What is a Yowie?
The reader should Research fossil evidence, eye witness reports, academic findings, A.Y.R. Research and current information from many of our fellow research allies from Australia and around the World.
With all that said, remember that unless a specimen is brought in, nobody has all the facts and much of the information is is pure hypothesis. No-one can claim to 'know it all'.
So what is it?
There are at least two known kinds of Yowie in Australia that we can be reasonably certain about. There are the large Yowie that is normally between 6-10ft and the smaller, yet fully-grown variety that is roughly 4-5ft. These different species/Genus are found in nearly every Country around the World.
In Australia, we are certain of at least one species - Australopithecine.
In Australia, there are thousands of 'reported' sightings of our ape-man like creature that is said to walk our forests. Could you imagine how may reports or sightings that still remain 'un-reported'? 10 to 1, 20 to 1, 50 to 1, 100 to 1? More?
The aim of this web site is to inform the reader with as many details we can.
The sightings of the "Hairy Man" are not always a 'one off' glimpse, but are sometimes witnessed up to 30 people at the same time over prolonged periods. Could this be mass hysteria? Not likely. There is more evidence to suggest that the Yowie does exist, than not.
Keep in mind that a panel of 5 people can recognise and convict a bank robber in a Court of Law. Imagine what 100 hundred witnesses could do or even a thousand!
Upon the white man, when they first settled in this Country in the late 1700's, the native Aborigines told them in great detail about an ape-man like beast that lived in the forests. At first the settler's thought this was just a tale to scare them away, because such animals were unknown in England and most people had not even heard of such things. However it wasn't long before they found out the stories from these people were more than true.
In 1790, the first official reported sighting of the creature by a white man was released in the local Newspapers in a small country town we now know as Sydney. During the 1800's numerous reports followed through out NSW and also the rest of the country.
The 1800's were a buzz with sightings of the creature around the country. Newspapers and magazines began writing about people's encounters as they were reported. In most of these reports, the creature was always described as "an ape" or "ape-like man." The same descriptions given today.
The earliest known Southern sighting to A.Y.R was reported in 1849 on Phillip Island, Victoria. It states that several people had observed a creature, which was 6-7ft tall that resembled a half Baboon - half man. At the time of the sighting, the creature was said to be sitting on the edge of a lake when they shot at it.
Across the boarder in South Australia at approximately the same time during the 1840's, reports were hitting the newspapers about the Aborigine's telling their stories of the "Narcoonah" (Yowie) which lived in their area.
In Western Australia in the mid to late 1800's, 3 white men on expedition told of their strange encounter with a creature, which resembled a monkey. April 1871, a man named George Osbourne saw a "Gorilla type" creature amble down a tree and scared his horse. He said it was around 5 ft tall with black hair and was well developed.
That is just the smallest of samples. The rest of the reports you can read in the web site.
The sightings of the "Yowie" around this Country became epidemic. This was before every home (Shack or dwelling), had Televisions, cars, email, fax, next day delivery, phones and everything was pretty much a two month wait.
Yet these reports from around the country, in every port, were describing the same beast? The same beast people describe in great detail today? There is NO change in the description! Don't be sceptical - this is Fact! This 'fact' cannot be ignored; fact MUST be taken into consideration.
In the 1900's with people developing road systems and remote townships, they progressed further through the deeply forested areas.
The sightings were on the rapid increase - yet the subject remained "taboo". Although the sightings were frequent, those who had not personally encountered the ape-like creature found it difficult to believe that such a beast could exist in the start of the 1900's.
Much like today, we unfortunately think that we know everything there is to know! It was not much different back then with their 100 short years of colonialism. After all, they too at that time thought they were quite advanced with their "today's technology" and of course thought such a creature would have been found or captured by then.
More recently, fossil evidence from South Africa, Asia and Australia has been unearthed suggesting the existence of the creature, and many scientists believe that these creatures that walked upright like man, but with a large ape like head has been extinct for thousands of years.
More and more academic's now believe after viewing the evidence, that the creature does in fact exist.
The same Species of this Genus is probably best known in North America/Canada as Sasquatch and in the southern states of America as Bigfoot. In areas of China as yeti or Chi-Chi, North East of Russia as Chuchuna, midland Russia as Almasty. Today in Africa as Pongo and Engeco, Brazil and Argentina as mapinguary, Japan as Nibagon and so on.
