Min Min Light

[bunyip]

I've just been reading the 'Are We Alone' thread, and it brought back memories of the night I saw a Min Min light.

The Min Min phenomenon is unique to Australia, specifically to outback Queensland although occasionally they're seen in remote areas of other states as well.
The aboriginals were terrified of them. They had all sorts of theories about the Min Min light, as do white people.

Have any of you ever seen one? It's a weird experience that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

 

[pilots]

I've just been reading the 'Are We Alone' thread, and it brought back memories of the night I saw a Min Min light.

The Min Min phenomenon is unique to Australia, specifically to outback Queensland although occasionally they're seen in remote areas of other states as well.
The aboriginals were terrified of them. They had all sorts of theories about the Min Min light, as do white people.

Have any of you ever seen one? It's a weird experience that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

We was drilling at Hermannsburg out from Alice Springs in 1981, it was at 2am, was talking to the local cop at a road accident when it happened, I looked at the cop and said WTF is that, he said just the MinMin, don't tell any one about it as they will say you are mad. Scared the hell out of me.

 

[kenny]

The refraction theory by Prof Pettigrew sounds pretty convincing.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s818193.htm

Of course what could have caused the various coloured lights from ancient aboriginal times makes one wonder.

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[explod]

In my shearing days in central west queensland often heard of them. Did see some strange lights at times but more to do with the overproof bundaberg rum than the min min lights.

However the stories seemed to be related in sincerity so am left with no view one way or the other. Of course distances on the flat plain arre great and on frosty occasions there is a type of refraction of distant objects beyond the horizon. Have thought something like this may be possible. e.g from just west of Longreach on a frosty morning you can see hills near Winton over 100 miles to the west of that point.

Garpal, where are you ole pal when needed, right up your alley.

 

[nunthewiser]

Can someone post a pic or describe what a "minmin " is? ...........

Seen quite a few strange lights and objects in the sky in the bush over the years

 

[bunyip]

As far as I know, the Min Min light was named by white people who first saw it near the Min Min hotel, between Winton and Boulia in Central Western QLD.
The legend of the Min Min goes back much further among aboriginal people.
The Min Min hotel no longer exists, but there's still a graveyard at the site.

I saw the Min Min light on a property in the Springsure district of QLD, about 350 km west of Rockhampton. I'd spent all day ploughing a paddock, took the tractor back to the fuel tank just on dark, fuelled up and serviced the machine ready for tomorrow. Got finished just after dark and was just getting in the ute to drive home when I saw a light coming towards me from about a mile away. At first I thought it was a car light, except that it came very slowly. But at times it would speed up too before slowing back to walking speed. It seemed to come along the track that led from the homestead to the paddock I was in. Once it got closer, maybe half a mile away, it wandered off the track and stopped for maybe five minutes, then resumed wandering off across the paddock. A number of times it rose up maybe 6 or 8 feet off the ground before settling back to ground level. It was the strangest thing the way it wandered around aimlessly and drifted up and down. I kept thinking to myself over and over again, 'What the hell is that'?.
After a while it resumed it's journey more or less down the track towards me, then eventually disappeared, just kind of faded away. All up I watched it for maybe half an hour or so.

A few years later a Sydney doctor and his 13 year old son turned up one day at the property. He told me he'd grown up there and he wanted to show his son the property where his Dad had spent his childhood.
So I put the two of them in the Toyota and gave them a tour. As we were driving around, the doctor asked me if I'd ever seen any Min Min lights there.
I told him 'Well yes, as a matter of fact I did see one two or three years ago'.
He said he'd seen the Min Min maybe half a dozen times over the 12 years or so he'd lived on the property as a kid.

My grandmother as a young woman spent many years living on a property at Ilfracombe in the Longreach district of QLD. She told me that about once a week on average they'd see a Min Min light moving towards the homestead from the vicinity of a dam that was about half a mile away. The light looked like a lantern and bobbed up and down as a lantern would when being carried by a man. When it got to within a couple of hundred metres of the homestead it fizzled out.
The nick-named the light 'Jack'. When they saw the Min Min they'd jokingly say to each other 'There's Jack again, going for his nightly stroll'.

A Google search will pull up information on Min Min lights.