The Temple of Nim

Monthly Newsletter
of

BLUE MOUNTAINS UFO RESEARCH CLUB.

Vol. 4 Issue No 11

November 2008

Lake Burragorang.

INSIDE:
The Continuing Burragorang Base Mystery. The Hairy People of the Blue Mountains The Continuing Mystery. Narrow Neck Plateau Mysteries.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club News. Our meetings are held on the third Saturday of the month, at the Gilroy residence, 12 Kamillaroi Road, South Katoomba, from 2pm 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. PLEASE NO SMOKING ON THE PREMISES. ALSO, NO LARGE BAGS IN THE CINEMA OR THE HOUSE. PLEASE NOTE. Please contact us prior to bringing along any new friends interested in UFOlogy and the mysteries generally. Anyone with any personal experiences involving UFOs or the unexplained are invited to share them with us all. Contact Information: Phone: 02 4782 3441, Email: randhgilroy@optusnet.com.au [or catch our website on rexgilroy.com or mysteriousaustralia.com]. A plate of food to share for afternoon tea is appreciated.

PROGRAM FOR THE 15TH NOVEMBER.

Photos/video of Blue Mountains UFOs filmed by a local UFOlogist. Latest UFO sightings on the Blue Mountains. Documentary presentations. Any sightings reports by club members. Weather permitting there will be a Skywatch out on Narrow Neck Plateau. The weather has been good up here on the Blue Mountains and excellent clear night skies. Therefore, hopefully this will continue for our meeting night [Dont forget - warm clothing a necessity!] after the meeting. Dont forget to bring your torch and binoculars.

Rex and Heather Gilroy, Australias top UFO and Unexplained Mysteries Research team. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2004.

THE CONTINUING BURRAGORANG BASE MYSTERY.

by Rex Gilroy Copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

On 25th October 2008 Heather and I made a visit to Nattai on a preliminary investigation of bushland near the eastern end of Burragorang Valley where claims of panther sightings by locals have lately been made. We had not visited this area for many years, and I expected to obtain good views of the valley from two lookouts, on the Nattai Lookout and a second one to the north overlooking a great section of mountainside that had been blasted by coal miners many years ago. The Nattai Lookout was no disappointment, as it looks directly up the valley westward over the submerged Burragorang township, covered by the rising waters of Warragamba Dam in the late 1950s, right on over the distant valley where in lies the underground secret space technology base. However, when we later drove around to the northern lookout, a trip of some 12 kilometres or so, we found the road blocked off by a gate several kilometres from the lookout. I have since learnt that the coalmines in the valley below [located high above the waters of Lake Burragorang] are no longer in operation and that their entrances have been concreted over, with the whole area having been closed to any traffic. Interestingly, a climb through mountainside scrub to a clifftop, allowed me to look down on the disused road of one abandoned mine. My binoculars picked up what appeared to be fresh tyre tracks. I

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

was afterwards to learn that the scrublands bordering the valley hereabouts are fence off and outsiders forbidden entry [although quite a few locals hope the fence from time to time!] the Water Board controls the whole Burragorang Valley and their excuse for stopping people entering the valley is to protect the water supply from pollution! One wonders how much pollution a large motor launch make on the lake, as regular patrols are carried out up and down the lake extending into the smallest inlets created from flooded valleys and gullies. These patrols can often be viewed from Nattai and McMahons Lookouts, the latter being at the end of Kings Tableland, Wentworth Falls, and at the far end of Narrow Neck Plateau, Katoomba. There are also aerial patrols made by light aircraft. Why so much secrecy about a flooded valley? ***** As reported in the October Temple of Nim, Arwyn Kamarudin and I made a visit out to the far end of Narrow Neck Plateau on the full moon afternoon of 15th October, so as to spy on the base area. Cloud cover and mist rolled in to obscure much of the valley as darkness descended, although as the previous article states, I spotted a couple of mystery objects and Arwyn and I observed a great glow emerging from a valley far to the southwest side beyond the dam backwaters, obviously coming from openings. Could flying craft have been emerging under cover of the mist and cloud cover? The trek to the far end is very long, but also very rewarding. At present another visit to the end of Narrow Neck during a full moon period - weather permitting - is being planned by myself and Ann Taylor. In the light of the current UFO flap who knows what might result from another observation of the underground UFO Base out in that valley? However, to return to the Nattai area I have learnt from a local that strange things happen out in that valley beyond the Lake Burragorang backwaters. There have been disappearances of people who have entered the valley over the years. It is a real Jurassic Park out there one local says, of remote areas and inaccessible jungle; a mass of gullies where anything could exist unseen. It is a long-known habitat of Yowies, pygmy folk, panthers and thylacines, and a frequent locale for UFO sightings. I am told that campers who have sneaked into the lakeside areas nearby the sealed mine entrances have heard beneath them, the sounds of machinery! The sounds of vehicles have been heard by others passing beneath them. Yet all the authorities can offer as an excuse for these phenomena is the old yarn that wombats are very active at night in the valley scuffling about in their burrows, and they are said to be at their noisiest during their mating season! The principal skywatchers of Blue Mountains UFO Research Club will be watching this valley very closely in coming months in the light of current mysterious goings-on there. But we would not advise people to enter that valley in search of the underground top secret Australian/American space travel technology base, due to the ever-present danger of falling down a wombat hole the wombats are disturbed enough as it is! -0-

