Down Under

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Story 1.

The Mystery of the High Country

Over the last decade, the Australian state of Victoria has been the scene of multiple unexplained disappearances.

What is happening to the people who vanish into this region's isolated rural areas?

And could a mysterious figure potentially hold the key to uncovering their fates?

This week, we explore the mystery of the High Country.

For six days now, the photographer had been cautiously circling the area identified to him by local residents as the place where he would find the mysterious individual he was looking for.

In all that time, despite having captured some of the park's most attractive wildlife on camera, there was still no trace of the so-called button man.

For years, he had heard tales of this aging wanderer who haunted the trails and pathways of Victoria's Alpine National Park.

Some described him as quiet and benign, others reported that he was a somewhat difficult and confrontational character.

All the witnesses were in agreement, however, that this enigmatic bushman's tracking skills were far in advance of anyone else they had ever encountered.

He reportedly moved with a speed and agility far greater than any man of his advancing years, emerging from thick scrubland which no other hunter would even consider attempting to penetrate before disappearing back the way he had come.

Despite not having managed to locate this nomadic figure, the photographer had managed to uncover signs of his movements.

On occasion, he had taken pictures of small piles of pebbles, which had been placed alongside tracks to show if anyone had passed.

Other times he had encountered snares and the remnants of deer antlers that had been sliced down into buttons or small items of jewelry.

Having ultimately failed in his quest, the photographer settled down for one last night in the park, packing away his equipment in readiness for an early departure the following morning.

When he rose the next day, it was only as he began to collect his belongings that he noticed someone else had apparently trespassed inside the boundaries of his camp during the previous evening.

Several items of food had been removed from the bags and containers they had been stored in, with the remnants carefully rearranged to hide the thefts.

In addition to this, half his water supplies were also missing.

But it was only when he got home later that day and downloaded the images from his camera onto a computer that the magnitude of the previous evening's events became apparent.

The last three images stored on the SD card, taken at some point during the middle of the night, were of his own sleeping face.

Paralyzed by a rising wave of nausea, the photographer realised that someone had entered his tent, unpacked the camera, and took photos of him whilst he slept, before replacing everything.

and leaving little trace of their passing.

The Wanangata Valley is one of the most isolated regions of the Victorian Alps and is accessible only by the hardiest of motor vehicles.

During the late 1800s, a network of temporary roads and homesteads were constructed to support a short-lived gold rush.

Now,

only the skeletons of these forgotten constructions and passageways remain, criss-crossing the landscape.

The lack of habitation in this area means it has remained one of great beauty, but also one of extreme danger.

For centuries, those who have visited or settled within travelling distance of the iconic mountain range have either lost their lives under mysterious circumstances, or disappeared completely.

Perhaps the most notorious of these incidents was the brutal slaying of two farmhands in 1917.

their murders remaining unsolved to this day.

It is a phenomenon which has not diminished with the passage of time, and in recent years, the number of disappearances in the region only seems to have increased.

During the last decade, state police have investigated the inexplicable disappearances of six people, with the most recent case having occurred, as recently as May 2020.

In March of 2008, A local businessman named Warren Mayer was reported missing by his wife.

The 57-year-old 57-year-old had failed to return home following a morning bushwalk he had been planning.

Authorities eventually located his car parked up near the base of Mount Dom-Dom, locked and undamaged, but with no sign of its owner.

A search of the vehicle showed that Mayer had apparently been in possession of sufficient food and water, as well as carrying his mobile phone and an additional GPS tracker.

He was an experienced hiker, familiar with all the local trails, none of which were considered to be overly arduous or dangerous.

Despite an extensive police search, no trace of Mayo was ever found.

The subsequent investigation into the incident uncovered witnesses who believed they had heard what sounded like automatic gunfire in the area on the morning of the disappearance.

When an extensive marijuana crop was later located whilst officers were carrying out searches, one theory was that the missing man had fallen prey to a local drug gang.

A further possible explanation came to light when officers detained an escaped psychiatric patient who had been found roaming the trails in the days after Meyer had vanished.

