Min Min Light

Hello Motherhen.

Haven't seen a min min light myself but there are some accounts of this phenomina in the book 'Green Mountains' written by the O'Reilly family which traces there ancestors settlement of the hinterland behind which is now the Gold Coast. They were the first white settlers. O'Reilly's lookout is named after them.

The siting of something that sounds identical to the min min light was a common occurence by the O'Reillys.

Certainly is a fascinating subject. I hope that somebody comes through for you with a creditable account.

cheers
Wayne

Hi Motherhen

I have seen it, camping outside Boulia one evening. At first I was also really skeptical, and spent a long time just putting it down to a road train somewhere off in the distance (not that I could hear one, or was near a road). After quite a while though I got up and tried (unsuccessfully) to get a closer look at it, and I am convinced it was the Min Min light. I have no explanation for how it occurred though I suspect it is something to do with the air and environment.

It was pretty amazing though, and I was really glad I got to see it.

Zook

As a young bloke driving back across outback NSW towards Mildura in 1981 I encountered something that I could only attribute to being a Min Min light. It was about 2:00 a.m. on a very crisp winters night on One Tree Plain (Hay Plains). There was a very bright light that I at first thought was a semi but after 10 minutes it got no closer to me. I thought spot lighters, a station property and even Venus rising but it was none of those things. While it was bright, it wasn’t blinding. I stopped and watched it for about 20 minutes and it neither moved nor dimmed. It could have been 200 metres from me or 2 kilometres or further off, it was impossible to tell. Driving on, it disappeared as if someone had simply turned it off.

Eerie indeed but not frightening. While not in the vicinity of Boulia, it was a similar unexplained phenomena none the less.

P.S. I didn't drink back then either!

Cheers Mick

Motherhen, you have touched on something very fascinating to me, may I first say I'm very envious of those who have experienced this phenomena. I have been fascinated with the Min Min Light ever since I heard Slim Dusty sing the song of the same name so many years ago, I believe there is a phenomena out there, of what, I'm not sure having not seen it. However, I'm a bit of a skeptic with most things but for some reason I wanted to believe in the Min Min Light.
When we were in Boulia a couple of years ago I badly wanted to go through the Min Min Experience, we had bought the tickets etc only to find that we had to wait for a couple of hours before starting the tour, ( we hadn't been told there was a hold up) we had friends with us and we didn't want to hold them up so it went back on the bucket list.
It's amazing what indescribable things are out there, when I was still home on the farm we could sit outside on a cool crisp night and occasionally would hear a noise in the Ranges (Stirling), the noise I can best describe is like someone banging a sledge hammer on a large tyre but it seemed to echo through the hills. The Old Drovers at the time use to say the hills were haunted, now that I never believed.

MH'

In May 1959 - long before forums etc - I was travelling with my sister and BIL from Darwin to Brisbane in an Austin A40. We left Mt Isa but because of the road conditions it was well and truely dark as we approached Kynuna.

As we proceeded slowly along a road of many tracks we all saw a light in the distance which appeared to be moving with a swinging action as a person walking with a lantern. You will appreciate that in this period it was common for people to move around with hurricane lights so we believed we were close to our destination. The light moved away as we thought we were getting nearer and then changed to a completely different spot on the scene and no human could have moved so quickly.

These lights followed/surrounded us for about an hour and during that period we did not see or hear any other traffic. Three very quiet people when we eventually reached Kynuna.

It quite disturbing as none of us had read or heard of the Min Min lights at that time and it was only later that we discovered what we had experienced.

In the period 1970 to 1976 I travelled extensively in western Queensland and saw the lights on at least three other occasions.

I offer no explanation.

Kevin J

We started opal mining 90 odd km. WNW of Eromanga in 1996.

One evening (after dark) I went around the back of the van for a wee and noticed a light travelling slowly through the scrub at what seemed to be about 3-400 m. distant.

I said to Chris (my wife) I did not realise there was someone camping so close to us. She thought it would be a planet low on the horizon, but it moved horizontally, not at any angle to the horizon.

The next morning I took a walk towards where I had seen the light shining, a flat area between fairly high breakaway mesa's.
No camp or sign of people but plenty of cattle sign (the station is a Brahman fattening holding).

Next time we were in town I mentioned this phenomenon to a mate at the pub who replied it was certainly a "min min".

Since then we have worked several leases in the area (between April/Sept.) and during the course of the season will often see these strange lights. Sometimes they are quite stationary until suddenly extinguished, other times moving along the scrub level and once one that "bobbed" up and down.

The most prolific was on a location between Quilpie and Eromanga where there was a 10km. clay pan in front of our camp. We have seen multiple ones here.

We have also seen a "UFO?", a bright yellow light with sparkly tail travelling horizontally at about 300ft. above ground level.

Unfortunately we are not much into taking photo's, so have no photographic record of any.
mike

Motherhen

A great topic and thread, Iim also very interested in this occurence and have read a couple of books on the topic...

It will be interesting to see the accounts of people who have seen it, and I hope you post some of your findings...

