Database: Sightings & Evidence 1930-1939

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Bankstown District 1930's

Giant hairy Man

Old inhabitants of the Bankstown district in the 1930's still recalled old tales from the previous
century, of a'giant hairy man' and his female companion, once said to have inhabited the nearby Georges River bushland, and red-coated marines were said to have shot a 'hairy rnan'of about twice normal human height, in the Georges River bushland, within a few years of the first settlement in Sydney Cove....

Allyn Valley 1930's

Gorillas

During the 1930's there were still old men living in the Allyn Valley, who in their younger days had worked as Cedar getters, with their bullock teams drawing long, heavy steel shod wooden slides over the valley floor and some parts of the ridges of the central region of the valley's top end.

These were experienced bushmen whose truthfulness could be vouched for by their neighbours. Among their many stories of the old days were those concerning the 'Gorillas' of the Allyn Valley, and of encounters with these creatures deep in the forests where they worked....

Mt Royal 1930's

Yahooing

One evening back in the 1930's, several Cedar getters camped at Mt Royal were cooking their evening meal when one 'Big Jim' who was well known for his gigantic size and physical strength, remarked that his bullocks seemed to be making their way up to the top of the range, and that he had better go up and turn them back down, or else it might take a long time to round them up the next morning.

Barely fifteen minutes later the men heard a terrific sound, like an outsized human voice 'yahooing' in the direction that Big Jim had gone. Within a few minutes he came rushing downhill, and having reached his mates, one of them 'Joe', remarked: "Crikey Jim, I always knew you could holler pretty loud, but never like that just now".

"My God Joe, that wasn't me" he quickly replied. It was then that they all noticed that their usually 'scared of nothing' big mate was pale and trembling with fear.

"Well who or what the Devil can it be, no one else is supposed to be anywhere near us?' queried Joe.

"That aint no human voice" said Jim, "It was grunting louder than any boar pig I ever heard before it started hollering, I'm sleeping with the old Winchester alongside me tonight", he added.

The others followed suit, but neither that night, nor at any time over the next few weeks that the group spent on the mountainside, did they hear, or find any other evidence of the creature's presence.


Canobolas Mountains 1931

Hairy Man

Then, during 1931 Mr Bates met an 81 year old man while at Brookfield near Dungog, from whom he learnt that these Coories also roamed the Canobolas mountains outside Orange, in the Central West.

Although the old man had never seen one himself, he related that his father and a number of other early settlers of the Canobolas district had claimed to have seen them during the previous century.

These, and other similar traditions soon convinced Mr Bates that the accounts of 'hairy man' encounters were more than mere bushman's tall tales.


Hong Kong 1934

Gigantopithecus-South China Giant

Gigantopithecus, the "South China Giant", originally identified from six large fossil teeth found in a Hong Kong Chinese chemist's shop by Dutch Palaeontologist Ralph von Koenigswald in 1934, does appear to fit the description of the Sasquatch.

Fossil jaws and teeth of Gigantopithecus unearthed in China since von Koenigswald's initial discovery show these monster-apes subsisted on seeds, berries and other herbivorous food, although there must have been meat-eating forms, as suggested by the Australian Aboriginal traditions concerning the habits of the giant hominids [of Gigantopithecus appearance] to follow.

The Gigantopithecines lived in a warm climate during the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, supposedly becoming extinct by half a million years ago. Fossilised footprints thought to be those of the Gigantopithecus have been found in China and Java. With their opposable big toe they are distinct from other, more man-like giant fossil footprints found in Australia, as will be shown. If indeed Gigantopithecus footprints, they are certain evidence of the presence of these monsters in ice-age Australia.

During the last ice-age, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and the continental land masses were considerably different to their present-day outlines. Asia was joined to the Americas by a land-bridge through what is now the Bering Strait, while the present-day islands of south-east Asia formed a vast extension of the Asian continent southward to Indonesia and as I will argue later, in Chapter Four, this 'bridge' extended to New Guinea-Australia, with Tasmania then part of the Australian mainland.

