Episode 13 - Wary, Scary, and Hairy

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All over the world, sightings of strange, hairy humanoids have been reported. Australia is no exception. From the times when the First Nations solely lived on the land, to early settlement of Europeans, and to this present day; sightings of this mysterious and elusive cryptid continue to awe and unsettle the public.

Join me for the first of many yarns about the yowie.

First off, I’d like to say that a lot of my information comes from the book The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper. They’ve spent decades interviewing witnesses and doing their research into cryptozoology and unexplained phenomena in Australia. If you’re interested in learning more about the yowie, this is a good resource to look at. Second of all, I also want to thank the people that upped the rating of Bizarre Yarns this past fortnight. This amateur podcast is far from perfect and I know there’s a lot of room for improvement, but thanks for sticking with me and giving me a chance. Anyway, let’s get into the meat of this episode.

The yowie would have to be one of the most famous Australian cryptids known. Much like America has Bigfoot aka the Sasquatch, and the Himalayas has the Yeti—a large, hairy humanoid creature has been reported to be seen in the Australian landscape, and has been spoken of in Aboriginal legends and oral history, and a widely known enigma today. This creature is known by many names depending on the region, but for clarity, I’ll be referring to this cryptid as the yowie, just like the chocolate. Because there’s so much on yowies, I think I’ll have to have multiple yarns about them. I’m thinking this’ll be an introductory episode, and then I’ll be talking about them based on states and regions, and I’ll also curate sightings and stories too. Sounds good?

Okay. As we know already, the yowie is described to be an ape-like creature that lurks in the wilderness, though apparently, some have been seen hanging around in suburban areas and towns too. They are described to be either really tall, but sometimes as small as a child and every height in between. Witnesses state that the yowies have a foul odour emanating off them, and they grunt, scream, and growl. Some descriptions of the creature state that they also have long claws and fangs, as if they weren’t scary enough already. Based on different witness accounts, the yowie’s eyes are either dark—typically brown but sometimes described as amber or yellow. However, if the yowie’s eyes reflected light from a campfire or a set of headlights, witnesses described its eye-shine being red; again, they just had to be scarier than they already are.

Their fur colour ranges from black, brown, red, and on rare occasions, white; but the majority of sightings usually describe darker fur. From chapter 6 of Healy and Cropper’s book, The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot, a general description from various witnesses is as follows.

Quote: “They are frequently likened to long-legged gorillas. A full-grown adult is seven and a half to eight feet tall [2.3 - 2.44 m] and very heavily built; covered from head to foot in dark hair; its dome-shaped head may seem small in comparison to its very wide, but rounded, shoulders; skin is brown to black; eyes large and deep-set; ears small, set close to side of head; nose flat; mouth wide, lips thin; teeth large and fearsome; upper canines sometimes protrude over the lower lip; neck extremely short and thick; arms very long and muscular; hands roughly human-like with very strong nails or claws; legs as long, proportionately, as those of a human.“ Unquote.

They are supposedly also strong enough to knock down trees, and are allegedly the culprits behind mutilated kangaroos and other animals. Apparently, there have been some strange structures found in scrubs that yowie hunters attribute to the creature. Some of these include teepee-like structures made from broken-off branches, odd sticks and branches that have been stabbed into the ground, and ‘X’ formations made from sticks that appear a little too deliberate to have fallen that way. Over in America, Bigfoot researchers have also observed the same odd structures in forests, which somewhat suggests that the Bigfoot and the yowie could be related, but I’ll touch on that later on.

Some Aboriginal people also believe that yowies are capable of supernatural abilities. For instance, in the eastern part of the nation, there is the belief that the yowie has the power to make people go to sleep. Apparently, according to an elder interviewed by Healy and Cropper, if you’re hiking in the bush, and you suddenly feel sleepy, that means that you may be in the presence of a yowie. If you decide to take nap, then you’ll probably end up being the yowie’s breakfast. Additionally, the drowsiness it can also lull you into a state of confusion, and the yowie can actually call you to it. In Victoria, they’re believed to have the ability to fly; and honestly, that’s a terrifying thing to imagine, having this huge thing leap at you from the sky like a drop bear. Numerous witnesses explained that they felt a sense of dread and fear prior or during an encounter with a yowie.