The first documented case from the first white settlers of Australia dates back to the 1790's when they often described it as a Gorilla or man-ape.
The Aboriginal folklore of the Yowie dates back almost thousand years before the settlement of white man. Depending on which area of Australia the Aboriginals lived and which tribe they belonged, they had many different names for the Yowie including "Noocoonah", "Doolagahl", "Gooligah", "Quinken", "Thoolagal", "Yaroma", "Yahoo", "Jingera", "Jimbra", "Tjandara" and many more.
The name "Yowie" was most probably an adaptation from white man of the close sounding Aboriginal names "Yuuri" and "Yowri", which were two commonly used names for the creature, particularly in N.S.W.
The largest populations of the Yowie would be on the Southeast seaboard of Australia in remote mountainous ranges, although every state in Australia has its share of sightings. Sightings today are being reported more frequently as ever before, however after thousands of Australians sighting the Yowie through the years, there is still very little footage of the creature - however we do have footage in this country. As time goes on and more people build deeper in the woods, we expect the sightings and encounters to continue to grow.
Palaeontology and Archaeology is riddled with debate, politics and conjecture. Some findings from the past that were promptly dismissed, are passed today as Gospel, and other findings that were once considered to be fact have now been changed. The best we can do is report on what is viewed today as the most accurate story according to the most recent findings.
According to Palaeontology, Gigantopithecus would be the most likely suspect to what many people see today in the woods and forests (but not my opinion).
The fossil evidence found suggest that it could have been up to 12ft tall, 1000lb and walked up right - depending on the varying views from the so-called "experts". It lived as long as 8 million years ago and the most recent remains were around 10,000 years old in China. They were also found in India and South Africa. But there is only small amounts of jaw bone to arrive at this conclusion !
One interesting aspect about Gigantopithecus was the fact that it apparently also lived during human existence. One theory is that during those times, man had killed most of them off, thus instilling a fear of man and driving them further in to the bush to remote areas where they, in some peoples views, still survive today. The Aboriginal history also tells of them killing the beast, as well as being killed.
The closest ape to Gigantopithecus would be the genus "Sivapithecus". Sivapithecus also lived around the Miocene epoch, 13-7 million years ago (depending on what you read). Although the main difference between the two is size, the Sivapithecus was more related to the modern day Orangutan.
Giganto being the large and formidable ape like creature that we see today and leaves the huge foot prints, but what about the small "hairy men" that are also often reported?
Again we must look back through history. We have to keep in mind that it is often the case that when a species is declared extinct, it pops its head up years later leaving a little bit of egg on the face of science and sceptics. History has proved many times that extinct certainly DOES NOT mean "extinct", most often simply means "not shot lately!"
So what about these small hairy men? Between the last 500,000 - 5 million years ago, the world was full of them! This isn't a guess; this is fact according to science. The fossil evidence has found that the Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, Homo erectus etc were only around 4ft tall and hairy. There is of coarse differing species of these genus, some were broad and robust while others were more gracile.
The most likely candidate for theses smaller creatures still existing today would be both Australopithecus Robustus and perhaps Homo Habilis.
Robustus lived during the more modern human times as well, and there is little doubt that there would have certainly been conflict for survival between all these different Genus and species. The main factor that gave Robustus an advantage was its powerful physique.
It lived around 1-2 million years ago (depending on what you read), and its skull has Gorilla like ridges indicating it had massive chewing power.
It had a broad flat face and less projecting jaws. The feet would have been more human like than Giganto, not nearly as large either - which is also what is found in the bush and passed off as human.
Descriptions and analysis:
Gigantopithecus are often reported are between 6 - 10 feet tall. The hair is normally brownish, although there are cases where the reported hair was Reddish/brown, Dusty light brown, Grey or Black.
The hairy normally covers the whole body except the immediate face. The hair length seems vary depending on climate, it is normally between 2-4 inches.
One of the names for this giant in the NT is the giant "Quinken", and is said to be up to 14ft tall with three toes. The toes vary from three to five depending on species (9 out of 10 prints have five toes), and the size of the feet can generally be found from 13" to 20" for the fully-grown creature. They have large eyes that sometimes are reported to glow red or Yellow in the reflection of the moon at night.
