Chapter Eighteen
Phone-tapped by Asio and Entertained by
the Cia!
Rex Gilroy is no friend of the establishment, and there is hardly a government scientific department which has not heard of me, nor any scientist with whom I have not already fallen foul of. The reason is simple; I am an historical, anthropological, archaeological and zoological heretic, who refuses to be told what to think by textbooks. And as the leading researcher of Unexplained Mysteries generally in this country, I have for many years encouraged students to think the same, keep an open mind and rebel against the conservative university establishment!
As the original “Yowie Man” who brought the existence of these primitive, tool-making, fire making surviving bands of Homo erectus to public attention in the 1960s and disproved the old, indoctrinated teachings that our Aborigines were our one and only stone-age inhabitants, and that this continent was discovered and explored by the maritime civilisations of antiquity, centuries before the age of Magellan or Cook, and have gathered a huge store of evidence to back up these theories, I am indeed, not at all liked by the conservative university establishment!
In all these matters I have, in the course of a lifetime of research, been the most prolific of writers, having published seemingly thousands of newspaper and magazine articles about my work or have been written about by journalists. And of course I now also write books on these matters. I have given, and continue to give, lectures throughout Australia and in New Zealand on a regular basis on all my researches; and it would be fair to say that I have had hundreds of radio and Television interviews about my work in the course of the past 45 years; all in the course of driving home the punchline – “keep an open mind and don’t be afraid to question the textbooks”!
Such activities are an anathema to establishment scientists and historians, who will often stop at nothing to preserve their supposed ‘authority’ over the public’s minds. Thus over the years I have had to endure often-slanderous attacks and every effort made to suppress my media releases. And when it comes to the subject of UFOs, and my prying into the secret “UFO Bases” just described, it is not surprising that our telephone has been tapped regularly for years now, and our movements closely watched!
And that is what this chapter is primarily about. From the very moment I had my now-famous article “UFO Base Under the Blue Mountains” published in the late Don Boyd’s now legendary “Paranormal and Psychic Australian” magazine [January 1978, Vol 3, No 1] I attracted the [undercover] attentions of ASIO and the phone taps began in earnest. I would like to think that I have made a major contribution to the intellectual development of ASIO personnel, for all those who listen in on my phone conversations will not only hear about the latest UFO sightings, they will be fed the most up-to-date developments in Australian archaeology, history, the natural sciences, the life-histories of our spiders and insects, theatre, opera, cinema and the arts generally!
By now surely I have convinced many of the Yowie’s existence, that there really are plesiosaur-type marine reptiles inhabiting Australasian waters; and that ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Libyans, Chinese, Arabs, Spaniards, Portuguese and others beat Captain James Cook RN to our shores! Not content with listening in on our phone conversations, my ASIO fans want to see me in the flesh. Heather and I run the Blue Mountains UFO Research Club once a month at our home, so the sight of so many carloads of people arriving outside our house every third Saturday of the month was sooner or later bound to attract the attention of our ‘friends’.
On one memorable occasion, two policemen sat reading newspapers and magazines in their paddy wagon outside our kitchen window, for a whole four hours! At one point Heather and I drove out the gate to go shopping and they remained there. They were still there when we returned 30 minutes later. Finally, as darkness began to fall they drove away. A pity, as we were about to invite them in for a ‘cuppa’!
On another occasion a police vehicle conducting a house watch on us from the street outside our front door remained there from late afternoon until around 9pm. When the two officers went to drive off the vehicle wouldn’t start – or so they made it appear – and while one officer opened the hood and flashed a torch about the engine [while we watched from a window], the other knocked on our door and requested to use our phone to call for assistance. Why he couldn’t have used their car radio was beyond us.
As there was something cagey about the man, upon his departure after thanking us and returning to the vehicle, I searched for any tiny bugging device that he might have slipped somewhere. Finally another police car arrived and both crews stood talking for a while, then all drove away. It was no surprise to us that the “broken down” vehicle had tuned out to be alright after all. On another occasion a panel van drove back and forth along the side street beside our house, the driver each time looking at our driveway.
