Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

The Temple of Nim.

Newsletter
of

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club.

April 2005.
Vol. 2 Issue No 4.

Inside:
The Big Four. A Cretaceous Dinosaur at Kanangra. The Spanish Discovery of Australia. New Giant-size Blue Mountains Lion Tracks found. Latest UFO News. Club activities.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club News. Our next meeting will be held on Saturday 16th April 2005 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 ALSO, NO

SMOKING ON THE PREMISES. LARGE BAGS IN THE CINEMA OR HOUSE, THIS ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN

BECAUSE OF THE RECENT THEFTS.

Please bring any friends interested in UFOlogy and the mysteries generally, and lets all hear of any personal experiences involving UFOs or the unexplained.

Bring a plate of food to share for afternoon tea. Our meetings are usually held on the third Saturday of each month. We have of late been receiving strange threatening hate mail, however the matter is now in the hands of the local Police and Australia Post investigators, so we will keep you posted. Looking forward to seeing you all again on April 16th..

Program for the 16th April meeting.

Documentary - September 11 conspiracy Painful Deceptions. Latest UFO Reports. Any UFO experiences/reports from members. Slide preview of the Gilroys new book Uru The Lost Civilisation of Australia. Revealing new photographic evidence of strange lights in the sky. As usual, weather permitting, there will be a Skywatch out beyond the Waterboard gate on nearby Narrow Neck Peninsula, so bring along your binoculars, cameras, and winter woolies for an enjoyable time. And other surprises...

And remember, bring your friends as we always like to see new faces. Contact Information: Phone: 02 4782 3441, Email: randhgilroy@optusnet.com.au [or catch our website on www.google and type in Rex Gilroy.].

Rex and Heather Gilroy, Australias top UFO and unexplained mysteries Research team. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2004

___________________

Our Last Meeting. Despite the weather

preventing us from having a Skywatch, we still had a good meeting. Latest UFO sightings were reported on, together with

Big Cat sightings and casts of their tracks were shown, followed by some very interesting videos in the Rex Cinema.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

Lets hope the weather finally allows us all to have a Skywatch on our next meeting, at the fantastic new site beyond the Water Board gate. Narrow Neck is certainly an exciting place for UFO watching. The Big Four. Since the Symposium held at Orange, which has put Debra Goninan and Russell Dunns Central West Paranormal Research Group on the local media map, I have been working on more ideas to unite our clubs through regular contact and the sharing of sightings reports of UFOs etc, and regular combined meetings. I also believe that, as part of this unity, whenever one of our clubs is having membership problems they should be helped by the others, such as for example, members of the others attending that clubs meetings to help build up numbers, which also impresses any prospective new members for the particular club that might be present, encouraging them to come back. Thus we are helping UFOlogy generally and at the same time creating continual good will among all concerned. Debra and Russell are doing a great job out west and should be supported by as many visitors as possible from the other clubs while they are working to increase their membership. The Big Three, as I have christened our enterprise,. ie Central West Paranormal Research, Blue Mountains UFO research and UFO Research NSW in Sydney now become the Big Four with the addition of INFODIG [Information Discussion Group] of Gosford. Everyone has a great time at all these groups, which are free of cliques, with everyone meeting to talk about their latest UFO sightings and other phenomena, and we all go home fired up to continue the research looking forward the next meeting and that is how it should be. A Cretaceous Dinosaur at Kanangra. By Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2005. During August 200l, while exploring for other things out on the Kanangra Boyd National Park, I chanced to stumble upon two dinosaur tracks, embedded in volcanic ash and mud of a shoal layed down during an eruption, over which the reptile had walked after the deposit had cooled. Rain had fallen to react with the chemicals in the

ash to create a concrete-hard solidification. This had protected these fossils since Cretaceous times anywhere between 144 and 66 million years ago. The two tracks differed in size, the largest being 1.4m in length by 1.3m width across the three toes, 46cm width across the mid-track and the same at the heel, by 5cm in depth. 3.3m away was the second track, which was 78cm width across the two outer outstretched toes, and 53cm length from tip of mid toe to back of heel. It was 12cm deep in the rock. The reptile that left these tracks through time was easily perhaps a few metres in height but its identity remains a mystery for now. However, the shape of the tracks does tend to place it within the tyrannosauropus footprint taxon. That is, it belongs to an Australian dinosaur species related to Tyrannosaurus rex [ not yet officially identified from Australia]. I know of other sites across the Blue Mountains where identical tracks to this one occur. The locations of all these tracks must remain secret, as we do not want a similar situation to that of Broome, where dinosaur tracks whose location had become too well know to the public, were cut out of the rock for sale overseas. Only a tip-off to the authorities saved them from being sold on the International fossil black market. The originals now rest at the Western Australian Museum, Perth and a metal cast of the originals has been implanted where the fossils once were. -0-

