Giants
From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality
Mini
Ha Ha Falls 1974
Ominous
footprints-and dead Pony
In May 1974, a pony was found
dead in thick bushland near the falls, its neck had been broken, the
head almost torn off, and portions of its back had been removed and
eaten.
Nearby were the ominous footprints
of what must have been an enormous ape-like creature.
News of the gruesome find
revived memories of a similar occurence some months before on a Mount
Victoria farm where a sheep had been killed in much the same manner.
Nearby, large ape-like footprints
had been found.
Katoomba
1974
Mineralised
Cranium
In November 1974, while bushwalking
at Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, I chanced to find,
protruding from hard-packed sandstone/ironstone soil, a strangely shaped
lump of rock. Curiously dislodging it, I found it to be the heavily
mineralised cranium of a primitive human.
The skull bones had been
turned to ironstone, while the interior was filled with mudstone. The
cranium had been crushed inwards on its right side. The fossil was missing
the eyebrow ridges and displayed a slightly receding forehead. I later
restored the crushed right side section [on paper] to its original shape,
to reveal Brachiocephalic features.
The cranium measures 15 cm
long by 10 cm wide in its distorted shape. With the right side reconstructed
the full width would have been about 14 cm. Its depth is 8 cm.The fossil's situation was
the site of an ancient swampland. Prior to surface exposure,
the cranium had been subjected to considerable pressure from deep overlying
deposits, which over a vast period of time had transformed the skull
bones to ironstone.
Dr Harold Webber, who later
examined the fossil, believed it had to be about the same age as the
Tarana skulls. The Katoomba cranium is not anatomically primitive enough
to be placed with Homo erectus; rather it stands somewhere between Homo
erectus and the later early Homo sapiens.
If, as now seems certain,
the first Homo sapiens evolved in Australia, their forefather, Homo
erectus, would have to have entered the continent from Java at a considerably
earlier period. From highly technical DNA
research findings published in 1987, leading American geneticist, Dr
Allan C Wilson [University of Hawaii], suggests genetic traits among
the Australian Aborigines point to the earlier presence of Homo erectus
on this continent.
He is joined by Oxford University,
UK scientist Dr. Jeremy Cherfas, who suggests Homo erectus may have
entered Australia by 400,000 years ago, to evolve into the earliest
modern humans, who eventually spread out into the rest of the world.
To date , all that has been
lacking to complete the anthropological gap in Australian human prehistory
knowledge, to the satisfaction of scientists, has been the discovery
of actual Homo erectus fossil remains. I believe I now have that evidence.
Barrington
Range Area 1974-Interview
A
so called Gorilla
A resident of the town, Mr
Wayne Caban, had just reported an encounter with a Yowie he had experienced
in the Barrington Range area, and we wished to interview him. Mr Caban had recently been
attempting to secure photographic evidence of the Yowie on the Barrington
Range without success.
Wayne's encounter with the
Yowie took place while he was employed with a mining company, engaged
in carrying out an exploration programme on the Gummi River, at the
headwaters of the Manning River near Tomala in the Barrington Range
area.
Wayne remained with the company
from October 1973 to February 1974, during which time he learnt of many
strange things in the area from among mining acquaintances. He said "When I began
my employment I was asked by Barney Matthews, a contractor who hailed
from Armidale, if I knew anything about a so-called 'gorilla' which
was said to roam around the Tops area and had been seen from time to
time by timber cutters".
One night in mid-January
1974 Wayne was to have an experience which was to bring back to memory
the question which Barney Matthews had asked him. Wayne was left alone in the
camp at the time as caretaker while the rest of the workforce went on
their six-day leave period. The time was about 10pm on the third night
of his lone vigil. Wayne lay on his bunk watching TV in the caravan
which he and Barney had occupied together.
The night outside was pitch
dark and pouring rain to boot. All seemed well until Wayne suddenly
felt a mighty thump against the top side of the caravan, followed within
seconds by the van being lifted as though something or someone was trying
to push it over.
Wayne yelled loudly and the
van was immediately dropped. The only light in the van was coming from
the TV screen. Wayne jumped off his bunk and leapt the length of the
van to grab and light a gas lantern, which was thankfully stowed in
a cupboard at the time.
As he lit the lamp he heard
a commotion outside and knew that something had tipped over a table
left outside the van, and which was laden with cooking utensils. Then
he heard guy ropes snapping on an annexe of the van behind, immediately
followed by the same sound in the general direction of a six-man tent
pitched a few yards from his caravan.
