[Undeadskeptic]

YOWIE



The deep jungles and vast desert lands of Australia undoubtedly contain many secrets. Is the Yowie its worst kept?

The Yowie, AKA Yahoo or Yowie-Whowie, is a legendary creature said to inhabit the wilderness of Australia. There are several variations of the Yowie legend and conflicting accounts of its origins.

The term Yowie is found in Australian Aboriginal folklore, referring to an ape-like creature with canine teeth and large red eyes located on the sides of its head. A night-time predator, the Yowie is thought to occasionally feed on humans. This is not the same creature described in modern European legends.

Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver's Travels” (1726) features a race of subhuman creatures called the Yahoos. It is possible that early European settlers in Australia confused the Aboriginal word Yowie with the fictional Yahoo.

The popular modern image of a Yowie is more like a yeti, i.e. more humanoid and less predatory.

Sightings of the Yowie have been reported mainly in New South Wales and the Queensland's Gold Coast. Sightings have also been reported from New Zealand, in North Auckland, the Coromandel Peninsula and the West Coast.

Reports of Yowie-type creatures are common in the legends and stories of Australian Aboriginal tribes, particularly those of the eastern states of Australia. The mid to late 19th Century saw a wealth of sightings, most describing a large, gorilla-like creature (albeit usually bipedal), which lived in remote mountainous or forested regions. Reports have continued to the present day with the trail of evidence following the pattern familiar to most unidentified hominids around the world – i.e. eyewitness accounts, mysterious footprints of hotly-disputed origin, and a lack of conclusive proof.

Australian Rex Gilroy, a self-proclaimed cryptozoologist, has attempted to popularize the scientific term Gigantopithecus australis for the yowie. He claims to have collected over 3000 reports of them and proposed that they comprise a relict population of extinct ape or Homo species. There is, however, no evidence that Gigantopithecus ever existed in Australia.

Several Murri and Koori tribes of eastern Australia have dreamtime legends about an ancient battle between their ancestors and a race of hairy apemen. The stories share some common elements. The aboriginals won the battle quite decisively. This is attributed to their weapons including the spear and war boomerang. The apemen fought bare handed. The surviving creatures ran off to the mountains from which they occasionally invaded the forests to steal human babies.

Sightings

Rex Gilroy's website about Yowie

Is the Yowie a Marsupial? by Tony Lucas

Recent Sightings

- UDS

[DieChecker]

Is that a pic of a Yowie? I thought the Yowie only had three toes on each foot. Or, am I remembering wrong?

My doubt about the Yowie is due to the lack of placental mammals on Australia, though I am still open to changing my mind.

Edit: Here is the pic I was thinking of:

http://www.bigfooten...cles/stench.htm

This post has been edited by DieChecker: 07 January 2009 - 01:35 AM

[emberlake]

DieChecker on Jan 6 2009, 09:31 PM, said:

Is that a pic of a Yowie? I thought the Yowie only had three toes on each foot. Or, am I remembering wrong?

My doubt about the Yowie is due to the lack of placental mammals on Australia, though I am still open to changing my mind.

That's such an odd thing to say seeings how there isn't but about 4000 described species world wide as it is...

Maybe Yowie is Marsupial... There's a lot of marsupials in Australia.

[Undeadskeptic]

I see you in here Psyche...

[emberlake]

Undeadskeptic on Jan 6 2009, 09:39 PM, said:

I see you in here Psyche...

I see him too!

[Undeadskeptic]

DieChecker on Jan 7 2009, 02:31 PM, said:

Is that a pic of a Yowie? I thought the Yowie only had three toes on each foot. Or, am I remembering wrong?

My doubt about the Yowie is due to the lack of placental mammals on Australia, though I am still open to changing my mind.

Edit: Here is the pic I was thinking of:

http://www.bigfooten...cles/stench.htm

Then again, Oz managed to produce Marsupial counterparts of Dogs, Wolves, Lions, Rats, you name it. Maybe a primate isn't out of the question? But with a lack of any substantial evidence I agree with you.

Wait till you hear of the Hairy Moehau. An NZ bigfoot, in a country with no mammals at all... hmmmm....

D is here on Jan 7 2009, 02:36 PM, said:

That's such an odd thing to say seeings how there isn't but about 4000 described species world wide as it is...

Maybe Yowie is Marsupial... There's a lot of marsupials in Australia.

That's the common theory I think?

[psyche101]

Thak for sharing Undead, always interested on a read on the Yowie. Rex's site is getting quite extensive isn't it?

Must have a chuckle at Gold Coast Yowies *Chuckles*

Pics of the Gold Coast YUP CLICK ME!.

Where the heck is Waldo the Yowie? Click the above to find out! A Yowie would have a hard time hiding out on the Gold Coast

That Springbrook story was cool I have been up there to spend the night more than once. Not seen a Yowie nor a UFO though, the locals seemed quite concerned about UFO abductions, more so than Yowies. I didn't get probed though.

