Narrabeen's mysterious elephant man

A big thank you to David Hearder for digging up and sharing these gems about Narrabeen's mysterious elephant man (which also included a rare picture!) - a strange upright-walking humanoid elephant creature that lumbered across a Sydney road one evening in the late 1960s.

Witness Mabel Walsh was driving home with her nephew John when she saw the strange creature walk out of the lake and into nearby scrub.

"It was a bit over 4-feet tall, with dark grey, tough leathery skin, like an elephant’s. It had small front legs and walked on its hind legs, which were thick and round like an elephant’s… I didn’t notice a tail or ears, but it had small eyes and smaller front legs or arms. Its head reminded me of an ant eater’s. Its trunk was rigid, squared off at the end and stuck down and out at an angle.

"It had a strange shuffling walk, but was quite fast. It shocked me. It was a peculiar looking thing. I’ve never seen anything like it. We saw it only for a few seconds."

The sighting puzzled and intrigued residents living near Narrabeen Lakes, a large estuary that is a popular fishing spot.

Author and UFO researcher Bill Chalker looked into the elephant man sightings, which occurred around the same time as a rash of UFO sightings in the area, but concluded in his talk at the 2001 Myths & Monsters conference:

"It would probably be erroneous to speculate that the unknown creature reported above was related in someway to UFOs. There is no direct connection evident, and because the creature or one like it was seen again in the area, it would probably be more correct to suggest that the creature was an unknown species perhaps local to that area.

"During 1971 a lady was awoken by a terrible gurgling noise but saw nothing. Two fishermen in a boat, saw something by the light of a kerosene lamp. It had a trunk like an elephant and was walking on the water with its back legs. It was described as being grey in colour.

"During the late 1970s with nothing better to do, I spent a number of evenings loitering around the Narrabeen Lakes environs checking out the areas involved in these stories. Unfortunately no “elephant” humanoids were seen and I was not able to determine any substance to a prosaic “elephant” connection. It is interesting that humanoid elephant – headed beings are a major feature of Indian religios mythology – namely ganesha."

So what was the elephantine-looking creature, which also had a "head like an ant-eater"? A figment of imagination? An unknown species? 

Like us, David Hearder is still wondering. "No, I don't know what it could have been either, perhaps a disoriented frogman on exercise (police or navy)?"

Perhaps the last word should go to Mrs Walsh, who, as they say, knows what she knows: "Call me a nut if you will but there's a strange creature in Narrabeen Lakes."

Ignoble award for randy bug discovery

Researchers who discovered that a species of beetle makes love to a beer bottle are among the winners at this year's IgNobel Prizes.

The IgNobels are awarded each year by the Harvard-based Annals of Improbable Research as a light-hearted counterpart to the Nobel Prizes, which will be awarded next week. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative, and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.

Entomologists Dr Darryl Gwynne from University of Toronto Mississauga and Dr David Rentz, an adjunct professor at James Cook University in Queensland, received the biology prize for their 1983 study that showed male jewel beetles copulate with empty, discarded beer stubbies. Their study was published in the Australian Journal of Entomology.

Confused by the colour and reflection of the small bumps on the bottom of a glass beer bottle, male Julodimorpha bakervelli beetles mounted the bottles and attempted to copulate with them.

"Some of the more attractive bottles had corpses of several beetles around them," says Rentz.

The researchers say that apart from polluting the environment, discarded bottles are a potential threat to the beetles' mating system. The researchers wrote to the local brewery, and while they received no response, the bottles were modified to remove the dimples.

Go native and help spot a species!

Baudin's Black-Cockatoo.

Citizen scientists are being encouraged to keep an eye out for unusual species in their own backyard.


“But to get a really comprehensive view of living Australia we need the help of the public. We’re calling on Australians to re-engage with the natural world. We want them to report on their neighbours – not their human neighbours but on the plants and animals in their gardens, nature strips, paddocks and parks,” said Mr Donald Hobern, Director of the Atlas of Living Australia.

To see what’s living in your area go to http://biocache.ala.org.au/explore/your-area and take a look. Then click on share to contribute your own observations or photos.

“There are huge gaps in our knowledge of Australian biodiversity. The best estimate we have for the number of Australian species is 570,000, and nearly three quarters of these are unknown or undescribed,” said Dr Kevin Thiele, Director of the IdentifyLife component of the Atlas which provides a series of tools or keys to help people identify species.

“Everyone can help to build a better picture of Australia’s biodiversity by contributing sightings and photos to the Atlas website. Even a sighting of a common bird in your backyard, neighbourhood or paddock may increase our understanding of how that species is distributed across the country. The species may not have been recorded before in that location, or it may not have been recorded there for a long time or its distribution may be changing.” Mr Hobern explained.

“Australia has a fine tradition of amateurs and enthusiasts contributing to scientific understanding. Rica Erickson, one of the foremost amateur natural historians in the 1900s, wrote extensively on botany and birds and made a significant contribution to the Australian scientific knowledge-base.

“Now, with modern web-based technologies, enthusiasts can build and share information like never before, allowing us to better understand species and monitor changes in species distribution and the environment."

The Atlas of Living Australia is a national initiative focused on making Australia’s biodiversity information more accessible and useable online. It’s a partnership between the CSIRO; Australian museums, herbaria and other biological collections, the Australian Government, and local communities.