Database: Sightings & Evidence 1990-1999

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Snowy River Below Mount Kosciusko 1990

Hairy female Creature

In October 1990, Dereck Holmes was camping on a bank of the Snowy River source below Mount Kosciusko. One morning he awoke at first light and peered from his tent. As he did so, he caught sight of a 1.6 metre-tall, hairy female creature standing nearby amid granite boulders.

As he emerged, bewildered at the sight, she bolted away, disappearing over a granite outcrop. It was hereabouts back in 1948 that a party of campers had sighted a tall hairy figure, about 2.3 metres tall, moving up a mountainside through snow at a distance of about 100 metres.

Lake Jindabyne 1990

Muscular giant male Creature

In January 1990, two young women, Susan Townsend and another girl, and their boyfriends were camped on the shore of Lake Jindabyne. Late one afternoon while the others went wood collecting in the surrounding forest, Susan was busy getting the campfire started. Detecting a powerful odour and hearing twigs snapping underfoot, she turned and screamed with fear as a hairy 2.3-metre-tall, muscular, giant male creature, almost ape-like in appearance, emerged from trees a mere 10 metres away.

He approached the girl, but hearing the others returning he bolted in big strides into the forest. The boy's hearing Susan's frantic account of what she had just seen, gave chase up mountainside scrub, thinking the intruder was some weird hermit. Loud snarls and large rocks hurled at them convinced the boys to end their pursuit. Locals to whom they later told their story said they probably saw the Doolagahls that old Aborigines claim still live up in the mountains.

Numinbah Valley 1990

Several large footprints embedded deep in Mud

Shortly after our departure for home in March 1990, a businessman/fossicker, Craig Turner, stopped by a creek in the Numinbah Valley. Leaving his car to walk along the bank amid surrounding rainforest, he found several large footprints embedded up to four centimetres deep in mud. Spaced one-and-a-half-metres apart, the footprints measured 40 cm in length by 17 cm width across the toes.

After obtaining plaster from a nearby town, he made casts of left and right feet from the best tracks and later gave us copies. The significance of these footprints has already been discussed. From a study of their casts I am impressed by Australian man-beast footprints found from widely-scattered, remote mountainous locations, often hundreds of kilometres apart and which display identical physical features.

The tracks are often found by some bushwalker who has chanced to go off the beaten track into areas never frequented by most people. A hoaxer would be wasting his time planting fake tracks in such areas where nobody is going to find them. Some of these tracks have been found in virtually inaccessible forest regions by sheer chance and, in my view, must therefore be accepted as authentic yowie footprints.

An Update

In March 1990, a Sydney based fossicker, Mr Craig Turner, was exploring a remote jungle creek in the Numinbah Valley, when he found over a dozen freshly made hominid footprints in the mud of the bank. Quickly obtaining casting plaster from a nearby town, he was able to make casts from three of the footprints.

Measuring 40cm in length by 17cm wide across the toes and 15cm wide at the heel, they were spaced up to 1.5m apart and were embedded 4cm deep in to mud. The creature who left these footprints must have stood at least 2.6m tall and weighted around 250 kg.

Howqua area east of Lake Eildon. March 1990

During March 1990 Mr Wayne O'Brian and two friends were camped in the Howqua area east of Lake Eildon. While exploring around the edge of thick scrub through long grass, the men saw blowflies buzzing around something in the grass nearby.

Upon investigation they found the carcase of a calf that had been chewed up, and about which were bones and clumps of hair. Shortly after, in a nearby gully they found a pile of excreta. At the bottom of a patch of scrub they smelt a very strong pungent odour. Nearby, in a muddy area the men discovered a number of larger-than-man sized footprints.

Newnes 1990

Tall manbeast-type Creature

In 1990 two Sydney campers, visiting the site for the first time, became unnerved when, late at night, illuminated by the moonlight, a 2.1 to 2.4m tall manbeast-type creature was seen to emerge from nearby pine trees, and walk among trees close to their camp. It left large ape-like footprints in a nearby water course which were found by the men the next morning.

Johnson's Hole 1990

Large man-ape like Footprints

The Hill End district still remains a notorious region for modern-day Yowie reports, as will be demonstrated further on. Today Johnson's Hole still retains its eerie, uneasy feeling. Weird cries have been heard at night in the surrounding area, and large, man-ape like footprints claimed found in soil near the river from time to time.

One evening, around dusk, in 1990 a young Sydney couple on a camping trip, decided to stay overnight near the hole. They knew nothing about its reputation. During the night, something walked up to their small, two-man tent, and began tearing it from the ground.

As the girl screamed, and her male companion fought his way out of the tent, he felt himself grappling with a dark hairy and putrid-smelling form that quickly broke off the attack and dashed off into the darkness
Dorrigo District 1990

Hairy man -Beast

During February 1990, the Dorrigo district was the scene of a terrifying encounter with a hairy manbeast that had the local bushwalking community more than a little concerned. Three teenage boys had been camping in the Dondingalong area when one day near their camp, they were surprised by a 2.6m tall 'animal', who sprang from out of bushes to grab one of the boys and attempt to drag him away.


As his terrified mates ran to pick up large rocks to throw at the hairy giant, the boy fought frantically with the creature, breaking free with scratches and bruising. The boys ran for their lives. Eventually they returned to their camp with accompanying adults to find it wrecked, their gear scattered about the area, and large man-like footprints in the surrounding soil.

The above incident has parallels with another attempted abduction involving a manbeast, which took place in the Kempsey district about the turn of the 19th century, and is still remembered by old residents.

Ponderosa Area 1990

Enormous Footprints

During March 1990 several enormous footprints were found in the Ponderosa area by a man while fossicking. These measured 44cm in length by 22cm width across the toes.