In various regions of the country, they apparently appear during rainy or stormy weather, or can even summon that weather. Mentioning the yowie is also believed to bring bad luck or illness, but in my neck of the woods, it’s sometimes used as a boogeyman by Aboriginal parents to get kids to behave, otherwise it’ll take them in the night. And a kind of creepy description of a yowie is that their feet are actually backwards, and this is to confuse humans and other animals. And this same description has been mentioned about the yeti.

Now, we move on to European settlement. The early settlers on the land had heard stories from the Aboriginal locals about this strange, hairy beast, and likely only thought of it as a legend or a boogeyman.

It was all a blackfulla myth, until a whitefulla saw one.

For example, an article in The Illawarra Mercury published on the 23rd of June 1882 described how two blokes, Skinner and Booth, were out fishing one day at a river near Inverell. They were just chilling when suddenly, someone, or rather something started hurling stones at them. After ducking and dodging these projectiles, Skinner walked some ten feet back and then saw something that terrified him.

He called out to Booth, quote, “Oh my God, we are done! There is a gorilla!” Unquote. But Booth wanted to have a look at what’s throwing stones at them. He had a quick glimpse of the creature before it disappeared into the bush. The men described the beast as hairy and bipedal. While Booth only saw the back of the supposed gorilla, Skinner saw the front in all its full glory. He claimed that the creature had a face and ears like a monkey, but had wide eyes the size of a two shilling piece.

As you can imagine, the two men nicked off out of there and decided to go to another place to fish. While they thought they would shrug off the weird incident earlier and carry on with their leisure time, the men the heard a low pitched cry coming from the bush behind them. That’s when they were like, “NOPE” and decided to book it out of there. They believed that this gorilla thing from earlier had followed them. While they were preparing to leave, Skinner realised that he had left his smoking pipe down by the water. When he went back to get it, a large rock that was roughly five pounds in weight hurtled through the air before landing roughly five feet away from Skinner. Clearly, this thing did not like them.

An amateur naturalist by the name of Henry James McCooey wrote to a publication called the Australian Town and Country Journal, and his letter was published on December 9th 1882. The letter detailed a bizarre experience he had out in the bush. He wrote the following, quote: “A few days ago I saw one of these strange animals in an unfrequented locality on the coast between Bateman's Bay and Ulladulla. My attention was attracted to it by the cries of a number of small birds which were pursuing and darting at it. When I first beheld the animal it was standing on its hind legs, partly upright, looking up at the birds above it in the bushes, blinking its eyes and distorting its visage and making a low chattering kind of noise. Being above the animal on a slight elevation and distant from it less than a chain, I had ample opportunity of noting its size and general appearance.

"I should think that if it were standing perfectly upright it would be nearly 5ft high. It was tailless and covered with very long black hair, which was of a dirty red or snuff-colour about the throat and breast. Its eyes, which were small and restless, were partly hidden by matted hair that covered its head. The length of the fore legs or arms seemed to be strikingly out of proportion with the rest of its body, but in all other respects its build seemed to be fairly proportional. It would probably weigh about 8 stone. On the whole it was a most uncouth and repulsive looking creature, evidently possessed of prodigious strength, and one which I should not care to come to close quarters with. Having sufficiently satisfied my curiosity, I throw a stone at the animal, whereupon it immediately rushed off, followed by the birds, and disappeared in a ravine which was close at hand." Unquote.

However, back at the time, this claim was dismissed by academics and they had looked down on McCooey due to his amateur status. But McCooey rebutted and said in a follow up letter, quote: "I do not claim to be the first who has seen this animal, for I can put my finger on half a dozen men at Bateman's Bay who have seen the same, or at any rate an animal of a similar description; but I think I am the first to come forward in the columns of a newspaper and give publicity to the fact of having seen it.

"I may mention that a search party was organised at Bateman's Bay some months ago to surround the locality [and] the supposed ape... and shoot or capture it, but the idea was abandoned in consequence of the likelihood of gun accidents; and I may further state that the skeleton of an ape, 4ft in length, may be seen at any time in a cave 14 miles from Bateman's Bay, in the direction of Ulladulla." Unquote.