It will also be argued later in this book that a land-bridge existed at this time between New Guinea and New Zealand.

It was across the former Asia-Australia land-bridge that Gigantopithecus, and also Meganthropus, the equally monstrous "Giant Java Man", were able to move southward, including other, smaller hominids, such as Homo erectus.

Scientific dogma declares that Pleistocene Australia was never joined to the great south-east Asian land shelf. And likewise, a land extension between New Guinea and New Zealand is equally unthinkable.

Yet, for giant races like Meganthropus, and also Gigantopithecus, or even smaller hominids such as Homo erectus to have entered Australia during the Pleistocene , a land-bridge would have been necessary. Otherwise, these primitive creatures, incapable as they would have been of constructing even the crudest water craft, could never have reached our continent.

This can also be said of the unknown makers of the giant and modern human-size fossil footprints found in 3 million year old volcanic ash deposits in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and elsewhere, which we shall study later.

Giant races in the Pleistocene period or before is an established scientific fact. There exists a school of thought among anthropologists interested in the 'relict hominid' mystery, who theorise that, while the Yeti/Almastis/Sasquatch might have branched off as later-day forms of Gigantopithecus; Meganthropus, having become a stone tool-making meat-eater, evolved into the smaller Homo erectus, or "Java Man", who in turn evolved into modern humans.

I also argue that, while it would have been possible for giant races to enter Australia, some could have evolved here from smaller hominid forms, and it is possible that once established here, Homo erectus could have produced a giant form through genetic mutation.

Giant tool-making ape-men existing contemporaneously with more primitive giant manbeasts are a prominent theme of Aboriginal dream-time myth and legend. As with the eastern Australian Yowie, these too had many names. I have said that the early Aborigines feared the Yowies as very dangerous creatures, avoiding them as much as possible. Sometimes however, the "hairy man" became a problem, attacking Aboriginal camps, forcing the tribespeople to defend themselves; as in the case of the Turramulli giants of Cape York, in Queensland's far north.


Tweed Valley 1935

Monster men of Lamington Plateau

Around 1935, residents of an isolated farm were startled by the frantic bellowing of their house cow one dark night. Their cattle dog, immediately let out of the house, attacked something but suddenly let out an agonizing yelp-then all went quiet. The farmer and one of his farmhands went out armed with lanterns and guns.

They found the corner fences down, the cow dead with a broken neck, its head almost torn off, and the dog crushed against a tree where it had been thrown. In the distance they could hear something crashing through the bush up the mountainside. A search the next day failed to explain what had killed the animals. However, many neighbouring farmers believed it was the work of the "Monster Men of the Lamington Plateau".

Aborigines refuse to enter these valleys for fear of the horrible man-beasts they believe still lurk there. Over the years, people have disappeared without trace in these wilds. Eerie cries are often heard at night, terrifying campers.

South Lismore 1935

Monster men of Lamington Plateau

After reading of the experience of the two Woodenbong ladies, a 52 year old man told the Lismore Northern Star that he sighted a Yowie in 1935, on his late grandfather's dairy farm on Three Chain Road, South Lismore.

He was, he said, standing on his grandparents' verandah at 9pm on a moonlit winter's eve and saw a 'man' walking in from the hills. His grandfather's horse near the house started raising a fuss. The 10 year old witness went inside and told his grandfather who, when he saw what it was, blew out the lamp, grabbed his rifle and watched from a small kitchen window. The Yowie was visible in moonlight 25 years away.

The man recalled that the creature's head had no neck, the head being sunk into its shoulders, and it seemed to have a hunched back but was standing upright, and was much thicker than a man in the chest and shoulders. The grandfather said later that it was the same creature he had seen a few years earlier when he'd ridden up a gully to pick some guavas. The Yowie came down sone side of the gully, crossed creek, then climbed the other side of the hill, making the horse play up badly.