New England Ranges 1980's-1990's

Large man-ape Footprints

In the early 20th century these tales merged with more contemporary encounters, and during the 1980's and 1990's there were campers and property owners in remote corners of the New England ranges who claimed sightings or the discovery of large 'man-ape' footprints embedded in the bush soil..
The Moonbi Range 1990's

Hairy men & Women

The haunted hills of the Moonbi Range, particularly those enclosing the Bendemeer, Kentucky, Uralla and Walcha communities, have a long tradition of eerie events stretching far back into early pioneering days. Aborigines in these areas warned settlers about the often enormous 'hairy men' and their female counterparts that wandered the granite ranges, emerging from the forests at night to roam the hills.

T hey would, said the tribesmen, kill and eat anyone unlucky enough to meet up with them in lonely places. Even in the 1990's these 'haunted' hills continued to live up to their name.

Walcha Hills 1990

Man-ape Footprints

In the hills behind Walcha, in October 1990 three sets of larger-than-normal 'man-ape' footprints were found together in a swamp by a stockman. And on it goes. Not a year passes without someone somewhere in these ranges coming forward with a sighting report of a Yowie. The reports of the 'hairy man' gathered from across Australia are tantalizing and they show every indication of remaining so.

Throughout the wild New England ranges, 150 years of 'hairy man' encounters ensures that local interest in these hominids from the dawn of Man will never die out. Farmers and others will continue to carry firearms about with them when working in remote areas, and bushwalkers exchange yarns about these "Australian Bigfoot" creatures around the campfire on lonely nights, in the depths of these haunted eerie ranges.

Western Macdonnell Ranges 1990

Irabundi bundi Woman

An Aboriginal man of the Pertama tribe, whose territory is situated 80 miles out of Alice Springs, he is steeped deep in the lore of his people. "Pankalanka drag people out of their swags while they are camping. The female Pankalankas are called the Irabundi bundi, or 'Wild Woman'."

"The Irabundi bundi woman walks around with a fire stick in the western Macdonnell Ranges. She is beautiful and long-haired.

One night in 1990 a man was forced to stop his car for a sleep on a roadside, in the Macdonnell Ranges near Alice Springs. A sound woke him. There staring at him through his open [driver's side] window was an Irabundi bundi woman. She then vanished into the darkness, leaving him very shaken."

Wave Hill 1990

Giant man-like Footprints


North-west of Tennant Creek, at Wave Hill near the junction of Giles Creek and the Victoria River, one day in July 1990 two Aborigines fled in terror when they came upon a number of freshly made giant man-like footprints on the edge of a waterhole.

Great Sandy Desert Encounters 1990's

The dreaded Jimbras

Further south of the Kimberley Plateau lies the vastness of the Great Sandy Desert, one of the fabled homes of the dreaded Jimbras, those monstrous 3-4m tall, powerfully built gorilla-like beings so feared by the Aborigines. The Gigantopithecus-like beings continue to remind us of their presence. Travellers in remote areas have claimed from time to time during the 1990's, to have found the huge footprints of these creatures.

Fitzroy River Near Nookanban 1990

Tall naked male Creature

A 2.6m tall naked male creature was claimed seen by a party of campers on the Fitzroy River near Noonkanban in November 1990.



Snowy Mountains Investigations 1991

Many sightings reported occur around June

In January 1991 my wife Heather and I made an extensive visit to the Snowy Mountains, during which we climbed Mount Kosciusko to investigate the locations of many reports I have received from this region over the years. It is a barren, desolate, windswept and generally inhospitable place for humans to be trapped in. How, then, are our Australian man-beasts able to survive among the rocks of this rugged massif? It may seem unlikely but they do.

The Snowy Mountains region has produced a great many hairy man-beast encounters. Observations reported to me by property owners of the Providence Portal area near Cabramurra have confirmed my own research findings which show that many of these reports occur about June, following the first winter snowfall, when the animal life of the high country migrates into the lower regions to escape the excessively cold conditions of the mountain tops.

It is at this time that sightings of man-beasts or discoveries of their footprints, often on snow covered ground, are most prevelant.

Homo erectus Discoveries 1991

Stone Implements

It was while on a visit to the Nundle State Forest area, east of Hanging Rock, together with my wife Heather, on January 21st, that I stumbled upon an open area atop a deep gully overlooking a vast wilderness that stretched to the eastern horizon. Scattered about the area I found a number of what were undoubtedly only weeks old, crudely flaked stone tools; scrapers, choppers and other implements.

Within a few days I had found another site containing crude choppers and scrapers, once again situated in a very remote, out of the way area of dense bushland; tools that appeared to be only a few months old. I have seen primitive implements of identical appearance over the past few years at other locations, scattered about the former shoreline of a long-vanished giant lake system that covers a vast area to the west of Tamworth, and which had been part of an extensive series of inter-connecting lakes extending north-west to Moree and southward down towards Mudgee during the last ice-age.

Yet the crude implements found around this former lake pre-dated any Aboriginal examples and are identical to those manufactured by Home erectus in Java and China. The massive lake systems in question dried up within the last 15,000 years, although deposits near Attunga, to the north of Tamworth, where the first Homo erectus tools were identified by me in 1991, date back around 400,000 years.

Covering many hundreds of square kilometres, these great water supplies would have attracted primitive Homo erectus people and later humans, who fed upon the abundant fish, giant marsupial and other fauna that roamed the shores. I theorise, based upon the available evidence, that wandering groups of Homo erectus people, having entered Australia over a vast period of time, penetrated the Central West/New England region, to congregate around the shores of these vast lakes, and gradually evolve into the first modern humans, who in turn eventually spread northwards beyond Australia.

