Meet the Cryptozoologist: Neil Frost

How did you first get involved in researching strange and mysterious creatures?
I became acutely interested in studying the dooligahl on Sunday 21st February, 1993 at 11:15 PM after one stood up and ran past me in the bush across from our house.

What were some of the early influences in your life?
An early influence was scouting, as a cub, scout and senior scout. Our troop leader was a very dedicated and knowledgeable man who, having survived Changi POW camp, was determined to pass on his wealth of experience and bush skills. It was during a seven day camp in the remote upper Grose Valley of the Blue Mountains in 1966 that our troop shared a very strange experience over several nights that was with hindsight, most probably a large male dooligahl.

From an early age I wanted to be either an astronomer or archaeologist. Grinding my own telescope mirrors later helped me to design and build game cameras. Archaeology was not offered at university at that time, so I studied anthropology instead. Three lengthy trips to Papua New Guinea between  1975 and 1980 provided some field experience that could be applied to a study of these hominoids.

Have you personally seen one of these creatures?
Many times, together with family and community members. When activity was greatest, we would typically have up to three encounters per night, every night.

What creatures particularly interest you?
Dooligahls, Quinkin and Junjudee because they are three separate hominoid species and they are Australian.

What cryptids are most likely to exist in your opinion?
One thing that I can be certain of is that anything is possible although, some cryptids are more probable than others.

What’s your favourite?
Dooligahl.

Have you developed any theories around where the more unusual animals - i.e. yowies/bigfoot - have come from?
Even though our Australian hominoids appear to be simplistically similar in form and function to other dextrous bipeds from other parts of the world, particularly North America, this does not mean that they are biologically related. However, the contrary appears to be the common assumption. Consequently, basic theories tend to suggest biological links with pongids like Bigfoot, despite the unlikelihood and lack of evidence supporting a viable migratory route.

Theories based on hominin migration to Australia are less troublesome because technology and culture can overcome boundaries otherwise faced by apes. However, if assuming that earlier species of Homo were capable of the journey, the problem here is their incompatibility with the observed evidence. For example, their reflective red eyes and superior night vision abilities are not hominid or, pongid characteristics.

Alternatively, rather than immigrants, it might be more plausible to think of our hominoids as being indigenous. In other words, several species of marsupial hominoids. This theory scares most people but, it solves many issues, including the need to invent convoluted methods of migration. It is also much more compatible with the evidence, including some of the more bizarre behaviours, like foot thumping, which reportedly occurs in 46 of the 50 extant Australian macropodoid species. Similarly, the elongated legs and feet of some, together with their efficient, high speed locomotion, is typically macropodoid.

Since Australia has been moving North in isolation, from a relatively cold and dark environment for the past 40 million years, there has been a considerable amount of biological experimentation. Everyone is familiar with the platypus: an egg laying, fur covered mammal. Some experimentation, like Thylacoleo carnifex, was convergent. This isolationist period is between five to eight times the length of our own hominid evolution. I can't see a problem with this.

Have you written any books/articles?
I have written two boring computer textbooks but, thankfully, I am working on a lengthy case study of our previously resident dooligahl.

How many mystery animal reports would you receive a year?
This varies widely. Sometimes I receive no reports for weeks and then I get several in one day. On average, somewhere between 1 or 2 a week or say, about 75 a year.

What’s the closest you’ve personally come to finding something?
The most productive time was during the initial period after becoming aware of Fatfoot's existence. It was naive and so it was relatively easy to study it. The only problem was that I was naive too. Consequently, we both learnt from each other with things became more difficult for us both, as we tested and determined each others skills and abilities.

In terms of physical proof, it had to be the orange hair samples that we found on the top strand of a barbed wire fence in the swamp. Most probably, yowie pubic hairs. The unfortunate thing was trusting the samples to someone who did microscopic hair analysis and was also a skeptic. The samples were thrown away.

