Yowie Photo
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 2nd, 2008
Sometimes everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Sometimes people are just in the right place at the right time. What is this episode all about?
Tony Healy’s and Paul Cropper’s The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot has made these hairy hominoids quite popular in their own country and much more well-known around the world. More people are trying to get new pieces of evidence.
Now comes word that one person says he has proof.
Proof…Paul Compton with one of the photos that he believes backs up his personal claims of a giant Yowie-like animal living in the Glen Innes district.
Has there ever been a good Yowie photograph taken?
This Australian Yowie researcher now says “Yes.”
(Forgive the reporter. It is difficult to spell Gigantopithecus correctly.)
Yowie hunter Paul Compton has long believed a giant animal lives in the Glen Innes district – and he claims he finally has photos to prove it.
Two days before Christmas, Mr Compton set up a wild view trail camera in an area north west of Glen Innes he has been watching for some time. A week later he returned, finding the camera – triggered by movement – had shot 921 images, including two showing a blurred black figure he claims to be the elusive animal.
“There had been a lot of activity there – rocks moved, broken tree limbs – I’d left a couple of cooked chops in a plastic bag in a tree about eight foot of the ground as bait, and when I returned it had been ripped apart,” he said.
Mr Compton estimates the shadowy figure to be about 35m from the camera, and estimates it’s height to be about (4 foot six inches) – “I took my son out and got him to stand in the same place and he’s about the same height”.
He says he believes the animal is a descendant of the giant ancient ape Gigantapithicus, which was in Asia tens of thousands of years ago.
“I’ve got hair at home that’s been identified by Dr Henner Fahrenbach from Oregon Regional Primate Research Centre in America who believes it to be a high primate and identical to the type of hair belonging to the (American) Big Foot or Sasquatch.”
Mr Compton, who has plaster casts of footprints, has become somewhat of an authority on big animals, and in October [2008] will be a guest speaker at the three day Mid American Big Foot Research Foundation conference in Oklahoma to talk about big animals in Australia.
Meanwhile, two commercial television current affairs programs are looking at the recently snapped photos.
“There’s never been a picture before, this could really put Glen Innes on the map,” he said. ~ by Tim Hughes
Source: Glen Innes Examiner, NSW
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Is the photograph of a tree stump, Cryptomundians want to know? Or has proof been developed that the object moves? Read the comments below:
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
A tree stump perschwaps?
I’d prefer for hair samples to be analyzed by somebody who doesn’t fall into the true believer camp.
Mr. Compton does look Australian and hairy, like many hominid researchers, although I could not comment on whether he is unknown or not.
As to the creature, a photo of a photo is even less convincing than just a photo, which is a pity as it looks interesting. Could we get a clearer snap, Loren?
I’m more interested in the hair samples than his photo. Has a good photo of a Yowie ever been taken? Perhaps, but this one isn’t it.
Paul is a member of the MXXXX and presented this for analysis along with other comparison photos that show this animal is moving. He returned a few days later and took comparison photos that shows this animal was not there, ruling out any chance it was a stump.
He has posted the originals on the MXXXX forum, and when you see the original, you will see what he is talking about.
Not a good photo.
They don’t tend to hold kangaroos by the tail like that. And the grey birds would be MUCH farther away. And that looks more like an artificial pond than Yowie habitat.
Oh. That’s not the photo?
But it’s MUCH better. So it might as well be.
Can’t tell much from the photo. Maybe he can download the original for analysis by photo expects?
Another thought: I WANT to believe in the Bigfoot, but with not any “scientific” evidence it is hard. If they are REAL and all over the world they MUST be VERY intelligent to have kept ALL of their dead bodies hid and ALL their living places undiscovered. Any hunter would make MILLIONS from a true dead body. It would be worth any local fines and maybe any jail time ( considering most poachers only get a small fine and no jail). I hate to say it but one dead bigfoot may go a long way to protecting the others (if they truely exist).
