Case file · High strangeness
Lamont Young, Mystery Bay
In October 1880 government geologist Lamont Young and four companions vanished near Bermagui on the New South Wales south coast. Their boat was found stranded with their bags and papers and a bullet lodged in its side; the men were never found.
1880 CE · -36.30, 150.13 · status: unexplained
The account
The spot is now called Mystery Bay. Theories range from a boating accident and murder by a boatman to abduction; the case remains officially unsolved.
The researched reading
A government geologist and four companions vanished; only their damaged boat was found. Foul play or drowning in surf explain it.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Undetermined | 37% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 34% | The boat was found stove in on rocks at what became Mystery Bay; a capsize in surf with all five drowning, and bodies taken by sea and sharks, is the simplest explanation. |
| A cultural story | 14% | The case grew into a legend with kidnapping and abduction theories, and inspired Arthur Upfield’s novel The Mystery of Swordfish Reef. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 6% | Accounts disagree on names, dates and the number of bullets, showing how much the story changed in the retelling. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | A deliberate human act fits several clues: a bullet (or bullets) lodged in the boat, and a party that included men of uncertain background; murder, or a fight that ended in deaths, was suspected at the time. |
| Something in the surroundings | 2% | Nothing beyond the coast itself. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | Drowning or foul play explains it. |
Official position: A government inquiry and police search found no bodies and reached no conclusion.