That this region was the very epicentre of modern human evolution is a proposition which only future archaeological discoveries can vindicate. Yet wherever that 'epicentre' was, there can be little doubt that it was somewhere on this continent.

Panklanka People 1991

Ferocious man-Eaters

It was from Alice Springs Aborigine, Jack Adams that I learnt the following information in 1991: "The Panklanka People relish the taste of aboriginal flesh, and will kill any aboriginal man, woman or child that happen to cross their path, and they also kill and eat any white people they catch too."

"They carry big wooden clubs with which they kill their victims. If they eat them raw on the spot they will cut them up with big stone knives. These monsters are so big and tall that they are able to tuck the bodies of people they have killed into belts of hair-string around their waist if they want to carry them back to their camps for cooking."

"Before they cook an Aborigine they crush the bones with their big, powerful hands, or pound away at the body with a club. Then they break the back into sections and remove the intestines, and bury the body in an earth trench. A fire is then lit above it just like we cook kangaroos."

"After the body is cooked it is dismembered; first by breaking the spine, and then removing the chest and ribs with a big stone knife. Sometimes those big blokes won't eat the head right away. Instead, they stick it in the fork of a tree high up above the ground to eat later."

Brodribb River 1991

Large dark long-haired man-like Creature

Bushwalker Robert Littlemore, of Melbourne, informed me that, one day in January 1991, he was hiking on the Brodribb River north of Orbost, when he met with three other campers walking hurriedly along a bush track. They told him they had just seen a large, dark long-haired, man-like creature further up the track at a creek.

Robert said he was a sceptic about such things at this time and only ridiculed their story, continuing on along the track. However, when he reached the creek bank he came upon a number of large "man-ape" [as he called them] like footprints in the mud. They were at least twice the size of a normal adult human foot.

"There was also an almost overpowering decaying stench about the area, but I couldn't see any dead animal. It was then that I began to get an uneasy feeling. There were sounds of snapping foliage in the nearby scrub, and I caught sight of a tall, dark figure moving among the trees." "I waited no longer and quickly retreated the way I had come.

Although I have been a sceptic in the past about paranormal and unexplained mysteries, I'm a little more open-minded now, particularly on the subject of the Yowie." Robert later collected a number of local ancient Aboriginal traditions of the 'hairy man' of north-eastern Victoria; but when he consulted university anthropologists about them, these 'scientists' dismissed them as nothing more than mere superstitious ramblings.

Yet such Aboriginal narratives are not to be so light-heartedly dismissed as mere primitive superstition.

Northern Victorian tribes once spoke of a race of primitive, stone tool-making people that roamed the Kow district of northern Victoria, and who differed physically from the Aborigines. In 1967 archaeologists excavated fossil remains at Kow Swamp of a people whose skulls displayed facial features of Homo erectus [Java man] appearance [see Chapter Four].

And, I would like to further point out, many Aboriginal oral traditions have a base of scientific fact. The great flood theme, when the ice-age withdrew 85 m of water from the oceans, to form land-bridges between continents and then, later, when the ice-caps melted and inundated the land-bridges, is one.

Hanging Rock Area 1991

Tall hairy male Creature

Then in March 1991 a lone tourist while bushwalking above the gorge near 'Hanging Rock', sighted a tall hairy male creature about 2.6m in height, as it ambled along a bush track in a gully below. He watched the creature with binoculars for a few minutes until it moved out of sight among the trees. Most of the locals need little convincing of the existence of these primitive, hairy hominids in the wilderness around them and have many personal experiences to relate.

Cameron Mountains 1991

Man-ape Footprints


In the Cameron Mountains, inland from the south-west tip of South Island, during November 1991, campers found several 45cm long, 'man-ape' footprints in dense forest. The tracks were barely an hour old, so the men abandoned their camp and moved elsewhere.



Wandandian Mountain Range 1992

A dozen freshly made Footprints

In July 1992 over a dozen freshly made, 45cm long by 18cm wide footprints were found by campers, in the moist forest soil of a deep gully high up on the Wandandian Mountain Range, inland from Sussex inlet.

Womanbeast

Then, a few days before Christmas 1993, a 2m tall "womanbeast" was reported seen by two bushwalkers, as she foraged for berries and other herbivorous food in a remote patch of scrub, deep in the range.

Ponderosa Forest behind Nundle 1992

Larger than man-sized Footprints

East of Quirindi lies the town of Nundle, nestling amid hills beneath some of the wildest mountain country of the New England Ranges. There have been numerous Yowie reports from this district in recent years, and these stories have been going on since the gold mining days of the 19th century.

During February 1992, campers claimed that they found a number of larger than man-sized footprints embedded in soil in the Ponderosa forest in the mountains behind Nundle.

The local Aboriginal name for manbeasts here was 'Coories', and it was by this name that the early timber cutters of the region knew them well into the early part of the 20th century. It is pretty wild country behind Nundle township, and there remain vast wilderness areas there where no white man has yet penetrated.

Kimberley Region Western Australia 1992

Female Hominid

The "hairy men" [and women] of Western Australia continue to be seen despite understandable scientific scepticism.

In the Kimberley region a family in a 4-wheel drive vehicle claimed they saw a 1.6m tall hairy female hominid grubbing for roots in roadside scrub in the Wyndham area in January 1992, and a 2.6m tall naked male creature was claimed seen by a party of campers on the Fitzroy River near Noonkanban in November 1990.