This is a very interesting (possible) new photo of the Yowie. But the photo needs more research and enhancement to see if its a Yowie or something else.
show me the picture as a viewable image not some one holding a print at an angle several feet away………show the picture direct from the film or scanned picture or from a digital camera !
gkingdano: education time. hearts-and-minds time. 🙂
“I WANT to believe in the Bigfoot, but with not any “scientific” evidence it is hard.”
There is no “wanting to believe” here; there is only the evidence and what it tells us. “Scientific evidence” means PROOF, and obviously it’s not proven yet. But most people are ignorant of how very much evidence there is. There is a LOT. I would laugh at this idea, out loud – were it not for the evidence. I’m not as familiar with the Yowie as with the sasquatch; but my understanding is there is a lot for this critter too, as unlikely as it may seem given what we know about Oz fauna.
“If they are REAL and all over the world they MUST be VERY intelligent to have kept ALL of their dead bodies hid and ALL their living places undiscovered.”
That’s a misconception, if the evidence is any indicator. MANY people have seen them; many others have found evidence; at least one account is by a hunter who killed one (one of the more credible accounts in fact); and many alleged “living places” have been found and photograped in detail. Again, harder to speak for the Yowe, but. Very intelligent, yes. Invisible? Far from it.
“Any hunter would make MILLIONS from a true dead body. It would be worth any local fines and maybe any jail time ( considering most poachers only get a small fine and no jail).”
No, a hunter wouldn’t. The negative attention alone – as well as the battles of attrition along the chain of custody of that body – would pretty much ensure that. It is one of the most pervasive misconceptions about these animals that they are a gold mine waiting to happen. Think about it. Who knows gold like the Fortune 500? How many of those companies have a penny invested in this? If it were a gold mine, it is an iron law of economics that they’d be in it to their eyeballs. (There is more than enough evidence that the animals exist.) They are not.
“I hate to say it but one dead bigfoot may go a long way to protecting the others (if they truely exist).”
Another debate. Done over and over here. Do a search on “kill or no kill.” 🙂 Gotta admit (despite being no kill), there are arguments both ways.
Not impressed.
Sorry.
That is just plain awful. Stuff like that does nothing but discredit the idea of such creatures.
I did not find any other photos on the MXXXX web site but I am not a member either. In order to answer the question “is it or isn’t it?” I can not answer for myself with out an actual photo. My hunch is I probably wouldn’t be able to answer even if I did see the photo. Perhaps Mr. Paul Compton will leave his trail cam out and see if the incredible moving Yowie stump will come closer to the camera.
We had “blobsquatches” in the past.
Now we have “blobwies” 😉
I also notice that there’s a second photo beside the one the guy’s holding up. It seems to be the same photo, but the coloring of the “blobwie” is somewhat different, darker.
The darkness of the photo on the table could be attributed to the fact that the flash from the camera was not directly on it. I can’t tell anything from the photo the man is holding. Maybe there will be more to come.
Unless the photo is authentic and clear it will lead to endless debates and no scientific conclusions, as usual. A better investment of energy would be to contact Dr Fahrenbach and verify Compton’s claim below. If confirmed, then solid evidence for the Yowie exists. Then we would have to answer, why is it not enough to mobilize the scientific community? Right?
Paul Compton said:
“I’ve got hair at home that’s been identified by Dr Henner Fahrenbach from Oregon Regional Primate Research Centre in America who believes it to be a high primate and identical to the type of hair belonging to the (American) Big Foot or Sasquatch.”
My brother lives in the Glen Innes area. While it is fairly mountainous (for Australia) and there are large tracts of bush, Paul Compton is a bit of a lone crusader, in that he appears to be the only person in the area reporting Yowie sightings. The area’s most famous Cryptid is the Emmaville Panther, with a wave of sightings in the 60’s. The most recent sighting I’m aware of was about 2 years ago of a pair of panthers crossing the New England Highway just north of Moonbi (which is a long way from Emmaville, but was categorised as the Emmaville Panther(s) by the press anyway.
To Paul (in case you read the commentary here): would you be so kind as to post an image of the same scene, captured from the same camera in the same location, where that portion of the frame is clear of the animal? This would be useful in distinguishing exactly which pixels are part of the animal, and which are part of the background (or foreground) scenery.