Regards, The Landy

Motherhen,

In 1967, I was working on a station on the Diamantina, due east of Boulia, and we saw a min min light on a couple of occasions. It's too long ago to remember the exact details, but the "old" ringers(in their 40's & 50's) we were camped with, were quite blaise about them.........like they happened all the time.

After some rain in June, that winter was particularly cold, probably the coldest I've ever felt in that country, so the air would have been conducive to such "events".

Did see some min mins on the Barkly Tableland too, but later investigation proved them to be vehicles, on either the Barkly, or Tableland Highways. There was short article in either Outback, or Aussie Geographic, that gave an explanation for some min mins seen in WA.

It's an intrigruing subject, and one that adds to the outback's charm.

Bob.

I had an experience about 3 years ago whilst working at the Argyle Diamond Mine in the Kimberleys that was very strange. Whether it was a min min light or something else more "plausible" it mirrors some of the above experiences.

I was driving a Troopy at about 11.30pm from the Wandarrie construction campsite out to the airstrip that services the minesite to collect something I needed for the following morning. About a 30 minute drive. There is little to no traffic on this service road at this time of night which is why I found it very strange when a very bright light seemed to appear out of nowhere and start behaving erratically behind me. The best way I could describe it would be like a motorbike being behind me and zig zagging as if impatient and waiting to pass but the light was too high to realistically be a bike. I was trying to see if it was a vehicle with only one headlight operational but between trying to keep my eye on the road and figure out what was behind me in the rear vision mirror it completely disappeared. The spooky thing was it happened on a stretch of road where there is nowhere to turn off so if it was a vehicle they would have had to switch their lights off and pull over.

To this day I don't know what it was and I'm not saying it was a min min light but it was very very strange!

Sometime around 1970 I was travelling on a station track on one of the most northern Willandra Lakes, S.E. of Pooncarie, S.W.- N.S.W. accompanied by the station owner.

We both saw a constant white light off to our left, and though we were not travelling fast it maintained our speed. When we stopped, it stopped.

I thought for a while that I was a motor vehicle following us on an adjacent track, but my companion said that no tracks existed in that area, other than the one we were on.

I stopped the vehicle and we both got out and walked towards the light, it maintained it's distance, and we couildn't reach the source. There was no sound, and though the night was clear, I don't recall wether it was hot or cold. It certainly wasn't raining as the far west of NSW was in a serious drought at that time.

We both started to get the wind up and decided to head back to the homestead. Afterwards over a couple of beers the grazier told me that he had seen a similar phenomenon some years previous.

The following day we returned in daylight to where were saw it. We could see our wheel tracks and footmarks, and we walked the ground. There was no sign of any vehicle tracks, and as the lakkbed was rough ground I doubt if anyone would have driven over it. So that discounted a shooter who was trespassing.

At that time N.A.S.A. was conducting high altitude experiments out of Mildura Airport, some 70 miles south of where we were. There was a good deal of reported UFO activity in the district at the time, though I never saw anything even though I did a lot of night driving.

During my lifetime I've seen three UFO's. The first was when I a kid of 5 at Tathra, and one flew over me in broad daylight (circa 1950), on the way home from school. The other was some years later at Wagstaff, when riding home from a P.E. session with other kids around 8.30pm, we saw lights flashing across a part of the sky. The the last one was at Kempsey and my wife & I were driving home near Aldavilla, when we saw for a few seconds a dull object flying north that left a white trail. It wasn't an aircraft because it was going much too fast, there were no navigation lights, and at night aircraft don't glow.

So there you go.

I had the experience of a Min Min Light driving a truck late one winters evening on the Normanton to Cloncurry Road. It was first spotted just after hitting the plains out of Normanton and remained in the far distance to the south west of the road until we hit the hills nearer to Cloncurry. That was for well over 2hrs of driving. My passenger and I tried to come up with numerous what could/how could it be? In the end we just put it down to a possible Min Min.

I enjoyed the Min Min show at Boulia very much, they did a real good job of explaining the experience.

Cheers Tony

Hi Motherhen,

in about 2003 myself and a mate were driving around a station south of Cobar shooting Foxes and saw strange light that sat on the horizon and wobbled about for a good 15 minutes. All of this time we drove towards it but it disappeared. .We were driving south so we put it down to the aroura australis. I must admit we were a bit spooked by it and headed back to camp soon after.

When we arrived home days later I went about researching what we had seen. I believe these lights are a Fata Morgana. This is when light is refracted over the horizon due to particular climatic conditions and is a type of mirage. Nothing like a good story to boost tourism in outback towns though.

I think the best reference that explains these "Min Min Lights is here.

TJ..

Thanks to all who have contributed, this has been a great thread. To those who haven't, keep them coming. My search on EO yesterday brought out only a couple of real first hand reports of sighting. The response here has been fantastic. I wish i could have been as lucky and seen a Miin Min Light.

Mh

Hi MH

Very interesting that Fata Morgana has been postulated. We actually saw one of these last year here during the day, of parts of Curtis Island, including the lighthouse. Normally we cannot see these sections, as they are below the horizon, but on this day there had been a strong cold change, and there on the horizon were very strange shapes, often something like mushrooms. You could see these with the naked eye, but much better with binoculars. The effect lasted all afternoon and into the night, as we could see the flashes from the lighthouse after dark (the distance is about 70km, I think).
Certainly what we saw matched the description and pictures for Fata Morgana given on the internet, with multiple images, some upside down, stacked on top of each other.

