Dark Australia

Deep in the Australian bush, people have been reporting strange creatures for generations.

Massive ape-like figures moving through the trees. Black panthers stalking rural New South Wales. Giant reptiles that should have disappeared thousands of years ago. And animals officially declared extinct that some insist are still out there.

In this episode of Dark Australia, we explore some of the country’s most enduring cryptid mysteries from the Yowie and Australia’s mysterious big cats to alleged modern thylacine sightings, giant goannas and strange creatures said to inhabit our waterways.

Some stories can be explained.

Others are probably folklore.

But every now and then, there’s a sighting, a footprint or a piece of evidence that makes the story just a little harder to dismiss.

Because Australia is a very big place.

And there are still plenty of places where something could be hiding.

In 1822, eight convicts escaped one of the most brutal penal settlements in Van Diemen’s Land and disappeared into the wilderness.

What followed became one of the darkest survival stories in Australian history.

Starving, exhausted and hopelessly lost, the group began to turn on one another. Men vanished. Bodies were butchered. And when Alexander Pearce eventually emerged from the bush, his account was so horrific that authorities refused to believe him.

Then he escaped again.

In this episode of Dark Australia, we follow Pearce from the hell of Sarah Island into the unforgiving Tasmanian wilderness, through murder, cannibalism, confession and execution and examine the disturbing truth behind the man who became known as Tasmania’s convict cannibal.

This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence, death and cannibalism. Listener discretion is advised.

In Part Two of The Family, the world Anne Hamilton-Byrne built begins to collapse.

After years of isolation, control, punishment and psychological conditioning, some of the children start to question the life they have been forced to accept. Leeanne Creese escapes. Sarah Moore is pushed out. Both begin speaking to police.

Then, on 14 August 1987, authorities raid Kai Lama.

For the children inside, rescue does not feel like rescue. They have been taught to fear the outside world, distrust police and believe Anne is their mother, their spiritual authority, and the centre of their future.

What follows is the unraveling of one of Australia’s most disturbing cult stories, including the removal of the children, the investigation that became Operation Forest, the international hunt for Anne and Bill Hamilton-Byrne, and the legal outcome that left many survivors feeling justice had barely arrived at all.

This episode also looks beyond Anne herself, focusing on the people who escaped her control, rebuilt their identities and spent the rest of their lives trying to understand what had been done to them.

Behind the gates of a secluded property near Lake Eildon, a group of children were being raised almost entirely apart from the outside world.

They dressed alike. Their hair was dyed the same colour. They were told they were brothers and sisters.

And at the centre of their world was a woman they were taught to call mother.

Her name was Anne Hamilton-Byrne.

In Part One of this Dark Australia investigation, we trace the extraordinary rise of The Family from Hamilton-Byrne’s beginnings as a charismatic yoga teacher to the creation of a secretive movement that attracted doctors, nurses, academics and wealthy professionals.

We examine the beliefs that held the group together, the network that helped Hamilton-Byrne acquire children, and the isolated world created for them at a property known as Uptop.

Behind the carefully constructed image of a perfect family, something far darker was taking place.

This is the story of how The Family began and how one woman gained extraordinary control over the lives of those who followed her.

Part One of a Dark Australia investigation into The Family.

This episode contains discussions of child abuse, coercive control, drug use and other themes that some listeners may find distressing. Listener discretion is advised.

On 29 July 2023, five people sat down for lunch at a home in the small Victorian town of Leongatha.

On the menu was Beef Wellington.

Within days, three of the guests were dead. A fourth was critically ill. And at the centre of the investigation was the woman who had prepared the meal... Erin Patterson.

What followed became one of the most closely watched criminal cases in modern Australian history.

In this episode of Dark Australia, we reconstruct the lunch, the sudden illnesses that followed, the discovery of deadly death cap mushroom poisoning, and the extraordinary investigation that began to unravel Patterson's story.

From discarded evidence and changing explanations to the digital trail uncovered by police and the evidence eventually presented before a jury, we follow the case from a seemingly ordinary family gathering to a murder trial that captivated the country.

A meal. A lie. A family destroyed.

This is the story of Erin Patterson and the mushroom murders.

Dark Australia contains discussions of murder, death and other themes that some listeners may find distressing. Listener discretion is advised.

On the morning of 6 April 1966, something extraordinary happened above a suburban school in Melbourne.

More than 200 students and teachers reported seeing a strange flying object descend over Westall High School before disappearing into nearby paddocks. Within minutes, rumours spread of military vehicles, unexplained government interest, and witnesses who claimed they were warned never to speak about what they had seen.

