Black Mountain is located in a national park in Queensland, Australia just 16 miles south of Cooktown. Made up of dark grey, granite boulders and stones, each placed precariously atop one another, the mountain conceals a labyrinth of passages and caves. It is said that many individuals have ventured nearby or beneath the stones never to return again.
Stories of how Black Mountain was created come from the Aborigines who call the mountain Kalkajaka, or the place of the spear. The Aborigines believe it was created in the dreamtime, or sacred epoch in which their non-human, totem ancestors are attributed with Creation.
There are reports of screams and moans coming from the mountain as well as supposed unexplained disappearances of men and cattle that had either gotten too close to, or went into, the mountain.
The first written account of a disappearance was in 1877. It was reported that a man, his horse and the stray cattle he went to look for all mysteriously disappeared without a trace within the mountain.
A later account is of two men who were said to have disappeared also looking for stray cattle. One of the men contacted the authorities before he went in search of the first man who had gone missing and when he never returned the police put together a small search party.
The report goes on to say that two of the policemen assigned to the search entered a cave in the mountain but only one man came back out. The surviving policeman was allegedly so upset he could not properly convey his experience.
An experienced bushman reportedly entered the mountain and returned to tell his tale. Inside the mountain, and over the course of five hours, he recounted his story.
The bushman reported his encounter with bats, strange moaning sounds, a horrible, lingering smell and of how when his torchlight went out he immediately became disoriented. Panicking, the man said he was cut by unseen rocks and that he began to feel weak and started crawling. He eventually saw some daylight and, at over half a mile from where he entered, he crawled his way out.
Although there are those who want to attribute the disappearances of men and cattle in and around Black Mountain to something sinister and otherworldly, it is believed the cases are not so mysterious.
Littered with crevices, pitfalls and winding tunnels it is generally believed the mountain is simply dangerous. Those that have disappeared are thought to have gotten lost within the mountain and died or to have met with a sudden drop and fell to their deaths.
This, many believe, would adequately explain why there are no bodies or evidence to accompany the disappearances.
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