Thanks for the post.

Cheers, John

spent plenty of nights out in remote bush
- never seen or heard anything that wasnt easily explained

closest ive got is rising moons mostly obscured by vegetation - can look pretty suss until you work it out

Fox Mulder may want to believe and as a kid i read everything i could find on phenomanons of varies natures but now im over 40 i realise
if i was going to see it i would have by now

these people are out there... ive had 2 people say a house i lived at was haunted... (both females and very strange)

dont worry that i lived there for over 5 years often by myself and the closest i got to a haunting was a 2 on the richter scale at 2.00am one morning

Motherhen,
around 1968 or 1969 around 2 in the morning we was travelling south between Moonie and Goondiwindi. I do remember it was a freezing night and very clear.

A light appeared to our right travelling close and horizontal to the ground. It moved slowly across our path and then out to our left where it eventually disappeared. This took around 5 minutes and we never seemed to get closer to it.

The first reaction from the person I was travelling with was " That must be Howard Sparks or roo shooters". Then the words. "No it can't be Howard as we aren't up to his property yet. There were no breaks in the fences or gates in that section of road.

Even if there had been the light just kept up a steady pace so it was not a vehicle.

I haven no explanation for what both of us saw and I never really considered it to be a min min light due to where it happened.

RA.

Real EncounterGreat Story here..!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeyYsVp-5Oc

Paddy's Lantern or Min Min Light...

We can't say for sure if it was a Min Min but its the only explanation that we could come up with at the time. We were camped at the Old Andado Homestead and were the only people there at the time apart from the caretakers. It was a cool, clear night in July 2008. We were sitting with out backs to the campfire and facing the sandhill opposite the homestead when we saw a light 'bouncing' along on the side of the sandridge. We thought it was the caretaker walking the dog while wearing a 'headlight' as that was about the size of it. When we mentioned it to him the next morning he said he had seen it regularly but was not him. We even checked the hill for footprints and found nothing. So, we put it down to the Min Min.

I've spent a lot of time on lonely country roads, but not much of it in QLD. I've heard of Min Min lights, but never seen anything like the above descriptions in my travels.

However - late one night in 1992, I was travelling to Cue from Perth, up the Gt Northen Hwy in my near-new Landcruiser wagon.
I was travelling alone, and it was about 11:00PM on a cold clear night, with little traffic. Maybe an oncoming vehicle about every 15 or 20 mins.

You could see the oncoming vehicles from kms away, with lights on high beam, that then dipped to low beam as they got closer.

I was well North of Wubin, and probably a little over halfway to Paynes Find at this time.
The countryside is relatively flat, lightly vegetated with low, thick scrubby bushes, mulga and other small scattered trees.

The road was empty for maybe 15 mins, when I suddenly spotted what appeared to be a set of headlights approaching, from about 5kms away, I'd guess.
I was a little surprised, as these "headlights" seemed to appear out of nowhere - there was no earlier indication of them coming towards me on high beam over the horizon, or around a corner.

The lights just suddenly appeared in the distance - and they were relatively dull, like an old VW Beetle with 6 volt lights on low beam.
In fact, that's what I thought it was - someone way out in the boondocks with an old Beetle - and I started wondering why they would be way out there at this hour of the night.
I remember thinking, "Ahh, well, there's always someone roaming around in outback locations with ancient vehicles."

The "headlights" got closer and closer and never altered from their dull light appearance.
I was waiting eagerly for them to pass, so I could try and see what kind of ancient bomb was travelling along the Hwy at this hour of night.

Suddenly, within a 2-second time span, the lights just appeared to turn left off the highway about a km away - and they disappeared.
The turn was executed so fast, it was amazing to see. The lights seemed to virtually go out as they turned.
I was truly puzzled by now. I would have expected to see the lights travelling away from the highway on my right, after they executed a sharp left turn, as they appeared to have done.
The scrub and trees were low enough to allow me to see a vehicle travelling on any road that joined the highway.

I was totally curious by now, and started slowing down to find the road where these "headlights" had turned off.
I slowed down to 20 kmh and travelled about 2kms at that speed, looking carefully at the side of the road, illuminated in the high beams and my dual spotlights. There was no side road. There was just solid scrub.

I turned around and went back. Surely, I'd see dust drifting at least, from any vehicle that had left the highway for a side road. There was no dust.
I went back at least 3kms, and there was nothing. No side road, no laybys, nothing where any vehicle could have turned off.

There were no lights of any type to be seen, no dust, no movement. I turned off the Landcruiser and listened. There was not a sound to be heard.

I drove off and continued my journey, completely mystified. I told some mates later, and they laughed and said things like - "Oh, yes - ole Phantom 309!!"
These lights weren't high enough to be truck lights, they were very low to the road, about the height of an old Beetles lights.
I don't know what I saw that night, and I've spent a lot of nights in the lonely Australian bush, often by myself. I've never seen anything like these lights, before or since.