There is a mystery lurking in the mountainous scrubland surrounding the coal-mining city of Lithgow, situated on the western edge of the vast, rugged Blue Mountains, west of Sydney NSW, which has persisted since the early years of European settlement of the district. It concerns sightings and close encounters with often large, fearsome-looking, panther-like animals which, say local Aborigines, have wandered the ranges hereabouts since the long-ago ‘Dreamtime’.
Although known throughout the Blue Mountains, it is the profusion of reports that flare up from time to time in the Lithgow district which attracts media attention.
Hundreds of descriptions of the creatures have been recorded, many differing on many points, yet these indicate that the so-called “Lithgow Panther” is at least three different species.
Some people even suggest a fourth species is involved, namely actual Asian panthers, the offspring of male and female panthers that somehow escaped from some circus that once passed through the city many years ago; or else they are offspring of regimental mascots released into the wild by American servicemen during World War Two.
Both are popular myths easily dismissed. It seems that every country town throughout Australia with ‘panther’ traditions of long standing has its own accounts of passing circuses or carnivals losing one or more panthers when a vehicle carrying the caged animals overturned!
And the “regimental mascot” explanation can also be dismissed, as the American armed forces do not have mascots, and certainly did not keep them here during WW2!
Lithgow has always had a big feral cat problem and literally 95 per cent of so-called ‘panther’ sightings hereabouts are of these creatures.
Feral Cat authorities generally agree that many of these animals can reach large, dog-size proportions by the 10th generation, which explains the overlarge sizes of many ferals seen by locals.
Yet what of the other, often much larger animal which figures in this mystery? Often described as having a strong, muscular body with dark brown to blackish fur, with cat yet dog-like physical features, it leaves large paw prints which are distinct from those of even the largest feral cat. These tracks in fact display marsupial, rather than feline features, meaning that we are actually dealing with a large form of marsupial, a carnivore which, like its feral neighbours, has been responsible not only for poultry, but also stock losses in this district for generations.
What, therefore, is the identity of these creatures?
Plaster casts of paw prints of these animals display features akin to fossil tracks, believed by scientists to be those of the supposed long extinct Marsupial Lion, [Thylacoleo carnifex], and more than one other giant marsupial cat species of ice-age times.
It would therefore appear that the true “Lithgow Panther” is at least two surviving ice-age forms of marsupial carnivore. If this is true then these carnivores certainly have a long history on the Blue Mountains. In my natural science collection is a mineralised [red ironstone] skull, bearing the lower jaw fused to the palate. Although crushed flattish by ages of geological pressure during the fossilisation process, reconstruction of the fossil’s original shape suggests a resemblance to the dog-size Thylacoleo sub-species Wakaleo, or else something very much like it.
The skull, which may date from Late Oligocene times, between 23 and 25 million years ago, was unearthed by me in the Megalong Valley in February 1972. It comes from an area rich in so called ‘panther’ or ‘lion’ reports, dating back to early 19th century pioneer times, and far older Aboriginal traditions of the mysterious “Rock Dogs” - large carnivorous beasts that preyed upon wildlife throughout the Blue Mountains in the long-ago “Dreamtime”.
According to Aborigines of the Burragorang and Megalong Valley tribes, the eerie “Devil’s Hole”, the great cleft in the cliffs outside Katoomba, which drops down into the Megalong Valley, was once the lair of the Rock Dogs, which they described as often large, shaggy-haired animals that, besides feeding upon other native wildlife, also attacked Aborigines, and there fore they avoided the ‘Hole’ as much as possible.
During October 1937 out on the Wild Dog Mountains, to the south-west of Narrow Neck Peninsula, a group of bushwalkers found the decaying body of a large animal, 1.2m in length.
Ten days after this find was reported, Mr Eric B Gilmel of Ashbury NSW, set out with three other bushwalkers in an effort to photograph the remains, but found nothing. Instead they came upon large tracks which they followed for about 500 yards in the direction of Mouin Creek where they petered out.
In April 1945, another bushwalking party descending the Korrowal Buttress of Mt Solitary, were astonished as they watched through their binoculars, four of these animals moving in a group across Cedar Valley below them.
Similar sightings reports continue to the present day throughout the Blue Mountains.
During August 2000, a large, dark-furred animal was claimed seen by campers in the Wollongambie Wilderness, which rises up on the eastern side of Lithgow, its impenetrable forestlands covering a vast region, eventually merging with the equally impenetrable Wollemi Wilderness region; terrain capable of hiding any rarely-seen or ‘unknown’ species. The animal in question, said the men, displayed cat, yet dog-like physical features. It was, they said, around 1.5m in length from head to tail, by around 70cm standing on al fours. They spotted the creature as it drank from a swamp edge.
