Megalithic Marvels - 5 Ancient Anomalies Discovered Down Under

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

In this episode, we journey across Australia and New Zealand to investigate five of the region’s most controversial ancient anomalies: the Willandra Lakes fossil footprints, the mysterious Gosford Glyphs, the Gympie Pyramid and Gympie Ape, New Zealand’s Kaimanawa Wall, and the enigmatic Korotangi stone bird. Are these simply misunderstood archaeological curiosities, or could they point to ancient voyages, lost civilizations and chapters of history that remain unexplained?EGYPT TOURPHOTOS: Footprints, Glyphs, Ape, Wall, BirdSOURCES: Footprints, Glyphs, Ape, Wall, Bird

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Concern about your gambling or that of someone close to you. Call 16-531-2600 or visit conexontario.ca. So in this episode, we are going to journey across Australia and New Zealand to investigate five of the region's most controversial ancient anomalies. Are these simply misunderstood archaeological curiosities, or could they point to forgotten cultures, civilizations, ancient voyages, and chapters of history that remain unexplained? Number one, the Wallandra Lake Fossil Footprints. Today, this Willandra Lake region of the New South Wales in Australia is a vast landscape of dry lake beds, sand dunes, and wind-swept clay.

But during the last ice age, this was said to have been a chain of freshwater lakes surrounded by grasslands, animals, and ancient communities. Then sometime between approximately 23,000, and 19,000 years ago, a group of ancient peoples crossed a wet clay pan. We're talking adults and young people who moved over the soft surface. Some of them walked calmly. Others ran and their feet pressed deeply into the mud before wind-blown sediment covered the surface and preserved the Impressions. Then thousands of years later, those tracks reappeared. The original scientific report documented at least 124 footprints that were discovered, making the site the largest known collection of Pleistocene human footprints at the time. However, continued research increased the total

to more than 500 prints representing numerous separate trackways. But the mystery begins with the physical abilities suggested by several of these ancient individuals. One trackway known as T8 was attributed to an adult male with get this, an estimated height of approximately six feet four inches. and his stride reached an estimated 12.2 feet. Now, the original analysis calculated that he may have been running at approximately, get this, 23.2 miles per hour. That is pretty crazy fast. In fact, Olympic track runners can reach speeds of up to 26 to 28 miles per hour.

hour, but that's wearing fancy shoes and running on a modern synthetic track. So to put this into perspective, these ancients were running barefoot over a wet and potentially uneven surface. So these ancients may have actually been as fast if not faster than modern day Olympic track stars. Now other researchers have noted that several of these ancient humans appear to have been unusually tall and physically robust compared with many modern populations. Now, this has led some researchers to describe this mysterious walandra culture as ice age super athletes. Now, some even refer to them as giants. Now, looking into this, the longest documented footprint that I can find record of measured about 11.8 inches long, and it belonged to Trackway T1, whose maker was estimated to have stood roughly 6 feet 6 inches.

So not a giant, but that is definitely tall, and these guys apparently ran very, very fast. Now, some would say that a lifetime of hunting and tracking and traveling through rough landscape, living in harsh climates produced physical abilities rarely encountered today in industrial society, and that's why these people were so fit and fast. However, others would argue that these people were possibly biologically different from us. They would argue that possibly these were, hybrids, or dare I use the word humanoids from the old world, even descendants of the Nephilim down under, perhaps. However, I must state that in doing research, I did not come across any footprints that had six digits. What I saw were all five-digit footprints. Now, another trackway kind of adds another strange. detail. Trackway T4 apparently preserved only impressions of a right foot. Why? One interpretation proposed that the person may have been moving on one leg only, perhaps because of an injury or disability. But imagine the implications if the one foot hypothesis is correct,

that a person with a serious disability was not abandoned. That person was moving through the landscape as part of a functioning community. Now, this would seem to transform the footprints from simple anatomical evidence into possibly a record of social care, cooperation, and even survival. Now, the more alternative view also asks whether the tracks preserve one moment from a culture whose sophistication remains largely invisible. Perhaps we are seeing only the smallest surviving fragment of a complex ice age society. Now, according to other experts, the Wallandra region contains evidence of human presence,

they say, stretching back to at least 46,000 years ago. Yet what we do know is that the Wallandra footprints show people, or ancients who understood the landscape intimately and whose physical capabilities may have been extraordinary. And if you want to see a photo of what these mysterious footprints look like, just check the show notes of this podcast and click the link titled footprints. And coming in at number two on our list of anomalies discovered down under is the infamous Gosford glyphs. where these ancient Egyptian explorers in Australia, hidden inside a narrow sandstone cleft near Carrion, north of Sydney, are approximately 300 symbols resembling ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Some of these symbols depict birds, snakes, boats, human figures, crowns, and recognizable Egyptian signs, while others resemble like cartouches containing royal names. The carvings cover opposing sandstone walls, creating this appearance of like a passage into an ancient tomb, which is very interesting. They're not just on one obscure wall, they're on two, which kind of creates this scene of an ancient tomb. Now, according to the most widely circulated translations, of these symbols, the story goes that an ancient expedition reached Australia thousands of years ago.