At that time, in 1935, the area behind South Lismore was a lot wilder than now and the mountains and hills were covered in thick trees. It was about the time of the above story that settlers of the wild country around the base of the rugged Lamington Plateau known as the Tweed Valley, just inside the Qld border, were reporting many similar encounters with the 'hairy man'.

Dove Lake 1935

Larger than man-sized Footprints

The distance from Dove Lake to Cradle Mountain is 85 km, covered by a long winding track that takes the traveller on a five day journey across terrain that has killed some people

It was constructed during the 1930's and emerges at Lake St. Clair. The Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park presents a vast area in which the 'Bugaloo' [another local Aboriginal name for these hominids],is claimed to linger on to the present day. Indeed, the area has been the scene of some recent giant footprint finds.

Back in 1935, about a dozen larger-than-man-sized footprints were discovered on the Dove Lake shore by campers, while another party of campers that same year claimed they had observed through binoculars, a pair of strange hominid creatures - a hairy looking male and female - moving among rocks on a nearby slope.

The hominids soon disappeared before the people could get a closer look, and although they searched the spot where they had seen the mystery pair, due to the rocky terrain, the people failed to find any tracks. Very little was heard of the 'Bugaloos' thereabouts until, in 1952, a lone bushman reported sighting a group of several man-sized hairy creatures in the Dove Lake area while on a camping trip.


Tully 1937

Five very small Blacks

In January 1982, I received the following letter from Mr Jim West of Grafton NSW: "In 1937 I was on the track just travelling all over the country as were a lot of others during the depression. I was with two other blokes, a chap by the name of Bob Marshall and another bloke named Bluey Fowler. He was supposed to have been brought up by the blacks up in the Cape York Peninsula area.

He could hunt like no man I've ever seen, he knew exactly where to get them. We were up at Tully, collected our rations and were just sitting around the town; the police got onto us and told us to move on. That was common practice in those days, we were doing no wrong. So we went up the river a few miles and made camp. We had two push bikes between the three of us, we used them to strap our swags on the bikes and push them along.

We were at this camp for about five days, every now and again this Bluey fowler used to say we are "being watched, there is someone around. I feel eyes on us", he said. One morning we were sitting around the camp when, just out of nowhere I looked up and there were five very small blacks about 1 to 1.6 metres in height, and they had spears in their hands.

Three of them came within 4-5 metres of where we were sitting, the other two stood about 3-4 metres behind them looking very hard at us and the bikes seemed to fascinate them. Bob Marshall used to do a bit of engraving with needles. He used to engrave anyone's name on a tobacco tin, he used to charge 1/- or 2/- for his work, whatever he could get. The three of us had one of them.

After the natives had been standing there for two or three minutes Bluey Fowler held his tobacco tin out towards them making an offer for them to take a smoke, but they made no move, so after a while he tossed the tin over to where they were standing.

They stood for a few seconds, then one of them picked the tin up, looked hard at it, then placed it under his arm pit. While all this was going on Bob Marshall slipped the old rifle we had out from beneath the bunk we made up. He handed it to me as I was supposed to have been the best shot with the rifle out of the three of us.

I just laid it across my legs, while sitting down. I cocked it and was just waiting for something to happen. The next instant they were gone, just scampered back into the bush. After they were gone we made a joke of Bluey losing his tin of tobacco. He told us that the black who had picked it up would keep it until he died. I asked how he came by that information. He said:"When the black placed the tin of tobacco under his arm pit, it meant he liked it very much and it was 'his' for good".

The round Capstan tin was engraved with the name 'Bluey;' on the bottom of the tin with a scrawl under the name and a small heart on top of the name, and probably the date".

