Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Yowie?The Yowie appears to be some kind of relict hominoid. There may be more than one kind, larger and smaller. They may be descendents of Gigantopithecus, or a version of robust Australopithecine, or a mega-version of Homo erectus descended from Java Man. Rex Gilroy favours the Gigantopithecus and H. erectus ideas, while others feel it may even be a bipedal marsupial. Some think that it is some kind of bush spirit from the dreamtime, or may be partially flesh and blood and partially paranormal.
We tend to think that the simplest explanation would be that it (or they) are either descendents of Gigantopithecus or some kind of hominid or both.

How did it get here?
How it got to Australia if it is one of these can be surmised simply. It crossed into Australia from Asia some time during the Pleistocene when sea levels were lower than they are today. Even then, however, there was a deep ocean trench between Bali and Lombok that has been said to be responsible for the failure of Asian fauna to migrate south to Australia and Papua New Guinea (The Wallace Line).
Recent work (early 2000's) on primate migration during the Pleistocene suggests that the Wallace Line may not have represented such an impossible barrier to cross as has been previously thought.
Of course, until someone finds one and puts it in front of the scientific community, the mainstream of Australia will not be concerned on how it got here.

Are you people kidding?!No! The more we investigate this phenomenon, the thicker the plot gets. There are hundreds if not thousands of sightings, from the first days of British colonisation. Paul Cropper nd TOny Healy have documented many sightings in their excellent book, Dean Harrison and his crew are constantly updating their database (and eyewitness interviews on Youtube). The aborigines have stories of these things going back who knows how long. We and many others have interviewed many very normal people with extraordinary experiences of huge man-ape creatures. Entire communities in the Blue Mountains know about these things. Local people have joined in the chase for them. Politicians have reported seeing them.
But through all this, we maintain our scepticism. And if we are fortunate enough to see one of these things with our own eyes, we will no doubt transform into one of the "believers". SOMETHING is definitely going on that isn't shown on TV, just exactly what it is, we are not yet sure.

Is the Yowie a Hoax?No. Neither is it a myth. "It" exists, no question, whatever "it" is. If not, it would have to be an incredibly elaborate system of hoaxes going back over hundreds of years. There are just too many people with physical experiences of it to be dismissed as a big hoax or "old tales". Sightings are on-going, right now! In some areas of high yowie activity, sightings are frequent down entire streets backing onto bush. Entire neighbourhoods know about the antics of these things. When a Yowie stands 1 m in front of you and roars, you are not likely to mistake it for a possum or a cockatoo. When we talk to these people and tell them that city folk laugh about people who believe in Yowies, they just say they don't care if others believe or not. They know it exists and many just couldn't be bothered proving it to the rest of the world.
"Those who ridicule the existence of the Yowie are simply ignorant of the facts".

Why isn't there any hard evidence of the existence of yowies?The only thing that hasn't been brought to the public's knowledge is a skull or body, although there are a few reports of people having shot them and the bodies carted away by "authorities".
Experienced bush people would know that flesh, blood and bones decay very rapidly in the bush. The reason for lack of photography is probably due to the fact these things are mainly nocturnal and very evasive. They are intelligent. There are not very many of them. They live mostly in areas where there are no people. Scientists, by and large don' believe in them, so don't look for them. How many city folk going on bushwalks have found the remains of a koala? Not many.

Can we find a Yowie?There have been many expeditions searching for yowies. Some have been very successful (see www.yowiehunters.com). However, if you have spent any time at all trying to cover bush valleys in search of potential hiding spots, you would know that even within a kilometre or so of civilisation, are places where people rarely ever go, and where undergrowth is difficult to get through.
In the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, there are numerous bush valleys backing onto residential areas. These valleys extend away from suburbia for 10's of km. Just about anything could be out there. Unless a particular Yowie lives close to a built up area, the chances of stumbling upon them in the bush are very small. They seem to not want to be found.

