from over a wide are of the Western Australia, South Australia and Northern Territory interiors during the mid-1970’s were explained by Aboriginal elders as their “culture heroes” returning to Earth from the Sky World. They had, the old men claimed, come down to earth in the long-ago Dreamtime, and that they had often carried off warriors and lubras when they returned there!

These traditions date back countless centuries and can in fact be found throughout Australia.For example, the Murray River tribes once believed in the Chic-ah-bunnah, a terrifying gigantic shining being that descended from the sky emitting a strange blue light and was blinding to look upon.
The Chic-ah-bunnah once landed at Goodarlah Hill on the Murray River with a frightening explosive sound. ‘He’ ate red-hot coals and after a time flew away emitting a roaring-rushing sound.

Northern Territory tribespeople described the Chic-ah-bunnah as a gigantic shining silver bird with a long, hideous nose and huge wings who came to earth emitting flames from his behind. Landing somewhere far to the west of Tennant Creek, the frightening monster captured a number of tribespeople and flew away with them never to return. One of these monstrous metallic beings was said by Aborigines of the far north Queensland coast between Ingham and Townsville, to descend from the sky into the ocean off Palm Island [east of Ingham] and also emerge and fly away during the 1950’s. It was even claimed by one Aboriginal woman to have landed on the island in the early 1960’s.

Some readers might argue that Chic-ah-bunnah was a modern aircraft. However, these tales are thousands of years old, and the Palm Island accounts describe a large flying craft that descends into, and emerges from the ocean!

A giant silver bird is said to have descended to earth in Central Australia in the long-ago Dreamtime, which disgorged beings who proceeded to round-up tribespeople whom they conducted inside the great bird, which then flew away with them, never to return.

And then there was the warrior who watched the great shining bird [or was it another?] land in the Arnhem Land scrub with a terrifying roar, emitting flames from its behind. Two culture-heroes emerged from its mouth and the warrior at first challenged them with his spear. Subsequently the two beings enticed him inside the ‘bird’ which flew off into the sky, from where he was shown his tribal lands by the beings as the great bird flew high over the earth. The great bird eventually landed and he was released.

Gulf Country tribespeople believed in a similar great metallic ‘bird’ which descended to earth in the long-ago Dreamtime, long before the coming of the white man. In one account tribespeople were captured by it and flown up to the Sky World where they were kept for a time. Young lubras were kept, along with some young men and old people, while the rest were eventually returned to their tribal land.

Queensland’s far north was the scene, in Dreamtime Australia, of individual warriors beings seized by strange beings who flew them to another world, some of whom were eventually returned.

Aborigines of the Cape York region once spoke of a “great glowing mountain” that descended from the clouds to bring rain to the parched earth and fertilise the land, its animal and tribal inhabitants.

I have obtained old stories of other worlds in the sky to which tribespeople have been taken by beings with great powers. One tale concerned a great mountain that emerged from the Sky World to land deep in the ‘Cape’ scrub. Some Aboriginal men and women are said to have stepped onto it and were flown away to the Sky World never to be seen again. Other tribespeople who were the victims of these prehistoric ‘alien abductions’ are said to have been taken to lands floating in the sky, forest lands full of game, lands with mountains, here they spend unknown lengths of time before their friendly abductors return them to their own world.
Were these lands in the sky other planets, or alternatively immense space stations where whole populations of beings lived while exploring and colonizing life-supporting planets?

Gigantic self-supporting space stations containing great numbers of people, were actually contemplated by Russian space scientists back in the 1960s at the height of the old Soviet Union’s space-race with the United States. Futuristic illustrations of such “artificial Earths” showed towns and roads, parklands with forests and hills, with people enjoying themselves as if out for a Sunday afternoon excursion.

Such “Impossible possibilities” will ultimately become feasible in time, and probably are already commonplace to other civilisations elsewhere in the Cosmos.
The theory of the space station was first postulated at the turn of the 20th century, about 1900-1901, by Edward Everet Hale, in a fanciful tale of a brick moon floating above the Earth in which people [of different nations] lived. Today we have international space stations manned by small crews, but what might these be like by the end of the 21st century.

The gigantic space station communities theorized by those Russian space scientists may not be all that far in the future. Could Aboriginal abductees of thousands of years ago have been taken up to “lands in the sky” ie great space stations operated by super-beings from beyond the stars? Such Dreamtime myths and legends cannot all be the product of inspired imagination.

Some Aboriginal myths concern warriors and lubras taken up to the Moon by “Sky People”. Some of these ‘abductees’ later return to Earth, others remain. Are such tales vague accounts of space stations, ie bases perhaps of considerable size, established on the Moon by extra-terrestrial visitors long ago? Our ancient Aboriginal people appear to have been quite familiar with mystery flying objects, surely of intelligent origin, and which they have left us depictions of in their rock art.

One type of possible flying craft described in both pictographs and petroglyphs around Australia is a strange ‘wheel’ motif. It could be said to resemble the great wheel-shaped space stations designed by our own space scientists. If this is what the ancient ‘wheel’ motifs represent, they are many thousands of years old in some cases and imply that this model is already considered long out of date by other intelligences far beyond our Earth!