Tyrannosaurus rex. Sketch by Rex Gilroy. A similar carnosaur is known under several names throughout Aboriginal Australia. Such a creature was known to Wollemi tribespeople. Sketch copyright Rex Gilroy 2004.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

A fossil footprint of a bipedal reptile of the Cretaceous period over 65 million years ago. Kanangra Boyd National Park, NSW. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2004.

The Spanish Discovery of Australia. By Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2005. Discoveries of relics, wrecks and rock inscriptions along the rugged Australian coastline, speak of unknown contacts with our shores by mariners from Portugal and Spain, a century and more before the arrival of the first Dutchmen. The evidence for Portuguese voyages to Australia is beyond the scope of this report, so I shall save it for a separate article. During the 1920s bushwalkers on Stephens Island, 68km south of Cairns, far north Queensland, and 5km off the mainland, stumbled upon a stone Peruvian idol, decorated in old Castilian jewellery, half-buried in dense jungle undergrowth. Many years ago, Aborigines on Murray Island, 165km northwest of Cape York, were found to possess light-coloured skins with definite Latin features and to use Spanish words in everyday language. While in Ingham, 83km u p the coast from Townsville, a farmer ploughed up threeand-a half swords of Castilian design and one with a highly embossed hilt. Also near Proserpine, 225 km down the coast from Townsville, another Spanish sword has since been discovered. During the 1930s an old crumbling human skeleton was found, laid out upon a sandstone crevice in a deep rock shelter in the mountains behind Mackay. It was clothed in a morrion helmets and breastplate. Also in the 1930s, two other

human skeletons clothed in Spanish armour were found preserved in a cave behind Cooktown. Even in recent times, many 16th century Spanish coins have been found, washed up on a Cooktown beach. Some locals claim the coins come from the remains of a Spanish vessel wrecked offshore. The list of Queensland relics telling of 16th and 17th century Spanish landfalls hereabouts is far too extensive for this article. Yet the New South Wales coast has revealed a good deal of evidence of landfalls. During the 19th century, Aborigines of the Clarence River/Grafton district, informed settlers that long, long before the coming of the British, other white men and women had tried to settle the area. These visitors, dressed in stone garments [armour], had sailed up the river from the coast in giant canoes. They soon erected a large camp surrounded by a wooden palisade. It appears the unwelcome visitors then began building more substantial wooden dwellings and tried to subjugate the Aborigines. However, the tribesmen fought back, and the stone-suited visitors and their women abandoned their settlement, sailing away never to return. Many Aborigines met by the early British settlers in this district, were found to possess Latin racial features with pale skins, and used many Spanish words in their language; and a number of Spanish coins dating to the 1520s and 30s have been unearthed around Grafton and along the Clarence River. Perhaps the Spaniards were looking for gold. An old Aboriginal tradition of the Tweed River district tells of strange men in stone garments attempting to mine in the Mt Warning area many generations before the coming of the British. As further evidence supporting this tradition, a farmer dug up an old morrion helmet at Kunghur, out of Nimbin further to the south; and skin divers years ago claimed to have retrieved a number of 16th century Spanish doubloons and other relics, from the remains of a wooden shipwreck off Tweed Heads. Spanish colonists were obviously being dispatched from Peru to establish settlements in the Great South Land, which implies that expeditions had already returned from our shores to report on their

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

discovery, and probably of the gold and other precious metals to be found there. In September 1985 while searching for Aboriginal rock art I stumbled upon an ancient Spanish Latin doodle; inscription [ie a form of shorthand used by Spain and Portugal during the 15th to 17th centuries] on a ridge at Colo, near the Hawkesbury River. They have since been translated to read: We in three galleons, the Almiranta; the Capitana and Concepcion, with colonists and soldiers, take possession of this land for Holy Spain, by the sign of the Cross 1558 It reminded me of another, more famous clifftop Latin doodle inscription, discovered at Bondi in 1912, by Lawrence Hargrave, Australias father of aviation. This inscription consisted of letterings and outlines of two ships one a galleon, the other a carrack [a vessel steered by a sweep, like a Greek trireme], resembling the Santa Maria in which Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492. The letterings in capitals beside the ships, were BALN in one line and beneath ZIAH. The letter W was beside the sacred symbol of a Cross within an elongated circle, the symbol of intended conquest by Spain. It was emblazoned on the sails of the Spanish Armada and the ships of the Conquistadores on their voyages to the Americas. The inscription was later translated to read: We in the Santa Barbara and Santa Isabel conquered W* from point to point by the sign of the Cross. AIH could have been the rock signatures of witnesses to the declaration, he believed. [*W may have stood for the southern continent, which to the Spaniards of the Americas, lay to the West of Peru]. Hargrave discovered a faded Spanish style coat of arms and a Cross engraved adjacent to these doodlings, enough for him to declare that the British were not the first explorers to land at Botany Bay and Sydney Harbour. His claims caused a storm