What’s the farthest you’ve traveled to go ‘in search of’ mystery animals?
Sometimes several hundred meters! Typically these days within the local area.

What’s next for you - any trips planned? Books or articles to write? Talks to give?
The book, another documentary film and probably a few more talks.

Could you share some of your favourite cryptozoology book titles with us?
I mainly read science articles and books but "The Yowie: In Search of Australia's Bigfoot" is probably my favourite crypto book.

What advice would you give anyone getting into the field of cryptozoology?
Cryptozoology is a very difficult field of study. No professional scientist will touch it for fear of ridicule, especially if they want to advance, as conservatism and compliance are usually required. Consequently, it is left to "amateurs" with no established reputation to uphold, to do the research. However, it is always rewarding to learn something that very few know.

It is essential to form a local network of people who share your interest and are reliable. Sharing information and sources are crucial. Be scientific and critical but, always open minded.

Avoid skeptics. These are arrogant and very sad individuals who take pleasure from putting people down. They are valueless and a waste of effort.

If your area of specialisation is yowie research, remember that you will not be discovering anything that generations of Australian Koori have already known.

Is this the sound of a Yowie walking?

In 2010 a mystery animal researcher ventured into a bush location in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. For several minutes he recorded the sound of something walking nearby and throwing what were possibly rocks towards him.

Another researcher, 'Bluegem', who has a background in sound engineering, managed to dampen the man's voice and footsteps so that the other sounds could be more clearly heard.

Thank you to both gentlemen for sharing this audio with us. What do you think, readers?

Have a listen here:

Yowie spotted in upper Blue Mountains, NSW

The new Blue Mountains Cultural Centre opened on the weekend and thousands of locals poured through the doors to see firsthand the flash new library and art gallery, and the breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape from the expansive lookout/verandah.

But as the CFZ posse wandered the large, spacious rooms and admired local art created by local artists both new and old, we were gobsmacked to see...a Yowie!

Not a real live hairy beastie, you understand, but an artistic representation of one created by Aboriginal artist Shaun Boree Hooper of the Wiradjuri people in 2009.

It's quite an eye-catching piece of artwork as you can see.

If you're visiting the Blue Mountains, be sure to stop in at the centre and check it out.

MYTH - Yowie movie premieres in Sydney

The official poster.

Last Friday night some CFZers attended a private screening for actors, friends and family associated with the mockumentary Blair Witch-style MYTH movie, a creature feature starring Australia's very own hairy hominid horror the Yowie!

And they were in for a surprise because a very real and unintended special effect occurred while the film crew was shooting its movie overnight in rugged bushland.

Eight seconds of strange and compelling 'eye shine' (the visible effect of Tapitum Lucidum where the pupil of an animal appears to glow) was captured in the background, mystifying everyone as the images only came to light during the editing process, although some of the actors confessed to feeling uncomfortable filming at the location.

CFZ Australia will be getting hold of the footage shortly to share with readers of the blog.

Mike Williams and Rebecca Lang, authors of Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers, attended the premiere, as did Neil and Sandy Frost, whose experiences in the Blue Mountains have become legendary themselves.

Mike was wrangled in as official 'creature adviser' for the film and his house featured as one of the sets for the 'Professor' character who, along with an American documentary maker, goes in search of the hairy myth of the Blue Mountains.

A prop from the film - not bad!

Here's the official blurb: "The film takes place in the summer of 2009 when a party of four people go in search of the legendary Yowie...They were never seen or heard from again...This film is actual recovered footage of their final days."

The horror film was highly enjoyable, and took the two men behind it - Justin and Rob of King Hit Productions - almost two years to bring to fruition. In that time they spent many days shooting in and around Hazelbrook, one of the well-known Yowie 'hot spots' in the World Heritage-listed wilderness an hour west of Sydney.

Drop by and Like their Facebook page. And stay tuned for more news!

We caught up with the men behind the film for a quick chat on the night...

