Compton Yowie Photos
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 4th, 2008
Paul Compton writes:
I’m the researcher that has these pictures. [They] aren’t a stump.
We don’t go tramping in Australia; it’s called back packing.
The Paul Compton Yowie photographs have been sent in, shared, and pointed to by many people.
The following are some of the better versions of those submissions.
Click on image for full size version
Blowup of detail above
Click on image for full size version
Blowup of detail above
For the best summary on Yowie sightings and history, see Tony Healy’s and Paul Cropper’s The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot:
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.
Well stumps don’t have branches that grow downward. It does appear to be somthing bipedal. But thats all I can really say.
Is there a reason why this absolutely positively could not have been a person?
Looks like a HUMAN in a Hikers dark blue poncho !
Nice blurr.
-Jos
It’s tramping in New Zealand.
I thought it was “bushwalking” in Oz. (It IS backpacking in the US and Canada.)
These photos are pretty conclusively inconclusive.
Interesting. Looking forward to more info to emerge on this one!
Why can’t this be the kickup from a fallen tree? it’s so far away and so blurry, that it’s hard to get a handle on the size of the thing. Just going off the photo, I don’t see how one can leap to the conclusion it’s even an animal.
Where are the rest of the photos? We have two with timestamps one second apart. Are there not any other photos that show the object in a different location? Are there any other photos of the area that show the object as absent?
Well, I’m convinced!
I guess what I am thinking about this whole thing, and so many others like it, is:
If you think that is a cryptid, keep the pics to yourself, get out in the field, and CONFIRM the animal.
It just doesn’t seem to be helping the crypto cause that much to keep publishing stuff that says no better than: interesting. Maybe. But what is it? I can in no way be sure that those shots are even an animal, much less an unknown one. And no scientist has anything to go on from this photo alone.
We should have a thread on this topic sometime. Blobsquatch: Necessity? Or Sideshow?
I’d like to see the other pics that Mr. Compton took of his son standing in the same spot for comparison. Without any real details, these pics could be of anything. I see something that resembles someone in a parka, kneeling to tie their shoes. Unless any other evidence proves otherwise, I’d say they’re totally inconclusive.
This really could be anything. That is irrelevant though, as the picture is so blurred that any kind of positive identification is impossible. It could just as well be a crashed UFO; we still wouldn’t be able to tell what it is. As much as I hate to apply Occam’s razor, I’m going to suggest that, as the location is pretty well wooded, the object pictured is a tree stump. Or, even, a tree trunk. That would explain the other mystery of the picture: most of a tree hovering miraculously over a Yowie!
Downed trees everywhere…what is it with bipedal cryptos and woodlots? Even the copyright pic at the bottom of this site shows Bigfoot strolling through a field of broken stumps.
I vote for a tree stump on this one.
scosmo451 – “Downed trees everywhere…what is it with bipedal cryptos and woodlots?”
Um, seems to me that if it were a densely treed, deeply dark forest, it would be impossible to SEE any creatures, much less photograph them!
Fortunately for casual observers, cryptids do occasionally emerge into openly lit areas.
Grab a camera and get out there yourself – you’ll see.
Or not.
The third and fourth look more humanoid, but still tooooo grainy and too indistinct. I too get frustrated because it seems to me that if you are that close and can snap a handful of pics, why the heck aren’t you following the thing and getting more distinct photos. That’s ASSuming the pics are of an actual Yowie, and not a blurry tree stump or what have ya.
YEP, it’s time people started taking one for the team and going after these things with zeal and bravado. If you see one, follow that sucker as long as you can and burn as many rolls of film as you can. We’re all tired of the blurry one shot masterpiece!
Now if you want me to go swimming in Loch Ness for close up of Nessie, well you can forget it. 🙂
However, If I get to go Bigfoot hunting this summer, I will indeed take one for the team and get as close as I can.
Thanks Loren very interesting photo. I for one am not going to question the authenticity of it.
JPG is an awful format for digital cameras – mine has that problem too. The lossy compression removes details and creates artifacts such as those that ruin this image.
It does rather look like a quadruped ape, like a gorilla. Or it could be a tree rootball. Can’t tell.
That looks absolutely awful. I would never even show something like that to anyone.
It looks like whatever it is has a horn, or horns on it’s head.
I say it’s a reptilian. Don’t laugh, there have been sightings here in the states recently. 2012 is coming, maybe it’s time for them to start showing themselves. What if the calendar stops because it signifies the return of these things? From the sightings in the states (Bishopville, South Carolina), these things are vicious. One actually attacked a car, with claw marks to prove it. The sighting usually are at dusk though. I think big government knows exactly what’s going on, and the truth is probably way stranger than fiction. I think we might want to be careful about letting the cat out of the bag. I think once there is concrete proof, it will just snowball from there, and what we might find out could contradict everything we know and believe to be our history, our planet’s history, and why we are really here.
Hmmm….
Nope. Still not impressed.
Sorry.
Suggestion: Have Paul Compton go back out to the same site, set up his camera in the very (approximately) same place, shoot the scene again.
And see if that blobsquatch is still there, or not.