of academic protest at the time, yet in more recent times, historians have speculated whether the names Santa Barbara and Santa Isabel mentioned in the inscription, were the very same ships of those names which were lost from the second Pacific expedition of Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, dispatched to find and colonise Australia in 1595. On his first expedition, Alvara Mendana de Neyra sailed from Callao, Peru [ie New Spain] on 20th November 1567 with two ships, 150 men [four of whom were friars], and orders to establish a settlement. After a voyage of 80 days, the expedition sighted land in February 1568. At first this land appeared to be so large as to be a continent, but it instead turned out to be the Solomon Islands. Due to the poor condition of his ships, Mendana decided against establishing a colony and so returned to New Spain. Officialdom moved slowly and it would be another 27 years before Mendana would be able to lead another expedition in search of the Great South Land.

The now-faded engravings found near Botany Bay in 1912, by Lawrence Hargrave. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

The engravings [surrounded by early 20th century signatures, are thought to have been left by crewmen of the Santa Barbara and Santa Isabel in 1595. Thus the Spaniards may have beaten Captain Cook [1770] by 175 years! Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

By now the Dutch were moving swiftly to establish themselves in the Spice Islands and the Spanish, with a fleet commanded by Mendana, hoped to head off the ambitious Dutch. Mendanas fleet consisted of three galleons, a frigate and a carrack, with Pedro Fernandez de Quiros as chief pilot and captain of Mendanas galleon, the San Jeronimo. Lope de Vega commanded the Santa Isabel, Felipe Corzo commanded the San Felippe, and Alonzo de Leyva commanded the frigate Santa Catalina. The carrack was named the Santa Barbara. After sailing from Callao on 9th April, the expedition reached the Marquesas Islands without incident, however, while negotiating the Ellis Islands, the fleet struck bad weather, during which the Santa Isabel became separated. Following a fruitless search for the lost vessel, Mendanas

remaining ships discovered Santa Cruz Island. After dispatching the Santa Barbara to continue the search for the lost vessel, Mendana attempted to establish a colony on Santa Cruz, but attacks by the native population, sickness and mutinous outbursts among the ships crews doomed the venture, especially after Mendana fell ill and died. The remainder of his expedition sailed for the Philippines, Mendanas attempt to establish a Spanish Australian empire at an end.
Spanish ships conquer the Pacific Ocean, on voyages that brought them to the shores of Australia.

A Spanish carrack, a ship of the 16 th century designed for both trade and war.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

However, the puzzle of the fate of the Santa Isabel and Santa Barbara remains, for neither ship was ever seen again. The theory is that, if they were not wrecked, they may have reunited, sailing about 3,000 km off course to find the Australian east coast, and enter Botany Bay 175 years ahead of James Cook RN, and at least 10 years before the first Dutch explorer, William Jantsz reached our shores in 1606 ***** There are coming to light new leads which might one day help unravel the mystery of the fate of these two ships and their occupants. In 1936 a lengthy Spanish Latin doodle inscription was found near the mouth of the Georges River, and about this time, upriver at East Hills, ancient stone ruins located on the river bank were found, from which a morrion helmet was recovered. In 1967 a cache of Spanish doubloons from the Mendana period were dug up by workmen constructing a several metre deep pipeline at Macquarie Fields, south of Liverpool and near the river, all of which suggests that Spanish explorers, perhaps from the Santa Isabel and Santa Barbara, had sailed from botany Bay to explore along this river. On Friday 26th May 2000 Greg Foster discovered some remarkable faded glyphs carved on a sandstone clifftop at Baulkham Hills. Together we cleared the rock surface in search of more. Their faded condition made chalking their outlines necessary for photographic purposes. We soon realised that the glyphs were old Spanish Latin doodles. There was a cross within a circle and two Spanish-type vessels outlines, and the year 1595 in archaic letters among other glyphs. Eventually the lengthy inscription would be translated to read: We of the galleon Santa Barbara, of 51 crew for Holy Spain in search of gold, together with the San Filippe, with 51 crewmen, San Jeronimo, with 57 crew, Santa Catalina and Santa Isabel with 57 crew each, sailed in search of the West Land of Gold on April 9th 1595.

