It's the 6th of July, 1835. In Port Phillip Bay on the south eastern 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 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 son,

a moon, a bird, and two English letters, WB. 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. That's after this.

The story starts in 1802. A rotting wooden ship is floating in the Thames River in London.

The city's jails are so overcrowded in the stand age that the government uses old warships

to house prisoners. One of these prisoners is William Buckley. Buckley was caught with a stolen

bolt of cloth in his possession, and he's been sentenced to death. So Buckley is in the hold of

this ship with a manacle around his ankles. A guard whombers up to him, clears his throat.

He has an announcement. Buckley has gotten a reprieve on his death sentence. Instead of the gallows,

he'll soon be put away on another ship and sent away from here, to perform hard labor

...