Wingham April 1993

Giant sized-man/ape-like Footprints

Further down the coast from Kempsey lies Taree, and inland, the wild mountainous country of thee Barrington and Woko National Parks. In April 1993 a farmer found a number of giant-sized, man/ape-like footprints on his Manning River-bank property at Wingham, inland from Taree. Measuring 40 cm long by 17 cm wide, they were spaced about 1.5 metre's apart.

The man-beast who made them would have easily have stood 2.6 m tall. I am interested in the Wingham footprints for they match others found in March 1990 in the Numinbah Valley, inland from the Queensland Gold Coast and close to the New South Wales border.

These in turn match others found in the Kanangra Boyd National Park and also others found some years ago in the Cooma district of the Snowy Mountains.

Christmas Creek District 1993

Mineralised Skull

Then, on the afternoon of Monday 16th August 1993, while on a field trip to central Qld, with Heather and our daughter Michelle, we happened to be investigating a dry creek bed in the Christmas Creek district. Protruding from hard packed gravels I spotted a large, 10cm thick flattish brown ironstone slab. As there seemed to be something unusual about it I dislodged it.

To my amazement I found it to be the mineralised skull of a creature more hominoid than hominid in appearance, crushed flat by geological pressure in the course of the long fossilisation process, suggesting it had once been buried at some depth beneath heavy overlying gravels.

O'Rielly's Guesthouse & Lamington Plateau 1993

Small stone Tools

During two searches in the jungle-covered O'Rielly's Guesthouse area carried out by Heather and I in 1993 and 1994, I recovered a number of small stone tools of these pygmy Aborigines, and also at the foot of the Lamington Plateau at a site formerly part of a rain forest that had been cleared in recent years.

In both cases these tools were comparatively recent; those from the base of the plateau being no more than around 40 years old, while those found on the Lamington Plateau in the vicinity of O'Rielly's could not have been more than 10 years old, and even more recent specimens have been found by bushwalkers and campers supporting the claims of others to have seen some of these little folk roaming in this vast wilderness in recent years.

Wandandian Mountain Range 1993

Womanbeast

A few days before Christmas 1993, a 2m tall "womanbeast" was reported seen by two bushwalkers, as she foraged for berries and other herbivorous food in a remote patch of scrub, deep in the range.

Pilliga Township1993

Giant size Footprints

In April 1993 a stockman found three sets of giant-size footprints embedded in creek mud near Pilliga township.

Pilliga Scrub 1993

Tall female Hominid

There have been in recent years a number of hairy man-like creature sightings reported in the Pilliga Scrub north of Coonabarabran in recent years, and in June 1993 a 2m tall female hominid was claimed seen drinking on all fours at a remote waterhole.

Many stories concern the vast stretch of Pilliga scrub though which passes the Newell Highway between Coonabarabran and Narrabri. Many truckies refuse to pull over to sleep on that eerie stretch at night, for fear of attacks by the creatures. Their fears are not entirely unjustified.

There have been some quite believable accounts; of dark, hairy man-ape shapes seen by resting drivers on moonlight nights; of one or more of these nocturnal hominids seen wandering across the deserted road; and other, more terrifying reports, such as the truckie who woke up one night to find a hairy face peering at him through his closed driver's window.

The Pilliga stretch of the Newell Highway without doubt becomes an eerie place once the darkness falls.

Shennongjia China 1943-1993

Wild Man

In the spring of 1943, one Zhang Yujin was with a party of soldiers, who shot a 'Wild Man' in the Shennongjia district. A second, possibly a female escaped. When the soldiers examined the dead Chi-Chi, they found it to be as tall as a human being, the whole body being covered in dark red hair. The palms of its hands and soles of its feet were covered with thick white calluses, while the fingers and toes had pointed nails, Zhang Yujin said later.

Crude stone Tools

In this same district, 50 years later, in 1993 a recently abandoned campfire was discovered by peasants, from around which they retrieved a number of crude stone tools. Some Chinese researchers believe these primitive fire-making hominids are surviving remnant populations of the Chinese Homo erectus, Beijing [formerly Peking] Man, and if so, these hominids are undoubtedly close relatives to the fire and stone tool-making "hairy people" of Australia.


Kanagra Boyd National Park 1994

Enormous right foot Impression

Arguably the most remarkable discoveries of fossilised hominid footprints in Australia are being made by myself and associates in the Kanangra Boyd National Park, south-west of Katoomba, where the foot impressions of both normal human and giant-size creatures have been found, embedded in solid granite, formerly the ash and mud spewed out by countless volcanic eruptions.

The first discovery made by me in September 1994 while exploring this wilderness, was an enormous right foot impression displaying an opposable big toe, facing east upon a large granite slab. More ape-like than human, it measured 62 cm long by 36 cm wide across the toes, with a heel 21 cm wide and embedded 10 cm deep in the rock.

O'Rielly's Guesthouse 1993 and Lamington Plateau 1994

Small stone Tools

During two searches in the jungle-covered O'Rielly's Guesthouse area carried out by Heather and I in 1993 and 1994, I recovered a number of small stone tools of these pygmy Aborigines, and also at the foot of the Lamington Plateau at a site formerly part of a rain forest that had been cleared in recent years.

In both cases these tools were comparatively recent; those from the base of the plateau being no more than around 40 years old, while those found on the Lamington Plateau in the vicinity of O'Rielly's could not have been more than 10 years old, and even more recent specimens have been found by bushwalkers and campers supporting the claims of others to have seen some of these little folk roaming in this vast wilderness in recent years.



Wadbilliga Scrub 1995

5ft tall-young looking-brownish haired-small breasted ape-woman

An Aboriginal, Graham Foster, informed the authors in November 2001 that, back in 1995 he and a mate had an encounter with a “hairy man”.