Could someone catch a Yowie?You could try. Many, very enthusiastic people and local residents have tried to get evidence of them. Take a look at Rusty222's videos on Youtube and documentation on http://www.farsouthcoasthominoidevidence.org/  The challenge is that they are intelligent, evasive and move much faster than humans. They are also stronger and bigger. These things are smart enough to dismantle tree-mounted cameras designed to catch them on film, so any efforts to catch them would require some very complex planning and lots of good fortune. Then of course there are the moral issues. Those who live in areas of frequent sightings have tried many ways to get decent evidence. The best results so far have been some distant photos and footprint casts. Groups of neighbours and local police have at time tried to catch up with one particular creature in an area in the lower mountains. Without any luck, as it has evaded them each time.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Blue Mountains 30 March 2007 POSSIBLE ENCOUNTER

Prior to this trip to the Blue Mountains, we had received reports that a group of high school students had been scared out of their wits at midnight one evening when they were doing as high school students do, and "hanging out" together at a cul-de-sac adjoining the Blue Mountains National Park. We headed up to the area the following weekend and scouted the area.

The photos below show the area of interest. We met with two of the school students who appeared to be quite enthusiastic. We were very aware of the possibility that this may have been a prank. During the evening, we walked some of the local firetrails looking for evidence and seeking a possible encounter. The closest we came was being frightened by the thumping of a wallaby taking off in the sdark beside us. At about 9:30pm, we noticed that the dogs in the valley to the north of us had begun barking furiously. This was the valley where the previous sighting had occurred. We received an sms txt from the school students who had located themselves on the side of the road in the cul-de-sac (the far side from the road!). They reported the dogs and sounds coming from the bush, as well as apparent eye-shine from the bush.

We made our way over the cul-de-sac. On reaching it we found the two boys huddled under a streetlamp on the other side of the road from the bush. As we approached and sat down I distinctly saw the eye-shine from two eyes as they popped up from behing a grassy mound in the bush and disappeared again. As we talked to the boys, they related that this was similar to what they had been seeing for the past 30 minutes. At intervals over the next hour, most of us caught glimpses of eye-shine through the trees, probably 20-30 m away from us. The boys also described their experience from the weekend before, when they had seen a huge manlike (but hairy) creature emerging from a bush trail but stopping short of the road, nearby to another streetlamp. This time around, they had been too frightened to venture onto the bush side of the road. As we sat there listening (sometimes with a parabolic microphone) and watching, we heard various noises from the bush but were unsure of approaching. Oddly, although we had seen the eye-shine to our left when we arrived, the noises were generally coming from our right, near a firetrail that led off behind some local houses.
The area during the day (above). The crushed grass and branches in this area were interesting. In other areas, you can see similar undergrowth, but it is not squashed to the ground as can be seen here.

The eye-shine was seen in the dark area behind the trees in the centre of this photo.


This is a shot of the area we saw the eye-shine at night. Nothing visible in the photo unfortunately but the eye-shine was seen behind the narrow white tree trunk at the right hand side of the photo.
After waiting for two hours or so, with very little further activity except for the noises off to our right, we decided to venture into the bush a little way. We were more than ably assisted by a local resident who has become an investigator for the area over the past years.
We walked down the firetrail to the right a little ways but saw nothing except for a grassy area that had been set up for a wedding reception. When we had returned to the street, we were accosted by an agitated resident. It was his daughter's wedding reception area that was set up for the next day and he thought we might be thieves. Interestingly, when he calmed down and we explained that we were just harmless nutters looking for yowies, he said he had heard us walking about down there "all night". Yet we had only ventured there 5 minutes before he had come out to see us off. So what was down there?
This evening ended positively. Although we could not say for certain that we had seen definite proof of a large cryptic hominid, we had definitely seen and heard something, in one of the hotspot areas in Australia, a week after a strong sighting had been made. We are making progress!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

March 4 2007 Expedition - Blue Mountains

Location: Lower Blue Mountains, NSW
Number of participants: 3
Preface: We headed to a particularly active area of the the Blue Mountains for a two night expedition from the 2nd to 4th March 2007.

We camped out at the end of a road leading to a firetrail in an historically active area. During the first day, T and A went looking around the local area and met up with a few local residents with their own experiences.

On Sat 3rd, Mike (me) joined the expedition. I parked at the end of the road where it stops and becomes a firetrail. I then walked a few hundred metres or so down the track to a saddle leading into a steep gully on the northern side. Here, approx 10 metres from the firetrail I found an interestingly disturbed group of sapling and low bushes that appeared to me to have been pushed down into the centre.






Sunday, January 21, 2007