This line of inquiry was ruled out by the coroner presiding over the inquest, who stated it was unlikely the two men would have encountered one another.

Without any firm evidence to the contrary, the final verdict surrounding the disappearance was stated as unknown causes.

Three years later, the local police were again scouring the bush for another missing man, 50-year-old David Prideau.

And if the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Warren Mayer could be considered suspicious, they faded into obscurity when compared to the conspiracy theories that would be born out of this incident.

At the time of his disappearance, Prideau was the governor of Barton Prison and had gone missing whilst on a deer hunting trip with his brother-in-law in the Alpine National Park.

The two men had parted ways at a building named the Tomahawk Hut just before 8am and had planned to travel in opposite directions on a wide circular trail and then meet up again for lunch.

Prideaux was well equipped, decked out in camouflage overalls and carrying a new rifle.

He possessed a UHF radio and compass, as well as a sleeping bag in the event he could not make it back to safety before darkness fell.

The one thing he did not take with him was his mobile phone, due to a lack of signal in the area.

When the hunter did not show up for the agreed rendezvous, his relative was immediately concerned.

The police were called, and a large search effort was undertaken, including helicopters equipped with thermal cameras.

Nothing was found, either in the early days of this endeavour or subsequent searches during the following months.

And whilst trying to cope with the pain and anguish of a loved one going missing, Prudeau's family was suddenly thrown into a myriad of conspiracy theories.

Several months before, a prisoner who had agreed to turn informant on his underworld associates had been murdered.

when the story of his betrayal had leaked out into the press.

Rumours swirled that a hitman had killed the governor for his role in the operation, operation, or that crooked cops had followed and murdered Prudeau in order to hide their involvement in the case.

There were also suggestions that the missing hunter had faked his own death, starting a new life elsewhere to avoid the fallout of the scandal.

All of these theories were dismissed by the coroner, who again recorded a verdict of unknown causes.

Officers investigating the case believed Prudeau had suffered some kind of mishap, with his remains later consumed by wild animals.

But this would not explain how his equipment and rifle had also vanished without a trace.

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The events surrounding the disappearance of Conrad Whitlock in the summer of 2019 are equally shrouded in mystery.

The 72-year-old had apparently pulled over to the side of the road and then vanished from inside his motor vehicle without explanation.

On the morning of July the 29th, he had risen in the early hours whilst his wife lay sleeping and then set off in his car.

By using the GPS signal from Whitlock's phone, police were eventually able to find his white BMW parked up in a lay-by beside Mount Butler Road.

The vehicle was unlocked with the phone still inside, along with the missing man's keys and jacket.

In the days that followed, the investigating officers were able to build up a timeline of the car's movements using various sources of camera footage.

Traffic cameras showed that for some reason, Conrad had left the estate where he lived at 3am.

He had then driven for roughly three and a half hours before pulling over in the isolated spot where the car was found.

Footage obtained from the dash cams of passing vehicles later identified a 15-minute window where he somehow disappeared from inside the car.

Searches of the surrounding area were unsuccessful in locating Conrad.

His wife states that he had been complaining of headaches in the days leading up to the vanishing and that he may have suffered a medical episode.

But that does not explain how he came to be at such an isolated location or how his personal possessions were found still inside his his vehicle.

Just three months later, another disappearance was reported, this time in relation to a hiker by the name of Niels Becker.

The 39-year-old had utilised the previous six months preparing for a five-day solo hike through the Wanangata Valley.

He was familiar with the area, well provisioned, and had spent the first two days of his trip sending texts to his family, updating them with his progress.

But on the third day of the hike, these messages abruptly ceased.

Investigators found Becker's car parked at the base of Mount Sterling, but despite searches of all the local tracks and trails, the missing hiker was nowhere to be found.

Now with four missing persons cases at various stages of investigation, Little did the police know that the most frustrating disappearance of all the current cases was about to take place.

On the morning of the 19th of March 2020, Russell Hill said goodbye to his wife and headed off for a hike in the Wanangata Valley.

She believed that her 74-year-old husband would be making the trip on his own and was unaware that he had in fact picked up a companion after he left home, Carol Clay.

