Could these mysterious lights in North West Qld be the Min Min?

A North Queensland resident remains puzzled by strange lights that have appeared late at night in December two years running. Could they be the legendary Min Min or extraterrestrial? Watch the videos.

Mysterious balls of lights have been recorded on a phone camera on the outskirts of Mount Isa yet again, a year after they were last spotted, with paranormal investigators tasked to solve the case.

Dozens of lights within the same night have been recorded south of remote suburb, about 3km from the central business district, where there is nothing at night but dark skies, rugged soil and the occasional dingo.

The lights have baffled resident Leanne Kum Sing, who has been looking out for the lights from her patio each night throughout the Christmas season, and it’s prompted her to send her videos to the Non-Human Intelligence Research Institute and to the UFO Research Queensland Group.

“We’ve nearly exhausted every possibility we can think of, so I’ll see what the so-called experts think,” she told the Bulletin.

Ms Kum Sing first captured images of the lights from Boxing Day last December, and said her Indigenous friends and family had seen similar strange occurrences across the outback, including the remote community of Alpurrurulam hundreds of kilometres away.

A strange light photographed on the outskirts of Mount Isa in North West Qld.

They saw special significance behind such sightings.

But the lights returned from December 8 2024, ranging widely in number to more than 70 spotted within a night, and Ms Kum Sing said they usually appeared about 10pm.

“Normally they don’t show up when it’s stormy or cloudy, however, last night (on Sunday) was the first time they showed up while it was very cloudy,” she said.

She had been told by a UFO Research Qld spokeswoman that the sightings coincide with people with dams, creeks, rivers or swimming pools on their properties.

“I have a dam that holds water six to nine months of the year and I back onto Breakaway Creek, which only holds water a few weeks per year, after the rains.

“Nothing out the back at all but a deserted property, no roads and kids are probably too scared of the dingoes and the dark to venture out there.

“We’ve also driven about 10-15kms out of town one night, south, and sat and observed for a few hours, but sighted nothing.”

Two hundred and fifty kilometres to the south is the town of Boulia, known for its outback camel races but also for the “unsolved modern mystery” of the Min Min lights.

An image of one of the mysterious UFO lights shining on the outskirts of Mount Isa.

These mysterious lights have been spotted in a large outback areas throughout the years, including by long-serving regional journalist John Andersen, who described them as a “slow moving ball of light that does not throw out a beam”.

In his Talk of the North column in the Bulletin about 18 months ago, Andersen claimed to have seen them at Kynuna and while driving near Winton, and had written about them several times throughout his lengthy career.

He interviewed a drover named Edna Jessop, who had moved cattle extensively across the Kimberley, Northern Territory to Camooweal and Dajarra, and had only ever seen it once.

“Interestingly, Edna, who spent her life working with Aboriginal people, had never heard them talk about the Min Min light,” Andersen said.

“This reinforces the assumption that the Min Min was not around in the pre-industrial age.”

The UFO Research Queensland Group was contacted for comment and did not respond before deadline, but Ms Kum Sing believed what she was witnessing was different to the Min Min.

“I’ve seen one as a kid and my family and others have seen them too, many years ago,” she said.

“They’re more a singular larger following behavioural type of light.”

Originally published as Could these mysterious lights in North West Qld be the Min Min?