Yowieeeeeee! A monstrous mockumentary

We are approached frequently to drop everything and help production companies with their documentaries. And sometimes we do! :-)

We helped these friendly folk with some locations for their yowie mockumentary recently - looks like fun!

 

Yowie? We don't think so...

Previous analysis by the CFZ's Mike Williams has shown that this image is in fact of a possum on top of a rock! Note the thermal signature of the 'yowie' is the same as the surrounding trees and the rock - mystery solved!

In the wake of a visiting US television show, which claims to have recorded evidence of a yowie bellowing in remote bushland, Australia seems to be in the grip of 'yowiemania' - or at least our media outlets do.

Secret state government files have revealed a yowie man was recently sighted in the Blue Mountains, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The case emerged among almost 60 suspected panther, leopard and big cat sightings from the past decade sitting in the bowels of the government archives and obtained under freedom of information laws.

But just for the record, these reports haven't been sitting in the bowels of anywhere for a decade - they were liberated at least eight years ago and have since been published in Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers, a massive tome that dedicates more than 430 pages to exploring the phenomenon.

After an overseas TV crew last week claimed it had recorded audio of a yowie man in a remote region on the NSW-Queensland border, documents show the Australian version of Bigfoot was also allegedly sighted last year far closer to metropolitan areas at Springwood, west of Sydney.

In an email to National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers, the witness said he had filmed the creature in March last year and taken photos of footprints. He even drew the yowie man's head, pecs, arms and feet on the picture to make it clearer.

"I have had a seven-year history with this creature," the witness wrote.Canberra crypto-naturalist Tim The Yowie Man, who claims to have seen a yowie in the Brindabella Ranges in 1994, said he was interested in the latest sighting.

"The Blue Mountains has been a common spot for big cats, obviously, but it is not unusual for yowies either," he said. "I have no doubt people believe they are seeing something unusual but many can be cases of mistaken identity."

The NSW Environment Department declined to comment last week. Three years after a government study found there was no evidence of the Blue Mountains Panther - aka the Hawkesbury Big Cat and the Penrith Panther - rangers are still receiving sightings of the creatures.

In an unsolved attack last summer, a Bilpin family's pet alpaca was mauled to death by a suspected big cat that later gutted a kangaroo.

"'Big cat' kill report," Hawkesbury area ranger David Monahan wrote in an email to his boss a few days after the attack.

"Victim was a large alpaca, head crushed, 7cm puncture wounds in skull, adult animal, hairs left on wire fence to be brought in today."

In June 2010, a witness claimed to have seen a cat the size of a german shepherd with yellow eyes beside a "roo on side of the road with head missing", a report said.

On July 13 last year, a man wrote to another ranger after spotting "the panther" on a trip home from Singleton a few days earlier.

There are 400-odd claimed big cat cases in recent decades.

And the rest!

More Blue Mountains Yowie witnesses

Mike Williams has dug deep into his video archive of yowie witnesses and produced another gem. Thanks Mike! Enjoy...

Source:LiveScience

The Live Science website has made this cracker graphic freely available to promote its story on bigfoot-type creatures, so pop on over and check it out!

"The big hairy monster we call Bigfoot has both eluded and fascinated many, with blurry photos and even blurrier video being some of the best evidence the creature exists.

"The Down Under variety, dubbed Yowie, reportedly stands anywhere from 5 to 11 feet (1.5 to 3.4 meters) tall, and has yellow or red eyes deeply set inside a dome-shaped head."

We wonder what a similar survey would turn up in Australia?

Read more here.

New human-like species found in China

Red Deer Man, as depicted by Peter Schouten.

The cryptozoological world is buzzing with the discovery of a new human-like species in China, and what this could mean in relation to Bigfoot-style sightings all over the world. It seems we're discovering new relatives all over!

Of course China has had its fair share of 'manbeast' sightings with the Yeren or Wildman reportedly sighted in Yunan Province, about  day's drive away from where these fossils were discovered.