To quote Graham: “We were camped in the Wadbilliga scrub one night when we distinctly heard someone walking through the bush, out there in the dark. It frightened the life out of us. Whatever it was, and it sounded like a human, it was coming down the scrub-covered hillside above where we were camped. We were camped on the edge of a creek, and the being came down out of the scrub near our camp and jumped over the creek.

We had torches with us and also rifles. We failed to catch the being with our torches, and we would not have been able to fire our rifles because we could not see where the intruder was, but we realised afterwards that it was not going to harm us. We listened as it crashed its way through bushes on an opposite hillside then re-crossing the creek further down from where it had jumped across before, it then proceeded to climb up through the scrub behind us.

We listened in silence as the ‘hairy man’ continued on into the distance to the summit, then move over the other side.
We certainly had an uncomfortable night thereafter and kept a lookout. At first light we packed up and got out of there quickfast!, said Graham.



Outside Oberon 1996

Pgymy Sized Natives

To the north of the Kanangra Boyd wilderness lies the Oberon/Essington district, in ancient times an extension of this wilderness but now largely open farmland with scattered areas of gum forest. It is from these areas that farmers have on occasions claimed not only sightings of Yowies, but also little pygmy-size Aboriginal-like natives.

Take for example the following remarkable sighting a close friend of the author's whose honesty I can personally vouch for - Joy Colley. One late afternoon in the summer of 1996 Joy was driving down a dirt road outside Oberon, when suddenly ahead of her she saw a small, child-size male figure no more than at least a metre in height, and clothed in an animal hide [kangaroo] cloak, dash across the road to quickly crouch down in a deep gutter on the left side of the road.

Joy pulled up to get a better look at the little creature, at which it took off, running along the side of a wire fence, through which it escaped across a paddock, heading in the direction of the Kanangra Boyd wilderness to the south. Yet the Kanangra Boyd wilderness is still quite a few kilometres away across largely open country. How had the little creature been able to penetrate so far into open farmland where he could not have escaped being seen for very long, Joy wondered.

Obviously he, and perhaps others, had been exploring beyond their wilderness environment at night, and perhaps this little native had become separated from the group, probably forced to spend the day hiding in the nearest patch of scrub, and had begun trying to find his way back to the Kanangra forests and the rest of his tribe as darkness approached, when Joy encountered him.

Ross New Zealand 1996

Homo erectus Evidence

Earlier, during our May-June 1996 New Zealand field investigation, at a point just north of the west coast town of Ross in South Island, Heather and I found, protruding from ancient stratas nearby a long dried-up inlet about 1km in from the ocean, four crude implements, consisting of a large, 28cm wide by 16.5cm long chopping tool, together with another 11cm by 10cm chopper; a 9.5cm by 9.5cm bone smashing pebble tool, and a hand-axe measuring 10.5cm wide by 14.8cm long.

I recognised these implements as being identical to Homo erectus examples found by me in the New England district of northern NSW. Three days later Heather and I found other former occupation sites of this Homo erectus-type people in the Te Anau Downs, containing primitive choppers, scraping, cutting and bone-smashing tools; all of which showed these people had roamed the edges of the former glaciers, following the Moa food chain.


Cudgegon River-Mudgee 1997

Homo erectus Skull find

In February 1972, while fossicking on the Cudgegong River bank outside the central western NSW town of Mudgee, I spotted an oddly-shaped fossil impression on a small ironstone lump, cemented in a deposit of conglomerate. Digging it out I found the impression to be that of a human palate with dental arch, measuring 6 cm, the teeth marks clearly visible beneath the 1 cm high palate.

Twenty-five years later, in June 1997, while again fossicking along the same river barely 5 km from the town, I chanced to find the 3m high bank of a long-vanished creek that once flowed into the river. Here, protruding from conglomerate at the base of the old bank, I spotted what turned out to be a mineralised partially intact, primitive human skull. Once removed, I found it lacked the right eyebrow ridge and facial section, there was no lower jaw, the remaining bones all having turned to limestone.

Much of the skull cap was missing, exposing internal mudstone filling, but the cranium's shape allowing for some distortion, was doliocephalic with a very low forehead. The left eyebrow ridge was very prominent with the facial section below the eye socket present, if a little distorted, to about the area of the palate. Allowing for some distortion due to the skull having been crushed on its right side [through ages of pressure from overlying sediments], the remaining fossil measures 21 cm long across the cranium, by 11.5 cm wide and 17 cm deep.

Its shape was unmistakable and from the moment I first held it in my hands, I realised it was the skull of a Homo erectus; a male or female hominid of at least 1.5 m in height. Geological evidence suggests over 100,000 years of conglomerate sediment had covered the skull since it's fossilisation. As the mineralisation process takes up to 250,000 years, the Mudgee Homo erectus skull is certainly of some antiquity; perhaps around the 400,000 years estimate of Dr Cherfas for Homo erectus' Australian entry.

It therefore seems certain that, at present this is the oldest fossil hominid skull so far unearthed in Australia, and concerning the subject of this book it is also important for another reason. According to old Aboriginal tales of the Mudgee district, the 'hairy people', or Yowies, once inhabited the banks of the Cudgegong River. The Aboriginal tribes hereabouts lived in constant fear of these primitive creatures, for they often raided aboriginal camps, even stealing lubras on occasions.

However, eventually the tribesmen banded together and attacked and killed many of them, until the 'hairy people' were finally driven out of the area. As the Mudgee Homo erectus skull was retrieved from an area where traditions say the 'hairy people' once lived, I believe that, at last I have physical proof of the Yowie's existence, for it seems certain that Homo erectus was the origin of the Yowie mystery. That Homo erectus and the Yowie are one and the same is a valid argument.

