Ruins at site of Min Min Hotel, near Boulia, Queensland, c1967, showing the graveyard. Picture: Les McKay. National Library of Australia

THE MYSTERIOUS Min Min lights were first recorded near the now-abandoned western Queensland settlement of Min Min early last century.

The Min Min light is circular and has fuzzy, moving edges and is usually white, but can be green, yellow, red or rarely blue. The fuzzy orbs can dance around erratically left to right, up and down and back and forth.

While there are scientific explanations for the eerie lights, others believe it is the ghosts of the bodies buried in a grave yard behind the Min Min Hotel.

The Min Min Hotel, located 70 miles from Boulia, was a notorious watering hole that traded from the late 1880s until February 14 1924 when it was destroyed by fire.

The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate reported on August 28 1947 the ghost theory.

Scientists have watched it, and come away baffled, beyond proving that it’s not one of the ordinary will-o’-the-wisp lights which dance over marshy land.

For this “ghost light” or Min Min moves about over hard rocky country, rough, like English will-o’-the-wisps, it haunts a graveyard, too.

In the old rough days, the hotel at Min Min was famed for its wild bawdiness and its gut-rotting drinks. Many a shearer with a big cheque, drank himself to death at the infamous hotel or was killed in a drunken brawl, or was murdered for his money.

The corpses were tossed into the backyard, where mine host had to provide a private cemetery for the many of his customers who received “preferential treatment.”

Is the “ghost light of Min Min an uneasy soul looking for mine host to settle old scores — or is it perhaps, a thirsty soul looking for another swig of the fiery poison which gave it a prepaid passage to death?

Categories: Australian Hotels