Some versions of the story identify the travelers as members of a royal expedition associated with Egypt's old kingdom. The expedition supposedly became stranded after its vessels were damaged. Its royal leader or captain was then bitten by a snake and died. The surviving sailors carved a funerary account into the sandstone and placed their leader inside a chamber behind or near the inscribed wall. Supporters of this theory therefore call the site not merely an inscription but an ancient Egyptian tomb complex in Australia. This account is based largely on interpretations developed by a researcher named Ray Johnson.

And advocates of his theory claim that the writings represent an extremely early or proto-Egyptian form of hieroglyphs that many Egyptologists simply would not immediately recognize. So from their perspective, what critics call mistakes, they say actually may be archaic, forms of ancient Egyptian symbols. Supporters also point to apparent royal names among the carvings, including signs interpreted as references to Kufu and Sneferu. They argue that the isolated location would have been an extraordinarily inconvenient place for a casual hoaxer to carve hundreds of symbols. Now, believers in the symbols also claim that portions of the inscriptions seem to display significant weathering, while doubters will point to others that they say look fairly new. So the believer's explanation is that modern visitors added carvings to a genuinely ancient

core, creating the confusing combination seen today at this site. Now, that theory is important because it allows believers in the symbols to acknowledge obvious modern markings without abandoning the entire site. Therefore, the believers in the symbols argue that this site is an example of Palimpset, which is an old sacred location that has been altered repeatedly over time. But as I hinted to earlier, the most fascinating claim concerns what may lie behind the wall, because some believers say the larger sandstone mass beside the inscriptions is hollow and contains the burial chamber of the expedition's deceased leader or captain or pharaoh,

if you want to say that. Now, no professionally documented excavations have established that such a lot of chamber exists, but the possibility of a sealed tomb is central to the legend. So from the alternative point of view, the Gosford glyphs fit into a larger argument that ancient seafaring was more advanced than conventional history allows for. Egypt had boats capable of traveling through the Red Sea and trading over long distances. Other ancient peoples moved goods throughout the Indian Ocean. Australia was not physically isolated from the wider world.

People reached it tens of thousands of years ago, and later maritime contacts brought new animals and technologies into the continent. Those in the alternative camp or believers in the glyphs would therefore ask, If humans could cross open water to reach Australia in the deep past, why is an Egyptian voyage treated as inherently impossible? Now, the way that most archaeologists would answer that is that the possibility is not the same as evidence. Egyptologists who examine photographs of these symbols

usually point out that the signs combine forms of different periods. they say they fail to follow normal writing direction and do not produce coherent Egyptian sentences. So at the present, there is no accepted mainstream archaeological acceptance of these symbols. But I should point out that most of these same archaeologists would also tell you with a straight face that great pyramids were simply just tombs.

But the Gosford glyphs continue to fascinate us because they represent one of the most provocative questions in Australian history. Could an ancient expedition have crossed the ocean reach the eastern coast of Australia and left behind a story that modern archaeology refuses to recognize? And to see a photo of what these glyphs look like, just click the link in the show notes below titled glyphs. and being that we were on the subject of ancient Egypt, just a quick invitation to invite you to join me in Egypt this December on my Egypt tour. We're going to see 20 plus sites over a period of about 12 days,

and it's going to culminate in a private visit inside the Great Pyramid with just our group for a couple hours, all by ourselves. This is going to be incredible. You can go to megalithic marvels.com slash tours, or click the link in the show notes below. And coming in at number three on our list of anomalies discovered down under is what's known as the Gimpy Pyramid and the Gimpy Ape. Now, Gimpy is the name of a town located outside of Queensland.

And there stands, this terraced sandstone ridge, often referred to as the Gimpy Pyramid. Now, no, this does not resemble something like the pyramids of Giza. It's more of just a rounded hill with a series of low terraces, scattered stones, and evidence that the ancients may have used part of its location over a very long period of time. Now, who built this ancient structure and when remains the big mystery as the site has been plundered and destroyed for the most part over the ages. Again, today, there is this hill with this stepped mound standing about 100 feet high and about two to 300 feet wide at the base with some partial stone walls left and piles of rocks at the summit. But what the locals referred to as the Gimpy Pyramid was practically unknown until the 70s

when a local elder decided to come out publicly. and talk about this site, that it had ancient origins. And then also in the 70s, the local tribe there basically reclaimed the forgotten mound, then known as Rocky Ridge. And it's become a site of significant importance to the local ancestral history there. And it became even more popular in like 1975 through the writings and research of a guy named Rex Gilroy, who claimed that he had discovered it.

