Shocking New Book: The Yowie
Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 9th, 2006
Click on the cover above to make the Yowie larger.
The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot
Wow! What a beautiful cover. If a book’s cover is a window to the content, you will not be disappointed. This is an earthshaking book. It’s big, it’s monumental, and it will surprise many people.
I am an American, and as such, I have to admit that North Americans, specifically the general population and the media more than the readers here, tend to think egoistically that our Sasquatch was here first. The sense is that the files and legends of the rest of the world, perhaps with the exception of Nepal and Tibet, are filled with merely copycat hairy upright critters that the folks in those other places have imitated in their popular culture due to our Bigfoot. Not true, of course, and The Yowie is a tsunami of evidence supporting the historical significance of encounters with these Australian hairy hominoids.
When I was asked to do and contributed a foreword for this book, I was startled by the extremely logical pattern that the sightings of the Yowies follow. I was taken aback by the findings in this book that the accounts are mostly from a thin but long band of eastern rainforest coastal habitat, and not from all over the country, not from the Outback, as many people may have imagined.
Also, although I was somewhat aware of the long history of the reports, I was held in awe by the pages upon pages of old and yet good reports of these cryptids.
There’s something there, and this book leaves little doubt now for it puts it between the covers in a well-organized fashion, for all of us to appreciate.
The Yowie truly is the most comprehensive, authoritative work on Australia’s most baffling cryptozoological and hominological mystery about these strange, hairy, bipedal hominoids. The book matches in size – 7 inches by 11 inches – Tony Healy’s and Paul Cropper’s previous book, Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals of Australia. Because of the larger page sizing, the book’s designer has fit a good deal on the 336 pages of this volume, including 120 illustrations, an index, and a thoroughly annotated catalog of cases from 1789 to 2006. (See the table of contents below.)
Hey, there’s even a site – The Yowie File – where you now can find updated news. And if you are Australian, order your book from there late in January 2007.
If you are in the USA or the UK, The Yowie is now out, and you will want to get a copy or buy one for a cryptofriend for the holidays. (BTW, don’t believe that statement "Usually ships within 8 to 12 days," as I’ve confirmed it is more like 2 to 4 days.)
Here’s some more content info:
During the early colonial era, Australia’s Aborigines often warned British settlers to beware of huge, ape-like creatures that lurked in the rugged mountains and deep forests of the island continent. Their people, they said, had been encounter- ing the hairy horrors since time immemorial. They knew them by many names, including doolagarl, thoolagarl, jurrawarra and tjangara.
Soon the colonists, too, began to experience hair-raising encounters with the hulking, foul-smelling creatures, which they referred to as “Australian apes”, “yahoos” or “youries”. Today, they are generally referred to as yowies. The list of modern-day eyewitnesses includes zoologists, rangers, surveyors and members of the elite Special Air Service Regiment.
This book chronicles the yowie saga from the pre-colonial era to the present day. It contains over 300 carefully documented eyewitness reports and a vast amount of other data, much of which suggests that the damnably elusive creatures really do exist. The authors also critically examine the many theories that have been put forward to explain – or explain away – Australia’s most baffling zoological mystery.
Table of Contents Foreword by Loren Coleman Explanatory Notes Introduction: Gorillas in Our Midst 1. Aborigines and the Yowie 2. The Colonial Era 1788 – 1901 3. The Early Modern Era 1901 – 1975 4. The Modern Era 1975 – Present 5. Littlefoot – The Junjudee 6. Summarising the Evidence 7. Who or What is the Yowie? Endnotes Acknowledgements Appendix A: A Catalogue of Cases Appendix B: Yowie-related Place Names Bibliography Index
About the Authors
PAUL CROPPER became fascinated by the yowie mystery in 1976, when he uncovered several long- forgotten eyewitness reports in colonial-era news- papers. Although then only 14 years old, he began visiting the Blue Mountains, to the west of his home in Sydney, searching for proof of the creatures’ existence.
Canberra-based TONY HEALY, who had already become intrigued by the bigfoot/sasquatch phenomenon while working in Canada in 1969, also became involved in yowie research in the mid-1970s.
Since 1981 they have collaborated on many projects, notably in co-authoring Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals of Australia, which contained a lengthy chapter about the elusive yowie. Over the past 30 years they have searched for lake monsters, hairy giants, out-of-place big cats and other semi-legendary animals in Fiji, North America, the Bahamas, Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Nepal, Malaysia and in every state and territory of Australia.
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.
Just ordered one!
I have yet to take the Yowie seriously, but I am open to being convinced. I will buy the book.
May 2006 Fortean Times on it’s cover “Monsters Hunters” mentions Australia’s Yowie. The article is by Michael Williams & Ruby Lang, page 40.