Lake Burragorang seen from Nattai Lookout. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

Heather at Nattai Lookout overlooking Lake Burragorang. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

A view of the lake from Nattai Lookout, looking north-west. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

A view of the lake looking northwards towards the Warragamba Dam wall. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

The cliff face north of Nattai Lookout, blasted away during mining operations many years ago. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

UFOs have been seen flying over these peaks, which lie to the north of Nattai Lookout, and behind which are the Warragamba Dam backwaters. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Signs like this one cover the area. Why so much secrecy over a dam? Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

A downview of the lake, with the disused road in front of a sealed mineshaft. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

THE HAIRY PEOPLE OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS THE CONTINUING MYSTERY.

by Rex Gilroy Copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Ever since a soldier of Governor Macquaries regiment is said to have shot a man-sized hominid about 1820 in what is now the Springwood areas, the hairy man or Yowie has been a part of Blue Mountains folklore, not only among local Aborigines, but also the European population, with many old tales passed down to them from pioneer ancestors of the region since the 19th century. The mystery covers the length and breadth of the vast Blue Mountains, which besides the Kanangra Boyd wilderness west of the Burragorang Valley should also include the equally vast Wollondilly Valley and its surrounding forest country. Northwards of the Grose Valley lies the eerie forests of the Wollemi vastness, with its valleys of mystery that extend northwards to the Singleton district. These wilds contain a number of other mysterious creatures which do not concern us here, but within these wildernesses the hairy people live on, just as they have since Pleistocene times, as surviving remnant populations of Stone-Age hominids. The two books on the subject by the Gilroys Giants from the Dreamtime The Yowie in Myth and Reality and The Yowie Mystery Living Fossils from the Dreamtime says it all; the evidence presented by us in the form of fossil skull-types and other skeletal remains undoubtedly match identical fossil remains of Homo erectus, our immediate ancestor. Primitive stone tools found by us across Australia in old Pleistocene deposits match those manufactured in Java and China by Classical Homo erectus, a tool-making, fire-making race. Our Aboriginal people have many different names across Australia for the Hairy people, Yowie being the better known, and whose use extended from the New South Wales south coast and north coastal district, inland across the coastal mountain ranges, such as the Blue Mountains as far as the Great Dividing Range. The word Yowie meant Hairy Man or Hairy people due to the fact that they

