On an Aboriginal settlement in the Alice Springs district in 1982, noted documentary film maker, Mr Bill Marshall, entertained the Aboriginal children one evening with a video copy of the American documentary feature film. “Mysterious Monsters”.
When the world-famous footage of a ‘Bigfoot’ [filmed near Bluff Creek in California’s Pacific north-west by the late Roger Patterson] came on the screen, the children began shouting “That’s Pankalanka, that’s Pankalanka”!
Bill Marshall soon learnt that these white-haired people are very fierce, make large stone tools and also fire. I said ‘are’ because according to the Aranda tribal elders, and [as Bill Marshall learnt] also many Europeans, the Pankalankas are still supposed to survive, consisting of several tribes living in the remote Macdonnell Ranges area.
The region where they are said to live is small hereabouts – about 45 square kilometres – and Mt Viel and Mt Liebig are prominent landmarks, and the area is situated at the tail end of the Macdonnell Range in the Belt Range, some 400 km west of Alice Springs.
In an interview with this author some years ago, Bill Marshall said these giants are said to possess a language and that the Aranda Aborigines are able to communicate with them.
Some Europeans who have been able to penetrate the territory of the Pankalankas have claimed to have found some of their giant-size stone tools, and also seen their campfires in the distance at night.
Bill Marshall also informed me that he has seen the fires of the Pankalankas but not their stone tools. Bill’s wife claims to have seen one of these giants, a 2.6m tall, white-haired monster, while they were visiting the Belt Range area. Also, a friend of the Marshall’s, a Mr Geoffrey Hulcombe, informed them some time ago how he also had an experience with the Pankalanka.
He related how, one night in 1982 he camped at a wide billabong situated among large rocks. The next morning he went to wash at the billabong and was shocked to find giant man-like footprints in the mud leading down to the water’s edge.
The Pankalanka are still said to wander the plains at night brandishing their fire sticks, their appearance continuing to inspire fear among the Aboriginal population, and any lone Aborigines unfortunate enough to come upon them.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
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