By now I had written much more about the Burragorang “UFO Base”, and included a lengthy chapter on the subject in my first book “Mysterious Australia” [NEXUS Publishing 1995], so perhaps it came as no surprise that my ‘subversive’ activities required a stepping up of cloak and dagger activities by the ‘boys’! On one occasion, with Heather away, I took our dog ‘Cuddles’ for a walk out on nearby Narrow Neck Peninsula. As we left the driveway and began walking up the street, I noticed THAT panel van, parked beside the house. As we reached the far end of the street, before turning up into another that leads to the dirt road out onto the ‘Neck’, I looked back to see the vehicle starting up and moving towards us.
The driver, a dark-haired man in a grey dustcoat, drove past us, eyeing me off as he did so. We had no sooner reached the entrance to the road out on to Narrow Neck than he reappeared, driving towards us within a few feet, heading in the direction of the Great Western Highway. He gave me a good long look as he drove past. Some minutes later as I walked Cuddles down the road, the ‘van man’ suddenly drove past us, heading out towards the Water Board 3km further out on the ‘Neck’. At this I had had enough and turned around. We eventually reached our driveway when the ‘van man’ reappeared up the end of our street, driving slowly past as I stood there with Cuddles returning his stare. He did not reappear.
Your tax dollars at work. ‘Cuddles’ Gilroy, currently under surveillance for suspected
subversive activities by on-the–ball ASIO agents who rival Maxell Smart in stupidity.
Together with her owner, Rex Gilroy, they have been spied on playing in the
backyard and on walks out on nearby Narrow Neck Peninsula!
Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2004.
Photo Rex Gilroy - Cuddles - On the Lookout For Government Telecommunications Technicians
(R.I.P - sadly passed away September 2006)
Beloved Dog of Rex & Heather Gilroy - Sadly Missed by All
There were a number of other, somewhat amusing incidents, all aimed at keeping us on edge no doubt, but my personal favourite was the ‘phantom linesman’.
One morning a Telecom-type van pulled up directly across the road from our driveway. The driver, in overalls, got out and proceeded to get a collapsible metal ladder out of the back of the vehicle and set it up against a telegraph pole. Climbing it [as I watched curiously from the kitchen window] he reached the top, from where he could see into our backyard.The fact that this was what he appeared to be doing made me go outside, where I proceeded to play with Cuddles, throwing her ball for her to catch. At this point I noticed the ‘linesman’ had small binoculars with which he had begun watching our backyard activities. I then moved to the driveway, watching him as he hastily pretended to pull a screwdriver out of a pocket and fiddle with something. “With a bit of luck he’d electrocute himself” I thought as I went inside the house to tell Heather what was going on.
A couple of minutes later from the kitchen window I saw the ‘linesman’ climb down the ladder and sit in the van. I once again went outside, noticing he had a mobile phone in his hand. As I hid behind a shrub I distinctly heard him say over the phone “he’s in the back yard again”. Then as I openly once more began playing with Cuddles I spotted him through the fence about to speak into the phone again. “He’s playing with his dog”, I heard him say. By now I decided to have some fun with him and as I walked out of sight behind the fence to the back door I faintly heard him report “He’s going inside again”.
Returning to the yard after telling Heather the latest, I pretended to pick up a few things such as timber, and some bricks, placing them in one spot, then pretending to arrange some garden rocks, all the while listening through the fence to his continuing reports on my activities. Then I went inside and returned with my own binoculars. By now he had returned to the ladder and was climbing to the top of the pole again. For a linesman he was certainly new to the job, as he didn’t have a tool kit on him, just the binoculars which he once more produced from a pocket and trained them on our yard, at which I walked into view and began watching him with my own. At this he grinned, climbed back down the ladder, folded it up, and placed it in the van.
By now I had walked out of view behind our garage as he spoke something on the phone, laughed and drove away. There was something strange about the vehicle. It was certainly no Telecom van, but sported instead a similar design and as he turned the corner I got a good look at the lettering – “Government Telecommunications” – there was no such organization.
