Residents near Berri, South Australia reported a hissing, scaly creature over six feet tall that fled from a tree when confronted, January 2, 1953.
THINK ABOUTIT ENTITY SIGHTINGS REPORT
1953 Berri, South Australia:
The Ghastly Scaly Creature Encounter
On January 2, 1953, near Berri, South Australia‘s Riverland region, local residents encountered something that hissed down at them from the branches of a tree — a “ghastly looking creature” over six feet tall, with a long, scaly body. It leapt to the ground and fled only when someone went to fetch a gun.
Date: January 2, 1953
Sighting Time: Not documented
Day/Night: Not documented
Location: Berri, near Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Urban or Rural: Rural — Riverland region township
No. of Entity(‘s): 1
Entity Type: Described only as a “ghastly looking creature,” non-specifically humanoid
Entity Description: Over six feet tall, with a long, scaly body; capable of hissing and leaping; no further physical detail (facial features, limbs, coloring) is documented
Hynek Classification: Entity encounter, no associated craft documented — falls outside standard Hynek taxonomy per network convention, since no object of any kind was reported in connection with this creature
Duration: Not documented
No. of Object(s): None documented — no craft or aerial object is described anywhere in this account
Shape/Size/Color/Distance of Object(s): Not applicable
Number of Witnesses: Multiple local residents (exact number not documented)
Special Features/Characteristics: The creature hissed at residents from atop a tree before leaping to the ground; it fled only when a resident went to retrieve a firearm, suggesting either genuine wariness of the gun or simple coincidental timing
Case Status: Insufficient Data — an extremely brief secondhand account with no named witnesses and no further corroborating detail beyond its inclusion in a single published UFO history book
Source: Michael Hervey, “UFOs Over the Southern Hemisphere”
Summary/Description: On January 2, 1953, local residents near Berri, South Australia encountered a “ghastly looking creature” over six feet tall with a long scaly body, hissing at them from a tree before leaping down and fleeing when someone went for a gun.
Related Cases: None documented — occurred the same general week as separate reported sightings at North Bankstown, NSW and Geelong, Victoria, though no connection between the events is established
Detailed Report
On January 2, 1953, in the town of Berri, in South Australia’s Riverland region near Adelaide, local residents reported encountering a creature described only as “ghastly looking” — over six feet tall, with a long, scaly body. The creature hissed at those present from the top of a tree before leaping to the ground. It fled the scene only after someone present went to retrieve a firearm. No further detail on the number of witnesses, the exact circumstances, or any physical evidence survives in the available source material.
Researcher’s Notes
The Berri Creature — 1953 and an Entity Case With No Documented Craft
- This is genuinely one of the sparsest entries in the archive, on par with the 1967 Clare, South Australia case. No named witnesses, no precise time, no follow-up investigation, and no physical evidence survive — only a brief mention in a single published UFO history book.
- No craft or object of any kind is associated with this creature. Unlike most entity reports in this archive, there is no mention of a UFO, landing, or aerial phenomenon connected to this sighting at all — it stands as a pure cryptid/entity encounter, more comparable in structure to a cryptozoological report than a typical UFO occupant case.
- The description — scaly, hissing, tree-climbing — invites comparison to reptilian cryptid folklore rather than the more common “grey” or “Nordic” humanoid archetypes seen in later Australian reports. This page does not speculate on what conventional animal, if any, might account for the sighting, since the source material offers no further detail to work from.
The Berri creature is preserved here as a documented, if minimally detailed, part of the early-1953 Australian UFO and anomalous-phenomena record — a brief, strange encounter with almost nothing else known about it.
A “ghastly looking creature over six feet tall, with a long scaly body, hissed at local residents from the top of a tree.”
— as recorded by Michael Hervey, January 1953
