Ape-Men in Australia.
by Rex Gilroy.
Copyright (c) 2001 Rex Gilroy.
This article is composed of extracts from his new book:
“Giants From the Dreamtime”-The Yowie in Myth and Reality.
Continued From Above
The smaller form of “hairy man” was described as standing, in the case of male, from 2m to 2.6m tall, being hairy, muscular creatures; whereas the females were smaller at around 1.5m tall, with less hair and of lighter build and with long, pendulous breasts. The heads of these creatures differed from Aborigines, in that they were long and narrow in shape, with a low forehead and thick, projecting eyebrow ridges.
The general appearance of these primitive beings recalls Homo erectus [Java man] as the book demonstrates.
They were known to make fire, manufacturing crude stone and wooden tools; killing animals for food, as well as feeding upon nuts, roots and berries.
The giant version of these beings reached between 3 and 4m in height. A mineralised skull fragment of an approximate 3m tall hominid unearthed by the author at Coolah, central western NSW on August 5th, 2000, displays structural features showing it to be the left projecting eyebrow ridge and low, receding forehead of a giant form of Homo erectus.
The giant ape-like race appears to be something else entirely. The author has gathered, over many years, a photographic and cast collection of often huge, opposable big-toed footprints which are remarkably similar to Yeti footprints found in the Himalayas, which together with the large, mineralised [ironstone] skull of an ape-like creature of around 2.6m height [from a central Qld site], suggest a race of Gigantopithecine monsters of between 3 and 4 metres height once roamed ‘Dreamtime’ Australia.
This book, the definitive work on the Yowie mystery, is the first of its kind to be released in Australia. It will not please conservative university establishment scientists, but then I have, as with my two previous books, written for the layperson in layperson’s language that the average Australian can make up their own minds on the issue.
Fossil footprints preserved in volcanic ash deposits dating to late Pliocene times and earlier, demonstrate there were other gigantic beings as well as modern human height people wandering this land 3 million or more years ago.
My wife Heather and I have recorded hundreds of such fossils Australia-wide and lately have made some remarkable fossil hominid and hominoid footprint discoveries on the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, which question more than ever, the conservative “politically correct” view, that only Aborigines occupied stone-age Australia.
Besides Homo erectus-type Yowies, there are also the “little hairy people”, ‘lost’ pygmy-size Aborigines and other natives recorded from remote corners of the continent. The author has gathered a considerable amount of evidence from eastern Australia, Central Australia and elsewhere suggesting secretive tribal groups of these little people share the land with those taller, hairy neighbours which are the main subject of this book.
Sightings reports and “very close encounters of the hairy kind”, dating from early European settlement times to the present day are presented from every Australian state. The limitations of space permit me only to present a small sample in this article. Let us now examine some of these.
During the 1830's tale were rife, among the settlers of the Tasmanian interior, of large, hairy ‘Bugaloos’, or “hairy men” [one of many Tasmanian Aboriginal names for these creatures]. Like their mainland cousins, these hominids stood taller than a normal human, were strong and muscular, and terrifying to look upon.
In the Burnie district of north-western Tasmania about this time, a man and his wife returned to their remote bark hut from a supply-purchasing trip to find it had been smashed beyond repair by massive rocks hurled at the roof and walls by more than one of these man-giants.
Early 19th century settlers around Burnie often blamed local Aborigines for vanished stock, but the tribespeople denied the charges. “Makoron Koro, Makoron Koro”, [“hairy man, hairy man”] was their emphatic reply, and said that groups of these sub-men roamed the dense forests of the interior. They warned Europeans never to approach them unless armed, for the Makoron Koro’s were giants, taller than any normal man and of tremendous strength.
The Makoron Koro’s were similar to Victoria’s “great hairy men”, and many similar traditions continue to grow in the New South Wales-Victorian southern Alps. Hereabouts for the last 100 years of so there have been countless mysterious happenings involving “hairy giants” and smaller hominids, and these spill over into the far south coast and inland regions of New South Wales.
Tall hairy figures have been sighted by mountaineers, skiers and isolated farmers; mystery giant footprints found in the snow, and strange eerie cries heard at night from the forest depths. Aborigines will put it all down to the Doolagahl, or Yowie, but to the settlers of this vast region they are the notorious “Abominable Snowmen” of the southern Alps.