I’m not entirely sure what happened to that skeleton, and as we all know, the yowie hasn’t been captured since. Though apparently, a large ape-man was captured in the 1790s and was sent to England. A lot of yowie hunters believe this as a fact, but Healy and Cropper suggest that this might actually be a tall tale but has been inspired by stories of yowies told by Aboriginal locals.

But in the 19th century, Australia was still a relatively new and mysterious continent. Naturalists and scientists pondered as to whether primates lived in the Australian wild. And despite being elusive, throughout the years, there have been more stories cropping about seeing a strange hairy creature that was likened to a gorilla.

There are countless other sightings throughout the 19th century, but I don’t have the time to go through all of them just now. But if you’re interested in reading up on these, I’ll put a link in my sources and transcript page for this episode. There’s a whole bunch of articles curated on the yowie hunters website.

Anyway, let’s fast forward a little to the 20th century. By then, most of Australia’s fauna had been catalogued and we figured that there were no primates that were native to the country. However, the yowie sightings did not stop. One notable example is from the former senator Bill O’Chee. This happened back in his childhood, when he was 13 years old. O’Chee was on a two day school camp that started on October 22nd 1977. He was in a cabin with some fellow schoolmates and two teachers when suddenly, they saw something they could not believe. Mind you, this was during the middle of the day and the weather was clear. O’Chee and the others saw some odd creature lying in the grass, when not long after, it stood up and started wandering around, and they observed it with binoculars. Apparently, this creature was massive.

O’Chee went to describe later that the thing they saw was roughly three metres tall, covered in hair, had a flat face, and walked with a bizarre crab shuffle. Him and the other boys would see this yowie scampering about, and it allegedly snapped saplings and trees without struggle. They had seen footprints left by the mysterious creature, and O’Chee claimed that these prints were far too big to belong to a human. But, as you’ve already guessed, not many people would believe what a bunch of young boys had to say.

The principal of the school told the Gold Coast Bulletin that he couldn’t find any evidence that a yowie was hanging around the camp site, and that he didn’t want exaggerated tales to scare the younger pupils. But O’Chee maintains that what he and others saw was real, and that they had to somewhat reassure one another that they really saw what they saw whenever a school reunion came up.

Anyway, we get to Tim the Yowie Man. He’s a tour guide, cryptonaturalist, writer and photographer based in Canberra. And as you can guess, he’s the yowie man because he had encountered a yowie back in 1994. He had been out in the Brindabella Mountains when he had seen an animal. Initially, Tim thought he was seeing a Kangaroo, but then realised that this thing was far too big to be one. Upon observing it more, he saw that it was a tall, ape-like creature that was covered in black fur. Frightened, Tim ran away, still trying to comprehend what he just saw. Then, he figured, that what he saw was none other than a yowie. It couldn’t have been anything else. This incident further boosted his intrigue with the mysterious and unexplained, and really, kickstarted his successful career.

Now another person worth mentioning is the late Rex Gilroy. He sadly passed away earlier this year, but Rex was a prolific and controversial cryptozoologist and historian; researching cryptids and other unexplained phenomena within Australia for the majority of his life, starting his research in the 1960s. One aspect of his work is of course, searching for the elusive yowie. Along with his wife Heather, Rex travelled around Australia gathering evidence and testimonies from witnesses, and has built up a database of yowie encounters from history up to modern day. A lot of iconic photos of Rex is him with casts of abnormally large footprints, and he has written several books about the yowie, and established the Australian Yowie Research Centre. I wouldn’t mind actually getting my hands on some of his works—I might have to scour eBay for those. Anyway, Rex Gilroy was the man that was dubbed the father of yowie research and made a very significant contribution to Australian cryptozoology; a lot of the things we know and speculate on we got to give credit to the late Rex. His website is still up, and you can have a gander at it if you want to look at his research and catalogue—I’ll have it linked in my sources.

And now we get to the part of the episode where we ponder, what could it possibly be? While skeptics may think that the yowie is a figment of one’s imagination, another mistake animal, nonsense shared by attention seekers, a mythical creature born from folklore, or even a prankster with a costume and too much time on their hands—there are a whole heap of testimonies from mentally sound people that have seen this creature as clear as day. I’ll list off a few theories that’ll try to explain what it may be.