The modern Gorillas eyes also reflect red when filmed and seen from certain angles at night. American Cryptozoologist Craig Heinselman tells us that the tapetum lucidum of the Yowies eyes is composed of a white substance on the retina called the guanine.
This forms a mirror-like surface. As light passes to the retina it strikes the tapetum and is bounced back through the retina. This allows the retina another chance to send the signal to the brain.
This is especially important while hunting wherein low light is filtered to allow for optimisation of the situation. This tapetum also is the cause of the "eye shine" occurrence that is associated with many nocturnal animals.
All primates also exhibit a type of photoreceptor in the eye; these are mechanisms to recognize light and/or colour. One of these photoreceptors is called a rod that is crucial for low light filtering.
The other photoreceptor is called the cones and functions best under brighter lights, these cones also factor into colour recognition. The cones centre around a portion of the retina called the fovea, which is like a small indent. Apes and monkeys (some) possess this fovea and hence optimised colour vision.
In the case of nocturnal primates, this fovea is lacking or the photoreceptors are lacking. For instance their douroucouli (Aotus trivirgatus) also called the owl or night monkey from South America is strictly nocturnal and lacks cones in its retinas. Bright lights are detrimental to it, as the light impulses are damaging without the cones of the retina to process the incoming senses.
Another advantage nocturnal primates have is larger eyes in general. This allows for added optimisation of the limited light availability. This in turn affects their feeding habits, as the ability to see better in the dark or twilight means that the chances of finding food are better.
Some Yowies have been reported to have large and prominant fangs; however, this is subject to species we believe and not always the case. They have thick dark skin on the face with deep skin folds and a flattened wide nose with a sagittal crest skull.
They often have a strong odour of defecation and urination, although some people describe the smell as rotten eggs.
Some researchers believe that the odour can be emitted at will, like a pheromone sack similar to that of a skunk. This may be true, some of the encounters from the A.Y.R team tell of a distinct odour from the creature on one occasion, yet when they encounter the same creature either the same night or another time, there is no smell?
The most likely point to make from the odour perspective is that the Yowie has butt cheeks similar to man, but covered in hair. When most other animals defecate, it generally comes out clean, however with extremely hairy butt cheeks the deification would get caught time and time again, thus the smell. (I hope I put that the nicest way possible!).
They are powerfully built animals with broad shoulders, no neck and muscular legs similar to an ape, yet upright. We estimate their weight between 500-800 pounds. They are sometimes reported a little hunched over with their legs bent and their arms hanging low.
Diet:
The Yowies are omnivorous and they will eat anything available. They've been known to steal chickens and other domestic and farmyard animals and retreat back to the bush with them.
They have been seen eating fruit from people's orchards and going through people's garbage bins and rubbish tips. The yowies also eat road kill and basically anything they can lay their hands on.
Habits:
Some people believe they are solitary in nature because they are mostly sighted alone. This is not entirely true, there are many reports of families being seen together and they have also been sighted in pairs. They are habitual creatures that often stay in the same area for many years, but wander vast areas in search of food.
In Yowie areas, you would more than likely find strange stick structures, snapped trees, massive feats of strength, torn apart trees, human looking trails and trees that have been strangely bent over and woven into forks of other trees.
In the more open areas they like to stay with in the tree line because they don't want to be seen. You can normally find tracks inside the tree line where they follow the main tracks, although there have been some reports of them showing themselves in the open, however this is normally the exception rather then the rule.
They often spend the daytime down in the valleys near water, and find a safe and secure area to sleep; at night they often go to higher ground for hunting or follow the creeks and streams. They differ in personality the same as Humans do, some are passive, and some are dangerous.
A lone human walking through the bush (especially at night), in an active area could be bound for trouble. The Yowie normally stays clear of large groups of humans, but a lone walker could get the scare of his/her life or much worse. It normally starts as a slow 'stalking' process; the victim first thinks he is being followed by another human, as he begins to run, so does the Yowie keeping the same pace.
Most will just get a kick out of just scaring you, but as we said it could be much worse if you find yourself alone with one with bad intentions.