European interest hereabouts began from about 1860, when a small group of explorers sighted a tall, hairy gorilla-like beast moving through snow on a steep mountainside near Mt Kosciusko. Reports from this district persist into modern times.
During June 1970 at Geehi, northwest of Mt Kosciusko, two mountaineers, Ron Bartlett and Frank Sinclair, were camped on the edge of a stand of mountainside trees. Overnight a light snowfall occurred.
At daybreak they were preparing to abandon camp when Frank noticed some large, man-like 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 feeling that they were not alone. Cautiously they worked their way down through the mountainside scrub. Suddenly, ahead they spotted a 2.6m tall, dark man-like figure staring at them. It then vanished into the dense scrub.
In October 1990, Dereck Holmes, while camped on the bank of the source of the Snowy River below Mt Kosciusko, awoke at first light to peer from his tent. As he did so, he caught sight of a 1.6m tall hairy female creature standing nearby amid granite boulders. As he emerged, bewildered at the sight, she bolted away disappearing over a granite outcrop.
The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney is a land of many mysteries, yet there is one above all others that has since early European settlement times been the subject of endless speculation - the Yowie, or ‘hairy man’.
True, back then as in modern times, there were many sceptics, yet there were too many sightings made by bushwalkers and isolated property owners; far too many footprints of the creatures found in remote valleys; and far too many Aboriginal traditions of these hairy giants, for the existence of the Yowie to be dismissed out of hand.
The book contains a large chapter on the Blue Mountains, with reports dating from the first settlement period of the region in the 1820's to the present day.
Recently there have been more reports of eerie happenings in Jamieson Valley, below Katoomba, particularly around the ‘Ruined Castle’ rock formation, where I experienced my own, first sighting of the “hairy man”, back in 1970.
I had been climbing Mt solitary on August 7th that year and was returning along the ‘saddle’ between Mt Solitary and the ‘Castle” that afternoon when I decided to look for fossils on the steep western slope of the ‘Castle’ overlooking Cedar Valley. There is thick scrub here, and as I picked up slate rocks containing fossil plants, I heard sounds of breaking foliage and twigs snapping underfoot further down the slope.
Chancing to look down among the foliage I saw, 15m away, a naked, darkish, hairy skinned male creature approximately 2m in height, moving across the slope from north to south oblivious to my presence.
The hominid looked rather primitive, with big eyebrows and hairy arms and long dark hair trailing down from its head. He appeared to be scavenging, as if looking for fern roots or other bush food.
I watched in silence as he disappeared into the dense scrub, heading southward down the slope in the direction of Cedar Creek I glanced at my watch. The time was 3.30pm. The mystery hominid had been in view for barely 4-5 minutes. I climbed up the slope in haste to reach the track, as I knew I had to hurry to get out of the valley before sundown.
Nine years later, I was to lead the now famous “Radio 2KA Yowie Expedition”, assisted by soldiers of the Penrith-based 176th Air Supply Squadron, equipped with radios and other technical equipment. A full account of our adventures is presented in the book. However, in the course of our searches [divided into three separate groups], three sets of large hominid footprints were discovered.
However, it was discovered that the 2KA personnel accompanying the search had not brought along the casting plaster they were supposed to, so I had to leave camp the next morning around 4am, for my Katoomba home, pick up a bag and return. It was, as it turned out, not enough even for one large footprint and when I made a cast of the best specimen [the tracks were in hard mud and there had not been rain for three weeks] I had to mix soil with the plaster. The cast was eventually transported safely out of the valley and remains in my possession.
The footprint measures 42cm long by 23.5cm across the toes. It is 12.5cm wide at mid-foot and 12cm wide across the heel. The impression is 3.5cm deep at the heel, 5cm deep at mid-foot and 7.5cm deep at the toes. The hominid who made this track stood up to 2.75m tall.
My wife Heather and I have, for most of our 28 years of marriage, spent weeks at a time on field investigations all over Australia, and one of the major areas of Yowie activity that continues to attract us is the northern NSW coastal mountain ranges, extending into southeast Qld.
