Ape-Men in Australia by Rex Gilroy Copyright (c) 2001 Rex Gilroy. This article is composed of extracts from my 2001 Yowie book: “Giants From the Dreamtime” -The Yowie in Myth and Reality. Copyright (c) 2001 Rex Gilroy, Uru Publications.

[Released in March, 2001, click here for Ordering Details]

The Australian Yowie Story

Yowies in Australia
Man-Apes of Eastern Australia

Excerpts From Chapter 16 Mysterious Australia 1995 - Rex Gilroy Parts 1-13

Click at End of each Article for Parts 2-16

Part 14-16 Is The Updated Version From the 2001 Yowie Book
" Giants From The Dreamtime - The Yowie in Myth & Reality."

Part 5

We journey now into the Northern Territory, land of the "Pankalanka", the name by which these horrific, hairy monster hominids are known to Aborigines and whites alike hereabouts. During August 1968, a 2.6-metre-tall giant male hominid, long white hair trailing from his head, surprised a young woman on a camping trip while she was walking her dog near the Katherine River, inland from the town of Katherine in Arnhern Land.

"The monster just appeared from out of bushes in front of me. He grabbed the dog and hurled it against a boulder, killing it. I ran away screaming for my parents at our camp nearby. The man-beast all the time was yelling and snarling and at first began pursuing me, but as I approached the camp and he saw my folks and our vehicle, he stopped and retreated into the scrub. I recall he had large genitals, very hairy muscular arms and large hands with long finger nails," she told me in a 1973 interview.

Brutish, hairy, ape-like monsters are said by many people to inhabit Amhem Land's Kakadu National Park. People who have penetrated this wild country in Land-Rovers have been known to return to civilisation with stories of giant footprint discoveries or claims of sightings of large hairy male or female creatures. The monster hominids are depicted in local Aboriginal cave art as tall, hairy figures beside smaller Aboriginal figures for size comparison.

In 1982 there was one incident where a camping party awoke one moming to find enormous manlike footprints embedded in the mud of a nearby waterhole. Later that day one of the group, Miss Judy Clark, was terrified at the sight of a three-metre-tall, bad-smelling male creature with long whitish hair. Carrying a large jagged stone knife, he stood watching her from nearby bushes. She later related her experience to a Tennant Creek Aboriginal elder who introduced her to a young Aboriginal man, Brian Gumballa.

A few years before, in 1976, Brian had been camping one night on the creek when a man-sized hairy figure stepped out from nearby bushes and grabbed him. 'We fought all over the ground as I tried to get out of his powerful grip. When I did, I grabbed a piece of wood next to the fire and struck the creature over the head. Screaming, the creature retreated into the scrub, leaving behind a strong, rotting smell and a greasy feeling all over me," he said. Elders believe he had fought off a young male Pankalanka.

The often overpowering smell of these man-beasts is a worldwide feature of these relict hominid reports and is not yet fully understood (but then these 'manimals' don't necessarily wash themselves like normal folks!). Hominid researchers don't yet know enough about these creatures, but with every passing year there is mounting evidence for their existence and more is becoming known about their habits.

We now come to the vast, mountainous expanses of eastern Australia, and the mass of reports that have made these wilds synonymous with the 'hairy man' since pioneering days. They are known by many fearsome-sounding nicknames: the "Kosciusko Snowmen", the 'Hairy Giants of Katoomba", and 'Monster Men of the Lamington Plateau". By these names and more they were known to the early settlers-and still are by the modem-day inhabitants of those regions where they have always been most frequently encountered.

We begin our eastern Australian search with the Australian Alps. During July 1975, a group of skiers near Mount Kosciusko saw a large hairy apelike creature, at least 2.6 to 3 metres tall. moving up a snow-covered mountainside. In fact, for the past 100 years or so there have been some very strange happenings recurring over the vast and inhospitable Australian alpine region: tall hairy figures sighted by mountaineers, skiers and isolated farmers; mystery footprints found in the snow; and strange, eerie cries heard at night from the forest depths.

