In this, our second book on the Yowie mystery, Heather and I have presented scientific evidence
aimed at constructing a “fossil foundation” as it were, to show the origins of the ‘hairy man’. And in
so doing we believe that we have proved the Homo erectus origins for the Yowie. Future discoveries
can only provide further support for what we have presented here.
We believe that, this book, together with our previous volume, “Giants from the Dreamtime –
The Yowie in Myth and Reality” [URU Publications 2001] has well and truly established our case for
the Yowie, thus making him a flesh-and-blood hominid and dispelling forever the cartoon image of the
hairy gorilla-like monster with the glowing red eyes, of the misinformed mindless ‘Yowie catchers’
fraternity.
Our aims are not only to present a sensible approach to relict hominid research, but also to
encourage future enthusiastic but sensible young researchers to follow our example and at the same
time at least earn the grudging respect for our scientific approach to the mystery from understandably
sceptical university-based scientists.
In an effort to gather as much scientific evidence as possible, in 2000 we launched our ongoing “Operation Yowie” project. Since then we have carried out many field investigations over a wide area
of the eastern Australian mountain ranges, in the course of which a number of new Yowie/Homo
erectus footprints have been found and cast, published newspaper articles, done radio interviews and
lectured on our findings. All this has resulted in a wide-scale public response providing us with plenty
of new reports of sightings, footprint finds and new leads on where to carry out future field
investigations.
It is now fifty years since that day in March 1957, at the age of 13 that I picked up in the library
at Liverpool Boys High School, a little worn paperback on Aboriginal myths and legends and read my
first story of the “Hairy Man”. It was also the year that I began collecting reports on Australian mystery
animals. Little did I realise at that time that I was creating Australian Relict Hominid and
Cryptozoology research, as I began my schoolboy research into the Yowie and mystery animals.
As I
had been collecting insects and other zoological specimens since the age of seven, I already had the
beginnings of what was to become the largest privately owned natural science collection in Australia
and which would in the years ahead be exhibited in museums established by me on the Blue Mountains.
After years of lone field research before meeting and marrying Heather in 1972, we established
the Australian Yowie Research Centre” [postal address: PO Box 202, Katoomba NSW 2780], and the “Australian Unknown Animals Research Centre” [same address], where all manner of sightings reports
and other evidence is gathered and scientifically assessed. At the time of writing, my natural science
collection is in storage, after the closure of our last museum venture at Tamworth NSW in 2000.
However, moves are afoot to have my collection permanently displayed at Katoomba where it can
survive us in perpetuity for the benefit of the Australian Nation.
The search for evidence of living relict hominids has taken Heather and I far and wide. In
September 2001 we were in New Zealand again in search of the Moehau ‘manbeast’. On a remote
forest track in the Urewera National Park, on the east coast of North Island, I uncovered a number of
faded tracks in a patch of soil, which led me a few yards away, to discover two that were clearly visible
and worth casting. These left and right foot impressions measured 29.5cm in length by 13cm width
across the toes, 10cm width at mid-foot and 7.5cm width across the heel, making the owner about 5ft 6
inches [about 1.68m to 1.83m] in height.
Moehau male and female hominids have been reported seen roaming this vast region,
particularly in the Otaunoa Range for generations. In 1983 a group of seven of these primitive people
were seen by two trampers, in the vicinity of Lake Waikaremoana. These beings consisted, said the two
men, of three juvenile females, a juvenile male, two 5ft tall adult females and one adult male of about
6ft height. The hominids were all garbed in animal hides, probably cow, and they were watched from
behind foliage 15 metres or so above a gully as they worked their way along the edge of a rocky creek. The sighting lasted several minutes.
Back at our Katoomba, Blue Mountains home, near the splendid scenery of the Jamieson and
Megalong Valleys, separated by the rugged Narrow Neck Plateau, hardly a day passes that the phone
does not ring with someone reporting a mystery animal or Yowie sighting; perhaps in the
Wollongambie, or adjoining Wollemi or Newnes forests, where so many Yowie reports and footprint
discoveries have been made over the years.
Rex Gilroy
Australian Yowie Research Centre,
Katoomba, NSW
Monday 25th June 2007