If you find yourself in the presence of one of these creatures at night, we recommend a bright torch in the eyes and a lot of loud noise, they will try and scare you off and often follow you from the bush at a 45-degree angle.
They always try to conceal themselves behind objects such as bushes and trees and they are extremely fast through the bush, which is why it is so hard to get a clear photo. Odd shrill whistles and howling are often associated with these creatures.
They have great night vision, and they don't like bright lights. They hate being given away by dogs, this irritates them and they often deal with the dog if there is an opportunity.
They are very intelligent in the bush and masters of their environment. They have to be respected.
They sometimes haunt people's homes when they have built on their land. They do this by banging on the walls and doors of their homes in the dead of the night. They are very curious of humans and especially children.
Frequently asked questions:
Why are there no bodies found? No one in Asia has ever found a large primate such as a Gorilla or Orang-utan that has died of natural causes. The large primate goes to the most remote locations in the bush to die in peace, away from predators.
After they die, other animals pick the flesh from the carcass until there are only bones left, and then bones are either carried away, covered with dirt and undergrowth or eaten away by the acidic soil. Fossils are the exception rather than the rule.
Fossils are rare; otherwise you wouldn't be able to walk a straight line with out stepping on bones everywhere. Keep in mind how many Koalas and Roo's are found dead by natural causes............... none! Even the domestic cat disappears to die..............
The only bodies of Giganto and Robustus found at this stage, are that of fossils. This country also has had its share of fossil evidence.
Why not many photos? Who carries a camera with them at night?
The Yowie is generally a nocturnal primate in human habituated areas, and they roam the most remote areas of our forest.
Occasionally people camping at night will encounter what we call a "fringe walker" Yowie that comes close to civilization and is often only seen briefly, then gone. Not many cameras will work well at night, in fact none of them will.
The Yowie keeps himself hidden while watching the human, and if somehow he IS seen, he normally takes off. Then often by the time the person finds himself a camera and overcomes the fear, it is long gone.
If the human chases the Yowie, he will quickly learn that there is no use, its just far too fast and can navigate the most hostile terrain without difficulty.
Always remember that the Yowie has a higher intellect than any other animal, and is smarter than people in its own environment. He does not want to be caught.
How did they get here? The opinion differs from researcher to researcher. Many people believe they walked here from land bridges from Asia during the ice age, which is the most realistic concept.
Others believe they could have drifted here on trees and alike after large storms. Some people think they are paranormal...........whatever the fact may be, the most important thing is that they are here.
The Skeptic:
\\\"The unqualified boffin.\\\"
Anyone who dismisses thousands of credible first hand witnesses is a fool! Anyone, who claims that all these massive fresh footprints found deep in the harsh jungles must be from either a bare foot Basketballer or Swimmer lost in the woods without their shoes, is clearly grasping at straws.
You'd have to be rather arrogant and self opinionated to say thousands of people who have seen these creatures are wrong. To disclaim 'one' person's sighting is an arrogant thing to do, let alone thousands.
Remember that the Skeptic is far less qualified than the actual "researchers" who study these creatures. The Skeptic is NOT the person who travels the country interviewing the witnesses and certainly doesn't spend the countless hours in the bush like we do. So how can they even comment? They are not qualified to do so.
Wasn't it the skeptic that said the "world is flat?" Well, civilization has come a long way since then (the skeptic has not), and many new varieties of foliage and exciting new creatures are still being found today, however the skeptic will always dismiss the findings of others unless its been presented on a steel table before him. Because by then its too late to cover up the truth, and that's what the Skeptic Society is there for??..
Keep in mind they said the "lung fish" was extinct, yet it has now been found alive and well. They said the tales of the silver back Gorilla was fantasy and the locals were imaging it, yet it is now found alive and well.
The mega mouth shark was caught and released once only in 1975, and never seen again. Even the panda was said to be myth! Many animals have only been found in the 1900's, and there will be many new animals found in the future.
There's a lot more to this world than Television and microwave dinners and its only a matter of time before a Yowie is brought back from somewhere....... Which we will find unfortunate.
Having said all this, if I were to put money on one Species of Yowie, it would most certainly be an Australopithecine.
It's obvious. Why? Because I've seen.
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Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
www.yowiehunters.com