Australian Cryptozoologist Michael Williams is actively researching reports of the Yowie. Ruby Lang staged the Myths and Monsters 2001 Australian Cryptozoology conference in Sydney.
I had the same response “Wow! What a great cover!” It also looks like a good book. Make sure FT gets a review copy.
Bob Michaels,
The article from Fortean Times by Mike Williams has been discussed here on Cryptomundo several times.
Reference the following:
The Yowie of Australia’s Blue Mountains
and
Yowieland
hey loren & everyone wow that looks like a very interesting new book about the yowie. the book cover looks very great looking. i might think about getting me a copy of it. bill
Dear Loren,
Quite frankly, I’ve long felt highly skeptical of Yowie–much more so than of Sasquatch, Yeti, orang pendek, almas, kaptar, barmanu, nittaewo, or agogwe. Basically, I have a bit of a “problem” with hominids in Australia–about how they ever GOT there.
As most of us know, the only placental mammals in Australia at the time of its European discovery and first colonization in the 17th and 18th centurie were the Australian Aborigines and the dingo–the latter believed to be feral descendants of dogs introduced by the Aborigines. The Aborigines are believed to have rafted over from Indonesia, bringing their dogs/dingos with them, between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. There is no fossil or archaeological evidence of any pre-human primates in Australia, ever, at any time, and no fossil or archaeological evidence of pre-Sapiens hominids in “Ozland” comparable to those found in Africa, Europe, the Asian mainland, and Indonesia–no Australopithecines, no Paranthropus, no Homo habilis, no Homo erectus, no Homo heidelbergensis, no Neandertals. The Aborigines seem to be the very first humans or hominids there, ever.
The ancestors of the Aborigines, being Homo sapiens of our own species, could have gotten there on rafts or in canoes–but how in the world could pre-Sapiens hominids have ever reached Australia? Did the early Aborigines bring them along as slaves or “pets”? Did a few of them clinging to trees survive tsunamis and get washed ashore? Or did some Aborigines undergo a kind of reverse evolution to an “ape-like” level?
Cheers, T. Peter
Hmm, what can I say T.Peter.
There were more than two placental mammals in Australia when Europeans arrived. Humans yes, Dingos yes, but people often overlook Australia’s native species of mice, also mammals.
No fossil evidence. Wrong. Several fossilized teeth have been found, however, they were never taken seriously by academia. There’s almost as much fossil evidence for the Yowie, as there is for Gigantopithicus.
I should also mention, out of place, fossils/artifacts have a habit of being ignored in Australia. On a Queensland farm, some Megalania Prisca bones were dug up, but as they were only carbon dated at 300 years old, they were dismissed! Apparently impossible, Megalania Prisca died out more than 10,000 years ago. Funny how the sightings keep on rolling in to this day. Go to the north of Labertouche and when you see a “12 foot Goanna”, you quickly change your mind.
How did they get here?
I think Gary Opit covers that one quite nicely. Look it up on the web, it’s a good read. Search on “Junjadee”.
Lower sea levels, narrow straits and foliage rafts combined with a good swimming ability.
Of course Aboriginal legend also tells us that when the Koori came here, they found the land already inhabited by giant hairy ape/men.
Finally, go camping in the hills and mountains at the back of Walhalla. Leave some food out laying about. Then in the middle of the night, camped in the middle of nowhere, when your camp site is harassed by an unseen, apparently undetectable night walker, you’ll definitely change your mind. Have fun and take a very bright torch/spotlight. Not that you’ll see it, they’re incredibly good at not being seen at night.
As if the evidential presence of Yowies in ‘Stralia isn’t mystery enough, our erudite cryptofolk can define an even more enigmatic aspect to the puzzle: “where did Yowies come from, and how did they get across the oceanic barrier?”
What a great Site!
Nicely said Folcrom!
Fantastic book.
This will be the”bible” on Australian Yowies.
A certain mad hatter “author” previous books made the whole subject ridiculous.
But this is GOLD!
Don’t obsess about how monster hominid forms arrived at different places all over the globe.
Worry about the small amounts of evidence. 🙂
I have a problem with the statement, “the oldest historical report of a giant hominid”. The natives from Americas, Asia, Africa as well as Europe have been reporting encounters with the large hairy giants for centuries. There were reported in the Bible and numerous other ancient texts. To say that white European settlers in Australia are the first historical reporters of Yowie or Bigfoot is factual wrong.
Is the drawing on the book cover accrate with three toed claws and fangs?
WDT
I am much heartened by the prospect of yet another recent, truly well written and well researched book on contemporary cryptid bipedals. This can only help to further legitimize and broadcast the cause. Wowie, yowie!
Several question how the “Yowie” could have gotten to Oz because of the oceans. What if they were there before Oz became an island? Aborigine legend says there were hairy ape/men already there when their ancestors arrived. For all anyone knows they could have been there when Australia was still part of Gondwanaland.