Possibly, the yowie could be a rare species of primate that successfully evaded human capture for the past couple of centuries. I mean, even to this present day, we are still discovering brand new species. In fact, as recent as 2020, a new species of monkey was discovered in Myanmar. But if that were the case, you’d think that there would be bones or even a carcass of a deceased yowie… somewhere? If they’re a tangible animal that hasn’t been successfully identified, they wouldn’t be immortal… they’d have to die eventually from old age, injuries, natural disasters like bushfires or floods, or even disease like any other animal. But… there’s none of that from what I’ve gathered. The only physical evidence of them are footprints and broken tree branches that look like they were physically snapped by a strong force, the ambiguous structures found in the middle of the forest, and photos and videos with questionable quality.

Another theory could be that yowies may be our own genetic cousins. This a really ‘out there’ theory, but bear with me. The yowie could be a living quote-unquote “ancestor”. I’m not too well-versed in human evolution, but I had to take a quick gander at what our evolutionary ancestors looked like. I found that a genus called Australopithecines was the earliest human species that mostly walked upright and were hairy and ape-like. However, they were hardly the towering beasts that some witnesses claimed to see. After all, males only stood at around 4 feet 11 inches while the females were a dainty 3 feet and 5 inches. However, human ancestors have branched off and evolved differently, and it’s not unheard of that different species of humans had actually coexisted in the same plane. So it could be possible that the yowie may have splintered off from an early human ancestor and had evolved to grow taller and hairier. Some yowie hunters believe that a genus called Gigantopithecus may have been present and could have been in Australia, with its descendants living here today. It was a large ape that was over 3 metres tall when standing upright and may have resembled an orang-utan. However, there is no current evidence that this genus ventured below South East Asia.

But if you thought that the previous theory was crazy, this one is will take you from the confines of logic and all the way to Fringe Town. There is a theory out there that the hairy hominids like the yowie and the Sasquatch are inter-dimensional beings, thus making them supernatural entities. Yep, some people believe that these guys pop into our realm whenever they please and go back to their own. I’m gonna try to summarise this theory the best I can, because reading about it was doing my head in if I’m gonna be totally honest with you.

It’s believed by some paranormal researchers that UFOs sightings, and cryptid sightings such as the yowie or Bigfoot and black panthers appear when the Earth’s geomagnetic field has low activity. Researchers Peter Guttilla and Alan Vaughan hypothesise that the geomagnetic field acts as a sort of shield or membrane that separates our universe from other dimensions. ‘How’ is what isn’t known, but what is known and observed is that there is a spike of these abnormal sightings when geomagnetic field activity is low. In the 90s, England had an influx of reported sightings of large felines, a lot being black and panther-like. However, at around the same time, there have been sightings of large apes too. Its almost as if panther sightings and yowie sightings are hand in hand.

I suppose that somewhat explains the lack of physical evidence like bones or a carcass. It also explains why they seem to be so elusive and impossible to capture and don’t seem to be affected by bullets. To summarise, this theory suggests that elusive entities like aliens and cryptids are not of this realm, and appear when the barrier-like geomagnetic field has a decrease in activity, thus allowing these beings temporarily into our world.

What do you think? Are yowies permanent residents of the Australian wilderness, are they visitors from another dimension, or a whole crock of bovine excrement? Let me know what you think!

Anyway, I’m only ever scratching the surface of yowie lore in this fortnight’s yarn. I don’t exactly have much time to discuss anything more, but yowie encounters and theories are gonna be a reoccurring topic of conversation in this podcast. I mean, there are so many stories and so many other things that I really want to talk about but my hands are tied with work and other commitments. If you have anything to add, or if you want to make any corrections or whatnot, feel free to reach out to me. I know that the yowie is quite a passionate interest for some people.

I think I’ve yammered for far too long, so I’m gonna let you go off and do your own thing. Thanks for listening once again. If you enjoy the show and are looking forward to future episodes, give me a good ol’ rating above 3; it’ll be a big help. Otherwise, tell me how I can improve and be a better podcaster. Recommend this to podcast to your friends, family, coworkers, and the person queueing up behind you at the Post Office. I’ll talk to you in two weeks or so.

In the meantime, look after yourselves, lock your doors and windows, and don’t peek under the bed tonight. For your sake please don’t. Okay, bye for now!

Episode 13 - Wary, Scary, and Hairy

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