Mysterious AustrAliA

Vol. 2, Issue No 10

OCTOBER, 2012

INSIDE:
ANOTHER BLUE MOUNTAINS CASE FOR FORBIDDEN ARCHAEOLOGY. REVISING THE YOWIE MYSTERY LIVING FOSSILS FROM THE DREAMTIME. MEGA-MONITORS OF THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH. NEW CELTIC SUN-WORSHIP SITE DISCOVERED IN SYDNEYS WEST. PYRAMIDS IN THE PACIFIC.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

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.

R e x a n d H e a t h e r G i lr o y , A u s t r a li a s t o p U F O a n d U n e x p l a i n e d M y s t e r i e s R e s e ar c h t e am . P h o t o c o p y r i g h t R e x G i lr o y 2 0 1 2 .

ANOTHER BLUE MOUNTAINS CASE FOR FORBIDDEN ARCHAEOLOGY.

by Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

In the past I have reported on footprints of hominin shape being found by me in Triassic rock deposits [208145 million years ago] at Blue Mountain sites. This would no doubt meet with the approval of Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, authors of the controversial book Forbidden Archaeology. I can now report the discovery of far older hominin-type feet impressions, embedded in rock dating to the Permian Age [245-208 million years ago]! The logical answer to the discovery of such fossils could be that they were made by animals with five toes whose feet were superficially in outline similar to far later hominins. Who can say, yet such anomalies of our ancient past are worldwide in distribution. I merely present this latest find for my readers to make up their own minds on the mystery. These incredible impressions were discovered by me on Thursday 4th October 2012, embedded in a massive squarish lump of Permian sandstone that had in the dim past rolled over to expose these fossils on a vertical face at a location deep in the Jamieson Valley below Katoomba. The two feet impressions were situated to the right of a large lengthy piece of fossil palm stem. The footprints are the left and right impressions of a single being measuring 25cm long by15cm wide across the toes. The footprints are separated by one another by a 2cm gap. The left impression is a little distorted, curving to the right in the heel area and the five toes can be seen. The right impression toes outlines have not been preserved. Do any of our readers have any suggestions as to the origin of these impossible fossils? -0-

The Jamieson Valley as seen on the walk out to the Ruined Castle rock formation. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

A view of the Ruined Castle rock formation. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

A view of the Jamieson Valley forest below the Ruined Castle rock formation. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

A close view of the fossil palm stem extending up from the middle of the photo to about centre left. The two hominin feet impressions are to its right towards top of photo. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

Close-up of the twisted and distorted five-toed left foot impression. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Close-up of the right footprint placed horizontally facing the upright left foot impression. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

REVISING THE YOWIE MYSTERY - LIVING FOSSILS FROM THE DREAMTIME.

When the Gilroys book The Yowie Mystery Living Fossils from the Dreamtime was released in 2007 it created a sensation among scientific-minded relict hominin researchers, for unlike the previous book Giants from the Dreamtime The Yowie in Myth and Reality [2000] The Yowie Mystery dealt with the anatomy and physiology of relict hominins, presenting also the all-important fossil foundations of the Yowie. The book presented evidence proving that these relict hominins were more than one species of human ancestor. Indeed, Rex and Heather Gilroy presented an array of fossil skull-types of Homo erectus, to demonstrate that the Yowie was three basic forms of Homo erectus: namely an average modern human height, tool-making, fire-making marsupial hide clade beings; more than one pygmy-height offshoot; and a giant form which like the pygmy offshoot was a tool-maker. The book was an immediate success, especially among serious researchers. However, shortly after the books release the first of several primitive skull-types were found and it soon became obvious to us that they were an Australian form of African Australopithecus robustus! 4
by Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