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

wore animal hide furry cloaks, just like the early Aboriginal tribespeople. The Yowies stood out from the Aborigines due to their differently shaped heads, which were longish and narrow with flattish foreheads and thick, projecting brow ridges typical Homo erectus physical features. They were not the huge, hairy ape-like beasts so beloved of certain grossly misinformed Yowie catcher researchers who, because of their lack of knowledge on the subject are headed up a dead-end street! Over fifty years of field research has in more recent years begun to finally pay off for me in my search for physical evidence of these beings. For one thing, my growing collection of fossil skulls contains specimens all found in regions either formerly inhabited by Hairy people in old Aboriginal traditions, or else believed still frequented by these primitive ancestors of ourselves. Furthermore, aside from Pleistocene examples of Homo erectus stone tools, there have been frequent finds in remote areas of the Blue Mountains in particular, or recently discarded stone tools of Homo erectus style. Heather and I have learnt of Aboriginal-style fine ash campfire remains discovered in recentlyabandoned campsites with stone tools scattered about, deep in the Burragorang Valley. These finds recall the campsites found at a Wollemi National Park site a few years ago by me, and recently-made stone flake tools recovered out on Narrow Neck Plateau. And deep in the Kanangra Boyd National Park, where fossil feet impressions dating back to the dawn Pleistocene-late Pliocene period [ie around 2 to 3 million years BP [Before Present], recently-made feet impressions of Yowies have lately been found in the course of Gilroy team field investigations. And there is every indication that hairy people are once more on the move in these eerie forests. During April 2007 Heather and I, together with Greg Foster, carried out a search for traces of Yowie activity in one particular Kanangra forest locality, in the course of which Greg and I stumbled upon several large hominid footprints embedded in moss and gravel, measuring between 40 and 50 cm in length by 17cm and 20cm in width at the toes. These tracks had been made by two hominids walking in a north to south direction. We estimated the tracks to be no more than two days old. Allowing for size distortion I estimated the heights of the two beings at between and 2 and 2.6 metes tall. It was somewhere in this region in February 1972 that two young campers observed a 2m tall male clad in a ragged kangaroo hide garment negotiating a swampy patch in a gully. As they watched from behind rocks the hominid, whom they described as primitive-looking, grubby, and with long brownish head hair moved off into scrub 60m from where they hid. In another incident, 25 years old bushwalker Allan Howe of Sydney was exploring dense scrub above a gully one day in January 1997. Stopping to rest before working his way back to his car which was parked on the Kanangra Walls Road, the time was bout 3.30 pm when, in the afternoon light through the trees some 15m away, he saw a sight he will never forget, as he told me a few years ago. I was sitting quietly at the time, when I heard rustling sounds. Then moving through the trees, silhouetted against the sunlight, I sat dumbfounded as this naked cavewoman looking being appeared moving from north to south to disappear into dense shrubbery. She looked a bit dirty, had long matted dark hair, and carried a long stick in her right hands, which she used when she stopped to dig up some plant then placed it in a bark container that she held in her left hand. One thing I noticed was he had a longish head and a face that was half-human, half ape-like with big eyebrows that stuck out along with the face [ie the face was projecting RG]! She didnt see me and I just sat there numb until she was out of sight before I left quickly said Allan. ***** In the light of other recent footprint finds, and a couple of sightings made by visitors to the Kanangra wilderness, I am currently planning yet another field investigation in search of fresh tracks, and intend staking out an area in the hope of obtaining photographic evidence of one of these primitive ancestors of ourselves. This was almost achieved in recent times by Greg Foster and I one night in September 2008, high up on the Carrai Range on the edge of dense forestland, situated some 90 kilometres west of Kempsey, where Yowies have been getting themselves seen by Europeans since the 1840s. Encounters with the hairy people on the north coast mountain ranges parallel those reported from the Blue Mountains. The Kanangra Boyd wilds continue to draw the Gilroys and their field assistants back again and again. On Sunday 21st September 2008, together with Greg Foster we searched the scrublands east of the Boyd River. Here Greg and I found a single hominid footprint in a patch of creekside moss. It measured 30cm in length by about 10cm width. This indistinct track was alone due to surrounding bracken and otherwise hard ground beyond the shrubbery.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

Later that day, farther to the south as we explored dense scrub along a ridge, I found three doubleedged quartz eoliths [i.e. dawn tools] somewhere between 30 to 50 years old perhaps, lying half-hidden on the leafmould-covered ground. Here had once been a relict hominid campsite. However, there were signs that the area might still be inhabited, for we came across a narrow pathway that wound its way through the scratchy shrubbery and gum saplings. I thought that it might also be an animal trail. I followed it for some distance northwards, and then southwards back to where we first stumbled upon it. From here we could see that the trail continued on southwards down into a deep gully on the south side of the ridge we were on. Any thoughts that it might be an animal trail were soon dispelled when I detected faded hominid footprints and their scuff marks along the path, and which were easily a few days old. I recovered a few more crude eoliths perhaps discarded only within the past few months in an open granite shoal location into which I detected traces of a pathway. The evidence suggests that this location is still frequented by hairy people on a semi-regular basis. The area is ideal with no shortage of native animal game, and a nearby occasional creek and swamp for water, and another creek could lie somewhere below the ridge on its south side down which the faint pathway leads. A return to this location in the near future is a must. ***** th On Sunday 12 October 2008 the Gilroys, accompanied by our Brisbane Queensland field assistant, Geoff Holland, carried out a search in the Mt Wilson and nearby Mt Irvine forests, where besides Yowie encounters by the locals over the years, there are also accounts of little hairy people, or Boothoo geermi [Boothoo little; geer hair; mi man or Little hairy man. This was the name by which the Dharug Aborigines knew these small people. Present-day Aborigines still believe these little hairy people continue to live in the depths of the Blue Mountains wilds, and in the Mt Wilson-Irvine region people have occasionally reported finding small footprints of these beings along creeks where they go to drink. In the course of our search in the Mt Wilson rainforests Geoff and I uncovered a clifftop site beneath which, overlooking vast forestland below, we came upon deep rock overhangs. Crude flaked stone tools barely a few years old, perhaps less that that, recovered about the surrounding vicinity, told me that these overhangs are probably still used for shelter as they have been for generations, by the elusive hairy people. Having just turned 65 years old I have no intention of retiring from this search which has kept me in the field for a lifetime, and with the evidence getting hot and likely to get hotter we are, we believe, closing in on these elusive beings, and perhaps one day will snap the picture of a lifetime. Under these circumstances who would want to give up such an exciting search! -0-

