New Yowie Sighting
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 8th, 2009
Paul Cropper has investigated a new Yowie sighting, entitled the “Mount George incident.”
He feels it is a very good report, in which he interviewed both women involved. He is tentatively convinced that “they are genuine” in what they are reporting.
Here are some drawings he shares and a photograph of the eyewitnesses pointing out details about the Yowie.
For Cropper’s investigative notes, click on the Mount George page for more.
Needless to say, the most comprehensive book ever written on these hominoids is The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot.
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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.
Sounds like a promising report. It’s good to hear a little about the Yowie since we haven’t seen much here regarding this interesting cryptid recently.
By the way, if you are interested in the Yowie, I strongly recommend Tony Healy’s and Paul Cropper’s book. It is as immersive and in-depth an analysis as you are likely to find on these creatures, done rationally and with a level head. It also contains a treasure trove of sightings reports, many of which were investigated by the authors personally and with useful insights.
I also think it has a great cover. I think the cover situation worked out fine on this one. 🙂
Interesting report, looks as if the creature felt trapped and used the freeze technique so as not to be seen. Would be very affective normaly I am sure. Like many I have done it myself and it worked well, as it will, if you do not have too much bling! Why it did not make a high speed run for it is not obvious but one can speculate. Something kind of touching about it taking the course it did.
No mention is made of getting a sample of the oily liquid, which might be something that is persistent and therefore not too late to get a sample.
I think the ladies have done well in the circumstances!
From reading the report I’d say the creature was standing there taking a leak. Hey, when you gotta go you gotta go and I imagine that applies to Yowies and BF just as much as to us humans.
I cannot believe I am saying this, but I have to agree with Hoytshooter. He obviously was taking a leak. Back to the road, they found bark stripping urine the next day. This creature was just doing what comes natural, and freezing was the only option. You know how much it hurts when you stop mid-stream.
You may find it easier to read this if you first of all dispense with your Occams razor!
Well I reckon the knees are knocking and there is something feminine about this figure, plus the no hands look. How do you explain bark stripping urine? Many a fly has been torpedoed by many a man but bark stripping?
The oily look could be explained by oil or even coke. There is an empty bottle on the ground at the site. Alternatively scent marking comes to mind or a fear reaction by yowie.
Another scenario might be a female carrying a baby, caught out in the open on a quiet night, as the road was reported as empty, not in a position to make a hasty exit and just freezing to avoid being seen. Probably happened many times before, but in trees or scrub. Or even a yowie with a bad foot, lothe to run for it.
Whatever I think this was a very special experience for the two ladies, I wish it had been me. They were indeed privileged!
First hand accounts are so intriguing.
m_m: I have long had trouble with the Yowie, mainly because of the difficulty of coming up with backstory for a primate of this kind in Oz. I also haven’t read as many reports as I have for the sasquatch, primarily for that reason; and the yeti seems subjectively more plausible to me, again in terms of the plausibility of how it got there.
But.
Given that I have read a number of reports like this one; given that I have never heard a satisfactory explanation of how the Aborigines got to Oz, which in my opinion leaves the door open for numerous scenarios for primates in general getting there; and given my own frequently-stated assertion that one can never pronounce on the present based on the past, meaning please don’t talk about the fossil record until it is complete…well, the more I hear about this, the more intrigued I get, and the more I start to sneakingly suspect that the yowie may indeed be a primate.
Norman-uk: the “freeze” behavior with passing autos is a feature of many sasquatch reports.
DWA- Yes, I agree. I have the same problem with the Yowie. When I first heard of the Yowie, I was pretty dismissive. It just wasn’t something worth taking seriously, especially for someone involved in mainstream biology. “Hairy hominids in Australia? Get outta here!” was my attitude. However digging deeper, there is enough to grab my interest. It still seems unlikely, but something weird seems to be going on down under. But what could it possibly be?
To be fair, the authors even acknowledge this issue, trying to present the facts and possible reasons in a rational way. Any way you cut it, though, it does seem a little far fetched that a primate of this type would be found in Australia. Nothing like that should be there. Yet the sightings reports and other evidence like “tree biting” and whatnot are stubbornly consistent and seem worthy of some consideration. Something is going on, for sure. Whether that is a large primate or not, I don’t know.
I suppose the implausibility of it is what attracts me somewhat. I am a sucker for biological anomalies (both with documented animals and cryptids), so the Yowie is fascinating to try and wrap my head around, to speculate about.
So while the sasquatch may be more plausible from a geographic and biological point of view, with the Yowie we are still left with tracks, sightings reports, and other circumstantial evidence that many times seem just as reliable as anything found for the sasquatch. It’s a conundrum to be sure.
Can we throw out that type of evidence? And if so, what does that mean for similar evidence concerning the sasquatch? Are we going to adopt an arbitrary system for accepting or denying evidence? I just wonder if it is really a good idea to dismiss the Yowie completely based on our perceived geographical limits, when something could be at work that we just do not understand yet. There may be factors at work that we just do not have a grasp of yet.
So am I skeptical? Yes, of course. Am I going to toss everything about the Yowie out of the window while keeping an open mind on similar evidence concerning the sasquatch? I don’t think that would be good idea. The case is open for me.
