It's the 6th of July 1835.

In Port Phillip Bay, on the southeastern coast of Australia, it's winter, and it's cold.

A group of white men are sitting by a fire.

The air smells like smoke and eucalyptus.

Earlier that day, they'd shot two kangaroos. They're cleaning their muskets and sharing a loaf of bread.

But then, out of the bush, appears a ghost.

This ghost is a giant man, wearing possum skins and carrying a spear and club. He's dressed like one of the local indigenous people,

but the men at the campfire notice, in astonishment,

that this man is white, and he sits down right next to them at their fire.

The ghost's lips are moving, but he can't seem to find the words.

One of the men reaches for a piece of bread and hands it to him.

The strange man smiles.

Suddenly, the word is there.

Bread, he says.

The ghost shows them a tattoo that he has on his arm.

A sun, a moon, a bird, and two English letters, W.B.

He explains that those were his initials.

William Buckley was his name from another life before he disappeared

over 30 years earlier. I'm Amanda McGowan and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's

strange, incredible, and wondrous places. And today, we're telling you

Australia's greatest story of escape and survival, the story of William Buckley. A rotting wooden ship is floating in the Thames River in London.

The city's jails are so overcrowded in this day and age

...