Gravesend District 1938

Hairy Man

In 1938 on a property called "Malvern" in the Gravesend district, situated on Slaughterhouse Creek, a 'hairy man' was often reported seen and whose appearance became so frequent thereabouts that the locals came up with a pet name for him :the "Wizy Wazy". He was said to be man-sized and had a covering of long, light coloured hair.


Lost Pgymy Tribes 1938

Negrito-pgymy sized Natives

As will be shown, the various types of "hairy man" often overlapped on one another's habitat.

For example, although the Aborigines of far north Queensland believed in these fearsome creatures, they also believed in the "little hairy red men", or 'Junjdy', that inhabited the rainforests of Cape York, Cairns, Tully and elsewhere thereabouts; and similar beliefs in the existence of "little hairy men" were entertained in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales tribal folklore.

Described as shy, timid little people less than half the height of an Aboriginal, they were said to live in tribal groups, making crude shelters and stone or wooden tools.

Obviously the Aborigines of Queensland and northern New South Wales were describing the Negrito pygmy-sized natives discovered by anthropologists Norman B Tindale and Professor Joseph Birdsell in 1938. These forest-dwelling natives often possessed reddish hair and their secretive lifestyle gave them an aura of mystery in the Aboriginal psyche.

These little natives were ruthlessly hunted down and killed by the Aborigines at ever opportunity. The Yowies, however, were generally treated with much more respect. Although the Yowies were just as secretive in their wanderings as the unfortunate Negrito pygmy folk, they were far more dangerous.

However, these Yowies pale into insignificance when compared to the true "manimal monsters" of dream-time Australia, the "stone feet" of dim antiquity; huge monstrous beings at least three times the height of the tallest Aboriginal and of which more will be said later.

Gravesend District 1938

Hairy Man

In 1938 on a property called "Malvern" in the Gravesend district, situated on Slaughterhouse Creek, a 'hairy man' was often reported seen and whose appearance became so frequent thereabouts that the locals came up with a pet name for him :the "Wizy Wazy". He was said to be man-sized and had a covering of long, light coloured hair.

Lae District-Bubria-Morobe Province Papua New Guinea 1938

Tall Manbeast

In the Lae district at Bubria, Morobe Province in 1938, a 2.7 tall manbeast was claimed seen by several Australian explorers as he moved among trees on a hillside, scavenging for forest food.

Man-like 'apes' have been cliamed seen by Europeans in this region as far back as the First World War period, some of these accounts concerned tool-carrying hominids.

New Britain 1938

Puri Puri Manbeasts

Prior to 1938 the Puri Puri manbeasts instituted a reign of terror among the native population, for there were frequent sightings claims of the monsters over a wide area of New Britain, but the reports began dropping off over the years as civilisation began to spread on the island.

Natives however, believe the Puri Puri monsters survive today, although reduced in numbers, in the remoter mountainous recesses of the interior.



North Queensland 1939

Lost Pgymy Tribes

1939 Professor Joseph Birdsell from Harvard University and Australian anthropologist Norman B Tindale of the South Australian Museum, carried out a detailed anthropometric survey of some 600 north Qld rainforest pygmies.

During this period, they stumbled upon a whole tribe hidden deep in the Atherton jungles that had hitherto been unknown. For a while both men thought that these people were the last traces of negritos who had arrived in Australia long before the Aborigines.

However, a series of studies of the language, blood types, teeth structure and tribal boundaries has disproved this theory. Having seen the vast, taipan-infested jungles of northern Qld during our many field expeditions, my wife Heather and I can easily accept the possible existence of lost pygmy tribes hereabouts. In that wild country any number of these tribes could wander unseen.

Many remote parts of Australia are not fully explored, areas so inaccessible that tales of 'lost tribes' should not be dismissed out of hand. After all, there were still unknown Aboriginals living in remote areas of Central Australia until comparatively recent times, when Europeans first ventured into their area.

And it was only about 70 years ago that an Aboriginal was found in the Bulloo Channels country of north-western NSW, who had never seen a white man before.