M_m: I agree. Every word.
It doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m not sure the Aborigines do, given how they “have to” have gotten there and how the alleged time frame for that seems relatively brief given how well they have adapted to varied surroundings. Yet there it is. They are there, however and whenever it happened. And so is the yowie, if it’s real.
It seems to me that every time we find something new about humans in the fossil record, it pushes the complexity of human evolution up, and the timeline backwards. We may be making a lot of comfortable assumptions; and adding to those that there is no way a higher primate gets to Australia.
But there is the evidence. And you are right: drop it for the yowie, and you drop it for the sasquatch.
And there it is. One thing is for certain: the yowie will force a whole lot more rethinking of things long taken for granted than either the sasquatch or the yeti.
DWA- Right. I think there may be some surprising new things discovered in relation to primate distribution and evolution in the future. There have already been many occasions where all has not been what it seemed and we have had to amend previously held assumptions. It would take a lot to change ad hoc the existing paradigm that no such creatures exist in Australia, but the evidence of something weird going on is stubbornly and consistently popping up there. If we accept what is there for sasquatch, if we are willing to investigate that, then it seems we should do so for the Yowie as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think that certain geographical limits do exist and that we should take the evidence accordingly. For instance, hairy hominid reports in Hawaii are not going to be high up on the scale of credibility. There are certain circumstances where we can pretty safely say that it is highly improbable.
I just think that we don’t understand enough about how Australia fits into the evolutionary past and distribution of primate and human life at this point to dismiss Yowie reports sight unseen.
Also, look at how convergent evolution has produced marsupials that resemble in many ways mammals found in other parts of the world. Perhaps something similar to primates, filling the same niches, could have cropped up in Australia at some point. It wouldn’t even necessarily have to be exactly like a large primate, just “primate-like,” to account for the Yowie phenomena. Regardless of the fossil record, we know how that goes, don’t we?
Too many mysteries, too many unanswered questions for me to dismiss Yowie reports completely.
I will say that you are very correct. Whereas finding sasquatch would shake up the world of biology, zoology, anthropology, and primatology, the discovery of an actual Yowie would turn it completely on its head and proceed to pile drive it into the ground.
But I’m interested in the possibilities all the same, and as long as Yowie evidence keeps popping up, I’ll wonder.
M_m: as usual I am in complete agreement.
Anyone looking at the evidence for the yowie could be thought unreasonable if they didnt think there was a an excellent case for its presence in australia linking up with similar reports all the way across asia and onward to the americas . How it got there and what shivers its presence would invoke to paradigms within the cloistered halls of academia are secondary to the thrill and interest available to those who would confront positively the phenomenon! The wonderful homo floriensis discovery didnt slay the establishment so I dont expect a yowie would either!
The yowie case seems to mimic the sasquatch story in most respects except perhaps, Im not sure if it figured in aborigine religion?
I dont think we should start off with the question of the probability of the yowies as a primate presence in australia and be daunted by it but explore the evidence for it being there in a positive way. I doubt if the yowie or sasquatch are marsupials.
There are Australian reports of little people and others to add to the mix including negritos whose photographs and maybe physical presence are still available.
As to how the pre-europeans got to Australia or Tasmania, we know the latter were linked in the past as was New Guinea. I dont think it is clear when people did first arrive in australia but we know they did and it must have been on foot or by boat. I expect the yowie predated humans getting there.
There is certainly a fascinating terra incognita vista in front of anyone new to the australian crypto scene, to examine and enjoy.
Rex Gilroy also Interviewed the two ladies Faye and Alana.
About how the Yowie could have come to Australia in a remote time period, you just have to look at where the old world primates were in abundance [Indonesia-more there than Africa even) and the so called “Hobbit”,(Flores Island) and where Meganthropus, which was a subspecies of the so extinct hominid species, Homo erectus (which is who Rex Gilroy believes the evidence shows to be the true Classical form of the Yowie) and Java man are situated in relation to Australia and the land-bridges that existed!
That the Aborigines have dot and cave art thousands of years ago depicting the Yowie -in many forms, shows that it is no myth of modern times.
Did Australia have a primate evolution (that just didn’t take off) or; did, but millions of years ago they just disappeared, or was there a separate evolution whereby the Yowie and the other truly gigantic forms survived into the Mega-fauna era of Aborigines/Kooris and they were either killed into extinction by the Aborigines fighting back against them-as there legends persist in stating, or that many of them just went deeper and deeper into Australia’s remote areas. Or Could the gigantic forms be evolved versions of Gigantopithecines and the Yowie evolved Versions of Java Man, or as the Aborigines stated they were always here.
If true this would explain why the Mega fauna went extinct, at such a short period after the Aborigines/Kooris came to Australia, where these gigantic forms and the human sized Yowie and the pygmies were the culprits of the extinction of much of the Mega fauna.
Australia has some of the worlds last unknown mountain forests, where hardly any non Aboriginal/Koori has ever trodden. Some of these areas where these sightings are, there is bush that in the middle of the day in blue skies no light penetrates the deep covering of trees.