Based on Australia's best-known ghost story, Raymond Longford's film is an account of the real-life murder of James Frederick Fisher and his ghostly vengeance on the man who killed him. Fisher, a resident of Campbelltown (New South Wales), disappeared in June 1826. Some four months later, his apparition appeared before a settler named Farley and claimed that his neighbour George Worrall was the murderer. The ghost then led Farley along a creek bank to a place where Fisher's body was later recovered from the water. Farley's experience subsequently led to the arrest, trial, and eventual execution of Worrall.