Subsequent research revealed that we already possessed fossil endocasts and skulls of a gracile form as well as a pygmy race. Our work continues on the Australian Australopithecines. Meanwhile I came to the conclusion that the traditional Hairy Man of Aboriginal folklore pre-dated the Homo erectus form and it would appear that these hirsute ape-like bipedal herbivorous beings of ancient Aboriginal tradition were probably remnant surviving groups of Australopithecines. Indeed, some may continue to survive today as suggested by sightings of hairy apeish beings claimed seen in remote parts of the country. When Australopithecines first appeared in Australia in the course of migrations from Africa via Asia is still being decided, but fossil feet impressions in 3-4 million years old mud and volcanic ash deposits may have been left by these beings. They have been found on the Blue Mountains, the Sydney district, northern New South Wales, Central Western New South Wales and elsewhere and compare favourably with African examples. The discovery of Australian Australopithecines caused me to re-name certain skull-types once I had realised they were not what I had initially identified as proto-Homo erectus, rather these skulls now belong to the robust Australopithecus australis, while the pygmy form, first identified from a small ironstone skulltype from the Dundas district outside Sydney, found by Greg Foster on Thursday 12th October 2006 during a search we made of a Pliocene creek strata, is now re-named Australopithecus fosterii. Many other changes to classification resulted from the Australian Australopithecine upheaval requiring a major updating of The Yowie Mystery. Subsequently I removed it from sale until a major re-working of the text was completed to include the Australian Australopithecine skull-types, which also included photographs of these fossils and theory updates as well. The results are: a full-updated scientific approach to the Yowie mystery. It sweeps away the nonsensical and totally unscientific claims of amateurish media-seeking would-be-if-they-could-be Yowie Catchers as we call them, replacing their exaggerated claims with common-sense information of the physical structure of the fossil forms which we maintain the hairy people descended from., as well as the bone structure and musculation of these beings, revealing their locomotion. Fossil feet have been studied to show how these impressions compare with present-day Homo erectus [and now Australopithecine] Yowies. This book remains an important addition for the libraries of sensible, thinking scientific investigators who wish to learn everything they can about these beings, before they head off into the wilderness in search of evidence of these primitive living ancestors of ourselves. The gathering of the evidence took many years and apart from my wife heathers input, we heap high praise on our leading field assistant, Greg Foster, for his tireless efforts on our behalf, in the gathering of vital information and his work with me in the field turning up fresh tracks of these beings, uncovering fossil footprints of all sizes from average hominin size to those of pygmies and giants. What more awaits us? Three more Yowie books are awaiting publication and others will undoubtedly follow. Meanwhile the reader can expect the re-release of the updated The Yowie Mystery living Fossils from the dreamtime in the near future. -0-

MEGA-MONITORS OF THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH.

by Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2012. [With some material taken from Out of the Dreamtime The Search for Australasias Unknown Animals URU Publications 2006]

On Thursday 5th May 2011 Heather and I uncovered ancient Aboriginal rock art deep in bushland near the Hawkesbury River. Among the figures was the image of a gigantic lizard with spears shown embedded in its body. Beside the head was an almost circular engraving depicting the shield of the warrior, or one of the warriors who had killed it. The carving of the monster reptile measured 4.5 metres in length from head to tail tip by 2.2 metres width across the outstretched front legs. The engravings were all at least several thousand years old. The giant reptile could not be any other lizard than the extinct giant Australian Monitor Lizard, Megalania prisca, which was once widely distributed throughout Australia and the terror of the ancient tribespeople, and from 19th century claims, the terror also of the early European settlers in many regions. Those readers wishing to know more should read our book just described. The fact is there is good reason to believe that this 27 to 30ft [8.23 to 9.15m] lizard standing 5-6ft [1.53 to 1.83m] and of massive body girth, is still out there! 5

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

To the early tribespeople these monstrous survivors of Pleistocene times were known by the name Mungoon galli, over a wide area of the northern New South Wales mountains and forestlands and as far south as the Blue Mountains. The massive feet impressions of these monster goannas were reported found crossing cattle properties in the New England district in the 1880s and early 1900s and these stories often involved butchered and half-eaten stock. Similar tales persist today from remote regions of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. South Australias Nullarbor Plain has a long tradition of giant monitor lizard encounters. It was in this region in 1973 that two men, driving a jeep on a remote track late one night, were forced to come to an abrupt stop when they saw, in the headlights glare, an immense, mottled grey-skinned goanna barring their way. They later described the creatures skin as leathery-looking and baggy like that of an elephants. It stood, they agreed, at least 1.8 metres tall on all fours and was twice the length of the vehicle. The monster had a large head, but the men did not get a closer look at it for it strode off the track, dragging its large heavy tail behind it. The shaken, nervous travellers got out of there as quickly as they could. In Western Australia the Aborigines call these lizard giants Bungarra saying that they grow up to 20, even as much as 30ft and are man-eaters. In the Kimberley region, one report from 1982, concerned two men, Ernie and a mate, who were driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle along a dusty dirt road one day when they spotted some distance ahead of them, a moving cloud of dust, of the kind churned up by a vehicle on dusty roads, and this was what they at first thought it was. However, as they drove closer they realised that the dust was being raised by a monstrous lizard, a huge monitor about 9.14 metres in length running upon four powerful legs about 1.7 metres off the ground. To say we were shocked is an understatement! Ernie said later. The monster was crashing its way through the mulga, pushing over small trees and saplings in its way as it dashed across the path of our vehicle. We did not stop. As the monsters tail left the road we were already picking up speed. I could still see the huge beast moving rapidly through the trees breaking saplings in its path as we drove on. In 1978 noted author Martin MacAdoo informed me that the Arnhem Land tribespeople and European travellers have many stories of giant monitors of lengths ranging from 4.88 to 6.1 metres length. Such creatures were reported to Martin from Gulf Country informants. In the Northern Territory Aboriginal traditions speak of these reptilian monsters as the Kadimakara. The Queensland [ie Riversleigh] fossil beds have produced remains of Megalania dating back at least 15 million years. There are also Far North Queensland locals who will tell travellers that goanna monsters between 7 and 9 metres long still inhabit remote parts of the Atherton Tableland up towards Cape York! Further south along the Queensland coastal districts lies Rockhampton. Back in 1981 I was visited by a Queensland soldier, Private Steve Jones, who related the following incident to me: "During October 1965 I was with my unit on a jungle" training exercise in forest country deep inland from Shoalwater Bay on the Normanby Range north of Rockhampton, when we came upon a dead cow in a remote swampy area. The cow had been torn apart by some massive beast which, by the cows appearance, would have been of considerable size and strength to have literally ripped the cow in half the way it had. We found large reptile tracks and tail marks in the mud about the area of the 'kill'. It now became obvious to us all that the cow had been killed somewhere on some pastureland far off and dragged through the forest to this swamp, where it had been devoured. My mates took fright. So did I. We left the area in some haste. The cow was a fresh 'kill ', not even hours old. The 20 inch or so width of the claw marks in the mud, their distance apart, plus the tail" marks suggested to us that the reptile was up to 30 feet long. We also examined the drag marks for some distance through the forest, and the path trampled through the foliage in the opposite direction by the monster perhaps only half an hour before. If the monster had been up to 30 feet in length, it must have been of considerable weight, said Steve. [It has been estimated that a 30ft/9.15metre long giant monitor lizard would weigh at least 3,000 lbs.] Back in 1955 at Loadstone, situated just seven miles south of the Queensland border, a timber-cutter came face-to-face with one of these giants in dense forest country. The creature sprang at him, grabbing one of his hands and biting off the last two fingers. Another logger coming to his assistance got close enough to drive a long railway spike through the beasts head. The reptile measured 20ft in length. The men left it where it lay. Some days later, other timber-getters visited the site but the body was gone, dragged off into the forest depths, presumably by another of its carnivorous relatives. ***** 6

