May 28, 2009
Two of my mates (Australian for “friends”) are all over the media today, in conjunction with Yowie news.
Of course, a quick read of the media headlines out of Australia might make you think that Tim the Yowie Man (shown above, investigating) has gone mano-a-mano (Spanish for “hand-to-hand,” as in combat) with the Big Hairy Guys from Oz. But just to clarify things, Tim emailed me moments ago: “I’ve never had any physical contact with a Yowie!!”
Meanwhile another bushman from down under, Dean Harrison (shown above, investigating) certainly has, and he gives me this exclusive:
“The event was one that I shall never forget.
Unfortunately I had [with me] a first timer, who wasn’t present during the attack…, who is trying to call the entire incident a hoax….
It was certainly not [a hoax]. The bruising I received he says was caused by a rock that I repetitively struck myself with.
The rest of the crew tailed the creature for quite some time.
I got hit hard enough to send me back landing in a rock pool.
I’ve been around too long to make things up. I have no need to.
All I can say, is that it was bloody scary. Especially the way it ran at me.”
Dean Harrison
May 28th his time, and May 27, 2009, mine.
Dean Harrison, during Animal Planet’s Lost World documentary.
Tim the Yowie Man, clowning around while giving one of his wildlife tours.
Here’s what the papers are saying about it all.
It never rains but it pours – in this case, improbable events.
Hot on the heels of last week’s wild weather in southeast Queensland comes a hunter of mythological beasts – Tim the Yowie Man.
Tim – who uses no surname and can be almost as elusive as his quarry – says there is a direct correlation between significant rain events and sightings of the yowie.
“The soaked soil and muddy bogs created by the heavy rain are more conducive to animals, including yowies, leaving their footprints,” Tim said.
He said last week’s rain could make “a large hairy bipedal hominoid creature” uncomfortable and force it from deep jungle canyons into the open.
So Tim has rushed from that other capital of strange mysteries – Canberra – to Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland, a village he describes as the yowie capital of Australia for its many sightings.
So far he’s seen nothing – but that hasn’t put him off.
“I’m quietly confident of finding some sort of evidence such as hair or footprints of the mystery beast,” he said.
“If I’m really lucky I may even get to see one.”
Dean Harrison of Australian Yowie Research says he has just returned from Springbrook, bearing photographs of footprints he believes are of a female yowie and her young trailing along behind.
“They seem to be quite passive around that area compared to other areas that we’ve been to,” Mr Harrison said.
He said tales of yowies near Springbrook date back to before European settlement.
Mr Harrison said on his latest expedition he was rugby-tackled by a yowie at 3am near Gympie.
“This one knocked me flying backwards. I landed in a rockpool,” he said.
What do Yowies look like? Images below from 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.
Filed under CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Expedition Reports, Eyewitness Accounts, Media Appearances, Men in Cryptozoology, Yowie