The true nature of this relationship remains a matter of speculation, but what is known is that the pair made camp later that day having driven driven into the valley via the Zika Spur track, which Russell had helped clear many years before.

The retiree was passionate about gadgets, and in addition to an expensive drone which he had taken with him, he also had a radio set, which he used to call various people on the first two nights of the trip.

When Hill failed to transmit his usual 6pm radio message on the evening of the 21st, his friends did not initially believe that anything was amiss, but as the days progressed, they decided to alert the authorities.

A week later, Russell's Toyota Land Cruiser was found parked up next to the burned-out remains of his camp.

His tent and everything inside had been totally destroyed by the blaze, which had also scorched the exterior of the nearby vehicle.

Both of the camp's occupants were missing.

along with Hill's drone, but the bulk of their possessions were otherwise accounted for.

The subsequent police investigation identified the likely source of the fire as a phone charger left switched on in the tent, although investigators conceded that an unknown perpetrator could also have started the blaze deliberately.

Initial theories behind the disappearance were that the couple had come to harm whilst heading somewhere remote to fly their drone, or that they had been attacked by either criminals or wild animals.

But a string of alleged sightings of the two pensioners has also created speculation that they faked their own deaths and have moved to another part of the country to start a new life.

In all of the presented cases, at the time of writing there remains no conclusive evidence as to where the missing people or their remains may be located.

But there is one potential source of information in relation to these incidents.

One who is admitted to having witnessed the final hours of at least three of the parties involved.

A secretive and elusive figure known to the valley's inhabitants as the Button Man.

This enigmatic character's name is derived from the buttons and trinkets that he creates by carving the antlers of dead deer.

No one can say with certainty where he heralds from, only that he lives a nomadic existence within the confines of the national park.

He is a skilled bushman, believed to be aged in his late 70s, who has shunned society and instead chooses to live off the land.

At least eight visitors to the Wanangata Valley in recent years have reported that the Button Man has suddenly materialised within the confines of their encampments before disappearing just as quickly.

On occasion he has been caught pilfering food and equipment from those he has encountered.

with his most mysterious action being to take photos of a wildlife photographer using the man's own camera as he lay sleeping.

Sometimes, campers have even awoken to find him sleeping alongside them in their own camp.

The Button Man is believed to have set up home in the vicinity of an isolated weather station named the Crossroads.

It was here that he later told detectives he had seen Niels Becker in the hours before the younger man's disappearance.

It is also not far from the Kingbilly Track, where Russell Hill told friends he had become involved in an altercation with the infamous Bushman in the summer of 2019.

Some have fallen back on the Button Man's more disturbing mannerisms to blame him for the disappearances, an accusation which the local police strongly refute.

He has been questioned by officers on a number of occasions, who state that despite his eccentricity, they have found him honest and engaging.

And yet, his vicinity to the incidents remains one of several commonalities between the cases.

The undergrowth and mountainous regions of the Victorian Alps are beset with perils, in terms of both their topography and the creatures which reside there.

With ever-changing weather systems and numerous uncharted areas, it is likely that many of the people who have vanished there throughout the decades came to harm due to simple misadventure.

But as people who frequent the region have become better armed and equipped to endure its hardships, they have continued to disappear.

Is there something sinister and unknown hiding within the Alpine National Park, be it human or otherwise?

And just what role does the mysterious button man play in these proceedings?

That of a participant or merely a witness?

Whatever the case, Our hearts go out to the friends and families of all those involved.

It is our sincerest hope that by raising the profile of these disappearances, we further raise awareness, perhaps encouraging authorities to revisit these cases and bring closure to the families who still await the safe return home of their loved ones.

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Story Story 2 Outback Encounters

In the heart of Australia lies a desolate expanse known for its unsettling reputation.

This remote region, steeped in eerie tales, has long blurred the lines between reality and the unknown.

Are these mysterious encounters mere superstition, or do they hint at something far more enigmatic, hidden in the vastness of the Outback?

We have previously dedicated two full episodes to tales of high strangeness from highways and byways around the world, in which motorists relate their encounters with mysterious entities, extraterrestrial beings and various creatures of local folklore.