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

One September night in 1977, just south of the Lamington Plateau across the New South Wales border at Kyogle, a family were woken from their sleep on their remote farm by a mystery intruder disturbing their fowls, alerting the dogs who were now barking furiously. By the time they reached the back door, flashing torches into the darkness, the intruder had retreated into nearby forest with the dogs in hot pursuit. It was the last time the family ever hear their dogs; they vanished without trace. The next morning when they inspected the fowl yard, to their dismay they found the chicken wire fence torn down and enormous reptilian tracks on the ground extending across the property into the forest. It is believed that a couple of Brisbane University scientists were called in. They inspected the scene and made casts of the best tracks, but nothing more was ever said of the incident. The giant monitor mystery is by no means solved, and it wont be as far as sceptical scientists are concerned until one of these monstrous reptiles is brought in for study. But does anyone have any ideas on how to capture a reptile which is 9.15 metres in length and weigh 300lbs. During the winter of 1979 a huge goanna [as locals described it] mottled greyish skin-coloured and at least 6 metres in length was reported seen around the Moruya area on the New South Wales south coast. A farmer, John who found fresh tracks of the monsters embedded in the soil of his recently ploughed field phoned me and at my request covered them while Heather and I drove down there form Katoomba the next day. John covered all but one with coatings of grass, the other track he covered with a large bucket. Our hopes of photographing and casting a large number of giant monitor tracks were, unfortunately largely dashed by rain which feel before our arrival, obliterating all but the specimen beneath the bucket. I was able to prepare a good cast of this track, a five-toed impression measuring 30cm in length from middle claw tip to back of pad, by 31cm from the outstretched left to right claws. The track was impressed 7cm into the soil. More recently, since 2012 Heather and I have made a number of investigations in the Wollemi Wilderness swamplands during the winter months, to avoid the deadly Brown and Tiger snakes that inhabit these swamps during the summer months. More than once I have found what I believe to be large, indistinct five-toed reptile tracks in trampled grass and forest leaf litter. We have also photographed pathways believed made by more than one of these reptiles through the tall swamp grass and forest shrubbery. The Megalania mystery continues, and no doubt there will be more sightings claims reported to us at our Australian Unknown Animals Research Centre in the future. We welcome any information helpful to our researches into these reptilian giants at PO Box 202, Katoomba, NSW 2780; email randhgilroy44@bigpond.com or phone 02 47823441. -0-

The Giant Monitor Lizard engraving photographed from various angles. Photos copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

The Giant Australian Monitor Lizard, Megalania prisca Owen. Supposedly extinct at least several thousand years, modern-day sightings claims of this reptilian nightmare persist. Sketch copyright Rex Gilroy 2012. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Reconstruction of a Megalania skeleton in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane. Photo courtesy, Queensland Museum, Brisbane.

The [reconstructed] head of Megalania prisca in detail. Queensland Museum, Brisbane. Photo courtesy Queensland Museum, Brisbane.

A reconstruction display of Megalania prisca in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane. Photo courtesy Queensland Museum, Brisbane.