Nearly sixty years later, the Westall UFO incident remains one of Australia's most compelling unsolved mysteries.

Was it a secret military experiment? A case of mass misidentification? Or did hundreds of ordinary Australians witness something that has never been satisfactorily explained?

In this episode of Dark Australia, we reconstruct the events of that morning through eyewitness testimony, archival reports, historical records, and decades of investigation. Together, we'll separate established fact from legend and explore why the mystery of Westall continues to captivate believers and sceptics alike.

Because sometimes... the most unbelievable stories are the ones witnessed by hundreds of people.

After weeks stranded on the remote Houtman Abrolhos Islands, Jeronimus Cornelisz's reign of terror is nearing its end. While innocent survivors continue to be hunted, a small band of soldiers led by Wiebbe Hayes prepares to make a final stand.

In the dramatic conclusion to Australia's darkest maritime story, we follow the desperate battle for survival, the capture of one of history's most ruthless mutineers, the arrival of rescue, and the brutal justice that followed.

But the Batavia isn't simply a story of murder.

It's a story of leadership, courage, human nature, and how ordinary people responded when civilisation disappeared.

Nearly four hundred years later, the Batavia remains one of the darkest chapters in Australian history, and one of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told.

In Part 3:

• The final confrontation between Wiebbe Hayes and Jeronimus Cornelisz
• The arrival of the Sardam
• The executions that shocked the Dutch East India Company
• The fate of the surviving mutineers
• The first Europeans abandoned on mainland Australia
• The Batavia's enduring legacy

BATAVIA

Part Two: The Ship of Secrets

After surviving one of history's most catastrophic shipwrecks, the passengers of the Batavia believe the worst is over.

They're wrong.

Stranded on the barren islands of the Houtman Abrolhos in 1629, the survivors face a new and far more terrifying threat, not from the sea, but from one of their own.

As Jeronimus Cornelisz consolidates power, fear becomes a weapon. Survivors begin disappearing. Loyalty is rewarded. Dissent is fatal. Meanwhile, a small group of soldiers led by Wiebbe Hayes unknowingly become the only obstacle standing between Cornelisz and absolute control.

In Part Two of our Batavia series, we explore the chilling rise of one of history's earliest island dictatorships, the calculated murders that followed, and the extraordinary acts of courage that laid the foundations for a desperate fight for survival.

⚓ Shipwrecked. Betrayed. Butchered.

The battle for Beacon Island has begun.

Listener discretion is advised. This episode contains historical accounts of murder, violence, coercion, and disturbing themes based on documented events from the 1629 Batavia massacre.

BATAVIA

Part One: The Ship of Secrets

In 1629, a Dutch merchant ship carrying hundreds of passengers, crew, and a fortune in silver struck a remote reef off the coast of Western Australia.

More than 300 people survived.

What followed would become one of the darkest and most shocking stories in Australian history.

In Part One of our Batavia series, we explore the rise of the Dutch East India Company, the doomed voyage of the Batavia, and the mysterious figure of Jeronimus Cornelisz; a failed merchant whose ambitions would help transform a shipwreck into a nightmare.

As conspiracies form aboard the vessel and tensions simmer beneath the surface, disaster strikes on a cold June night, leaving hundreds stranded on barren islands at the edge of the known world.

But the wreck is only the beginning.

Because among the survivors is a man who sees opportunity where others see tragedy.

And the real horror has yet to begin.

🎧 New episodes weekly.

⚓ Shipwrecked. Stranded. Betrayed.

This episode contains historical accounts of death, violence, and disturbing themes. Listener discretion is advised.

DARK AUSTRALIA — Episode 7

Ivan Milat: The Backpacker Killer
Part Three — The Monster of Belanglo

The hunt is over.

In the final chapter of our Ivan Milat series, we follow the investigation as it closes in on the man behind the Backpacker Murders and uncover the evidence that would ultimately bring one of Australia's most notorious serial killers to justice.

From police raids and chilling discoveries, to the trial, prison years, and enduring questions that still surround the case today, this episode explores the psychology of Ivan Milat, the legacy of Belanglo State Forest, and the impact these crimes had on Australia and the world.

How did a seemingly ordinary man become one of Australia's most feared killers?

Did Milat have more victims than police ever discovered?

And why does the name Belanglo still send a chill down the spine of so many Australians?

This episode contains detailed descriptions of violence, murder, and disturbing criminal behaviour.

Listener discretion is strongly advised.

🎧 New episodes weekly.

🌲 Enter Belanglo after dark.