It’s hard to believe that Australian kangaroos could be hopping around all over the United States. But what’s even harder to imagine is that these out-of-place marsupials appear to posses supernatural abilities as they rummage through the backyards of bewildered people in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Indiana, to name a few.

Phantom kangaroos have been spotted in a variety of urban and rural settings and are said to be particularly hostile. They are described to be 3.5 - 5.5 feet tall with glowing eyes and ghostly characteristics. They have been blamed for slaughtering numerous dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and other small animals in areas with high kangaroo activity.

According to W. Haden Blackman’s Field Guide to North American Monsters, the first reported phantom kangaroo sighting was on June 12, 1899 in Richmond, Wisconsin.

Interestingly, the phantom kangaroo activity appears to occur in waves. Several witnesses in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, including a Reverend W. J. Hancock, spotted the creature in January of 1934. The sightings coincided with mysterious killings of a dog and several chickens. The Kangaroo was allegedly seen fleeing the scene carrying sheep.

From 1957 to 1967, phantom kangaroos haunted Coon Rapids, Minnesota and were spotted by numerous startled witnesses who dubbed it "Big Bunny".

Hundreds of people witnessed a phantom kangaroo in Chicago, Illinois, on October 18, 1974. It kept people away with viscous displays and vanished over a fence before police could capture it.

In 1980, a kangaroo was said to haunt San Fransisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Evidence of these phantom kangaroos is severely limited. One of the mysterious marsupials was allegedly hit by a car and killed on August 31, 1981. However, both the corpse and the anonymous driver disappeared before they could be investigated. And a fuzzy photograph taken on April 24, 1978, shows a slumping figure (which resembles a kangaroo) in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

So what are these phantom kangaroos? Are they ghostly apparitions of Australian wildlife? Or are they zoo escapees? The latter is the most likely explanation, but local zoos were contacted during a number of these mass sightings and none reported missing their kangaroos. Plus the zoo escapee theory does not explain the "intangible" quality these creatures appear to have. Whatever these ghostly apparitions are, they have caught the attention of many Fortean researchers, startled numerous eye-witnesses, and avoided police officials who attempt to capture them.