Sydney UFO, black panther: Bizarre NSW sightings
From the unique to the unbelievable, we take a look back at weird sightings across Sydney over the years — including UFOs, the elusive black panther, and some wild animal stories.
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From UFO sightings and animals on the loose, to the creatures born with extra limbs, Sydney has been home to some wild situations over the years.
We take a look back at some of the bizarre and unbelievable happenings — some of which defy logic and have become the stuff of legends.
Western Sydney black panther
There have been many sightings of the mysterious black cat or black panther roaming across western Sydney over the years.
The legend of the wild beast grew as residents from the Blue Mountains and Macarthur region reported seeing the elusive animal.
In one of the most believable sightings yet, a couple managed to catch a large black catlike creature on video roaming west of Blackheath in 2018.
Belinda Baker and Steve Muiser said they were about 100-150m away when they spotted an animal.
“I would say it was five times bigger than your average feral cat,” Mr Muiser told the Penrith Press at the time.
“It’s either a feral cat that’s found some steroids and grown to or it’s a panther.
“The way it moved was different to domestic and feral cats. It had like a swagger.”
And they’re not the only one who has come forward – with sightings logged from Hawkesbury and Penrith to The Hills district and as far up as the Central Coast.
“I saw a big black cat on my walk near Smith’s Creek Reserve,” Mr Clissold said at the time.
“It was probably 20-25m from me, it was bounding across the fire trail there and disappeared into the bush in a matter of seconds.”
A black cat was also seen as recently as February 2021 in the Northern Rivers region, near Kyogle, while in the past panther-like creatures were also seen around the Nimbin area.
The Northern Star reported residents spotted a “big black cat … about the size of a large dog” and it was “no house cat”.
UFO sightings
Mysterious objects flying in the sky have fascinated generations of people — and NSW has not been exempt, with loads of UFO-like objects spotted.
In 2021, a white disc-shaped object was seen hovering in the night sky in September, prompting residents to take to social media to share their eerie clips. Even though it was later discovered it was in fact a Chinese rocket — that time — others have been convinced UFOs do exist.
And in May 2020, residents reported seeing what they believed was a UFO hovering over Nimbin in broad daylight for about 40 minutes.
Kaz Woodall said she saw a “black ring high in the sky right above the mountain”.
“It was spinning, turning and tossing on its axis, so it wasn’t actually moving through the sky,” she told the Northern Star.
“We were both like, ‘what the f**k is that? I’ve never seen anything like this’.”
In 2017, a Bradbury resident saw three unidentified flying objects hovering and claimed he has sighted 17 different UFOs in his lifetime, including 15 sightings in the Campbelltown region.
“It was a very weird, black object,” he told the Macarthur Chronicle.
“It wasn’t very high up, probably between 500 to 1000 metres.”
Also in 2017, a bizarre object which looked to have “four jet streams coming out” of it was seen from the northern beaches, which the Civil Aviation Safety Authority described as “a mystery”.
Further back in 2014, an unidentified “white balloon-like object” was seen from Parramatta.
Lamb born with a leg on its head
In 2009, a lamb was born with a leg on the back of its head on a Tahmoor property. So all up the animal had five legs and six feet, as it had four functioning legs and an extra leg with two feet attached to its head.
Despite the unusual birth defect, the lamb was otherwise fit and healthy.
Two-headed lizard
The lizard had two functioning mouths and probably wouldn’t have survived in the wild as it would have found it difficult to eat or hunt properly. The staff named it ‘Lucky’.
Head of Reptiles Daniel Rumsey told the Central Coast Gosford Express Advocate at the time: “As an avid reptile lover, it’s always exciting to have something handed in that’s so different and unusual; but we will treat him like the special little guy he is.”
Escaped baboons
It was a sight which shocked Sydneysiders – three baboons on the run from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
In February 2020 a male baboon was being transferred to the hospital for a vasectomy when he managed to escape with his two “wives”, with the large male and two smaller females breaking free from a truck.
They didn’t manage to get too far – they were contained to the carpark area as the streets surrounding the hospital went into lockdown – before being corralled by police and animal handlers from Taronga Zoo.
Buffalo on the loose
In 2014, two water buffalo managed to escape while a Korean TV advertisement was being filmed in Sydney, shocking residents as they fled from Sydney Park at St Peters to the busy streets of Newtown.
A passing fire truck from the Newtown Fire and Rescue station saw the buffalo run past into the intersection with Missenden Rd and gave chase with the station commander at the time telling The Daily Telegraph he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“There were people pointing and screaming and all sorts of stuff. The buffalo were darting in and out of the traffic,” Brad Black said.
“I’ve seen a lot of strange things in Newtown, but never water buffalo.”
The buffalo were eventually herded into the garden at Moore Theological College and then loaded on to a truck before being driven away.
A geep is born
In 2011, a hybrid of a sheep and a goat was born at Follyfoot Farm in NSW’s central coast.
The animal — named a geep — was born to an ewe but is a throwback from his father, a ram that has goat genes.
The farm supervisor Tracey Yeomans told the Central Coast Advocate at the time the hybrid animal is quite rare.
“Everyone here was blown away when it was born,” Ms Yeomans said.
“We immediately researched the internet for other examples and discovered it is a rarity.”
The geep was named Oreo, based on its black and white colouring, and was a standout sight among the other sheep on the farm.
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