The plaster cast made by Rex and Heather Gilroy, from a giant monitor lizard footprint, one of a number found by a Moruya New South Wales farmer in the winter of 1979. Sightings of 3 to 6 metre length giant goannas continue to be reported from Moruya and other nearby south coastal New South Wales districts. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

NEW CELTIC SUN-WORSHIP SITE DISCOVERED IN SYDNEYS WEST.

by Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

On Saturday 13th October, Heather drove Nigel Kerr and I to a bushland location atop a gully where Nigel had recently found the remains of a large mound. After a search the rugged sandstone and scrub-covered terrain defeated me and exhaustion threatened, so I had to abandon the final stage of the search. However, this came after some interesting finds at a creekside location where massive sandstone slabs were found in a situation as if arranged by [ancient] human hands. Furthermore, we stumbled upon sandstone terraces on a hillside arranged like steps, but not for terraced agricultural purposes. These structures for now remain a mystery.

Three of the hillside terraces uncovered by Rex and Nigel. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

A crumbling wall of large sandstone slabs stands amid scrub above the gully creek at the base of the hillside terraces. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Nigel Kerr surveys the scrub now covering a wide terrace near the hill summit. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

The remains of a collapsed structure almost buried in the forest debris. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Near the summit of the terraced slope I spotted a number of large glyphs engraved on a sandstone rock measuring 1.4 metres long by 1.2 metre tall and 60cm wide. These glyphs were later translated to read: The sacred precinct of Bel. All assemble here for worship. The Sun-Serpent [Bel]. His Eye sees all. Behold Bel the Sun in Winter at his sacred precinct. 10

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Rex Gilroy stands beside Celtic ogham glyphs engraved on a rockface stating Bel. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012. Soon after the Bel inscription find, Rex and Nigel stumbled upon this large sandstone boulder containing the Celtic message referring to The sacred Precinct of Bel. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

A closer view of the inscription. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Time was running out as the sun moved westward and we still had a battle with the scrub to return to Heather, waiting in the car on a roadside across the gully. As we worked our way along the summit to find a way back to the other side of the gully, I spotted a slab of sandstone that bore grooves. Picking up the stone I was pleased to discover that it bore a face. The relic was coated in dirt, and it was only after washing it back home that evening that I discovered the image to be Bel, his face enclosed in a Phrygian cap and the suggestion of a beard. There was an ear on his left side and his left hand holding an image of the Sun with five fingered light rays extending upward. There were three more rays above the face but apart from a continuance of the beard and glyphs for the Sun and B for Bel the right side of the face had worn away. The Bel head measures 21cm tall by 22.5cm deep and 7.5cm wide. Due to years of surface probably deterioration the relic required chalk-outlining of the features for photographic purposes. It does not appear to have been the work of an artisan, but a reasonably skilled ancient settler, who probably created the image as a household deity. It is rather unfortunate that in more recent times civilisation has encroached upon the region in the form of modern housing developments, thus destroying so much of this ancient civilisation. However, what is emerging from the hidden gullies that cannot be built upon, are the remains of Celtic colonisation of the western Sydney district dating back at least 3,000 years. The colony was principally based upon farming beyond the remains of the temples they built. Further research is certain to turn up more evidence further demonstrating that Bronze-Age Celts once had a strong influence upon the unknown history of Australian colonisation and exploration. -0-

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The chance discovery made by Rex of a sandstone head of the Sun-God, Bel here photographed in situ, the faded engraved surfaces coated in forest dirt. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

The right face profile is largely worn away. The glyphs on the rear state Bel the Sun. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012. The left profile. After careful washing, the weathered and faded engraved stone revealed a head of Bel. The encircled face depicts Bel as the Sun, above which are three strokes, ie light rays; below the ear is depicted the left hand which bears a Sun image with five light ray fingers. There is also the outline of a beard continuing around to the right face profile. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Frontal view of the face. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

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Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

PYRAMIDS IN THE PACIFIC.

Copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.
This article is based upon the Gilroys book Pyramids in the Pacific The Unwritten History of Australia [1999, URU Publications 2000]] This book contains the results of over 50 years research by Rex Gilroy, Australias foremost researcher of unexplained mysteries. If you have ever wondered who were our earliest Stone-Age inhabitants and who really discovered Australia, then this is the book for you. Pyramids in the Pacific contains a wealth of information and photographs demonstrating that Australia is a land of unsurpassed archaeological mysteries beyond our wildest dreams. In Pyramids in the Pacific Rex Gilroy presents evidence that, besides the presence of giant tool-making hominins and other smaller races which preceded the Aborigines, Australia was the birthplace of modern humans and also the birthplace of civilisation in the form of a highly advanced megalithic culture which spread out across the Earth to influence the rise of all others at the dawn of history, giving birth to the legend of Atlantis during Copper, Bronze and Iron Age times, Australia and its Pacific Island neighbours were visited, colonised and mined by the peoples of India, Egypt, Phoenicia, Libya, Greece, China and many other ancient lands.