Wayne told us, "I knew
it had not been a bull or steer for there was no noise involved, such
as there would have been had a bovine been the culprit. It was dark
and wet outside and I had no intention of going out to check on anything." Wayne grabbed and loaded
the .270 rifle that he always kept in the van, and sat there waiting
for whatever it was to hit the van again; for by now Wayne held fears
that it was indeed the 'gorilla'.
But the 'thing', whatever
it was, left the camp without further sound. Wayne said, "When daylight
came I checked for damage. I found the table had been hurled some distance
from its original position, with pots, pans and dishes scattered all
around the camp. Some of the guy ropes on the annexe of the van behind
were broken, as were a couple of the tent ropes."
Reluctant to think it was
anything but a bovine he began to look for hoof prints but failed to
find any. What he did find were enormous footprints in the mud about
the camp grounds. When the crew returned to the camp Wayne told them
fo his experience and showed them the footprints. They all agreed that the
creature had indeed been the mysterious 'gorilla'.
Wayne had first heard about
the Yowie from a young Aboriginal boy while working in the Armidale
district some years previously.
The
description of the Yowie by the Aborigine was:
"Man-like and covered
from head to foot in long hair, and anything from 7 to 10 ft tall." He also informed Wayne that
Yowies were said to frequent the Walcha Gorge. This was also supported
by the boy's father, an old dingo shooter.
One story concerned an old
Aboriginal man who had wandered into the gorge whilst drunk, and who
was later found by a search party, which included the boy's father -
propped up in a sitting position against a fallen tree. His head had
been torn from his shoulders.
Wayne Caban began to spend
a lot of time on the Barrington Range east of Scone, searching in the
hope of finding evidence of the Yowie, and in the course of his searches
came across a set of large, ape-like footprints in the mud of a mountain
track high up in the forest country of the range.
Driving up the range Heather
and I searched the area where the footprints had been found, but saw
nothing. However, we experienced here the distinct feeling that we were
being watched from a distance by 'something', a feeling we would experience
again later, in the course of our search on the Carrai Plateau west
of Kempsey.
Woodenbong
1974
Theres
a monster in my Backyard
During 1974 a young woman,
Wendy Burns, was one night baby-sitting her sister's young children
at her home, situated on the outskirts of Woodenbong. On this particular night
she had just put the children to bed when she heard the family dogs
barking outside in the backyard.
She went to the back door
to quieten the animals, only to be stopped in her tracks, dumbfounded
at first - by the sight of an 8ft [2.4m] tall, dark hairy man-like creature,
standing only a few yards away down the end of the yard [the dogs meanwhile
had run off], visible in the glow from the back door light.
Slamming the door, she grabbed
for the phone. "There's a monster in my back yard!" she screamed
to the police but by the time two officers arrived the hairy hominid
had retreated back into the bush.
Local Aborigines to whom
she later spoke of her experience informed her that a tribe, the Wabeul
[now extinct] called these creatures the 'Nimbin', described by them
as a giant hairy race that lived in caves and rock overhangs on the
Night Cap Range.
Papua
New Guinea 1974-Reported 1981
Ape-like
Calls
It is an unsettling
fact to text book anthropologists, that members of the ape family, possibly
relatives of Gigantopithecus were, and still are, known to primitive
tribes of the New Guinea interior who, unless they had lived contemporaneously
with such creatures, could not possibly have invented their description.
In 1981 Qld
zoologists, Mr Garry Opit, provided me with a report concerning the
calls of what he termed "unknown apes", heard in the course
of an ornithological expedition in Papua New Guinea.
"On the
15th January, 1974 I and two other scientists began a three month long
zoological collecting expedition for the Bishop Museum, Honolulu Hawaii,
and the Wau Ecology Institute, PNG, exploring the Adelbert Mountains
in the Morobe district behind Madang.
After much intensive
observation, collections and study of the forest and its life forms,
we reached Mt Mengam and set up camp at an elevation of 1,500m [6,000ft]." "From the
29th February until 22nd March 1974, we thoroughly studied this highest
area of the Adelbert Mountains and had identified the calls of all the
life forms that abounded there.
We knew all the mammals, birds and amphibians,
reptiles and much of the insect life." "On four
different occasions during this period my fellow ornithologists and
I heard remarkable mammalian, ape-like calls that were repeated several
times and carried long distances through the forest. The calls appeared
to originate from distances of between half a male to a mile away and
always during daylight."
"Later
on a three day camping trip between the 25th and 27th October 1974 on
Mt Missin, Wau with the same ornithologists and in an area where we
had spent months studying the birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and
insects we again heard these same calls at an elevation of 6,000ft [1500m]
during daytime."
