Giants From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality

Shannon 1945-Related late 1990's

Dark man-sized hairy Creature

While preparing this book I received the following story from Mrs Lyn Roberts now of Adelaide, SA, but formerly of the Great Lakes District of Tasmania. She writes that, in 1945 when she was about 6 years old, she lived with her family at Shannon. At that time her father, Mr Max Harrison, was working for the Sate Electricity Commission.

"Shannon was a small town now no longer there. There was a little school and also a nearby Army camp." "My sister Lois used to play in a huge vegetable garden owned by a Mr Purcell, which used to supply the Army camp with fresh vegetables, and which was situated on the edge of forestland."

"One late afternoon I happened to be playing there too, when we both spotted a dark, man-sized hairy creature, walking with a stooped posture in some haste across the garden. We ran off home and told Mum." "I don't think Mum believed our tale, because all she said was 'Don't worry, its only a Bunyip'!"

Tenterfield 1945

Soldiers jeep struck & killed a hairy man-like Creature

About 90 km to the north-east of Torrington is Tenterfield, where in 1945 a group of Australian soldiers travelling in a jeep through scrub country struck a hairy man-like creature, killing him instantly.

The manbeast, about 1.8m in height, had stepped out onto the bush road from shrubbery at the side of the road as the vehicle approached. The men buried the body somewhere up in the scrub and did not speak of the incident at the time to avoid possible action by the police. Today no one knows the location of the grave.

Philippines 1945

Japanese Soldiers Hiding

The Philippines are also not without their 'manbeast' tales from antiquity, for the original inhabitants knew a time when their people were not safe even in their jungle villages, from attacks by tall, hairy, powerfully-built "man-animals'. These fearsome males inhabited the jungles and mountains of the interior of the main islands of Luzon and Mindanao, with their smaller females and young.

The early villagers supposedly gradually hunted down and killed these primitives, yet there are Filipinos today who claim to have caught sight of some of these hairy beings. Familiar tales of stolen poultry, of killed and butchered stock, and the tell-tale large man-like footprints left in surrounding soil, or on lonely jungle tracks, can still be heard in modern times.

Those who scoff at such claims in the Philippines, should remember that, two Philippines-based Japanese soldiers who went into hiding rather than surrender in the closing stages of the Pacific Ward in 1945, remained undetected for some 30 years until, in the mid-1970's, following the death of one of them, the other soldier finally gave himself up. Tales of secretive hairy hominids still roaming the interior should there for be treated with an open mind. Similarly, in 1961 a lone Japanese soldier staggered out of the New Guinea jungles to surrender after 17 years living with a stone-age tribe.