As I stated in another post what if these beings are far, far older than homo sap, and his near relatives, and developed in an entirely different way? As folcrum points out it is rather difficult to to get a spotlight on a Yowie and I don’t remember reading any stories about Sasquatch being caught in headlights or spotlights. These beings may be far more different from homo sap than homo sap is from a fish in the ocean. JMHO
Hot off the presses, an exclusive interview with co-author Tony Healy.
Mike
G’day,
It is very important to remember that Australia has been floating around in the Southern Ocean for the past 40 million years or so. This is about five times the generally accepted timespan for hominid evolution.
Although currently less so, Australia has remained in splendid isolation for all of that time. Consequently, I believe that the continent has been a quarantined breeding ground that has experimented heavily in all things biological, plant and animal. Some of this evolution has been parallel in nature – bipedalism and intelligence, but most has been wild experimentation without boundary. Sure, some things have slipped across from the Old World prior to European exploration – and you can add rats, cats and bats to the list. I have even read suggestions in New Scientist magazine that elephants may have reached Australia in recent geological history. That is not so surprising as elephants have been known to traverse more than 50 kms (31 miles) in open water, but this might be a new record.
The point is simply that Australian biota, without doubt, did not arrive here – it evolved here! This leads to many supporting examples with fully unrealised consequences.
Cook and Banks on sending samples of a platypus back to Britain after their voyages of the early 1770’s were confronted with accusations of fraud or of “stitching up” evidence on the long boring journey home. How else could you account for an aquatic egg-laying mammal having a soft pliable bill shaped like a duck’s, webbed feet, sleeky grey fur and a poisonous spurred leg? They were instead a previously “unknown” form of mammal – Australian monotremes.
Most visitors to Australia associate this continent with herbivorous kangaroos. In earlier times, some kangaroos were carnivorous and some single toed. These are of course, another mammalian form – Australian marsupials. Some related remnant marsupial populations are found in South America from the period when the two continents were joined.
In Victoria recently, a fossil rat was found that might represent another early/intermediate mammalian form. Who knows exactly were the Yowie fits into the Australian enigma?
The Yowie are not hominids. With three, four and five clawed toes and numerous other bazaar adaptations and variations, they can best be described as hominoids and typically part of the broad Australian experiment! Clearly, there is also a high degree of speciation. Since hominid evolutionary studies hold the widely accepted paradigm that our species originated “out of Africa”, this should not be applied to hominoid studies of the Yowie, since they are obviously and significantly different!
In conclusion, I regard discussions of Yowie migration as being misguided and irrelevant. Misguided because this is an attempt to make the Yowie fit prevailing models of hominid migration and evolution; and irrelevant because the Yowie have their origins here in Australia. Afterall, Aboriginal (Koori) oral history maintains that “they were here before us”!
As for “evidence”, conventional forms are still waiting to be found. Meanwhile, there is a wealth of consistent anecdotal and other evidence across Australian society found in this book that supports the case. To quote Dr Carl Sagan, the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.
“where did Yowies come from, and how did they get across the oceanic barrier?”
Where did sasquatchs come from.? 🙂
I realise some people believe sasquatch or its descendents, gigantipithecus, possibly used a pre Miocene? land bridge to cross the Bering Strait.
But given that “…sites where Gigantopithecus blacki remains occur along with Homo erectus, such as at Tham Khuyen in Viet Nam, and in the Hubei and Sichuan provinces of China (Ciochon et al., 1990).”
If the American scenario is viable then Australia appears even more plausible due to its closer proximity to these sites.
All you need is a land bridge.
Just like America, Australia does not appear to have any monstrous sized hominidae/pongidae precursors yet found in the fossil record.
Maybe one day. 🙂
This is for Loren or whoever wants to tackle it, I have wondered for years why it seems that the Yowie (if it exists) is much more aggressive than our homey Bigfoot? I know that this is purely speculative, but Orang seems pretty low-key, Patty wasn’t looking for any trouble, and though there are stories of Yeti sometimes getting out of hand this guy has a rep for being a little more dangerous.
Just wondering out loud.
G’day Pendek Addict,
I think that the answer is simply that the Yowie have had 50000 years of Aborigines throwing spears at them. There are Aboriginal accounts of Yowie being killed and eaten. Also, Yowie are similar to humans in some respects – there are good ones and there are bad ones.
hey loren paul cropper & tony healy i just got a copy of your book the yowie in search the austrailian bigfoot its wonderful very informative, its got a wealth of information photos maps drawings that realy helped me with my research and realy made understand all about the yowie. loren you did a great forward to this book. paul & tony this new book is just as wonderful as your first book as well. thank you bill green 🙂