And so the mystery began to take on a life of its own and gain national attention through Gilroy's writings. And he argued that the hill was not simply a natural ridge or abandoned agricultural terrace. He said it was the remains of an ancient ceremonial structure constructed basically by overseas visitors, possibly even Egyptians who traveled to Australia in search of minerals.

So it's quite interesting that this site and the last one, the Gosphord Glyphs, the legends both talk about ancient Egyptians in the region in Australia. Now, Gilroy's theory did not rest on the shape of this one hill alone, but he and other researchers assembled a collection of supporting clues, which included unusual stone walls, possible inscriptions, traditions concerning restricted access to the area, grinding grooves, and carved objects or artifacts, and reports of stone formations that had allegedly been removed or even destroyed. And so speaking of these artifacts, the most famous would be what's known as the Gimpy Ape. And this mysterious artifact

was discovered by a guy named Farmer Dal Berry who uncovered the carved stone figure while plowing a field of his near the town of Gimpy in 1966. And as you can see if you Google Gimpy Ape or click the link in the show notes below titled Gimpy Ape. The object has an ape-like face, this rectangular head and arms crossed over its body.

and it's now displayed at the Gimpy gold mining and historical museum. Now, many researchers have compared the Gimpy ape figure to South American carvings and statues. One researcher named Gavin Menzies, who is known for arguing that Chinese fleets explored much of the world before the Europeans. He connected this Gimpy ape statue with Chinese miners or seafarers. Now, if you ask the museum authorities there where it's housed, word is they will basically acknowledge that they are unaware of definitive, geological, or scientific testing that is established when or where the object was carved or where it comes from. Nobody really knows.

And it's this uncertainty that keeps the gimpy ape alive as a genuine anomaly. The carving is real. Its reported discovery predates the modern popularity of the Gimpy Pyramid legend. But when the carved figure, the terraces, the stone formations, and the possible symbols appear in the same general region, proponents argue that the total pattern deserves investigation. Now, apparently, I've also read that this town of Gimpy stands at the meeting point of three major, lay lines in the earth. That's interesting of true. But what we do know about this mysterious artifact is that it is, in fact, an anomaly. Okay, moving to number four on our list is the Khamanawa wall.

That's a mouthful. Is this a natural geological formation or the remains of a forbidden, lost civilization. Deep inside the forest near Lake Topaw in New Zealand's central north island is a rock face that looks remarkably like a wall made from gigantic stone blocks. Horizontal and vertical joints divide the surface into large rectangular shapes. Some appear to sit in courses. Others seem to overlap or interlock. Moss roots and dense forests now cover much of this strange formation. And to many onlookers and visitors, it looks built. It looks constructed. It looks artificial. It reminds me a lot of the Montana megaliths, otherwise known as the sage wall there in Montana that is very controversial. as many believe it's an ancient, very weathered megalithic wall,

and others believe it's just really an exotic natural formation. Now, controversy over this mysterious site erupted about 1996 when a guy named Barry Brailsford argued that the formation might be evidence of an ancient culture that had occupied New Zealand long before the generally accepted Polynesian settlement period. Brailsford reportedly described the Kamanawa Wall as the strongest physical evidence for his proposed early Wataha civilizations. His chronology placed this culture in New Zealand roughly 2,000 years ago, which would have been many centuries before the mainstream archaeological dates that normally associate this area with permanent Polynesian settlement. Now the alternative theory here begins with geometry. Supporters who believe this is an artificial wall point to the broad flat faces and joints that sometimes appear unusually straight.

They claim the central stones are too large, too uniform and too tightly positioned to result from random natural fracturing. Some of the blocks seem to display angled edges that can be interpreted as deliberate bevels. Now, proponents have claimed that additional flat surfaces and block-like forms continue underground, suggesting that the visible wall may only be the upper portion of a much larger buried structure. Ground penetrating radar that has been done has been cited by believers as reported, detecting subsurface features in front of the visible rock face. Alternative leaning researchers, they would ask what the purpose of the wall might have served. Possibilities include the foundations of a larger structure, a temple, a defensive structure,

the outer face of a platform or even part of a buried pyramid-like complex. Now believers that this is an artificial wall would argue that authorities refuse to excavate because proof of a pre-maori civilization would complicate accepted New Zealand history and restrictions on digging are therefore interpreted as evidence of a cover-up. Now those who believe that this is just a natural formation or an anomaly, they would say that this formation consists of material produced by volcanic activity like over 300,000 years ago. When the hot volcanic material cooled, they would say it contracted and it fractured. In that erosion, earthquakes, roots, and long-term weathering, then widen the fractures and exposed the block-like shapes.