A male and female Yowie/Homo erectus wearing marsupial hide cloaks. Sketch copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

A 19th century photo of an Aboriginal woman clothed in a kangaroo hide garment.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

NARROW NECK PLATEAU MYSTERIES.

by Rex Gilroy Copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

This lengthy, rugged bushland-covered plateau, a popular venue for hikers and campers, has a long history of paranormal phenomena, of mystery creature and hominid sightings which continue to the present-day. As our readers know, the Neck has long been the scene of UFO activity and time window experiences by many people. And. Apart from Yowie and little pygmy folk sightings, from time to time there have been encounters with the Blue Mountains Lion [a relative of the so-called Australian Panther, both of which are large marsupial cat species related to the extinct Marsupial Lion, Thylacoleo carnifex. Over the years I collected a good many accounts from ageing locals and others who have recalled various incidents out on the plateau. These mysterious happenings far pre-date the creation of the top secret Australian-American underground advanced space travel technology base out in Burragorang Valley. Consider the following Long before there was a proper hiking track blazed by early adventurous campers local settlers were making exploratory expeditions far out onto the Neck in the late 19th century. Once a rough track was cut all the way out to the far end of the plateau by the early part of the 20th century, more and more people were able to penetrate the area, and it was then that strange things began to be reported by people. In past issues of the Temple of Nim I have related time window experiences of people out on the plateau. There are accounts of hikers who have stepped back in time to see the area as it looked generations in the past Such experiences have not lasted long. This phenomenon has been linked with time window experiments down in the underground space technology base; however, I now believe that as stories pre-date the base, there has always been a time window present out there. The three photos shown here were taken with a box brownie camera back in the late 1920s. One shows a distance view of the landslide just off cliff Drive overlooking Jamieson valley, and a closer view of the widening gap [the cliff collapsed on a full moon night in 1931]; the scene of Narrow Neck reveals that the plateau along which the old track [now a road] winds was quite bare back then [perhaps due to some early bushfire?]. According to the late Blue Mountains City Council Alderman, Frank Walford, who took an interest in the Unexplained, a mysterious flying craft was seen hovering over Megalong Valley, on the west side of the Narrow Neck cliffs one day in 1919. It was, he said, seen by many inhabitants of the valley. In another incident that he told me in 1963, campers were woken in their tent one night in 1922 by a bright glowing object that moved about 100ft above them, lighting up the surrounding scrub as it moved on over the Megalong Valley. The Neck has always been a good locality for UFO skywatching, as the members of Blue Mountains UFO Research Club know. Just how long UFOs have been getting seen out there is debateable. Several strange lights were seen by a number of people moving across the Neck coming from the south, one night in 1926. These people observed the lights from Cliff Drive, back then a dirt road with fewer houses than there are today. ***** Another phenomenon of Narrow Neck are the large marsupial carnivores known to reach the plateau from Megalong Valley from time to time. These powerfully-built, muscular, brownish-furred socalled big cats are known to emerge from the Jenolan Range/Burragorang Valley in drought conditions in search of farm stock; like the occasional panther [another large marsupial cat species], they reach the Narrow Neck Plateau via a sloping occasional creek that descends into the Megalong Valley from a swampy gully ion the Plateau, located just south of the narrowest part of the neck. In 2003 to 2005 people hiking or camping out on the plateau reported having sighted one, two or more large long brown-furred cat-like animals approaching 2 metres in body length with straight tails up to about a metre long. At least two of these large carnivores penetrated to within a kilometre or so of cliff Drive, to leave their paw prints in a roadside mudflat. During April 2003 I found tracks of a huge, five-digit pawed animal embedded in the previously mentioned mudflat, which measured an astounding 21.5cm length by 22.5cm width. On Tuesday 15th march 2005 during a television news interview at this same mudflat together with Heather and also Greg