To everyone – this appears to be a digital trail camera with limited resolution capabilities. The animal is certainly a tiny portion of the frame and it appears the frame has been enlarged in the online posting. There are copious amounts of purple-fringing throughout the frame which is consistent with a poor quality lens. (I’m not putting down Paul’s effort to obtain the photograph; rather, just pointing out the appearance of the image is consistent with a trail camera operating in bright light)
It should be pointed out that the book cover in Loren’s article shows the tall variety of yowie (around 8 to 10 feet) but the photograph by Paul seems to show the short variety (about 3 to 4 feet). They’re not the same thing.
In this day and age, how hard is it to scan a photo?
Great news!! And very well done, yowie researchers!
But I think we all want to take a closer look to the photo!!
couple things: 1) I must agree with most everyone. If this is a real photo, why hold it up to have someone take another picture of it? If it is an original (in the non-hoax way) then scan it in at extremely high resolution so we can study it. 2) this picture raises a few questions (if authentic) about what a Yowie actually looks like. Since I have been following any reports here (3 to 4 years now I believe) all photos that looked real enough usually had tall and skinny things. There was that one video by the sci-fi makeup artist that turned out to be a hoax–the “Yowie” in that was of some size (but that was a hoax). This picture the creature in question looks rather thick and hopefully is crossing a stream or something, otherwise it isn’t very tall. I can kinda see its left knee bent ( a little), but if this thing is on dry ground, then its waist is longer than its legs.
Koala with mange
“Tease shots” like this are doing nothing for the field. Have you ever seen a hard scientist, on a hard search, holding up a mini-shot of a photo for a mini-er shot of that photo? You don’t usually hear Peep One until the evidence is in and the verdict delivered on a new species. The exceptions prove the rule (in the old “test” sense of the word “prove”). But they are exceptions.
I cannot tell what that is. Nor apparently can anyone else. (We can’t, apparently, even agree on whether it’s a “giant” or a “mini” Yowie.) It is premature; the “announcement” is premature; the….well of COURSE. There’s always some want-to-believers out there who will pay cash money for something short of proof.
Maybe Mr. Compton can get an autograph trap out there so this Yowie can sign a photo. THAT’ll sell.
Good points, DWA.
Could be a lot of things. Too indistinct.
Good discussion, though.
TO DWA: Thanks for YOUR education. Can you lead me to ANY sites/photos of bigfoot living places that you say are out there? Also as you said Fortune 500 “knows gold” so if they are not after them they must not exist. Name ANY network, TV station Newspaper Talkshow , ETC that would NOT pay hundreds of thousands of $$$$$ for the EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!!!! Any “sports equipment” used would want to get in on the advertisement of that THEIR stuff helped bring it down and out to the real world. Trial lawyers would JUMP on the side of the person who bags one just for the world-wide Coverage ( and of course a “small” share of the $. Just because a lot of people “see” them does not make them real; Lots of people see trolls and fairies and stuff with any photos so they must be real too!!
gkingdano:
Not so fast there, pardner. I educated myself; you can do the same. Start with these two sites (after you read everything that’s on here):
bfro.net
texasbigfoot.org
Those are two of the best sites out there (Matt Moneymaker notwithstanding) when it comes to the sasquatch and science.
They’ll answer all your questions. They’ve sure answered mine. All of the field biologists in North America could have seen a sasquatch while doing research. And as long as every single one of them comes back saying: I’ll never say a thing, because I might ruin my career….well, everybody will stay in the dark.
(Including the Fortune 500. 😉 )
Yet ANOTHER thing scoftics don’t think about. As long as biologists go out looking, specifically, for anything OTHER than the sasquatch, they won’t come back with any information ABOUT the sasquatch. Because human nature says so.
Lesson over; journey begun. Have fun. 🙂
A very unprofessional investigation. A second photo shot under similar conditions could answer alot of questions. If Mr. Compton truly believes this to be a Yowie he should post evidence to support this, not just one photo that we can easily matrix. As much as I’d like to believe Mr. Compton’s claims I can not simply take his word for it.