However, the Kamanawa wall retains it. power because it exposes this conflict between sight and what some call science. When you look at it, to most people, their eyes tell them they're looking at masonry, but others would argue the geology is telling you that nature can imitate architecture. I say the responsible alternative is to get some modern lightar going, some more ground penetrating radar, do some careful digging, and let's settle this

this month. Is this natural or is this an artificial wall? And I'd actually really like to know what you think. Leave me a comment and let me know if you think the Kaimanawa wall is natural or if it was built. In fact, I'll do a pull in this podcast, let me know what you think. And that brings us to number five on our list of anomalies discovered

down under, and that is the Korotongi bird. And before I describe this, just a quick reminder to please subscribe to my podcast from wherever you listen. And also give me that five-star rating or review if you can on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. That really, really helps me out. and I would really appreciate it. Now, this anomaly may be coming in last, but it certainly is not least. Because of all five anomalies, the Korotongi bird may be the most genuinely enigmatic.

It's absolutely not a collection of disputed inscriptions. No, this thing is real. It was intentionally carved. It's an object. It's an artifact with a ton of cultural history behind it. but the big mystery is its origin. Now this Korotungi Bird figurine is approximately 10 inches long, and you can see if you Google it or click the link in the show notes that says bird.

This thing was carved from this beautiful dark green serpentine stone. And it's got just incredible intricate features. And it combines features that observers have variously compared with a duck, a pigeon or even a dove. Now, its Maori name is commonly translated as bird of sorrow. And if I didn't say it earlier, Maori refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. Now, this Koretongi bird was reportedly discovered near New Zealand's Aoutia Harbor.

This is a natural inlet on the western coast of New Zealand's North Island. and it was discovered during the late 19th century after a tree was uprooted, exposing the object among its roots. When geologist Julius von Haast examined the carving during the 19th century, he described it as a remarkable example of what he called Eastern art. He believed it resembled carved bird objects from regions with long traditions of skilled, craftsmanship and suggested that its mineral source might reveal where it had been manufactured. Other researchers later theorized that some of its features appeared to have even been produced

with metal tools. These observations created a serious puzzle because the ancestors of the Maori did not traditionally manufacture iron or branch tools before European contact. So if the metal tool interpretation is correct, several possibilities emerge. The first is that the Korotongi bird was carved somewhere in Asia or the Western Pacific and then passed gradually through trading networks until Polynesian navigators acquired it. Under this scenario, it may have been an ancient heirloom long before it reached New Zealand. The second possibility is that it came from a shipwreck or an undocumented encounter between Polynesian voyagers and sailors from a metalworking culture. The third is that it was made after European contact and later became associated with an older

tradition. Now the alternative Asian origin theory gained strength from some oral traditions and legends that state when the object surfaced during the 19th century that Maori elders did not reportedly treat it as an unknown curiosity. The oral traditions state that the locals recognized its name and connected it with ancestral songs or laments. And one story says that an elderly chieftainess bowed before the object and sing a composition associated with it after learning where it hadn't found. If those accounts are accurate, the memory of the Korotongi bird may have existed before the rediscovery of the physical carving. One possibility is that the traditions referred originally to a sacred or legendary bird

and were later attached to the rediscovered artifact. Another is that the carving truly was a remembered ancestral treasure whose location had been lost. Is it possible that a form? made artifact could have become fully integrated into Polynesian and Maori traditions, because objects do travel farther than populations. When you think about it, a carved bird could be exchanged repeatedly, inherited for generations, and carried aboard multiple voyages until its original maker was forgotten. The crucial scientific questions remain unanswered in the publicly available record.

Where did the serpentine stone originate? Are there residues inside any of the artifacts' grooves? Does the artistic style have a convincing parallel elsewhere in the Pacific or Asia? Without secure excavation context, the object itself cannot easily be done. as stone does not contain carbon that cannot be radiocarbon dated or tested. Researchers must instead, therefore, rely upon tool marks, surface weathering, geological sourcing, and cultural comparison. So the million dollar question really is, is the Korotongi bird a relic of a forgotten

pre-maori lost civilization? Again, I would love to know what you think. Leave me a comment below. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, share it with somebody, and I will see you next time.