The "I.N.F.O. JOURNAL",
Vol. IV, No. 2 issue, relates a most disturbing account of subterranean
abduction. Titled "MOUNTAIN OF DEATH", written by David D. Browne, the
article originally appeared in the June 1972 issue of WALKABOUT, published in
Sydney, Australia:
Black
Mountain comes almost as a shock when you see it first.
Traveling by bus just south of Cooktown, North
Queensland (Australia), a bend in the road suddenly discloses it and the
visual impact can bring an involuntary exclamation, as you see it -- black,
bare and sinister, a 1,000 ft. high pile of enormous boulders two miles long,
rearing out of the rain-forest.
This is "the Mountain of Death." Aborigines
will not go near it. An ancient legend warns them of danger. White men fear it
too, because of the numbers of men who have gone there and disappeared without
a trace, as if the earth -- or the mountain -- had swallowed them. Birds
and animals shun the area.
The rocks give off a curious metallic ring when
struck, and the only sound is the croaking of countless frogs sheltered in the
depths where the great granite boulders lie against each other.
In Brisbane's Public Library, a yellowing newspaper
cutting tells some of the story:
Grim tragedy has been
associated with the mountain ever since it has been known to white man.
Three men with horses completely disappeared at the
mountain. They vanished as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up,
for absolutely no trace of them has ever been discovered, although police
and backtrackers and hundreds of local residents scoured the mountain and
surrounding country.
Then
following the names and occupations of several others who disappeared, and the
dates of their disappearance. The cutting continues:
This constitutes one of the
most amazing stories in the police history of the far north, for not one of
the mysteries has been solved and probably never will be.
Another newspaper cutting, signed Nancy Francis, reads:
The formation of these
mountains is unique; their appearance grotesque. They are mountains of huge
boulders full of chasms that go down to unsounded depths. Only a few rock
wallabies and a few turkeys live near these grim, forbidding hills. The
Aborigines regard the Black Mountains with dread.
In the
files of the Cooktown police, dating back 25 years, there is a report made by
a Sergeant of Police who discussed the mountain with a man whom he refers to
as Mac. Mac began:
"Know anything about Black Mountain, or
so-called 'Mountain of Death'? Its aboriginal name is Kalcajagga."
"What does it look like at close quarters?"
I asked.
"Just a mass of tumbled granite blocks; hardly
any vegetation. The only living things there are black rock wallabies and
enormous pythons 16 feet or more long and able to swallow a wallaby whole. The
ridge is honeycombed with caves, nearly all unexplored. They dip down below
ground level but nobody knows their extent or what they contain."
The latest fatalities, he reported, had occurred a
few years earlier when two young men set out to solve the riddle of earlier
disappearances in the caves. They were never heard of again. Two black
trackers who tried to trace them disappeared too.
Then Mac went back to the beginning of the mountain's
grim story.
The first-known fatality was that of a carrier named
Grayner, in 1977. He had been searching on horseback for strayed bullocks when
he, with his horse and bullocks, vanished without a trace. Thirteen years
later, Constable Ryan, stationed at Cooktown, tracked a 'wanted' man to the
scrub at the foot of the mountain. Other trackers followed his trail to the
entrance of one of the caves, but he was never seen again. Nor was the "wanted"
man.
More recently a gold prospector named Renn was added
to the list of mysterious disappearances. Well-organized police teams with
trackers combed the whole area for weeks without finding him.
Then there was the case of Harry Owens, a station
owner from Oakley Creek. One Sunday morning he rode over towards Black
Mountain looking for strayed cattle. When he didn't return on time his
partner, George Hawkins, alerted the police then went out to look for him
himself. But by the time the police joined in the search, Hawkins had also
disappeared. Two of the native police trackers entered one of the caves. ONLY
ONE OF THEM CAME OUT. He was so unnerved by what seemed to have been an
experience of terror that he could give no clear account of what happened to
them both.
Mac even knew a white men who had penetrated the
caves and lived to tell the tale, and produced a newspaper cutting of his
story. It read:
Armed with a revolver and a
strong electric torch I stepped into the opening. Like other Black Mountain
caverns it dipped steeply downwards, narrowing as it went.
Suddenly I found myself facing a solid wall of
rock, but to the right there was a passageway just large enough for me to
enter in a stooping position. I moved along it carefully for several yards.
The floor was fairly level, the walls of very smooth granite. The passage
twisted this way and that, always sloping deeper into the earth.
Presently I began to feel uneasy. A huge bat beat
its wings against me as it passed, but I forced myself to push on. Soon my
nostrils were filled WITH A SICKLY, MUSTY STENCH. THEN MY TORCH WENT OUT.
I was in total darkness. It was inky black. From
somewhere that seemed like the bowels of the earth I could hear faint
moaning of bats.
I began to get panicky and I groped and floundered
back the way I thought I had come. My arms and legs bleeding from bumps with
unseen rocks. My outstretched hands clawed at space where I expected solid
wall and floor. At one stage where I wandered into a side passage I came to
what was undoubtedly the brink of a precipice, judging by the echoes.
The air was FOUL and I felt increasing DIZZINESS.
Terrifying thoughts were racing through my mind
about giant rock pythons I have often seen around Black Mountain.
As I crawled along, getting weaker and losing all
hope of ever getting out alive, I saw a tiny streak of light. It gave me
super strength to worm my way towards a small cave mouth half a mile from
the one I had entered.
Reaching the open air, I gulped in lungfulls of it
and fell down exhausted.
I found I had been underground for five hours, most
of the time on my hands and knees. A king's ransom would not induce me to
enter those caves again...
|