Australia, with its rich and vibrant culture, stands out as a place of peculiar wonders.

When European settlers arrived in the late 1700s, they were both fascinated and terrified by the region's bizarre native animals.

As they began communicating with the Aboriginal peoples, they learned about even more unsettling creatures lurking within its interior.

Locals warned of beasts like the bunnyip, a massive seal dog lurking in water holes, and the yaoi, a bigfoot-like creature up to 12 feet tall, sometimes shy, but often violently aggressive.

They also spoke of the Yaramiyahu, a red frog-like man that drinks the blood of passers-by with suckers on its hands and feet.

Initially, colonial settlers dismissed these stories as mere fiction, but as towns grew and travel through the Outback increased, Europeans began sharing their own strange encounters, suggesting that these legends might hold some truth.

But then there are other tales, which venture beyond cryptozoology into the realms of the supernatural and extraterrestrial.

Hearing such stories, it's no wonder the Aborigines warned us to steer clear of the Outback.

In the late 1990s, a retired police constable going only by the name of Terence reported having anotherworldly encounter whilst patrolling a remote stretch of Outback Highway on his motorcycle.

He was a traffic officer and he had been midway through his shift when he pulled off to the side of the road to clean his visor.

This was something he had to do several times a day due to the amount of dust kicked up by the desert winds.

After switching off the engine, the veteran officer was suddenly startled by a deep roaring sound coming from somewhere nearby.

At first,

the noise sounded completely foreign to him.

However, after listening for a moment or two, he realized that it was the sound of an engine revving as if engaged in a high-speed race.

Looking down the highway in both directions, Terence could clearly see there were no cars or trucks in the area.

Then, as his eyes met the horizon behind a hill to his left, he saw a trail of dust rising from the desert beyond.

His curiosity getting the better of him, he walked up the hilly patch of land towards the dust cloud.

Upon cresting the small rise, he was met with a very peculiar sight.

A black 1953 Chevrolet driving in tight circles at high speeds.

At first, he thought he might be witnessing some sort of mechanical failure or medical emergency.

Perhaps the car's brakes had failed and its steering had locked.

Maybe the driver was slumped over, passed out from a heart attack with his foot still on the accelerator.

Reasoning that either of these scenarios could be true, Terence frantically tried to attract the driver's attention.

As he did so, he noticed that the car contained not one but two occupants, and that neither seemed interested in heeding his calls.

Believing they had not yet seen him, He began to approach the out-of-control vehicle.

To his shock, the Chevy then changed course towards him.

Before he had chance to react, the car came to a sudden stop about 30 feet in front of him.

He could only just make out the shapes of the two figures inside, when simultaneously, both doors opened and bathed the car's occupants in sunlight.

Something about this action struck Terence as odd, and he felt a cold chill run down his spine, despite having no obvious reason to feel threatened.

This chill turned into a full-on shudder as he got his first look at the driver and passenger.

Both were male of the same height and build, with shoulder-length hair and thick black sunglasses.

But the similarities didn't end there.

The two were, as Terence would later put it, exact copies of one another.

Both were wearing the same dishevelled shirt that tucked into a mudstained pair of jeans, held up at their waistlines by a leather belt.

However, they weren't merely the same brand or style, but identical in every way.

The mudstains corresponded exactly.

The rips and tears in their shirts matched down to the slightest detail.

Most unsettling of all was that the two men were moving in in unison, walking towards Terence from either side.

Step by identical step, the pair gradually started to increase the distance between themselves, effectively flanking the waiting police officer, whom neither of them had even acknowledged.

To Terence's relief, They walked right by him and were now side by side again, heading back to the main road.

Finding his voice, the officer yelled at the two men to stop as he began to walk after them.

Surprisingly, the men began to turn their heads, but as their heads turned, their bodies remained facing the road.

Terence could only watch in horror as their necks rotated in perfect unison:

45 degrees,

90 degrees, then 180 degrees,

finally completing a full 360 degree rotation to face ahead of them once again.