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During my 45 years research, I have gathered many hundreds of sightings reports of our mysterious ‘panther’ and ‘lions’, in the course of which I have been fortunate to find tracks which I have cast, or else had casts give to me of these animals. Yet there can be nothing more exciting than going in search of these or any other mystery animals.
My loyal fellow field worker, my wife Heather, and I have in 29 years of marriage, made countless field investigations in search of the ‘Australian Panther’ and ‘Lion’, from Victoria to far north Qld, in South Australia and the Northern Territory. On the night of June 8th 1981, I came face-to-face with a large black shape on a farm in Kangaroo Valley, inland from Nowra. The creature, which had been standing among gum saplings, was caught in the glow of my torchlight before vanishing into the night. The next morning its large paw prints were found at the spot, from which Heather and I produced plaster casts.
These tracks match others recovered lately from locations in the Wollongambie Wilderness behind Lithgow.
The Kangaroo Valley parallels Lithgow in its great number of ‘panther’ sightings, the majority of which turn out to be oversize feral cats.
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The past few months of 2001 have been a very active time for Heather and I. Besides organising an American-financed ongoing field expedition in search of evidence of the Yowie in wilderness regions of the Blue Mountains, southern and north-coastal NSW we have led searches in remote swamplands in norther NSW for signs of giant monitor lizard activity.
In between all these searches, I was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph newspaper to investigate the recent so-called ‘panther’ sightings and paw print discoveries at Lithgow and other areas on the Blue Mountains.
There had been a number of black-furred, large cat-like creatures reported seen in the Kurrajong district, on the north side of the Grose Valley between April-May this year, and with the exception of one or two ‘lion’-like animals, all sightings appeared to be those of large feral cats.
Much media attention was focussed upon the video footage of an approximate 1.2m long black cat-like animal seen frolicking with a smaller feral cat companion, in the back yard of Mr and Mrs Wayne and Gail Pound. While Mrs Pound watched the animals through binoculars from the bedroom window, Mr Pound began taping them, obtaining some 15 minutes of footage. The animals remained for about 40 minutes before heading off into nearby bushland.
As I have already said, Lithgow has always had a big feral cat problem which has existed since the early coal and shale oil mining days of the alter half of the 19th century.
Yet there remain a great many sightings reports of that other ‘big cat’, a probable Thylacoleo relative, known from Penrith to Portland as the “Blue Mountains Lion”.
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One night in October 1975, eerie roaring sounds and the frantic cries of stock awoke a family from sleep on their isolated Kanimbla Valley farm south of Lithgow. The farmer, ‘Bob’ [name withheld by request] looked at his alarm clock. The time was 3am.
The horses, cattle and fowls were obviously disturbed by something, and the family’s two cattle dogs, kept in the house at night, were already barking furiously to get out the back door.
Bob, thinking dingos were attacking his fowls, let the dogs out and grabbed his rifle and torch at the same time. As his wife and children looked on, the pyjama-clad Bob flashed his torch about the backyard pens and stables, but nothing was seen. The dogs, however, appeared to be pursuing something up in the nearby mountain scrub. They returned later, one of them seriously wounded with what appeared to be a large scratch. Nothing more could be done in the darkness, so the family all retired to an uneasy sleep.
At first light, however, Bob dressed and went to inspect the stock. Up in a nearby paddock he found one of his cows dead and horribly mutilated, a few dead sheep also torn up, and large paw-prints in nearby soil.
What had killed the animals? He called neighbouring property owners to inspect the dead stock and fresh tracks. They were convinced that one of the notorious “Blue Mountains Lions” was once again on the prowl in the area.
Old-timers of the Lithgow district still say that these mystery beasts periodically emerge from the range west of the town to enter properties in the Megalong, Kanimbla and Lithgow areas.
As early as 1889, in the farmland south of Hampton, high up on the range west of Megalong Valley, stock had been killed and eaten by an enormous cat-like beast that left large paw prints, suggesting a monster the size of a cow! Children were kept indoors, graziers and their farmhands went about their work in remote locations armed with rifles. The “Megalong Monster”, better known as the “Blue Mountains Lion” was once again on the loose, said old settlers of the area.
Old settlers’ tales from this period are many, particularly in the Oberon-Kanangra Boyd region, where in 1910 the ‘lion’ had been blamed for the disappearance of a mountaineer in that remote area. These ‘big cats’ are still claimed to wander the Kanangra Boyd National Park wilderness, which stands on the western fringe of the Burragorang/Megalong/Jenolan ranges, a vast wilderness where these monster ‘cats’ are claimed to survive by locals.