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

Foster, we stumbled upon three faded large tracks up to a few days old. Allowing for distortion in the now dried mud, the paw print was 18cm in length by 28cm across the toes, the other two being 22cm in length by 21cm across the toes and all were 2cm deep in the mud. It was obvious that these animals, wandering so close to civilisation at night, drank from this occasional muddy pool. The Blue Mountains Lions were big news in the early days when there was a town in Burragorang Valley, and many visits were made by these carnivores into lower Blue Mountains areas, causing some degree of fear among locals. All this faded away as the newly constructed Warragamba Dam saw the gradual flooding of the Burragorang Valley. These lions have gone quiet lately, but no doubt they will make their presence known once more before too long. ***** From time immemorial the Yowie has been a part of Narrow Neck folklore, but so too have been the little hairy people, the pygmy folk known as Boothoo geermi, or Little Hairy Man as the name implied to the old Dharug Aboriginal tribespeople of the region in the early days. Like the Yowie, the hairy man title alluded to the marsupial hide garments they wore. These 1 metre tall hominids have been seen by myself and other people over recent years at night, either out on Narrow Neck, or else along Cliff Drive. These accounts are recorded in my two books on the Yowie and in Mysterious Australia, and I have also reported them in this newsletter in past issues. The small male hominid I saw late one moonlit night, was emerging from the grounds of Katoomba golf course, and was crossing Cliff Drive into clifftop scrub. It appears that these little folk have ways of moving in and out of Megalong Valley by Cliffside ledge paths virtually impossible for us to use, as well as by climbing up through the Devils Hole, and the steep occasional creek that descends into Megalong Valley from the narrowest part of Narrow Neck Plateau previously described. Campers and hikers using the Narrow Neck fire trail in the vicinity of the Fire Tower one moonlit night a few years ago, reported to me of having been followed at a distance by three, rather inquisitive pygmy-size humans. There are many more similar tales, and not only from Narrow Neck, for the lost pygmy tribes of the Blue mountains is a phenomena known throughout the length and breadth of these mysterious ranges, alongside that other, equally mysterious phenomena, the Yowie. -0-

A distant view of the Landslide in the 1920s from Narrow Neck Plateau. Note the track extending from the landslide cliff following the top of the cliffs towards left of picture. It has long since fallen out of use and is now covered by dense shrubbery. Its entrance can be found near the mouth of the Narrow Neck Road [ie Glen Raphael Drive].

Close-up view of the widening gap in the cliff. It finally collapsed on a full moon night in1931 and was witnessed by a man walking his dog out on the Narrow Neck track.

10

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

A view of Narrow Neck Plateau from near Cliff Drive. Note the dirt road bottom right of picture, which until 1962-1963 only went as far as the water pumping station, beyond which was the dirt hiking track, seen here winding up the plateau. The road now follows this course to the end of the plateau.

ON

PHOTOS OF REX GILROYS 65TH BIRTHDAY PARTY, SUNDAY 9TH NOVEMBER 2008 AT THE GILROY RESIDENCE.

The birthday boy Rex with Peter OBrien at the 65th birthday party on Sunday 9th November, 2008. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

11

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

Peter and Sylvia Rajic of Plumpton who with some of our visiting friends shared the happy day with us. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008..

More of our visiting friends on Sunday 9th November 2008. With Rex are Robyn Simon of Katoomba, Hugh and Lena Mulgrew of UFO Research NSW and Ann Taylor of Katoomba. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Rex with Bob Segerstrom on Sunday 9th November, 2008. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

12

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter November, 2008

At our October meeting we were pleased to welcome visiting New Zealand UFOlogist, Susanne Hanson, along with some members of UFO Research NSW Inc. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2008.

Coming Soon!
To be released early in 2009 Pyramids of Destiny Lost Pacific Colonies of the Bronze-Age God-Kings.
by Rex and Heather Gilroy

PYRAMIDS OF DESTINY
______ Lost Pacific Colonies of the Bronze-Age God-Kings.
Rex and Heather Gilroy

Price to be advised.
URU Publications

Our previous meeting was a huge success and we look forward to seeing you at our next one. There should be some good Skywatches ahead of us up here at Katoomba, weather permitting. Meanwhile, there a lot happening up there at present so Until our next meeting

Watch the Skies!

Rex and Heather

13