During our famous April 1977 expedition deep into the Carrai Range west of Kempsey, we examined a large number of massive fossilised hominid and hominoid-looking foot and hand impressions, layed down in mud that soon afterwards had been covered by volcanic ash in an eruption that geologists say, took place some 3 million years ago. Some of the footprints measured 62cm long by 33cm across the toes while one or two others were almost twice that length. One right hand impression was 41cm from outstretched thumb to little finger in width by 35cm length from mid-finger to palm. Some of these monster-beings must have stood anywhere from 3m to 4m and over in height!
Aboriginal traditions Australia-wide speak of tool-making giant relatives of the smaller “hairy people”. These are backed up by discoveries of huge stone ‘megatools’ being found throughout the continent.
In the 1960's my late father, Mr WF [Bill] Gilroy and I uncovered numbers of such tools in the Bathurst district in the NSW central west. These included clubs over 5.5 to 16.5kg in weight, as well as hand-axes, knives and other tools of about the same weights. One massive basalt ‘chopper’ found at Nundle in the New England district weighs a staggering 20kg. Such tools could only have been made and used by hominids of immense stature and strength.
Aborigines of Central Australia, Flinders Ranges and elsewhere in the far west of Australia, believe that monstrous tool-making, fire-making “hairy men” have wandered the land since the ‘Dreamtime’. One of these is the 4m tall Tjangara, the “hairy giant of the Nullarbor”. To many Europeans ‘he’ is no myth.
In 1973, a bushman, Ken Francis, found fresh dingo tracks at a waterhole at Mt Willoughby west of Oodnadatta and out of interest he followed them. Cutting a long story short, he followed them up a dried creek bed, lost them on and off among rocks, then discovered they crossed a set of enormous man-like footprints heading down a hillside. These he measured at 60cm long. They were barely an hour old!
Ken was now 3km from his 4-wheel Drive vehicle where he had left his camera and a .22 rifle, but he had his water bottle with him so decided to follow the tracks.
He followed them through intermittent Mulga outcrops to a waterhole, where in drying mud he found impressions consistent with a large creature drinking on all fours. Following the footprints on further over a hill he suddenly spotted their maker - a tall black-haired figure - which he estimated to be around 4m tall, lurching far ahead of him across a plain some 15 minutes ahead. Ken re-traced his steps. He had covered about 6km, but the sight of such a monster was enough to encourage him to give up the pursuit. Returning with two men and an Aboriginal tracker the next day, his companions took one look at the footprints and suggested they all leave at once!
From Central Australia across into western Qld Aborigines fear similar monstrous beings, the Pankalanka, tool-making, fire-making giants of 3-4m height who with their women and children, roam the interior. They are fearsome cannibals, killing and roasting any Aborigines [and others] they happen to catch; while in far north Qld tribespeople have always feared the ‘Turramullies’, huge, 2.4m tall, hairy ape-like monsters reminiscent of the giant man-like ape, Gigantopithecus that roamed Asia half a million years ago.
A similar monstrous, gorilla-like being of the Western Australian tribes is the Jimbra, 3-4m tall, powerfully-built beasts that are the stuff of nightmares. Sightings of these creatures, dating from pioneer times in the 19th century to modern times, as well as discoveries of their huge footprints, are present in the book.
“Giants From The Dreamtime” is a scientific approach to the Yowie enigma, with a comparative study of “hairy man” footprints and their similarities with many giant-size and other fossil hominid and hominoid-type footprints found across the continent, a study of gigantism and much, much more.
There is much hitherto unpublished material of the author presented which will surprise many people, information too often suppressed, because it throws into question the long-established ‘conservative’ view of our ancient past as presented in university text books.
I also present sensible advice to any future would-be Yowie investigators. The reader will also be awed at the great many discoveries my wife Heather and I have made in all our years together in the field.
I feel privileged to be the founder of Yowie research and to have encouraged other, sensible researchers to follow my example. The search for surviving relict hominids in remote, hidden regions of the world, has been called the “last great search”, and it is both a fascinating and exciting one.
Rex Gilroy may be contacted at the Australalian Yowie Research Centre, PO Box 202, Katoomba. NSW 2780. Ph 02 4782 3441 or email NEW EMAIL ADDRESS as of June 2009 randhgilroy44@bigpond.com on or visit our website : http://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/ or http://www.australianyowieresearchcentre.com/ or http://www.rexgilroy.com/