The traditional, average human height of most reliable Yowie reports from pioneer days to the present certainly fit the known height of Homo erectus based upon fossil remains. There are of course, since pioneering days, accounts of a taller variety, perhaps suggesting the parallel existence of a larger form of Homo erectus in Australia; and then there are those reports of a truly more ape-like creature, which may or may not be a still-living form of the giant man-like ape, Gigantopithecus, and which would have crossed the former land-bridge from south-east Asia at a remote period.

Mt Cook Area 1997

Human foot Impression

During a field investigation in New Zealand, in September 1997 in the Mt Cook area of South Island, at the base of the mountain near "The Hermitage', I found a large human foot impression in a mudstone shoal. It measured 36cm long by 13cm wide across the toes, 12cm wide at mid foot and 9cm across the heel.

Later, near the turn-off to Mt Cook, while fossicking near the road, I chanced to stumble upon a second, through smaller, mudstone-preserved fossil human foot impression. This measures 22.5cm long by 14.5cm across the toes, 11cm wide at mid-foot and 10cm across the heel.



Don Boyd Ruined Catle Formation 1998

Yowie Investigation

My last happy memory of Don is the image of him standing upright, precariously upon the tallest pinnacle of the Ruined Castle rock formation in Jamieson Valley below Katoomba NSW during our last [October 1998] Yowie investigation together with Geoff and Evan. Don [who told no one of his battle with cancer] thought nothing of heights anymore than he thought nothing of upsetting the establishment. Well done old mate!.

Kanagra Boyd National Park 1998

Huge fossil Footprint

On December 9th 1998 in the company of my friends and fellow researchers, Andrew Leese and Erik Spinney, while searching cliffs overlooking a deep gully, I stumbled upon the largest fossil footprint discovery in this area to date.

As with all the other giant and normal size hominid foot impressions fossilised hereabouts, the maker had walked through cooled volcanic ash and mud, leaving an impression measuring an astounding 68 cm long by 50 cm wide across the toes, 31 cm wide at the mid-foot and 27 cm wide across the heel, being embedded 14 cm deep in the rock.

A right foot, the big toe impression measures 10 cm long by 8 cm wide, the others measuring between 6 and 7 cm in length and between 7 and 11 cm in width. Even allowing for distortion in the originally soft ash and mud, the giant who left this massive impression would easily have stood around 4 m high and been of powerful build!

Geological evidence shows that at the time of the foot's impression the gully below did not exist and the area was a vast swampland. With the creation of the gully, any further foot impressions left by the giant hominid have vanished with the sands of time.

Soon after the initial giant hominid fossil footprint discoveries I uncovered the fossil 'trackway' of a single creature, consisting of seven normal human-size footprints, extending on the former shoreline of a swamp for a distance of 3 m from north to south. Varying in length, width and depth, due to distortion when made, the impressions range from 25 cm to 33 cm in length by 11 to 16 cm in width and up to 12 cm in depth.

As an experiment, I placed my bare feet upon these tracks and attempted to walk in the same manner as suggested by the varying distances between each foot impression. The fossil 'trackway' foot pattern is as follows: the left foot [beginning northern end] was squashed 9 cm deep in the ash as the right foot was brought around at a squashed angle 2 cm deep and 25 cm in front of it.

Then the left foot was bought out of the ash, its next impression narrowed and 12 cm deep as the ash closed in. The distance between the feet is 25 cm at this point. Then the left foot was brought forward, 36 cm past the right [which is only 2 cm deep probably due to immediate filling in]. The right foot was then brought 40 cm in front of the left [again only 2 cm deep].

At this point the left foot was brought around to a point 55 cm left of the last left foot impression and 38 cm left of the right foot above it, but to its right. This foot impression is 2 cm deep. It is also 22 cm to the left of the right foot impression.

With the left foot 2 cm deep here, and at an awkward angle, the hominid appears to be stooped, as if turning to look around it, as 'it' hastens to flee the swamp, its tracks surviving to preserve what appears to have been a 12 seconds or so record of prehistoric flight, perhaps from some danger which can now only be guessed at. But just how old are all these footprints?

According to geologists, the volcanic deposits that cover the Kanangra Boyd National Park, were laid down during Pliocene times around 3 million years ago! If the geologists are correct, primitive ancestors of modern humans were present in Australia at the same time similar hominids were roaming Africa!

And, as suggested by the giant hominid foot impressions, these normal height human-like creatures shared the landscape with at least two forms of giants; one an ape-like, possible Gigantopithecine, the other a more human-like race; beings of between 3 and 4 metres in height and of immense strength.

Central Coast 1998

Large man-shaped Creature

It would appear that the 'Rakataks' still inhabit remote areas of the Central Coast. Consider the following two 'close encounters of the Yowie kind', experienced at the same bushland location by my friend and fellow field researcher, Andrew Leese and myself on separate occasions.

I quote from Andrew's own report he prepared for me: On the night of Wednesday 22nd July 1998 around 10.30pm, after he had dropped off his wife Wendy at a friends house in Kariong, he drove off in his 4-wheel drive vehicle for a planned overnight camp at a clearing, reached via a muddy track and adjacent to dense bush country outside the town, on his way back to their Blue Mountains home. With him was Zero, the family's pet black poodle.

"I arrived at the clearing, parked and let Zero out of the car to go to the toilet. Whilst he was sniffing around I decided to arrange the back of the car for sleeping. Suddenly Zero started barking and took off into the bush as if after something. I thought it must have been just a kangaroo, so I let him go." "After about a minute of continuous, really aggressive barking [which is totally out of character for Zero] I called him but he didn't return, but still kept barking.