The Red Deer People, so-called after an analysis of the previously unearthed bones yielded evidence of a mixture of modern and ancient anatomical traits, were cave-dwelling, deer-eating people who lived 11,000-15,000 years ago.

Neanderthal Man as depicted in a recreation.

Fossils from two caves in south-west China revealed the previously unknown Stone Age people and give a rare glimpse of a recent stage of human evolution with startling implications for the early peopling of Asia.

The fossils are of a people with a highly unusual mix of archaic and modern anatomical features and are the youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia.

One of the skulls thought to be of the 'Red Deer People'. Photo: David Curnoe 

Dated to just 14,500 to 11,500 years old, these people would have shared the landscape with modern-looking people at a time when China's earliest farming cultures were beginning, says an international team of scientists led by Associate Professor Darren Curnoe, of the University of New South Wales, and Professor Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology.

Details of the discovery are published in the journal PLoS One. The team has been cautious about classifying the fossils because of their unusual mosaic of features.

"These new fossils might be of a previously unknown species, one that survived until the very end of the Ice Age around 11,000 years ago," says Professor Curnoe.

"Alternatively, they might represent a very early and previously unknown migration of modern humans out of Africa, a population who may not have contributed genetically to living people."

The remains of at least three individuals were found by Chinese archaeologists at Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan Province during 1989. They remained unstudied until research began in 2008, involving scientists from six Chinese and five Australian institutions.

A Chinese geologist found a fourth partial skeleton in 1979 in a cave near the village of Longlin, in neighbouring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It stayed encased in a block of rock until 2009 when the international team removed and reconstructed the fossils.

Scientists removing and examining the fossils.

The skulls and teeth from Maludong and Longlin are very similar to each other and show an unusual mixture of archaic and modern anatomical features, as well as some previously unseen characters.

While Asia today contains more than half of the world's population, scientists still know little about how modern humans evolved there after our ancestors settled Eurasia some 70,000 years ago, notes Professor Curnoe.

The scientists are calling them the "Red-deer Cave people" because they hunted extinct red deer and cooked them in the cave at Maludong.

The Asian landmass is vast and scientific attention on human origins has focussed largely on Europe and Africa: research efforts have been hampered by a lack of fossils in Asia and a poor understanding of the age of those already found.

Homo Floriensis.

Until now, no fossils younger than 100,000 years old have been found in mainland East Asia resembling any species other than our own (Homo sapiens). This indicated the region had been empty of our evolutionary cousins when the first modern humans appeared. The new discovery suggests this might not have been the case after all and throws the spotlight once more on Asia.

"Because of the geographical diversity caused by the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, south-west China is well known as a biodiversity hotspot and for its great cultural diversity. That diversity extends well back in time" says Professor Ji.

In the last decade, Asia has produced the 17,000-year-old and highly enigmatic Indonesian Homo floresiensis ("The Hobbit") and evidence for modern human interbreeding with the ancient Denisovans from Siberia.

"The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story – the Asian chapter – and it's a story that's just beginning to be told," says Professor Curnoe.

Chasing Blue Mountains yowies - a flashback!

Reflecting on Chief's glorious life, we realised that it might be timely to trot out this great feature run in Ralph magazine many, many years ago - about eight by our reckoning. Thank you to Sean for digging it up :-)

Enjoy the read...

The Bunyip Terror of Geelong

The Geelong Advertiser has this fascinating bit of local lore in the paper this week.

Devil's Pool, the Bunyip Hole - the Barwon River precinct at Queens Park better known as Buckley Falls, for the British convict who lived with Aborigines for 32 years - has long hosted an unusual rocky cascade, water race and remnants of a long-gone industry.

That's not to mention enough snakes among its rocks to make anyone nervous on a warm summer's day. But as a picturesque riverside scene it is difficult to match the bluestone, red brickwork and craggy texture of the former paper mills that operated at Buckley Falls from 1878 to 1923.