Without a word, they continued to walk over the bluff Terence had traversed minutes earlier.

Consumed by fear and confusion, The officer finally summoned the courage to draw his sidearm and follow them, only to mount the incline and find absolutely nothing.

No men.

No footprints.

No dust trail.

Nothing.

It was impossible considering the area.

There was no natural cover for miles.

Feeling his nerves beginning to fray, Terence turned to look back at the Chevy, only to find that that too.

had vanished.

The shock of what what he had just witnessed was so upsetting that he immediately became ill, stumbling back across the empty highway to his motorcycle before pitching forward and vomiting.

Sinking to his knees, he covered his face with his hands.

Recalling the story years later, he said the next thing he remembers is opening his eyes to find himself kneeling by the roadside in complete darkness.

What had had felt like only a moment had apparently been hours.

The officer hurriedly set off for the nearest town at a complete loss as to what he had just experienced.

It was there that he encountered his colleagues, several of whom had been sent out to try and locate him after he had failed to respond to any radio messages.

Terence would spend the next few months desperately trawling through police reports and intelligence bulletins, hoping to find some clarification on what had taken place.

But he would find nothing, with subsequent internet searches through the years having provided no additional explanation or closure beyond cementing the idea in his mind that the persons he had witnessed were not human, and most likely, not of this world.

Several years after Terence began telling his story, an Australian student student named David was being given a lift home by a friend, having finished a term of study at the university they attended.

Their route would take them from Victoria's southern coast up to a rural part of New South Wales, a long ride even in the best of conditions.

Unfortunately, an unexpected delay meant they would have to travel at night.

As the hours progressed, the two friends quickly exhausted all topics of conversation.

They were soon travelling in silence along the most desolate stretches of the A79, only passing other vehicles once or twice an hour.

They were roughly two-thirds of the way to their destination when David glanced down at his watch to check how much of their journey remained.

At that exact moment, his friends stamped on the brakes, causing the car to screech to a sudden halt.

The force of this manoeuvre propelled David forward into the dashboard.

Upon opening his eyes, he noticed a large crack in the windscreen and assumed that he must have struck his head on it.

But when he raised a hand to his forehead, he felt no sign of injury.

Realising he was okay, he turned his attention to the driver and was stunned to see his friend staring straight ahead, eyes wide open in fear, hands gripping tightly around the steering wheel.

Clearly, something had struck the car and cracked the windscreen, but despite David's repeated attempts to get answers, the terrified driver remained ominously silent.

Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to the front, where he saw some minor impact damage to the bonnet.

Still, there was no sign of blood or tracks to indicate what the car had hit.

Then, David heard it.

A low rustling sound, which gradually began to increase in volume and intensity.

Peering out beyond the cone of light produced by the car's headlights, the young student followed the noise until his eyes focused on some movement in a patch of nearby undergrowth, where he was shocked to see a tall, imposing shadow.

The towering figure was easily seven feet tall, with a powerful and muscular profile, yet it seemed trapped in the brush, frantically trying to make its way back to the road.

As terrifying a sight as it was, David soon found himself focused entirely on the figure's face, or rather, its lack of one.

The creature was hairless, with skin that appeared to be tinged a deep shade of green.

There were almost no features, no nose or lips.

Instead, there was a ragged hole where the mouth should have been, from which a low moaning sound could be detected.

Instead of eyes, it had two deep hollow voids, which seemed to tunnel into its skull.

But despite having no apparent means of vision, David was acutely aware that the creature was staring directly at him as it continued to struggle its way out of the scrub.

It wasn't until the beast finally freed itself and took one heavy step towards the car that David's paralysis was broken, the blare of the car horn and frantic screams of his friend pulling him from his trance.

He had barely closed the door behind him as his friend sped away from the scene.

Turning to look behind them, David saw the outline of the giant figure fading into the distance, dimly illuminated by the receding glow of the car's rear lights.

The two students did not stop again during the rest of their journey, and rather than report the matter to the police, decided instead to quietly get the car repaired at a local garage.