By Rex Gilroy

***** ne day in 1931 at Glenloth, Victoria on a windswept sand hill, the remains of the shoreline of a longvanished lake about 100 km south of the Murray River, John Gibbs, a 10 year old local boy was playing in the shellgrit on an ancient Aboriginal midden. In a basin of the sandhill amid the debris of broken shells, he picked up a large fragmenting, footballsized lump of petrified mud. Protruding from one of the fragments he found a small bronze coin. Years later a Melbourne Museum numismatist would identify it as Greek and that it had been minted in Egypt during the reign of the Greek Ptolemy Philometor the 6th, in the 2nd century BCE. The suggestion as to how the coin turned up where it was found is of course, that it had been left behind by ancient visitors, Greek explorers perhaps, or even Arabs, Indians and Malayans with whom the Greeks traded. Similarly in 1961 a family picnicking on the Daly River west of Katherine in the Northern Territory, found a gold scarab, an object of worship of the ancient Egyptians. How did this valuable ornament find its way to such a remote location? One might ask the same question of a 2000 year old carved stone head of the ancient Chinese Goddess Shao Lin [Protectoress of mariners at sea] recovered from a beachfront hillside at Milton on the New South Wales far south coast in 1983, and the many ancient rock inscriptions of Phoenician, Libyan, Egyptian, Celtic, Scandinavian and other origins that have turned up across Australia. Relics, rock inscriptions and megalithic ruins, left here by seafaring adventurers who came from civilisations now long turned to dust. They sailed in search of new lands rich in gold, silver, copper and tin, precious stones and pearls, using the worlds oceans as watery highways. It is one of the objectives of this book to demonstrate that these people not only discovered and mined the mysterious Great Southern Land and its island neighbours, but established colonies, some of which survived for generations and were large and important enough to establish a local ruling class. By the time they vanished they had influenced the cultures of the native peoples of the region, leaving behind them ghostly megalithic ruins and temples, tombs and pyramids and rock scripts in a host of ancient tongues, relics that continue to perplex conservative historians, and question the dogma that the peoples of the ancient world lacked the ability to construct and navigate ocean-going watercraft. The fact is, that people were putting to sea centuries before the invention of a written language and that the watercraft they sailed in were far from flimsy. Australia had, it seems, always been known to someone. No doubt seafarers from South-East Asia were first to find our shores and word passed to the Indo-Aryans of the Indus Valley, Sumeria and in time to the Babylonians and Persians. The tradition was already hoary with age by the time it was given to the first rulers of Egypt by the Sumerians. Celtic and pre-Viking Scandinavian peoples, the Greeks and later the Romans followed and the Indian and Pacific Oceans became watery highways which in time became highways of commerce that provided easier and safer trade routes to and from lands hitherto accessible only by long and arduous overland expeditions. While these historical events were transpiring there was already great cultural activity taking place on the opposite side of the Pacific, for the Amerindian civilisations were also putting to sea, their great balsa wood craft carrying large migrating groups of men and women with food and livestock across the central