That would prove that the object of interest is animate, or not, at the minimum.
What type of camera was Paul using? Did it have a telephoto lens? Or was it one that didn’t?
There is no doubt in my mind that what we are looking at here is a blobsquatch. Notice the clearly defined blurriness and generally indiscernible features… features common to all members of the blobsquatch family.
Didn’t anyone else notice the other blobsquatch in the first photo? Far left, just above center. Maybe they are mates or siblings, or maybe they are playing hide and seek.
Inconclusive, but I also agree somewhat with MIKE SMITH and ARTIST. Not going to question it is SOMETHING.
CREEPYPETE:
That’s an interesting observation you made there!!!
I don’t see the “horns” but maybe I haven’t looked at it closely.
I didn’t know there MAY be “REPTOID”-type creatures in Australia!!!
Well, one never knows…
There also looks to be some kind of huge bicycle seat attached to the things butt, or maybe it’s a baby? Why would it be on it’s butt? What the heck is it? I still see horns on the head though.
There seems to have been movement made by the “blob” in between the time it took to take the two photos. There seems to be a difference in the distance of the left upper portion of the “blob” and the limb of the tree that is angled down in the close-ups. The left “leg” also seems to be angled back as in stride (like the right leg is moving forward). But it may be that the person who took the pics moved slightly to the left before he took the second pic giving a better angle on what he saw.
Sorry the upper right portion of the body or shoulder. 🙂
The elusive Tree Stump Otter
Right off the bat, while analyzing the final zoom-in of the second photo, I noticed two things. One, whatever it is appears to lack a real neck, not unlike the Patterson creature. And two, the visible left “arm” appears to be at similar length to that of the Patterson creature as well. The “hair” appears to have a similar color and sheen to Patty. In fact, it almost looks like a mirror image of the Patterson creature minimized and imposed on the woods. Loren, do we have any idea as to how credible a witness Mr. Compton is?
It’s called back packing… I think more like stumping and just what they’ve found.
Stump!
I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about the mammals from there but to me it looks like something coming down the tree. The top looks like the tail. The ‘shoulder’ bumps look like the rear haunches and it looks like a head/eyes at the bottom. Could it be some type of possum, lemur or glider? Or maybe even a large bat? Depth of field on these trail cams can be deceptive. I think the animal is closer than it first appears.
Artist responds: April 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
scosmo451 – “Downed trees everywhere…what is it with bipedal cryptos and woodlots?”
Um, seems to me that if it were a densely treed, deeply dark forest, it would be impossible to SEE any creatures, much less photograph them!
OK, I guess I should have elaborated a bit as you’re quite right. I used to spend more time in the woods than I did buildings – hunting, hiking, fishing, four-wheeling, drinking, etc. I saw more animals in the woods than I did near woodlots. I saw a lot of animals quickly getting out of woodlots when we approached. Just about any forest animal is attracted to woodlots to feed on the new growth, but they are very tense while that exposed and spook at the slightest sound, motion or smell. You have to sneak up very carefully against the wind if you want to view more than a backside hauling off. And many woodlots that pics are taken in are man-made – if I was Bigfoot (I’m not; size 9 here) and trying to avoid humans, I wouldn’t be hanging around anything man-made for long. Of course, I see at the other end the sheer convenience of these areas – new growth of bushes that may have berries, easier travel, a chance to get a tan. I think Patty would have been walking in the open along the creek as an easier mode of travel as it’s easier in many cases to walk along a shoreline than through the brush. And, of course, it’s easier to get a pic of anything when it’s exposed. But there are a lot of other areas in the wilds that are open that not many encounters come out of – open glades, rock outcrops, slide areas, rivers and their banks. Now I know of the video of an alleged ‘Squatch running across a hillside, but it seems very unique in the location of open land. Mostly, I just think that there should be more pics that show the other open areas that exist in forests.
Looks to me like a stump, perhaps with another downed tree or branch leaning against it. Tree stump is my vote.
Ok, I apologize to the Aussie Gentlemen and any one else that needs it, but that picture could be anything, some guy on walk about, a kangaroo or a wombat. It could be a shadow or an emu. Hell it could be my chocolate lab relieving himself on a stump for all we know. There is no way to tell. The picture simply does not show anything. I could go out and take a picture of some landscape anywhere anytime and find some sort of blobsquatch in the photograph every time.
i think it’s the Yowie’s pet chocolate lab relieving himself on a stump.
seriously though, it could be absolutely ANYTHING. in the closeup the things “head” doesn’t even really look attached to me. i vote fallen tree or maybe a rock of some kind.
We do call it bush walking here.
“Could it be some type of possum, lemur or glider?”
Bit big for a possum, hate to meet a possum that big! We don’t have lemurs or anything from a related family and gliders can fit in your pocket.
Looks like a tree stump to me and yes gumtrees and some wattles do have branches growing that point downwards, more noticable after a bushfire wildfire rips through them, which is what may have happened in the photo some time in the past.
Where is the ‘Next Day’ photo of the same spot?
If I thought it looked like an Unclassified Hairy Biped, I would say it was paredolia, but it doesn’t qualify.
Sorry Creekfreak