The Roar

In early 2004 I had an experience that left me fearing for my life. At the time my family was away and I was making the most of the time alone with a marathon internet session. At this point, broadband was not generally available in Queanbeyan and we used dial up. We had two phone lines so we could make and receive calls with one whilst being online with the other. To make calls we typically used a portable phone that would need to be charged via the base unit every so often. On this occasion, I had the phone sitting next to me whilst surfing online. At a little after midnight I decided that nobody was likely to be calling and I decided to take the phone downstairs to charge it.

There was no internal access from upstairs to downstairs. To get downstairs you had to go out via the back door onto a deck and then walk down a long flight of stairs to the backyard. On the bottom floor of the house, we had a granny flat set up for my mother in law. The charging unit for the phone was kept in this downstairs granny flat.

The night of the incident was very ordinary. Given that it was after midnight it was peaceful and quiet. I took the phone downstairs and unlocked the granny flat, went inside and put the phone on to charge. I then went outside locking the door as I left. I turned around and took a step towards the stairs when I heard a deep and very loud roar from close by. It sounded like a very large animal was sitting on the other side of our back fence which was no more than 10 metres away. I froze, my blood ran cold. Fearing that some large beast was sitting nearby and ready to leap the fence and pounce, my initial reaction was to run. I did remember though that animals sense fear and thought running may provoke it and cause it to chase after me. So even though I felt like I was about to be attacked I walked rather than ran up the back steps until I was safely inside.

It was only after I had made it back to safety that I wondered what it was that I had encountered. The roar was deep but it was not that of a lion or a tiger. It sounded like a big cat of some description, possibly a panther. I really couldn't identify it accurately from the sound though and am only speculating as to what it was. Year after the event I often think that it's a shame I didn't walk over to the back fence, poke my head over and have a look at what was there. At the time though this wasn't even an option. I thought I was about to die and the only thing I wanted to do was get to safety.

Reports of Alien Big Cat's (ABC's) are not unknown in Australia. There are reports of Panthers in the Blue Mountains near Lithgow. Our house in Queanbeyan was certainly near heavily wooded hills that were home to a variety of wildlife. It was a common occurrence to walk out the front at night time and come face to face with a couple of large kangaroos. So it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that some unknown cryptid could easily have come down from the hills and found itself near our house. Although I have not heard of any other big cat sightings around Queanbeyan I would not discount the possibility of them living in this location. My experience certainly leads me to think that these big cats may very well be out there.

As a side note, Queanbeyan is no stranger to cryptid sightings. In the late 1800's there were a number of reported Yowie sightings in the area. To my knowledge, there have been no recent sightings of Yowies near Queanbeyan. It does make you wonder though what creatures may still be living in the wilder bush areas surrounding our towns.