This dastardly Japanese death cult is best known for their gassing of the Tokyo subway in 1995 and various other rapscallious deeds – but their greatest hit may have taken place right here in Australia. Aum Shinrikyo owned a big patch of central Oz during the early 90s, and spent a lot of their time here gassing sheep and blowing up various chunks of ochre. Now, at 11.03PM on May 28, 1993, there was a huge seismic disturbance somewhere in the WA outback – about 170 times more powerful than the biggest mining blast. Those in the area reported seeing a blinding flash in the sky and hearing some sort of explosion. The thing is: No one since has been able to explain what the massive explosion was – but it’s interesting that it took place near Aum Shinrikyo’s 500,000-acre property, and that the cult just happened to have two ex-Soviet nuclear engineers among them. Did Aum test a nuclear bomb in Australia? It’s a mystery!!

When the first European settlers hit Australia, just about every animal they discovered was new and weird. The platypus was apparently so “far out” (to use the lingo of 1700s Australia) that when it was shipped back to England, King George thought someone had stitched a duck and a beaver in twain (it’s worth noting he was also a crazy man). At this heady time of weird discoveries, discussions of the “bunyip” were many – so many, in fact, that settlers assumed that it was actually a real animal that merely awaited discovery, murder, taxidermy, shipping to England, and ridicule by King George. The bunyip, they believed, was a monster that lurked in murky billabongs and imitated the sound of a child crying just long enough to lure you in and drink your skin or something. Reports of grim sightings somewhere deep in the mangroves were many; Indigenous people backed it up with claims of bizarre, tusked creatures; and in 1846 a strange-looking skull was actually discovered. Of course we know now it’s all a fairy tale, but are you sure? Really? I swear I saw one at Murray Bridge.

It’s been said before, but here it is again just to prove that I have not yet succumbed to Alzheimer’s: Only in Australia could we lose a Prime Minister. On the morning of 19 December, 1967, then-PM Holt set out for a cheeky snorkel at Cheviot Beach on Port Phillip Bay. And then he just plain up and vanished. A huge search operation was launched, but after two days he was presumed dead, with one idiot police spokesperson making perhaps the most unfortunately-worded announcement in Australian history: “The search has come to a dead halt” (say it out loud). So what happened to Hazza? Theories abound: Was he a secret Commie, and he swam out to meet a Chinese midget sub and defect to Mao? Was it suicide? Was it murder? By the ocean? One thing’s for sure: I never saw Bass Strait on that list of suspects, and if Mick Keelty won’t get off his arse, then I’ll bloody well go down there right now and slap the cuffs on it myself!

On October 21, 1978, 20 year-old pilot Frederick Valentich was flying over Bass Strait when he encountered something very peculiar. At around 7pm, he spotted a strange aircraft nearby, which began to hover around him and flash a series of bizarre green lights. Valentich requested information from base in Melbourne, but was told that there were no other aircraft in the air. Puzzled, Valentich continued to relay the movements of the unknown craft, which moved at tremendous speed and appeared to be “toying” with him. The radio conversation continued until Valentich reported that the mystery craft had suddenly “vanished” – about a minute later, he complained of engine troubles and said that he would continue on to his destination. The last words ever heard from Valentich were: “It is hovering and it’s not an aircraft”, before 17 seconds of unidentified “metallic, scraping sounds” and then a loss of all communication. Neither Valentich nor his plane were ever found. The lesson: never, ever under any circumstances should you try to go to Tasmania.

No South Aussie is truly South Aussie enough until they’ve come up with their own crackpot theory on what happened to the Beaumont kids. On Australia Day 1966, Jane (age 9), Grant (age 4) and Arnna (horribly named) Beaumont set out from their Somerton Park house for a day of fun in the sun at Glenelg beach. Somewhere along the way they vanished, and no trace has ever been found of them since. The Beaumont disappearance became the largest police investigation in Australian history, and we even flew in a psychic from the Netherlands to investigate for some reason. There were false leads and thousands of theories that continued for years afterward. But see, what I reckon happened is this: After playing all day at the beach, the Beaumont kids became thirsty. So they went down to a local billabong for a drink, whereupon Jane was eaten by a Bunyip. Distraught, the remaining pair took shelter in outback WA, where Grant copped an atomic bomb to the face. Terrified, Amma took to the seas, whereupon she met a Chinese midget sub intended for Harold Holt, climbed aboard, and is still living in Beijing today as a high-ranking Communist Party official. Air-tight.