Because it was pretty late and overcast I couldn't see how far away he was, so I decided to go into the bush after him."

I'd only gone about 20 feet [6.1 m] when zero came bolting past me with his tail between his legs, yelping. I started to follow him back to the car when I saw him jump into the driver' side, but I wanted to know what had run so I turned around and took about five steps and I stopped dead in my tracks. I had the most intense feeling of being watched."

"Being an intrepid camper, of course I didn't have a torch on me but did have a box of matches, so I took out some matches and lit a few all at once to get a brighter light. After my eyes adjusted I took a few more steps forward peering into the gloom, and that's when I saw 'it'." "Not 8 feet [2.45 m] in front of me stood a large man-shaped creature looking straight at me. And when I say looking, he was looking down at me. He must have been a good 2 feet [60 cm] taller than me and I am slightly over 6 feet [1.8 m] tall.

In the few seconds that the matches lasted I made out a few facial features that I could see, which were his very human eyes, but squashed nose; I didn't make out a mouth as he seemed to have a longish, reddish strangly beard, which covered it and which with the hair on his head and also the long, matted fur-like hair that was on his shoulders and chest, and which was about 6 inches [15cm] long in places. It was too dark to see the rest of him."

"I have never felt such an intense feeling of foreboding, it was as if I could feel an intense surge of anger at my being there. My one and only feeling was to flee, at which point the matches burnt my fingers and went out. I turned and ran for the car, jumped in and slammed that door shut behind me.""Zero was obviously as scared as I was as he'd urinated on the seat, where he was still cowering with his tail between his legs. The one thought that was going through my head was that I shouldn't be there and should leave immediately."

"I drove out or there as fast as the muddy track would let me,. all the time hoping that nothing was going to step out in front of me on the way out. Needless to say I didn't camp in the bush that night, but in my friends driveway instead. It was quite obvious that what was down there did not want me or anybody around at that time."

There have been many similar experiences to that of Andrew reported to me from this region over the years, and Aboriginal rock engravings thousands of years old depicting the 'Rakatak' "Hairy man" are still to be found upon rock ledges around the Central Coast district.

Orangey-brown long-haired Sighting

It was almost a year after Andrew and Zero had their experience that , while on an archaeological field investigation in the Kariong district, I happened to visit this same location with field assistants Fred From and Greg Foster, on Thursday 15th June 2000. We were examining Aboriginal rock art, when I happened to stray from the others, following a rock ledge onto an extensive area of sandstone shoals bearing further rock art. This spot is surrounded by dense bush below a rise.

The time was 2.23pm when I glanced at my watch. The sun had sunk behind the trees on the rise ahead of me. It was at this very moment that, about 15 metres ahead of me, I observed an orangey-brown long-haired arm and portion of the right side of a body, moving quickly, silently across an opening in the foliage, outlined in the back lighting of the sun, to vanish behind a large tree trunk. The sighting had occurred in less than 2-4 seconds.

For a moment I wondered if I had perhaps just seen a cow or horse, yet whatever it was it had made no sound, and despite the bracken covering the ground and the dense scrub, there was not even the sound of snapping twigs. I wondered if it was a hiker exploring the scrub. Then, as I stood there still wondering what it could have been, I spotted about 15 metres away an orangey-brown, hairy hominid-looking creature, observing me from another opening in the foliage.

The figure was only partly visible, with the sunlight behind obscuring the facial features. The figure was visible only from the waist up, the arms being held out from the body, the hands hidden behind the bushes. As with my first sighting moments before, the creature vanished silently into the scrub within seconds, leaving me rather shaken by my experience.

I estimated the hominid to have been about 1.5 metres in height. Quickly alerting my companions, we searched the spot for any signs of the creature. There were no signs of footprints at the spots I had seen it due to the undergrowth of twigs , leafmould and sandstone rubble covering the area, and no evidence of freshly broken saplings were to be found, despite a thorough search of the scrub thereabouts.

How that creatures had been able to move about in that scrub without making a sound gave me an eerie feeling, and I was glad to leave the area. This had been my third "close encounter" with a Yowie the other two having occurred in the Jamieson Valley below Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, in 1970 and 1979 as already described in Chapter Ten.

Local Aborigines also believed in the former existence of another "hairy man" of gigantuan proportions who roamed an area stretching from the Central Coast far inland up the Hawkesbury-Colo Rivers, where there exist rock engraving and cave paintings of this giant being. Datrumenus was held in such awe that he was regarded as the supreme being by these tribespeople.

Te Anau Downs 1998

Homo erectus Implements

Earlier, during our May-June 1996 New Zealand field investigation, at a point just north of the west coast town of Ross in South Island, Heather and I found, protruding from ancient stratas nearby a long dried-up inlet about 1km in from the ocean, four crude implements, consisting of a large, 28cm wide by 16.5cm long chopping tool, together with another 11cm by 10cm chopper; a 9.5cm by 9.5cm bone smashing pebble tool, and a hand-axe measuring 10.5cm wide by 14.8cm long.

I recognised these implements as being identical to Homo erectus examples found by me in the New England district of northern NSW. Three days later Heather and I found other former occupation sites of this Homo erectus-type people in the Te Anau Downs, containing primitive choppers, scraping, cutting and bone-smashing tools; all of which showed these people had roamed the edges of the former glaciers, following the Moa food chain.

Further Homo erectus "dawn tools" were discovered on the edge of an extinct ice-age lake at Tongariro National Park during our 1998 New Zealand field investigation. But just how old are these finds? The Ross site has been dated to the 7th Glacial Period of the New Zealand ice-age, making these tools up to 150,000 years old; the same age as the Mt Tongariro finds.