European interest in the mysterious creatures could be said to date from 1860 when a small group of explorers sighted a tall, hairy gorilla-like beast moving through snow on a steep mountainside near Mount Kosciusko. However, it was following press reports of the 1975 skiing incident that many people finally decided to come forward with other stories which they had kept secret for fear of ridicule.

For example, one night in March 1968, a motorist, Mr John Noyce, was driving on the Mount Kosciusko road when what he thought was a large bear, standing upright, appeared on the roadside ahead of him, illuminated by the car headlights. The creature was much taller than a man and was covered in long hair. However, before Mr Noyce could get a good look at the beast, it had walked off into roadside scrub.

During June 1970 at Geehi, north-west of Mount Kosciusko, two mountaineers, Ron Bartlett and Frank Sinclair, were camped on the edge of a stand of mountainside trees. Overnight, light snow had fallen. At daybreak they were preparing to abandon camp when Frank noticed some large, manlike tracks embedded in nearby snow. Both had heard tales of the giant hairy Doolagahls said to inhabit the mountain country but had taken little notice of these 'bushmen's tales' until they saw these tracks.

The men also detected a strange odour and had the distinct feeling that they were not alone. Cautiously they worked their way down through the mountainside scrub. Suddenly, ahead, they spotted a 2.6-metre-tall, dark, hairy manlike figure staring at them. It then vanished into the dense scrub.

In the years following the outburst of sightings reports of the mid-1970s, many more incidents have occurred on and around Mount Kosciusko. In October 1990, Dereck Holmes was camping on the bank of the Snowy River source below Mount Kosciusko. One morning he awoke at first light and peered from his tent. As he did so, he caught sight of a 1.6-metre-tall, hairy female creature standing nearby amid granite boulders. As he emerged, bewildered at the sight, she bolted away, disappearing over a granite outcrop. It was hereabouts back in 1948 that a party of campers had sighted a tall hairy figure, about 2.3 metres tall, moving up a mountainside through snow at a distance of about 100 metres.

In January 1991 my wife Heather and I made an extensive visit to the Snowy Mountains, during which we climbed Mount Kosciusko to investigate the locations of many of the reports I have received from this region over the years. It is a barren, desolate, windswept and generally inhospitable place for humans to be trapped in. How, then, are our Australian man-beasts able to survive among the rocks of this rugged massif? It may seem unlikely, but they do.

The Snowy Mountains region has produced a great many hairy man-beast encounters. Observations reported to me by property owners of the Providence Portal area near Cabramurra have confirmed my own research findings which show that many of these reports occur about June, following the first winter snowfall, when the animal life of the high country migrates into the lower regions to escape the excessively cold conditions of the mountaintops. It is at this time that sightings of man-beasts or discoveries of their footprints, often on snow-covered ground, are most prevalent.

In January 1990, two young women, Susan Townsend and another girl, and their boyfriends were camped on the shore of Lake Jindabyne. Late one afternoon while the others went wood-collecting in the surrounding forest, Susan was busy getting the campfire started. Detecting a powerful odour and hearing twigs snapping underfoot, she turned and screamed with fear as a hairy 2.3-metre-tall, muscular, giant male creature, almost apelike in appearance, emerged from trees a mere 10 metres away. He approached the girl, but hearing the others returning he bolted in big strides into the forest.

The boys, hearing Susan's frantic account of what she had just seen, gave chase up mountainside scrub, thinking the intruder was some weird hermit. Loud snarls and large rocks hurled at them convinced the boys to end their pursuit. Locals to whom they later told their story said they probably saw one of the Doolagahl that old Aborigines claim still live up in the mountains!

Click here for Part 6 of Man-Apes of Eastern Australia

Excerpts From Chapter 16 Mysterious Australia 1995 - Rex Gilroy Parts 1-13