Case file · Cryptid
Ranger Naarding's thylacine
In 1982 Tasmanian parks ranger Hans Naarding reported seeing a thylacine in his spotlight in north-west Tasmania, prompting a confidential two-year government search.
1982 CE · -40.90, 144.95 · status: account
The account
Naarding was a trained observer and said he counted the stripes. His sighting is the most cited of the thousands of post-1936 reports; eight unconfirmed reports were logged as recently as 2016–2019.
The sceptical view
The search found no evidence. A 2023 statistical study suggested survival into the late 1990s, but critics called its sighting data unreliable.