At its height, the mill employed 200 people, making paper from not just wood pulp but rags, sacking, used paper, rope ends and other species of refuse to make some 40 different types of paper for writing, printing, wrapping, blotting and more.

It was set up by Robert Miller, at a cost of between 40,000 and 50,000, as the Barwon Paper Mill. It underwent various changes of ownership; in 1888 to Victorian paper Manufacturing Company and two years later again to H.L. Littlewood & Co.

The mill buildings lay unoccupied from 1923 to 1929 after which the Hydro Manufacturing Company ran iceworks and cool storage until the war years. More recent years have seen them utilised as factoriettes for a variety of trades pursuits.

The 3/4-mile water race to a Belfast-manufactured turbine that generated some 300 horsepower of cheap electricity to the mill was constructed by 30 men who blasted their way through solid rock, presumably oblivious to the devil or bunyip allusions of the pool. Had they been aware of local bunyip lore, however, they might have been a tad nervous. For some years earlier, in the 1840s, a bunyip scare struck fear into the fledgling Geelong settlement.

As this newspaper reported in 1845: "We have been favoured by Mr Menzies with the inspection of a petrified bone found on the shores of Lake Timboon to the westward of Lake Colac.

"The bone is apparently the head of the tibia, or lower joint of the knee. The dimensions of this fragment of bone are of the most colossal nature, measuring as it does 10 inches across the front of the knee (in diameter, not circumference)."

On being shown to an "intelligent black" it was "at once recognised ... as belonging to the bunyip". This was corroborated with several other Aborigines.

No big deal, you might have thought, but next came detailed reports of several bestial attacks on animals: a mare at Little River, a mutilated cow near Barwon Heads. Bunyip fever whipped through the area. And purported attacks further afield even led scientists of the day to study and speculate on the Timboon bone. Hysteria peaked in 1847-48 when a bunyip "skull' was found in a stream near the Murrumbidgee River.

But the scientists were never able to corroborate any bunyip. Speculation has since ranged from seals to bitterns to diprotodons but the creature has remained steadfastly untouchable - and consigned to history as much as Robert Miller's operations next to the Bunyip Pool.

Yowie footprints in the bush?

Is this a Yowie footprint?

This bushwalker is puzzled when he finds a solitary human-looking footprint in otherwise remote, untouched bushland. What do you think?

Yowie encounters on the NSW South Coast

We've pulled up some more video from the archives about one of our favourite topics - the yowie!

Two glowing red eyes, an ominous growl, flying stones, tortured screams...what could it have been?

Listen to Mike's interview with this NSW witness...

A Blue Mountains Yowie?

In today's post we continue to 'get our Yowie on' with another witness interview from the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, NSW, carried out only this week with thanks to local researcher Neil Frost.

Our witness Sean shares his unsettling tales of camping trips with uninvited hairy guests and inexplicable showers of stones!

Revisiting the Mt George Yowie

A sketch of the hairy creature the women saw.

Yesterday we brought you the story of a potential case of mistaken identity involving the 2009 yowie sighting at Mt George, NSW.

The witnesses recreate what they saw at the roadside.

Manning River police now believe that the two witnesses, Faye Burke and Alana Garrett, may have actually seen the afro-enhanced silhouette of fugitive Malcolm Naden.

But let's revisit what the two women claimed in the aftermath of their sighting:

"I looked back up at the road and I saw ahead in the headlights this big hairy animal thing on the side of the winding road," Faye said. "It was about eight foot tall and four foot wide."

Alana said they yelled out "holy hell" along with a list of other unmentionable words. "We panicked," they said.

"I couldn't turn the car around because I had the trailer and the road was too narrow," Faye said. "I was s**t-scared and thought I better not mess with this thing in case it lifts the trailer up and tips us over the bank edge."