Springbrook Full Article.

I think a common misidentification would be the red kangaroo, although I would bet the Springbrook Yowie is a Hobo, as I suspect the Ormeau Yowie is. (They only live about 45 mins apart by car, I wonder if they Xmas together?) Perhaps the original tale is derived from Australia's now gone carniverous Kangaroos. Sounds more like the original legend, with a little fear thrown in.

An 800 pound hairy hominid cannot exist in QLD, heck, at 6am on my way to work this morning it was already 26 degrees celcius!

This post has been edited by psyche101: 07 January 2009 - 01:48 AM

[Undeadskeptic]

D is here on Jan 7 2009, 02:40 PM, said:

I see him too!

Sure has been writing that post an awful long time.

[psyche101]

Undeadskeptic on Jan 7 2009, 11:39 AM, said:

I see you in here Psyche...

D is here on Jan 7 2009, 11:40 AM, said:

I see him too!

They seek him here, they seek him........some bloody place....

NO WAY I could resist a Yowie thread!!

Excellent choice, I hope to get some varied perspectives on this one. The poor old Yowie always takes a back seat to Patty

Undeadskeptic on Jan 7 2009, 11:49 AM, said:

Sure has been writing that post an awful long time.

Beat this reponse but

LOLZ



Got to be careful with such an important subject!!

This post has been edited by psyche101: 07 January 2009 - 01:52 AM

[psyche101]

DieChecker on Jan 7 2009, 11:31 AM, said:

Is that a pic of a Yowie? I thought the Yowie only had three toes on each foot. Or, am I remembering wrong?

My doubt about the Yowie is due to the lack of placental mammals on Australia, though I am still open to changing my mind.

Edit: Here is the pic I was thinking of:

http://www.bigfooten...cles/stench.htm

There is heaps of them!! Not quite corroborative, but Rex's page will show that to be a species distinction! Gotta love the inventive approach

Undeads excellent intro describes several variations of the original legend.

The heat is probably the main Yowie killer here. No way an 800 pound long haired hominid could survive the extremes. Even Victoria gets 40 degree+ C Heatwaves.
Not to mention the bones/body problem. Hard to believe Biff telegramed the Yowie to express how important it is to hide your dead.

I think the extinct carniverous Kangaroo would be a likely suspect. The Dreamtime is filled with stories of now gone Megafauna the indigenous shared the continent with.

This post has been edited by psyche101: 07 January 2009 - 02:06 AM

[evancj]

psyche101 on Jan 6 2009, 07:05 PM, said:

There is heaps of them!! Not quite corroborative, but Rex's page will show that to be a species distinction! Gotta love the inventive approach

Undeads excellent intro describes several variations of the original legend.

The heat is probably the main Yowie killer here. No way an 800 pound long haired hominid could survive the extremes. Even Victoria gets 40 degree+ C Heatwaves.
Not to mention the bones/body problem. Hard to believe Biff telegramed the Yowie to express how important it is to hide your dead.

I think the extinct carniverous Kangaroo would be a likely suspect. The Dreamtime is filled with stories of now gone Megafauna the indigenous shared the continent with.

Perhaps BF winters on the GC and summers in the PNW. Guess from your perspective it would the opposite wouldn't it?. This could explain the BF migration theory.

I am going to have to check up on the carnivorous Kangaroo. I have never heard of them. Billions of years of evolution and isolation can work wonders. Oz is a wild place.

I think this makes a lot of sense. I believe after tens of thousands of years the original stories of encounters with these animals have evolved into legends and myth. I have thought of the possibility of the BF story originating in Asia from ancient tales of Gigantopythicus, and human encounters, and later crossed the Bering Land bridge with first North American settlers.

psyche101 on Jan 6 2009, 07:05 PM, said:

Undeads excellent intro describes several variations of the original legend.

Agreed. Undead has a talent for attracting interest to these subjects and he does his research.

I think we should focus our critical thinking on Yowie for awhile, BF is getting old. I think we have pretty much beat the big guy to death. Lets see if Yowie can defend himself better than BF did.

[psyche101]

evancj on Jan 7 2009, 01:35 PM, said:

Perhaps BF winters on the GC and summers in the PNW. Guess from your perspective it would the opposite wouldn't it?. This could explain the BF migration theory.

I am going to have to check up on the carnivorous Kangaroo. I have never heard of them. Billions of years of evolution and isolation can work wonders. Oz is a wild place.

I think this makes a lot of sense. I believe after tens of thousands of years the original stories of encounters with these animals have evolved into legends and myth. I have thought of the possibility of the BF story originating in Asia from ancient tales of Gigantopythicus, and human encounters, and later crossed the Bering Land bridge with first North American settlers.