"We were
able to identify the calls of all the birds, mammals and amphibians
but once again were at a loss to identify this creature. Once again
the calls sounded like mammalian, ape-like calls, and forced me to come
to the decision that an unknown, and fairly large primate must inhabit
these forests."
"The only
bird whose voice we had not heard was the Mountain Owlet-Nightjar [Aegotheles
albertisii], one of which we occasionally observed at the entrance of
it's hole 80ft up in a rainforest tree. However, the strength and far-carrying
qualities seemed far above the abilities of this small bird."
Actually explorers
in the 1890's reported finding on a number of occasions, large ape-like,
man-like footprints in this same region, and also up in the mountain
tundras at about 10,000ft. Expeditions were despatched to search for
the monsters, but these failed to turn up any further evidence of the
mystery giants.
Madang
Papua New Guinea 1974
Half-human,
half-apelike female Creature
About 1974 several natives
fishing offshore in a dugout canoe near Madang, on the north coast of
PNG, captured a half-human, half-apelike female creature with black
body hair. She was about 1.5m in height
with normal breasts [ie non-pendulous], and normal length arms.
She had been wading for molluscs
at the time of her capture. The men realised she was not a normal human
female [ an 'Ogre' they thought] and fearing that bad luck would befall
them if they kept her, released the strange hominid.
Ogres of one size or another
are often confused with the other "hairy men/women" of the
forests and are likewise regarded with fear. I have already mentioned
the capture of a female 'Ogre' above by a native fishing party at Madang
in 1974. It is obvious that the physical descriptions of many ogres
as given by tribespeople, fit those of both the ape-like Masali and
the more man-like Dera kiboni [or Vada ].
Goraka
Papua New Guinea 1974
Hairy
female Mabi
In 1974 two
native men captured a hairy female Mabi about 1.5m in height, dragging
her back to their village, where other men later beat and killed her.
A few night later, terrifying cries were heard in the nearby forest.
The next day the village was abandoned.
Some weeks later
a few tribesmen returned to their village to find a number of huts torn
down, and other materials smashed and scattered about the area.. It
appeared to the men that several Mabi giants had taken their revenge
upon the village for the death of their companion.
Bay
of Islands & Auckland New Zealand 1974
Skeletal
Remains
The Maori people
also recognise another giant race, the Ruaeo, who reached 2.6 to 3m
tall, and besides making stone tools also buried their dead.
Evidence of
this giant people, now closely guarded as sacred relics by the Maoris,
was found in the Bay of Islands in 1974, when a cave was uncovered containing
an unknown number of large human skulls at least 2,000 years old, reputed
to have belonged to people up to 3.3m in height, said by the Maoris
to have been a fair-skinned, fair-haired race.
The Maoris
recognise the Ruaeo people as having inhabited New Zealand long before
the arrival of their ancestors.
More
skeletal Remains
During 1974
further skeletal remains of a 3.3m tall people were uncovered on a property
situated on an island near Auckland, when a farmer accidentally dug
up the graves of six skeletons, ranging between 2.6 and 3.3m in length
when exposed.
The man contacted
university anthropologists, who, after examining the finds had the graves
re-covered. The exact location of the finds is a closely guarded secret
of the Maori people of that region. A local tohunga
said at the time that the Ruaeo may have links with a similar giant
people who also buried their dead in graves in the islands to the north,
and whom the Tongans and Tahitians say, inhabited a wide area of the
Pacific long ago.
At another location
south of Kaitaia, on the west coast of North Auckland, are several 'tapu'
[taboo] caves where burials of a non-Maori people are known. These consist
of skeletons of 1.8m to 2.1m in length layed out on the cave floors.
Are they further remains of the mysterious Ruaeo people?
Coromandel
Peninsula New Zealand 1974
Enormous
hairy man-like Beast
Earlier, in
1974 Mr Gino de Costa and a mate drove up to Coromandel Peninsula one
day and camped overnight .
To
quote Gino:
"As we
sat at our campfire later that night, we were surprised by an enormous
looking, hairy man-like beast over 2m tall, that emerged from bushes
nearby." "The monster
then ran past our fire in big strides."
"Although
we were armed with rifles for hunting thereabouts we decided not to
attempt to pursue the beast, especially at night." "The creature
had actually climbed down a steep 30ft rock face to reach our camp." "The following
day we told a local farmer of our experience, He informed us that the
same creature had been reported seen near our campsite 4-5 times within
recent months."