Keeping her foot on the accelerator and speeding past the thing, Faye said she turned to Alana and said: "Did you see that? She said in a scared voice: 'Do you mean that thing that looked like a Big Foot?' I said: No it was a Yowie." And Alana screamed back: "Same thing!".

"After we reached the top of the hill I wanted to turn around and get a photo with my mobile phone," Faye said.

But Alana was too scared to go back. She said if the passenger window had been wound down she could have reached out and touched it.

Faye and Alana said the hairy thing stood perfectly still "like it was at attention".

"Its back was facing us and it was looking into the embankment next to the road and it had dark chocolate brown hair which was all matted," Alana said.

They described the creature that they saw as being "eight foot tall, four foot wide" with dark matted hair.

Hardly comparable to Naden's description, which has him at 177cm tall - five foot 10 in the old scale.

The pair also mention they were fearful the creature might lift the trailer and tip their car over the edge of the steep embankment.

It seems unlikely that driving past a man of average height would invoke the same level of fear. And even given the fact Naden now apparently sports an impressive afro, grown during his years on the run, could his new 'do really be mistaken for a thick body-covering coat of hair?

So once again we revisit yesterday's question - Hairy Man or hairy man?

Are modern-day monsters just primal memories?

Bigfoot. Werewolves. Vampires. Succubi. Water monsters. Dragons. Are they merely all embroidered primal memories, part of an innate 'predator identification' system that keeps modern humans hyper vigilant to the threat of potential predators?

Do these frightening creatures only exist in our imaginations - terrifying memories of a time when humans were prey for a range of fierce predators?

Salon.com this week has an interesting article entitled 'why we invented monsters', revisiting a not entirely original premise that stories about dragons, ape men and other frightening beasts are merely echoes from the days of our primitive ancestors, who regularly witnessed dinosaurs and other creatures attacking and eating their brethren. The article's author Paul A. Trout, in discussing his new book on the same subject, Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination, writes:

"Monsters fill the mythic landscape. In Hawaiian myth, there is a human with a “shark-mouth” in the middle of his back. In Aboriginal myth, there is a creature with the body of a human, the head of a snake, and the suckers of an octopus. In South American myth, there is the were-jaguar; in Native American myth, there are flying heads, human-devouring eagles, predatory owl-men, water-cannibals, horned snakes, giant turtles, monster bats, and even a human-eating leech as large as a house. In Greek myth, one finds Polyphemus, the one-eyed cannibal giant; the Minotaur, a monstrous human-bull hybrid that consumes sacrificial victims in the “bowels” of the subterranean Labyrinth; and Scylla, the six-headed serpent who wears a belt of dogs’ heads ravenously braying for meat...

"Every day over the course of several million years, our ancestors saw (and heard) living creatures being torn apart and devoured by hungry animals — with some victims still kicking as they were eviscerated and dismembered. No wonder our brains are wired to make us dread this awful fate, and that the stories we tell ourselves reflect this dread and attempt to express it — press it out.

"The archetype of the monster is an expression of this primal fear writ large, exaggerated and intensified to an outlandish degree. But why does this primal fear take the form of a “monster,” that is, a predatory creature that grotesquely mixes animal or human-and-animal physical features? In what way did our experiences as a prey species contribute to the formation of the mythic monster ?"

You can read the whole thing here.

Trout's article reminded us of another book recently brought to our attention, out for a couple of years now, Them and Us by Danny Vendramini, which raises the spectre of cannibal neanderthals, who he argues terrorised early man, raping and killing (and in some cases eating) hapless humans.

We're still awaiting our copy in the mail, but in his book, the Australian-based Vendramini examines, among other things, the pervasive belief in ferocious nocturnal predators that prey on humans after dark. He reveals it to be yet another vestige of Neanderthal predation. We fear dark forests because Neanderthals were nocturnal hunters. You can download sample chapters for here.