Alvaro Mendana de Neyra of the San Jeronimo our leader. Separated we sailed on. We claim this land for Holy Spain. The exact location of this inscription must remain a secret to avoid vandalism, but it lies near Darling Mills Creek which flows into the Parramatta River, which in turn flows into Sydney Harbour. It appears that this important find of Gregs suggests considerable time was spent hereabouts by the crews of these two ships before sailing on, presumably northwards up our east coast. Other finds of Spanish rock script and a carved Peruvian style face, cut in relief on a cliffside up a Sydney Harbour backwater may shed even more light on the lost voyage of the Santa Barbara and Santa Isabel. Perhaps they spent some time in Brisbane Waters near Gosford on their way north, for Spanish rock scripts have been found here. In 1859 the Barque Marina was wrecked on the Great Barrier reef north of Cooktown, her crew landed n Raine Island to the east of Cape York Peninsula, and found an old wreck with a brass cannon bearing an inscription, Santa Barbara 1596 engraved on the barrel. 108 years later in 1967, skin divers recovered from a nearby reef a bronze cannonade, the barrel of which was also inscribed with Santa Barbara 1596. Could the Santa Barbara and Santa Isabel have been attempting to reach the Philippines but come to grief on the Great Barrier Reef in Torres Strait? We shall perhaps never really know. And, as these two names were quite commonplace in Spanish shipping of

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

A mystery Peruvian face carving on the shores of Sydney Harbour which was perhaps carved by Peruvian slaves under Spanish direction. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005. The cross with faded coat of arms found near the Botany Bay. 1595 Spanish inscription by Lawrence Hargrave in 1912. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

The Girrakool Spaniard, a human figure Aboriginal rock engraving at Girrakool National Park, Central Coast NSW. The figure displays a barrel-like chest with spiked elbows and knees, reminiscent of the breastplates and armour joint of 16th century Spanish soldiers. Similar figures are carved as far south as the Wollongong district. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

those times, the engravings on those cannons might have been from some other Santa Barbara. There are many more mysteries of the unknown Spanish discovery of Australia, such as the mysterious stone ruins, believed to be a Spanish Fort, located in a small inlet near Eden, from which a Spanish morrion helmet, breast plate and wine jug fragments among other relics were recovered in the 1920s. A stone found among the ruins bore the date in archaic numerals 1524. The Spanish discovery of Australia is a fascinating subject to which I shall return in a future newsletter. However, it is interesting to speculate that, had events turned out differently, rather than English, we might have been speaking Spanish or even Portuguese today! -0-

The Spanish rock inscription found by Greg Foster. Note date 1595 in archaic letters beside the ruler. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2 005.

In

August 1993, Rex and Heather Gilroy uncovered two sets of ancient Spanish Latin shorthand rock inscriptions at a site near Maclean on the Clarence River NSW. Are they evidence of attempted Spanish colonisation of the nearby Grafton district, which other finds thereabouts suggest? Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

The Spanish Latin shorthand rock inscription discovered by Rex Gilroy in September 1985, on the Colo River at Maroota NSW suggesting an attempted Spanish colonisation attempt in the Hawkesbury district in 1558. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

Two cannon balls believed to be of early 16th century Spanish origin, recovered from a beach on Long Island, off Cardwell, north Queensland in the early 1970s near an ancient wooden ship wreck. Spanish pottery and other trinkets recovered from the wreck site early in the 20th century led some historians to suggest the wreck to have been a probable Spanish galleon. Photo Copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

This inscription found is thought to state: This land is claimed by the San Jeronimo for Holy Spain in 1545. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

The ruins of an apparent stone fort, hidden in scrub near an inlet south Eden, south coastal NSW. A date 1924 is engraved into a stone forming part of the wall. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005. Another inscription found on a nearby rock is believed to state: The galleons Vitteria and Dios Jesu claim this land by the sign of the Cross in 1547. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

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This 16th century Spanish wine jar was recovered in a fishermans net south of the stone fort, off Gabo Island, Victoria. Remains of a Spanish galleon are claimed by skindivers to lie nearby. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

return here. Meanwhile a special camera sent out from America by our Oklahoma colleague, Todd Jurasek, will be used to attempt to capture the animal/s on film. The camera will also be used in the Wollemi and Kenthurst localities where Lion and Panther [Marsupial Cat] tracks are still being found, and a documentary film is to be made of our efforts. -0-

Rex holding a Blue Mountain Lion track cast. The track is one of the recent Katoomba finds. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2005.