Uhh, defintely the other way round

Hehe, I have this mental picture now of Biff sitting on the roof of a plane right at the tail, or lying down hanging of a wing - stealthily migrating the seas

Here ya go

Killer Kangaroo Had Wolf-Like Fangs, Scientists Say

Protemnodon - Giant Wallaby

Procoptodon - 3 Metre Tall Kangaroo

I have indigenous rellies by way of marriage, and was discussing this in particular with my niece, she actually put the connection together for me when we were discussing Diprotodon. To me, it seems to make very good sense and the Dreamtime connections seem very amicable with descriptions of now gone Megafauna. A record I feel that with time that science will look at a great deal closer.

evancj on Jan 7 2009, 01:35 PM, said:

Agreed. Undead has a talent for attracting interest to these subjects and he does his research.

I think we should focus our critical thinking on Yowie for awhile, BF is getting old. I think we have pretty much beat the big guy to death. Lets see if Yowie can defend himself better than BF did.

Undead seems to have a talent for finding the most interesting tales. If he does publish a book, I will surely buy it.
(Undead - even if it costs more than Rex's book )

I am all for this. Great idea. It will be more than interesting to do a comparison after some information gathering between Biff and our Yowie.

[Wearer of Hats]

A completely unverifiable and anecdotal story from my father:
He's a copper, and for the longest time was one of two coppers in a small town surrounded by bushland and thick scrub for kilometres.

Routinely he'd get call outs to chase wild animals off properties - 99% of the times wild dogs or pigs, and pissed locals or (the vast majority of times) "sorry, we couldn't see anything, it seems to have gone, give us a bell if it comes back".


And then there's the 1%. The "WTF was THAT?" moments that had him reaching for his sidearm.
Roos and Koalas at night are scary. If you've ever heard a Koala on the pull you KNOW it's there. But the first time you think it's a pig. Or something roughly the size of a tank. It's loud.


And then we have the thing that scared the police dog.
The "tree that wasn't there before" and "that hairy fuggers who keeps stealing my strawberries".


The thing that scared the police dog and the hairy fugger are from the same incident: They were called out repeatedly to deal with stolen strawberries and other minor disturbances. Then one night - all hell literally broke loose. The owner of the property rung for support and said 'there's a fugger ape in my yard". Given that there were kids in the house, the owner was arming up. Dad and the other copper raced there. And came face to back with something big, and hairy. It ran.


The second encounter had the coppers running because they were being followed, hunted through the scrub.

[Slave2Fate]

Wearer of Hats on Jan 6 2009, 11:24 PM, said:

And then we have the thing that scared the police dog.
The "tree that wasn't there before" and "that hairy fuggers who keeps stealing my strawberries".

Sorry Wearer of Hats, this line here gave me a mental image of some old coot in overalls standing on a rickety old porch with a shotgun and a scowl. I nearly laughed tears!

I like the story though, interesting stuff.

[psyche101]

Wearer of Hats on Jan 7 2009, 05:24 PM, said:

A completely unverifiable and anecdotal story from my father:
He's a copper, and for the longest time was one of two coppers in a small town surrounded by bushland and thick scrub for kilometres.

Routinely he'd get call outs to chase wild animals off properties - 99% of the times wild dogs or pigs, and pissed locals or (the vast majority of times) "sorry, we couldn't see anything, it seems to have gone, give us a bell if it comes back".


And then there's the 1%. The "WTF was THAT?" moments that had him reaching for his sidearm.
Roos and Koalas at night are scary. If you've ever heard a Koala on the pull you KNOW it's there. But the first time you think it's a pig. Or something roughly the size of a tank. It's loud.


And then we have the thing that scared the police dog.
The "tree that wasn't there before" and "that hairy fuggers who keeps stealing my strawberries".


The thing that scared the police dog and the hairy fugger are from the same incident: They were called out repeatedly to deal with stolen strawberries and other minor disturbances. Then one night - all hell literally broke loose. The owner of the property rung for support and said 'there's a fugger ape in my yard". Given that there were kids in the house, the owner was arming up. Dad and the other copper raced there. And came face to back with something big, and hairy. It ran.


The second encounter had the coppers running because they were being followed, hunted through the scrub.

Hairy fuggers, man, that is the second time today I have had to clean my screen because of a violent erruption of 7up.

The name is pretty suspect - especially for Oz bush. And incredibly funny.

I do not mean to be rude, I honestly appreciate you sharing, but in all scincerity, I just cannot read the line

Quote

hairy fuggers who keeps stealing my strawberries

without cracking up. In fact I just about fell of my chair again. It dead set sounds like hippies protecting "crops".

I take it you mean rural Queensland?

Possibly the best Biff story to date - for me at least.

This post has been edited by psyche101: 07 January 2009 - 07:35 AM