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To return to the scene of the Pound’s encounter with the overlarge feral cat.
Accompanied by Lillian Saleh and two other journalists from The Daily Telegraph, including “Gilroy team” assistant and close fried, Fred Foster, I investigated the area behind the Pound’s house, an open grassy flat bordering on the base of a steep scrub and pine tree-covered hillside. This hillside eventually levels off into a densely-forested gum and scrub area leading up to the fringe of the Wollongambie Wilderness and it is from this hillside that the animals emerged.
A number of indistinct paw prints were found about the area behind the house, these being obscured by the grass. The best of these was undoubtedly that of a feral cat.
Climbing the steep hill I directed Greg’s attention to a pile of collapsed sandstone slabs forming a shelter, in which there were signs something had recently inhabited it. “An ideal shelter for a feral cat”, I thought.
There were a number of other feral cat paw prints up on that hilltop, mixed with those of local dogs.
As no one had thought to bring along casting plaster, Heather and I returned the next day, and I attempted to cast the best two of the obscure tracks. Unfortunately, due to the grass impressed in these tracks, neither turned out clear enough to show any distinct features.
Heather and I returned with Greg for another look at the area a few days later, but no more fresh traces of the ‘Lithgow Panther’ were to be seen, the creatures had once again melted away into the vast forest country of the Wollangambie.
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There have lately been suggestions that large parties of would-be “panther catchers” with guns and hunting dogs be organised to ‘hunt’ one or more of these creatures down to prove its existence.
As the area in which these people would be searching is National Park territory, they would be breaking the law on more than one count. A more sensible approach is for the trapping of the feral population by professional National Parks and Wildlife Service officers.
And why must any rare of ‘unknown’ species be hunted down? If a population of supposed long extinct Thylacoleo or some other unknown form of giant marsupial cat still inhabit remote wilderness regions of this continent, they are best left alone, to be studied in the wild, and allowed to increase free of human interference. The gun, hunting dogs and bear traps have no place in my research.
The vast Wollangambie forest country offers not only unlimited hiding space, but also a limitless food supply of native wildlife for the “Australia Panther” and “Blue Mountains Lion”. Paw prints of at least two distinct types of so-called ‘big-cat’ have long been known to campers in the Wollangambie Wilderness, where they have turned up around the edges of the many extensive swamps that cover the area.
During January 2001, campers found a number of large ‘panther’ tracks in swamp edge mud. These measured 11cm in length by 8cm in width, spaced about 50cm apart, their depth of about 2-3cm suggested an animal of around 87 kilograms weight.
Then in February, two bushwalkers in the same area claim they spotted a “huge, black-furred animal” about 1.5 metres in length from head to tail, about 60 metres from them, perched some 3 metres above the ground on a tree limb, feeding upon a wallaby it had just caught. The men watched the creature through binoculars for several minutes, hiding among shrubbery. Then the ‘panther’ became aware of their presence, and dragging the carcass with it, leapt to the ground and bounded off into tall swamp grass on the edge of dense forest. The men watched as it crossed the swamp to disappear into the trees.
Mystery ‘big cat’ paw prints had earlier been found in the same region by a family out for a day’s drive on some of the 4-wheel drive roads that criss-cross the Wollangambie plateau on the fringe of the inaccessible country. These tracks measured 15cm long by 13cm wide across the claws, the heel being 8cm long by 7cm wide. They were spaced 24cm apart and had to have belonged to an animal of exceptional body size.
Until one of these “Australian Panthers” or “Blue Mountain Lions’ is captured alive in a humane fashion, or a recently deceased body found, no one can say with absolute certainty where these carnivores fit in the surviving marsupial megafauna family. Scientists working from fossil remains are able to reconstruct a reasonable picture of what these animals may have looked like. Thus these are differing interpretations on body fur colour and/or markings. Therefore, the Marsupial Lions [Thylacoleo group] could have varied considerably among themselves, from black to shades of grey or brown which explains the differing descriptions of our giant marsupial ‘panther’ and ‘lion’ body colourations reported by eyewitnesses.
At our “Australasian Unknown Animals Investigations Centre” [PO Box 202, Katoomba 2780 NSW. Ph: 02 4782 3441; Email: randhgilroy@mpx.com.au] Heather and I receive regular reports from people Australia-wide of these mystery marsupials. If any reader can assist us with any personal experience or other information, we would like to hear from you.
Readers can learn more from our popular website: http://www.internetezy.com.au/~mjl29/index.html [or else www.google and type in Rex Gilroy].
Source: The Australasian Ufologist Magazine Vol. 5 No.4 Pgs 16-21 (Photos/Illustrations)