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Pacific and beyond and those who returned to their home ports brought tales of the great lands that lay across the water beyond the western horizon. Thus its can be seen that Australia sat between two oceans, or rather, two great watery highways by which the civilisations of the ancient world had access to Australia and its riches. This traffic increased with the onset of the Bronze-Age which lasted from around 2000 to 1400 BCE. In 600 BCE Anaximander drew a world map in Myletus describing a southern continent. Theopompus of Chios in the 3rd century BCE drew a similar world map and wrote that far beyond India and the known world there lay a great island in the region where Australia is situated. In 239BCE Eratosthenes, the Greek scholar drew a world map as a sphere on which he described the Great Southern Continent of Ausio. He also measured the Earths circumference as being about 28,000 miles, an error of excess of only 13 per cent. It is obvious that maritime and geographical knowledge was far more advanced in the ancient world than hitherto realised by many historians. In 150BCE Crates of Mallos, in Asia Minor, constructed a 3.3m diameter world globe, upon which he depicted four continents divided by two great oceans, one with a north-south axis, the other with an east-west axis, intersecting west of the Mediterranean. Asia/Europe/Africa he described as a single continent, Oecumene. Separated by his east-west ocean he described Perioeci, known as North America. Below this in the vicinity of Panama and to the south of it he placed Antipodes, known today as South America. Far below these land masses in the region now occupied by Australia, he placed Antoeci. Flavius Philostratus of Athens [175-249 AD] wrote: If the land be considered in relation to the entire mass of water, we can show that the earth is the lesser of the two. Unless the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks and others had not crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, how else could Philostratus have known that the oceans cover the greater part of the earths surface. Early in the 20th century, anthropologist Sir Grafton Elliot Smith of Manchester University, claimed there was an apparent Egyptian influence in the cultures of the natives of New Guinea and island Melanesia dating back over 2,000 years. He pointed to aspects of their art and religious rites and beliefs, including solar worship and mummification. Today the islanders still carve wooden human-bodied deities with bird beaks and often horns with surmounting sun and moon discs, figures remarkably similar to ancient Egyptian deities. The people of Darnley Island, Torres Strait once mummified their dead by removing the stomach contents, then extracting the brain by making an incision through the nostrils with a bone instrument. After inserting artificial eyes of pearl shell, they embalmed the corpse with bark cloth bandages, painting it in red ochre [their colour for death, as with the ancient Egyptians] and like the Egyptians, rowed it westward to an Island of the Dead in a funerary canoe shaped like the Boat of Ra, with an all-seeing eye painted on the prow for burial in a roughly dug tomb, in imitation of the ancient Egyptians, who ferried the mummies of the Pharaohs across the Nile River to the west bank tombs. In 1975 my wife Heather and I discovered the now famous Gympie Pyramid in a forested farming area. Built of small to large sandstone-ironstone rocks, the crumbling edifice measured 60 metres high, its sides facing the four points of the compass. With 18 terraces, or steps the structure resembles stepped pyramids built in Egypt around 5,000 years ago. The terraces were composed of stones of various sizes, some weighing up to 4 tonnes, the summit being capped by one enormous slab weighing around 10 tonnes. Trees up to 600 years old growing up through the crumbling stonework demonstrate its pre-European settlement age. Later in 1976 near the pyramids western base, I unearthed a small weathered ironstone idol, thought to depict the Egyptian god Thoth [god of writing and wisdom] in ape form, clutching the Tau Cross of Life. The pyramid actually stood on the northern shoreline of a long dried-up harbour which Brisbane University geologists believe, until about 1,000 years ago, extended from east to west for approximately 55 km inland from Tin Can Bay. Local ancient Aboriginal legends tell that, in ages past a race of Culture-heroes sailed up the harbour in big canoes shaped like birds. They dug holes in the hills, carrying the rocks back out to sea in their vessels. These culture-heroes also built the sacred mountain [pyramid] and other structures still hidden in the district, passing on their Sun-worship religion to the tribespeople before they left. How else could primitive Aborigines have described a Bronze-Age, Middle-East mining operation? Local residents have been turning up rock inscriptions, pottery fragments and other relics of ancient Middle-East origin since the mid-19th century. They have also uncovered apparent pre-European open-cut copper, tin and gold mining operations at widely scattered locations of this mineral-rich district, all of which 14

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

supports my theory that the Gympie district was once an important Bronze-Age Egyptian Phoenician mining colony, supporting a sizeable population. In 1994 a few short months apart, Heather and I discovered large numbers of stones of varying sizes, inscribed with Phoenician and Egyptian scripts at rich gemstone-bearing locations on the Bremer River west of Brisbane, Queensland and at Moree in northern New South Wales. Some of these inscriptions were in Canaanite script, placing the era of mining of these sites no later than the 14th century BCE. The remote locations of many of these mining operations sometimes hundreds of kilometres inland, suggests horses or camels would have been used for transport in the search for mineral deposits and certainly oxen-drawn carts for the removal of the separated metals [which had been smelted at the site] to coastal bases. These animals would have been shipped from Asian ports in large vessels to these coastal bases. If Middle-Eastern explorers had colonised the Australian-West Pacific region, they presumably returned home with items obtained hereabouts. Such evidence is emerging. Opals identified as Australian have been recovered from Mediterranean Phoenician settlements, and in 1964 the tomb of a woman, dating to 1000 BCE was excavated by British archaeologists that revealed that Eucalyptus resin had been employed in the embalming process. As in those times Eucalyptus could only have been obtained from Australia or New Guinea, it seems reasonable to assume that Egyptians had once sailed these waters. The Sun-worshipping peoples of the Old World who entered the Indian Ocean at the dawn of metallurgy, believed that, if they continued eastwards in the direction of the rising sun, they would eventually rediscover the Lost Paradise of Mankind, the abode of the Sun-God, from where He arose each morning to cross the sky; the land of Kenti-Amenti [Land of the Gods] of the Egyptians and, after Euro Asia and Africa, the third continent. Indeed, the third continent Australia was known and explored before Bronze-Age seafarers first sighted the Americas. Our book Pyramids in the Pacific reveals in detail that traditions of the Lost Paradise of Mankind [ie the Garden of Eden] spread across the Old World from Mesopotamia. Yet the Sumerians believed the location of the Lost Paradise was located in the southern land of Arali. Here the first men and women had lived in a state of bliss, until they were forced to leave because of natural disasters [or as other traditions state for displeasing the Gods]. The Lost Paradise, first man/first woman mythology is found wherever the megalithic monuments were erected, from the British Isles, across mainland Europe and on through western, central and South-East Asia into Australia and its west Pacific island neighbours. The spread of megalithic Stonehenge and Carnac type structures across the earth is a point of contention among cultural diffusionists and conservative archaeologists alike. From where and when this culture spread is still one of the greatest mysteries of antiquity as is the identity of the people responsible for it. Current archaeological opinion holds that the megalithic culture arose in western Asia around 5000 BCE and spread into Europe where it died out about 1500 BCE. But what of the other structures that extend on down through island South-East Asia into Melanesia and New Zealand, dating back in time until the oldest are found in Australia? Indeed, the oldest known Australian megalithic monument and stone arrangement sites average from 10,000 to over 20,000 years old, with extensive sites in the central west of New South Wales possibly the earliest built on Earth. These facts imply that the first civilisation arose in Australia. At many of these sites Australia-wide are to be found examples of the megalithic script [as I call it] engraved upon monuments or upon nearby rock slabs. When found along often extensive alignments of standing stones, or at stone circles, they frequently bear astronomical information, while others found at crude megalithic temple sites refer to the various deities worshipped by this mystery race. One thing is certain, these people were avid Sun-worshippers. It has taken me some 28 years to translate this megalithic script, found at sites dating back at least 10,000 years BP [Before Present] which implies the Australian megalithic script certainly pre-dates the earliest known Old World [Bronze-Age] scripts of the Sumerians and Phoenicians [ie around 1500 BCE]. The earliest Australian script contains glyphs to be found in the later scripts of the Old World. From translations of the Australian mother script I have identified the name of the Sun-God Nim and the Earth-Mother Nif [among other deities] of this people. Aboriginal Dreamtime traditions speak of this mystery race of culture-heroes as having rolled stones across the land and that they worshipped the Sun, Moon and stars. 15