Vendramini, a self-described Darwinian scholar, has put together this short video about his book, and it makes for interesting viewing - 

But his refreshing treatise doesn't quite stretch to explaining, for example, anything about multiple witness sightings or physical trace evidence left behind in many bigfoot (and other cryptid) cases. Or deal in yet-to-be-discovered species of ape, for that matter. Yet. The book may well cover those topics, in which case we will update this post with our thoughts.

So is Bigfoot a living breathing archetype perhaps? If we all mimic storybook hero Peter Pan and say "I do believe in Bigfoot! I do! I do!" will it make it thus? We'd love to hear what you think.

Dean Harrison talks about his terrifying yowie encounter

Australian Yowie Research's Dean Harrison gave this interview to CFZ Australia's Mike Williams about his unusual Yowie encounter.

Meet the Mulgildie Bunyip

A likeness of the Australian version of the Yeti hulks over a highway between Monto and Eidsvold, about 10km from where the horror was born, The Gladstone Observer reports.

The Bunyip may have disturbed the dreams of the Aborigines of that area in days gone and still scares some folk today but, according to resident Joan Farrell, that's no reason not to celebrate this monster from the deep.

Joan is the spokeswoman for the Mulgildie Bunyip Committee.

She admitted that the resurrecting of the genuine Aussie monster was inspired by mercenary considerations.

"We saw the tourist potential in this," she said.

"I mean, no one has heard of Mulgildie, have they? But now nearby shopkeepers tell me people are pulling up to take pictures of the Bunyip."

The Bunyip statue was made by self-taught metal sculptor and resident Brett Benecke who is a descendant of the area's pioneering family.

Joan said he was reluctant to take on the task at first, but soon become enthusiastic.

"He collected umpteen descriptions, then drew up his design and used it to make the sculpture."

Joan said many locals, including members of her own family, avoid the waterhole said to be the Bunyip's home, particularly at night.

"Locals have claimed mysterious gurgling noises emerge from the waterhole and stockmen have told tales of cattle being pulled under while fording the stream.

Qld yowie witness shares encounter

Over the years the CFZ Australia mob have amassed a reasonable amount of witness accounts on video, which we are now uploading to our Youtube channel for readers to enjoy.

Here is one such account, which occurred in south-east Queensland, just outside Brisbane.

Author Tony Healy to speak at Braidwood's Cheese Factory

Authors Paul Cropper and Tony Healy.

In the early colonial era Aborigines often warned British settlers to beware of large, ape-like creatures that lurked in the forested mountains. They knew the creatures by many names, including jurrawarra, puttikan and doolagarl.

Soon the colonists, too, began to experience hair-raising encounters with the hulking, foul-smelling creatures, which they referred to as “Australian apes” or “yahoos”. Today they are generally referred to as yowies.

Tony began researching the yowie mystery in 1975. Since then he has interviewed more than a hundred eyewitnesses and searched for the damnably elusive creatures in every Australian state and territory. He has also ventured overseas in search of other semi-legendary ape-men such as the yeti, the orang mawas and the sasquatch.

In his talk Tony will outline the yowie saga from the pre-colonial era to the present day, concentrating particularly on stories from the Braidwood area, and will discuss some of the theories that have been put forward to explain – or explain away – Australia’s most baffling zoological mystery.

A few copies of The Yowie, In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot (Anomalist Books, 2006), which he co-authored with Paul Cropper, and which contains 300 carefully documented eyewitness reports plus a lot of Aboriginal yowie lore, will be available for purchase.

The Old Cheese Factory

~ Long Table Lunch with the Yowies ~

A presentation on the Yowie followed by a long table lunch at $33 a head. 

Bookings essential!

Sunday November 6th 2011, from 11am.

http://www.braidwoodmade.com.au/contact.html

Reidsdale Rural Enterprises

The Old Cheese Factory

92 Sawyers Ridge Road 

Reidsdale

NSW 2622

Tel: 02 4846 1999