Scientists are all but certain thylacines — Tasmanian tigers — were extinct on the Australian mainland by the time European settlers arrived, but as far back as the 1870s people have reported sightings of the carnivorous marsupials on Queensland's Cape York.

Every now and then another story emerges and this week is no different.

After hearing University of New South Wales professor of palaeontology Mike Archer tell ABC Far North he was attempting to clone thylacines, former tourism operator Brian Hobbs decided to share his claim that he had an unlikely encounter with a family of the animals in 1983.

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Mr Hobbs said he was camping with a friend when, in the middle of the night, something startled his German shepherd.

"I hopped out of bed and put her [the dog] on a short leash, grabbed a spotlight and started to look around the camp towards the ravine area where I'd been walking the dog previously," he said.

"All of a sudden I had these sets of red eyes looking at me and there was a male, a female and two pups — I got within 20 metres of them."

He said the animals made next to no noise as he approached and seemed curious about him and his camp.

"These animals, I've never seen anything like them before in my life," he said.

"They were dog-shaped — I had a shepherd with me so I certainly know what dogs are about — and in the spotlight I could see they were tan in colour and they had stripes on their sides."

According to Mr Hobbs the family of animals paid his camp another visit before the night was out, and again made no signs of aggression.

'Never say never'

Distinguished research professor Bill Laurance from James Cook University is no stranger to tales of legendary creatures roaming the wilds of Australia.

"You learn in science to never say never [because] every time we think we know everything it turns around and bites us on the backside," Professor Laurance said.

He said aside from dingoes, wild dogs and feral pigs there were few mammalian or marsupial inhabitants of the area that fit the description given by Mr Hobbs.

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"There's a lot of hybridisation between dingoes and wild dogs, so you can get them taking a variety of forms, also feral pigs have a really remarkable array of different colours and patterns," he said.

"But the observation of the two adults and two pups is really interesting … I would have liked to ask about exactly where the stripes were."

Ranger's recollection

Former Queensland National Parks ranger Patrick Shears spent years patrolling Cape York during the 1970s and 80s.

Mr Shears said whenever he heard reports of thylacine sightings he would consult people from Aboriginal communities in the respective areas.

"They pretty well confirmed that they know about a dog-like creature — not a dingo — that's often seen at night," he said.

"They call it the 'moonlight tiger' … they're just part of their church — the church of the bush."

Mr Shears said he was lucky enough to have seen a creature resembling a thylacine or moonlight tiger while on patrol one evening.

Much of Cape York's wilderness remains unchartered. ( ABC News: Kirsty Nancarrow )

Like Mr Hobbs, he said the creature was shy but inquisitive.

"They're curious. If you're not moving and not making a noise they'll come within a reasonable range and check you out then just trot off," he said.

Discovery would 'stop the earth turning'

Although Professor Laurance would not rule out the existence of a thylacine on Cape York, he said the persistence of a species with such a small population density "stretches the realm of what a mainstream biologist would call highly plausible".

"[Discovering a living thylacine] would almost stop the earth turning on its axis in terms of how big the news would be," he said.

"It would be an absolute revelation and would change the way a lot of people think about a lot of species that we may have presumed to have gone extinct but possibly have not entirely disappeared."

He said anyone willing to share the location of their encounter with a suspected thylacine would likely find a raft of biologists willing to investigate, provided their story stood up to rigorous questioning.

"If you're a rock musician, getting your face on the cover of Rolling Stone would be the biggest thing, but for a scientist it would be getting your face on the cover of Nature," Professor Laurance said.

"You would have your face plastered all over the cover, plus headlines all over the world."