Australia's Strangest Mysteries

by John Pinkney

  The afternoon of the procedure arrived. The specialist applied a chloroform mask to his patient, who swiftly descended into a black sleep.

  Then woke again.

  Percy Cole, fully conscious, was standing in a corner of the room in the company of the two people he had dreamed about: the nun and the military doctor. He became aware that he was in two places at once. He was standing here, but could clearly see himself, several feet away, unconscious on the trolley. The operation was underway.

  The nun said, ‘You should not have had a general anaesthetic. You’re on this side of life now – and I’m not sure you’ll be able to get back. If you really want to you can stay here.’

  She added, ‘Your heart trouble is masked. Your doctor can’t be blamed for not detecting it.’

  Cole was completely unworried by the prospect of his own death. He was far more interested in watching the operation and listening to a conversation between the specialist and the dentist. They were speculating about the price a certain property would bring.

  But abruptly the specialist registered alarm. ‘He looks as if he’s had enough!’ he exclaimed, then bent close to Cole, unconscious on the trolley, and shouted, ‘Breathe! Breathe!’

  ‘Somehow,’ Cole later recalled, T managed to make my chest lift in the physical sense – even though I was standing beside it. The nun told me that I would have to fight my own way back, because they could offer no help from their side. I decided to return, and at that moment of decision found myself plunging into a dark tunnel, at the end of which was a small glimmer of light. I had to struggle, to the limit of exhaustion, in the direction of that light, but reached it at last, at which point I found myself awake in the physical sense again.’

  Percy Cole took several days to recover from the operation. When the specialist visited he was astonished to hear his patient’s account of the events and conversation he had seen and heard in the operating room. He confirmed that he and the dentist had indeed been discussing the prospective price of a piece of land.

  Several months later Percy Cole saw a second specialist, who gave him an intensive examination. The doctor told him he had a serious cardiac problem – but that it had been difficult to detect because the heartbeat was ‘masked’ by a flap of lung.

  The Mystery of

  Terra Australis

  This ancient land has been measured and mapped,

  Its mountains stripped, its animals trapped.

  Roads and rails cross its desert plains,

  But still the MYSTERY remains.

  This timeless earth has been tunnelled and mined,

  Wild streams and rivers redesigned.

  Shafts dizzy deep into rock and hill,

  But the MYSTERY lies deeper still.

  The primal forests have been felled,

  Green shadows vanished, birdsong quelled.

  Bleak buildings rise in grey cold tides,

  But still the MYSTERY abides.

  This ancient land has been mapped and measured,

  Torrents dammed, idylls untreasured.

  The analyst notes, the historian explains,

  But still the MYSTERY remains.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  The Disappearing Divers – and Their ‘Diaries of Death’

  Baffling Case of the Burning Man: Australians Ablaze

  What Lit Up Lake Eyre?: Strange Encounters

  Mystery of the Man Who Never Was

  The Monster that Shocked a Senator: The Strangest Australians

  Mysterious Murders in Sydney’s Dunes: The Atrocity on Wanda Beach

  The Pilot, the Submarine and the Fluke of Fate: Great Australian Coincidences

  The Expedition that Vanished

  Strange Case of the Shining Crosses: Extraordinary Phenomena

  Mishap – or Murder? Mystery of the Missing Tiger Moth

  Phantoms on a Moonlit Road: Australians and the Uncanny

  The Day that Evil Stalked Adelaide Oval: A Nation Numbed

  The Jinxed Ship – and Its Journey to Nowhere: Maritime Mysteries

  How Nostradamus – and a TV Quiz Hero – Foretold a President’s Death: Great Australian Premonitions

  Enigma of the Vanishing Heiress

  Nightmares on the Nullarbor

  The Dying Woman Who Was Cured by a Song: Astonishing Powers

  The Murders that Nobody Noticed: Horror on Easey Street

  Riddle of the Tiger that Rose From Its Tomb: The Thylacine Puzzle

  Lost, on a Road Without Shadows: Inexplicable Events