However, the Te Anau occupation sites, whose tools appear much older and cruder than those found elsewhere, are believed to date from the 5th Glacial and 4th Inter-Glacial Periods; that is, somewhere between 350,000-400,000 years BP [Before Present]. Earlier occupation sites containing eoliths in the Te Anau-Milford region may date to even earlier times, perhaps up to 500,000 years BP.

Not all stone tools recovered of New Zealand's lost races are ancient. During our September 1998 New Zealand field search at Milford Sound I found several, freshly-made scraping, chopping and other tools. Were they the work of the mysterious "White tribe" of the Fiordlands?

Early sealers and other European seafarers who landed along the Fiordland Coast between the 1790's and 1820's, frequently claimed to have sighted strange white-skinned natives, often in large groups, camping and fishing along the shores and who quickly retreated into the scrub as longboats approached.



Homo erectus New England District 1999

Homo erectus Site

What appears to be even more recent evidence of the Yowie's [ie Homo erectus] continuing survival, was found by me in January, 1999 in dense forest terrain, high up in the mountain country behind Hanging Rock, which rises up on the eastern side of Nundle, south-east of Tamworth.

This eerie forest country has long been regarded as "Yowie territory" by the locals around Hanging Rock and Nundle, for it has since pioneering days been regarded as THE major region for 'hairy man' sightings in the New England district.

It was while on a visit to the Nundle State Forest area, east of Hanging Rock, together with my wife Heather, on January 21st, that I stumbled upon an open area atop a deep gully overlooking a vast wilderness that stretched to the eastern horizon. Scattered about the area I found a number of what were undoubtedly only weeks old, crudely flaked stone tools; scrapers, choppers and other implements.

Within a few days I had found another site containing crude choppers and scrapers, once again situated in a very remote, out of the way area of dense bushland; tools that appeared to be only a few months old.

I have seen primitive implements of identical appearance over the past few years at other locations, scattered about the former shoreline of a long-vanished giant lake system that covers a vast area to the west of Tamworth, and which had been part of an extensive series of inter-connecting lakes extending north-west to Moree and southward down towards Mudgee during the last ice-age.

Yet the crude implements found around this former lake pre-dated any Aboriginal examples and are identical to those manufactured by Home erectus in Java and China. The massive lake systems in question dried up within the last 15,000 years, although deposits near Attunga, to the north of Tamworth, where the first Homo erectus tools were identified by me in 1991, date back around 400,000 years.

Covering many hundreds of square kilometres, these great water supplies would have attracted primitive Homo erectus people and later humans, who fed upon the abundant fish, giant marsupial and other fauna that roamed the shores.

I theorise, based upon the available evidence, that wandering groups of Homo erectus people, having entered Australia over a vast period of time, penetrated the Central West/New England region, to congregate around the shores of these vast lakes, and gradually evolve into the first modern humans, who in turn eventually spread northwards beyond Australia.

That this region was the very epicentre of modern human evolution is a proposition which only future archaeological discoveries can vindicate. Yet wherever that 'epicentre' was, there can be little doubt that it was somewhere on this continent.

Colo River-Putty 1999

Little hairy Man

Mr Neil Hoskins, who is an experience bushman and ex-soldier, was spending Christmas 1999 on the Colo River, up in a wilderness area at Cattle Camp No 1, outside the small town of Putty. It was daytime, when as he was working with cattle, he spotted about 30 metres away, a "one metre tall human-looking figure standing, observing him on the edge of scrub. The little male was naked and black-skinned. Neil observed that he had "a long pointy nose and black hair".

Neil realised that this strange little creature was a still-wild pygmy, but before he could get another look the pygmy-size creature turned away and quickly vanished into the foliage. The Dharug Aborigines of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney called the pygmy-size people [other than the yowies] with whom they shared these wilds the Boothoo geermi - Boothoo 'little', geer 'hair', mi 'man' - or "Little hairy man".

The Boothoo geermi were said to be particularly prolific in the vast wildernesses making up the Jamieson/Cedar/Megalong/Burragorang/Jenolan and Kanangra ranges to the south and south-west of Katoomba, where they shared the land with those other "hairy men" with which this book is largely concerned.

Howqua-Lake Eildon Region 1999

Larger than man-sized Footprints

During March 1990 Mr Wayne O'Brian and two friends were camped in the Howqua area east of Lake Eildon. While exploring around the edge of thick scrub through long grass, the men saw blowflies buzzing around something in the grass nearby.

Upon investigation they found the carcase of a calf that had been chewed up, and about which were bones and clumps of hair. Shortly after, in a nearby gully they found a pile of excreta. At the bottom of a patch of scrub they smelt a very strong pungent odour. Nearby, in a muddy area the men discovered a number of larger-than-man sized footprints.

Later, in July 1999 Mr Peter Whiteside and two other friends were hunting in a thickly timbered area near Lake Eildon when, on the bank of a creek, they found marks where some heavy object, like the rump of some huge man-like creature, had been sitting. Hairs of a greyish colour were found embedded into the muddy depression. Nearby campers came upon several huge man-ape like footprints in a mud patch.

Wee Waa 1999

Large Footprints

During 1999 rumours circulated around the Wee Waa district that a large hairy man-ape creature of 2.4m or so in height and very muscular in appearance, was roaming the scrublands thereabouts, and that he was responsible for a number of dead sheep found at one bushland location, their limbs wrenched from their sockets. Large footprints were left by the hairy manbeast about the scene of this mass 'kill'. Bushmen with guns and dogs scoured the region but failed to find any further traces of the mystery hominid, as he apparently moved on elsewhere.