During the years that followed, David would find himself scouring the internet for similar stories and wondering whether some of the accidents that occurred on the remote parts of the A79 were the results of an encounter with this mysterious, faceless creature.

As a long-distance haulier, Kyle Weston had spent much of his working life travelling alone across the Outback.

During those years, He had seen plenty of things that seemed to defy explanation.

Other lorry drivers would share similar stories of the unexplained and bizarre, which served to create a sort of mystique around the region as well as their profession.

Yet as varied as these tales were, the one constant thread was that the drivers who experienced them were careful never to risk their personal safety to find out exactly what they might be witnessing.

However,

During a 2008 encounter in the Northern Territory, Kyle would go on to break this unwritten rule in a very big way.

At the time, he was transporting a large consignment of fertiliser up to Darwin.

It was a long haul, and at some point in the trip, he was travelling along the A87 in the middle of the night.

It had only been a short while since he passed through the town of Tennant Creek, a sleepy community located near the very centre of the territory, when he found his attention drawn to a patch of land not far from the highway.

Despite being firmly in the middle of nowhere, Kyle could see a distinct red glow, which was intense enough to be seen from several miles away.

For some reason he began to slow his vehicle, staring more intently at it.

Thinking it might be a fire or distress signal, he made the decision to stop and investigate.

Pulling off to the side of the road, he grabbed a torch from the console and set off on foot into the bushland which lay between him and the mysterious light source.

After walking for around five minutes, he noticed that the trees around him had become gradually denser, whilst the light in the distance had only grown stronger.

Suddenly, it disappeared.

It was so rapid that Kyle thought someone had flicked a switch or pulled a plug.

Now alone in the dark, with nothing but his torch, he began to regret his impulsive decision to investigate.

Turning to head back to his truck, the red light suddenly returned.

This time it was much closer, bathing him in a blinding glow that forced him to raise a hand to shield his eyes.

Peering between his fingers, he noticed a shape moving towards him.

It was the outline of a human being, bathed in light just like him.

But as the figure drew closer, Kyle quickly realised that the person was not simply standing in front of the light.

Instead, it was made of light.

with no distinguishing features whatsoever.

Stepping back from the approaching entity, he lost his balance and fell, all the while trying to shield his eyes from the blinding glow.

The figure, now just a few meters away, kept approaching, raising a glowing hand as Kyle lay there, terrified and defenseless.

Instinctively, the trucker cried out in fear, begging for it to leave him alone.

To his shock, the being immediately stopped just a few feet away, pointing at him as if making some unknown accusation.

After several moments of silence, the glowing figure turned and walked back into the bush.

As Kyle watched in horrified amazement, the shape passed directly into a large tree, the blinding red glow disappearing with it.

Kyle did not waste this opportunity.

He jumped to his feet and immediately fled back to his waiting vehicle.

Stumbling back into the cab, he started the engine and resumed his journey northward, unsure of what it was he had encountered.

Whatever the case, he was glad to have gotten away, unharmed.

The three stories we have explored in this episode are so vastly different, extraterrestrial twins, a faceless monster and a figure made of light, that it's difficult to find any common thread connecting them, aside from their occurrence along isolated stretches of road in the Australian Outback.

These strange tales, along with ancient Aboriginal legends, raise questions as to how such entities could exist in such a harsh environment.

Some theorise the Outback is a place where the fabric of space and time is thin, allowing beings from other dimensions to appear.

Others suggest it's it's the site of government experiments, or that ley lines associated with paranormal activity crisscross the region.

Is the Outback a nexus of high strangeness, or does its desolation simply fuel wild imaginations?

With little supporting evidence, it's difficult to say for certain.

but the diversity of bizarre encounters here is unmatched.

Unlike other regions known for specific phenomena, like Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest or UFOs in South America, the Outback has it all, each story more fantastic than the last, yet none fitting neatly into any particular category.

Despite being occupied for tens of thousands of years, Australia has only been connected to the rest of the world for two centuries.

As the Outback becomes increasingly inhospitable, further migration into its interior seems unlikely.

Until this vast region is thoroughly investigated, the stories from this part of the world will remain as ominous and foreboding as the land itself.

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