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

The limitations of space preclude me going into greater detail for now on the Lost Civilisation of Australia but the reader can learn more in greater detail in Pyramids in the Pacific and also in our book URU The Lost Civilisation of Australia [URU Publications 2005]. Chinese traditions centuries old speak of the Great Southern Land of Chui Hiao [among other names] as being inhabited by a race of Gods who built in stone. They also describe it as a land of indescribable wealth, and their most ancient writings and maps show they were more than mere causal visitors here. It was Franciscan missionaries who went to China in the 16th century, who were the first Europeans to obtain written evidence pointing to Chinese contacts with Australia. This evidence included copper scrolls dating from the 6th century AD onwards, including a crude 6th century map of Australia. These scrolls are still being translated. They tell of such things as voyages across the Pacific Ocean in the 10th and 11th centuries in gigantic fleets of massive junks [60 to 100 ships] carrying hundreds of passengers each. The Confucian work Spring and Autumn Annals [481 BCE] records the observations of two solar eclipses by Chinese astronomers, possibly in Arnhem Land one [by modern calculation] on April 17th 592 BCE and the second on August 11th 553 BCE And Atlas of Foreign Countries written between 265 and 315 AD describes the far north coast of the Great South Land of Chui Hiao as being inhabited by a race of small, one metre tall black people an obvious reference to the pygmy-sized Aboriginals identified by Australian Anthropologist, Norman B Tindale in 1938 in the mountains above Cairns in Far North Queensland. Chui Hiao is described as lying some 30,000 li away from southern China. Here it is stated plants grow leaves in winter and lose them in summer, as occurs in Australia. In the south temperate zone of the southern hemisphere the seasons are the opposite to those of China where in the north temperate zone, plants grow leaves in summer and lose them in winter. The book Shih-zu written in 338 BCE, reported the presence of apparent kangaroos in the Imperial Zoo, Peking. Further similar reports continued in later dynasties in the north western part of Hopei Province, in the north-eastern part of Shansi Province and in Chahar, Jehol and in places in the north-eastern provinces. Even as recent as about 1938 people could still see wild kangaroos in Heilung Kiang Province, the reason being that Emperor Chao of Yen had in 338 BCE dispatched a fleet of junks, with orders to return with more of these pouched animals for the Imperial Zoo, from the Southern Land of Chui Hiao. In the book The Classics of Shan Hai Jing [Classics of Mountains and Seas] a treatise on geography divided into parts, are further remarkable disclosures. Believed written by the the Great Yu [who became emperor in 2208 BCE] about 2250 BCE the book may refer to visits to the American west coast, while other parts of the narrative suggest considerable knowledge of Australia, beginning in the Broome area of Western Australia, across the Kimberley region to the east coast. Australia is described as a great wilderness land across the southern seas called The Great Beyond where dark hopping animals called Shuti were said to have had two heads and carry their young in a pouch. To Chinamen who had never seen them before female kangaroos with pouched joeys would certainly have appeared to have two heads. The fourth part of this book deals with geographical features of north-western Australia, the rivers, flora and fauna, including the dolphins of the Broome area. Arnhem Land is similarly described along with a good description of a koala. It also speaks of a gold mining colony, possibly somewhere in the Cooktown area of Far North Queensland and the finding of black opals, which are to the best of our knowledge, almost entirely confined to Lightning Ridge in north-western New South Wales. Centuries old maps found in China describing the southern continent are indisputable proof of extensive Chinese contact with Australia. In Taiwan University there is a map drawn of a porcelain plate, which shows the southern coastline of New Guinea, the east coast of Australia as far south as the Melbourne area, and the crude outline of Tasmanias north coast. It dates back 2,000 years. Other maps of the same period show, if crudely, the entire continental coastline. In 1584 the Jesuit missionary Father Mateo Ricci, during a lengthy stay in China, was given a copy of a large world map, the original at least some centuries older. The portion dealing with the islands of SouthEast Asia includes the unmistakable outlines of New Guinea and Australia. Another virtually unknown explorer of our coastlines was Japan. Japanese history books record that in the early years of the 15th century their mariners made voyages to Australia in search of pearls. The famous Japanese pirate admiral Yama da Nagamasa, with a fleet of forty ships, navigated by Koreans and crewed by Japanese explored every land from Japan to Australia, between 1620 and 1633. 16

Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

Japanese texts of that time referred to Australia as Sei-yo, meaning The Great South Land and Sei-tso, The South Land of Pearls. Far earlier Japanese claims of contact with our shores date back at least 2,000 years. These tell of mineral-seeking voyages to the Arnhem land-Gulf country region. In the Kojiki or Record of Ancient matters written in 712 AD the southern Underworld is described as being inhabited by weird animals [some of which carry their young in pouches attached to their bodies] and giant birds [the Emu?]. The Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan relates that in 667 BCE the Emperor Kami-Yamato-Ihare-Biko at the age of 45, heard that there was a fair Land of the Gods encircled on all sides by mountains, situated at the actual centre of the world, located where Australia is situated and that it contained vast wealth in pearls, precious metals and stones. He thus declared: I think that this land will undoubtedly be suitable for the extension of the Heavenly task [ie for the further expansion of the imperial power] so that its glory should fill the universe. Thus having claimed Australia for Japan he dispatched a large fleet of ships, commanded by Admiral Nigi-hoye-lu [Soft-Swift-Sun] to the Great South Land to eventually return laden with gold, pearls and other riches. A report of 460 AD tells of Japanese mariners who, having landed somewhere in the Gulf of Carpentaria, had to defend themselves with bows and arrows, against a number of tall wild black men who attached them with spears soon after they had gone exploring in the nearby scrub. I hope the foregoing information will whet the appetite of readers for Pyramids in the Pacific and its refreshing approach to our unwritten history of discovery and exploration. This book does not concern itself with the voyages of Captain James Cook RN or the earlier Dutch mariners for their exploits are too well known to rate repeating. I offer instead a literary time machine which will take the reader through a vast panorama of ancient mysteries; fossil footprints of giants and other primitive hominins that walked our land millions of years ago; megalithic temples, Stonehenge-like circles and other astronomically aligned monuments of the unknown Lost Civilisation of Australia the lost race of the Solomon Sea and other sunken megalithic culture centres of the west Pacific Ocean; ghostly pyramids and ziggurat-type structures, stone heads and many other unexplained mysteries of our unknown ancient past; more than enough to demonstrate that our history is far older than most Australians realise. -0-

This carved stone head of the ancient Chinese Goddess Shao Lin [Protectoress of mariners at sea] found at Milton, south coastal NSW in 1983. Dating 2000 years old it is evidence of ancient Chinese contacts with Australia Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

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Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

Section of the large world map describing Australia, obtained in China by Father Mateo Ricci in 1584. It is a copy of an original dating back at least several centuries earlier. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

An ancient Scandinavian rock inscription [11 century], one of a set of three found on a rock above the Hawkesbury River NSW by Rex Gilroy in 1989. It reads Mul or Molnir] sails his ship by the sun. The ships and their crews have journeyed up-river to the south and returned. This is Yas ship. Those letterings are just some of the many pre-Viking and Viking age Scandinavian inscriptions coming to light throughout Australasia, demonstrating Scandinavian voyages hereabouts dating back to the Bronze-Age times. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

th

A megalithic stone circle, discovered on the Moonbi Range, New England NSW by Rex Gilroy in 1991 and which is one of many similar structures left in the area by the mysterious Australian Lost Civilisation. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

This partly-buried large carved stone head dis situated on the southern side of the megalithic circle. A nearby rock inscription identifies the image as that of Nim the Sun-God of this mystery race. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

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Mysterious Australia Newsletter October, 2012.

Sections of the 480 or so Egyptian hieroglyphs found on a Cliffside cutting near Gosford NSW. Believed to pre-date th the 4 dynasty [ie before 2780 BCE] they are indisputable proof of Egyptian contacts with our shores. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2012.

Please Note:

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

which will be held on SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER, 2012 same time, same place 12 Kamillaroi Road, Katoomba. Our contact information: Phone: 02 4782 3441, Email: randhgilroy44@bigpond.com [or catch our website on rexgilroy.com or mysteriousaustralia.com].

So until our next meeting Watch the Skies!

Rex and Heather

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