New giant-size Blue Mountains Lion Tracks found on Narrow Neck Peninsula, Katoomba. By Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2005. On Tuesday 15th March 2005, while filming a program on big cats and the Thylacine mystery with a team from Channel 7s Sunday Sunrise program, Heather and I together with Greg, showed reporters the site, out on Narrow Neck Peninsula, where in March 2004 I had uncovered a number of large tracks at a muddy waterhole, of the mysterious, giantsize Blue Mountains Lion, a giant marsupial cat species at least 2m in length from nose to tail tip. To our very great surprise we stumbled upon a series of more of these tracks, measuring 28cm width across the four huge toes by 18cm length and up to 2cm deep in the soil. The Lion tracks were at least 2-3 days old. Many of the tracks that we found had mostly been obliterated by peoples footprints and a vehicle tyre impression. The three remaining bestpreserved specimens were spaced apart in a triangular fashion; two upfront were 1.10m apart, the left one being 1.7m distant from the rear specimen, which was 1m apart from the top right track. We will now be watching this location for it would appear the animals periodically

Blue Mountains Abuzz with UFOs. On Friday 25th March at 1am while walking Cuddles along Cliff Drive, near Hildas Lookout, I spotted a silvery glow in lowhanging misty clouds above the second arm of Narrow Neck Peninsula. The glow was in the act of descending and appeared to light up the trees, as if to land in dense scrub out in a remote area known to me. On a previous occasion a bluish glow has been seen to do the same thing, a search of this area will be mounted soon. In our previous newsletter I reported on an approximate 1km length cylindershaped gigantic craft seen hovering or moving over Blue Mountains skies in recent weeks. At least six more sightings confirm my own observation [see previous nd newsletter] and on Tuesday 22 March 2005, a Mr Jack Ackroft and friends spotted what appears to have been this same object, high in the sky over Lithgow, moving slowly from the northwest to southeast around 5pm. He says it looked pinkish and was surely high above the earths atmosphere. On Wednesday 23rd I had been walking Cuddles out on narrow Neck

Blue Mountains UFO Research Club Newsletter April, 2005.

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Peninsula, when at 7pm high above the western horizon in the fading sunlight, at about cloud level, as I watched with binoculars, a dark-coloured cloud of ballshape literally imploded into itself to disappear within one minute! On Tuesday 1st February this same phenomena was observed by me out on the same peninsula at around 3.30pm, in which a sausage-shaped brownish cloud imploded high above Burragorang Valley. Ian Maurice of Sydney was driving on the night of Saturday 22nd January this year around 9pm on a road at Lemongrove near Liverpool, when he spotted a bright light [silver-white he says], moving towards the west at cloud level. It appeared to increase in size from a very small object as it moved slowly across the sky. At 9.15pm a Mr John Richmond spotted what appears to have been the same object from Emu Plains, and at 9.40pm it was sighted high in the sky above Leura by several people. One woman who

reported the event to me says that the object, seen by her through binoculars, appeared saucer-shaped, and by now it appears to have increased to the size of a five-cent piece, as from the description given. The object moved over Katoomba, to be spotted by people in Megalong Valley, who said the great light just suddenly switched off. A saucer-shaped green-glowing craft was reported seen on 12th March hovering over Linden by Mrs Jane Trombetta at 9pm in a clear sky. She spotted the craft from a friends house bedroom window. Alerting her friend and others present, they all ran outside to watch the craft from the front lawn as it appeared to hover over Linden below cloud level for a couple of minutes, before moving higher into the sky as it moved off slowly northward, towards the Wollangambie-Wollemi region, before increasing speed to shoot off out of sight in that direction -0-

Next Issue.
More surprises, and of course your valuable reports.

Our previous meeting was a huge success and we look forward to seeing another big roll-up at our next one. There should be some good Skywatches ahead of us up here at Katoomba, as winter brings crystal clear nights. Meanwhile, theres a lot happening up there at present so, until our next meeting

Watch the Skies!

Rex and Heather.