Residents of the Mayama mountain district of Japan are reporting sightings of kangaroo-like animals. The area is about 220 miles north of Tokyo and, needless to say, does not have any indigenous kangaroos. Over 30 instances have been reported over the last seven years and now journalists are descending (ascending?) on the area to try and capture an image of the elusive beasts.
As odd as this sounds, out-of-place and phantom kangaroos are fairly common in Fortean literature. These animals have a propensity for showing up in areas outside their native Australia and colonies have been established in England, Scotland, Germany and France. These colonies, however, were engendered by human agency (escaped pets and menageries of animal enthusiasts) and still don't account for the phenomenon known as Phantom Kangaroos.
In the United States, these animals have a strange habit of appearing in certain areas (usually the Midwest) for short periods of time and then vanishing just as mysteriously. And sometimes they exhibit strange behavior unknown to the species.
In his excellent book Unexplained!, Jerome Clark mentions sightings going back as far as 1899, when a New Richmond, Wisconsin woman saw a kangaroo in her neighbor's backyard during a storm.
A kangaroo-like creature in Tennessee in 1934 reportedly fed on small animals and killed dogs (kangaroos are strictly herbivores). The animal was described as "fast as lighting." Hunters tracked the animal to a cave where it vanished.
Sightings continued through the 20th century in places like Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, and California. Even Canada is not immune - Phantom Kangaroos have been reported in Ontario and New Brunswick. A 1958 Nebraska encounter even inspired on witness, Charles Wetzel, to create Wetzel Kangaroo Beer.
So how do these kangaroos manage to find themselves in such far-flung locales? No one is sure and conventional theories (escaped pets and circus animals) do not expalin the strange behavior seen in some of these accounts.
But at least one Internet observer has an explanation that has yet to be explored fully - kangaroos can swim.
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Sources:
Unexplained!: Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences & Puzzling Physical Phenomena
Comments
maybe the people that saw them are just hopping mad...
In 2001 I saw a kangaroo in Sweden,in the middle if nowhere!
maybe aliens look like kangaroos...
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