Database: Sightings & Evidence 1960-1969

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Lake Ballard, Kalgoorlie 1960

Three Jimbra's

During 1970 I interviewed an old fossicker from Adelaide who, about 1960, in the company of another mate had experienced a meeting with a Jimbra family that they would be most unlikely to forget. Andy Hoad and his mate Brett Taylor left their wives for a couple of days' prospecting out from Kalgoorlie where they all lived at the time. The men used a tin hut up in the Lake Ballard area to the north. Andy's story follows:

"We had just arrived, and unpacked our truck this particular weekend when we noticed a bad, rotting-type smell about the shed. No dead animal anywhere in sight, so we wondered what had caused the stink. "We went off later with our equipment to work a favourite location on a dried-up creek bank always good for gemstones there. Anyway, my mate soon got the feeling we were being watched.

He kept on looking over his shoulder, and soon even I got the same uneasy feeling. "There was a stand of scrub further along the creek and it was from here we suddenly heard voices-gutteral sounds is a better description. Looking over in that direction, we could see dark shapes moving in the tree cover. Thinking it was people, Brett called out 'who's there?', at which a seven-foot, dark brownish-haired, long-breasted female 'ape' emerged, standing in a stooped upright position, to be joined by a younger female of about six feet. then, to our further horror, a huge nine-foot male appeared.

The nearest creature you could compare them with would probably be the gorilla. "We had no firearms, only our picks and shovels for protection. regaining our composure, we kept the picks and ran back along the creek. Ahead of us were the sounds of crashing and screeching tin sheeting, and we knew something was happening to our hut. In the distance we could see another hairy gorilla-like monster, about 10 feet in height, pulling our roof and walls apart. The building was not all that sturdy so it was easy for the creature to dismantle most of it.

"We were not being pursued but hid in scrub, waiting for the chance to dash to the truck. The manlike 'ape' soon strode away and we made good our opportunity to escape. "Aborigines in Kalgoorlie later told us we should never have been there, for it was the territory of the Jimbra, huge hairy animal-men who have inhabited the land since the Dreamtime. You know, we never did go back there."


Minna Ha Ha Falls January 1961

Hairy male hominid Creature

About January 1961, two young women, "Jacki" and " Helen", were frightened by a hairy male hominid creature which appeared from out of thick scrub near the top of Minna Ha Ha Falls in the north Katoomba bushland.

The man-beast they later told police, stood a good seven feet {2.3 metres} tall, had a sloping forehead and thick eyebrow ridges, was very muscular and had long arms with big hands.

Screaming the girls ran off in the direction of the carpark. People to whom they told their story at the park returned to search the area but found no tracks of the creature due to the rocky terrain, although both women agreed the man-beast's feet were "very large".


Fish River 1964

Tall man-like ape-like Creature

In the midwinter of 1964, two pig shooters, Eric Rolf and Morris Patton, both of Sydney, went on a weekend camping trip to the Fish River near the town of Oberon, west of the Blue Mountains. In those days the men knew nothing of the hairy man-like creatures that local traditions said, inhabited the surrounding wild mountain ranges. They knew only that it was an area plagued by wild pigs, and they anticipated a good 'kill' that weekend.

They stayed at a cabin situated on Water Supply Road, on the Fish River outside Hampton, which lies east of Oberon, and across the Hartley Valley from Mt Victoria. The area where they stayed is in rugged mountainous terrain. On the first night of their camping trip, Morris, his three cell torch in hand, left Eric alone in the cabin to study platypus living along the river bank. The time was about 9pm on a very dark night, and all the time Morris was gone Eric had a strange feeling that they were not alone.

He was glad when he heard the footsteps of his friend approaching the cabin door. The door opened, to reveal a terrified-looking Morris, white-faced, gasping out that he had just seen some hairy man-like 'thing' out there in the dark. After he had calmed down, Morris said he wanted to return to the river bank to see if the 'thing' was still there. Eric, not wishing to be left alone decided to accompany him, but they armed themselves with two stout tree limbs for protection before they left.

The men were reluctant to use their rifles against what they thought was probably a "wild man". As they reached the river, Morris flashed his torch about. Standing 30m away on the opposite bank of the river on the edge of thick scrub, they saw the mystery manbeast, a 2.3m tall, man-like, ape-like creature, vary dark-haired, stooped in appearance, with its arms at its side, and very broad shouldered. There was a pungent odour about the area being emitted by the strange hominid.

Then, after about 30 seconds, the mystery 'manimal' turned around and ran off into the scrub, making no other sounds but for the breaking of foliage as it ran from the startled campers. At this Eric and Morris ran back to the cabin. The mysterious manbeast made no other appearances during their stay. Some time ago Eric Rolf informed me that, over the years he has returned to this area on wild goat shooting trips, and while roaming the bushland has often experienced the feeling that he was being watched by 'something'.

Lamington Plateau Cliffs 1964

Hairy man-like Beast

In 1964 a Tweed Valley stockman, Richard Adams, was mustering a mob of cattle on horseback on a steep hillside, on the edge of rainforest, situated at the foot of the Lamington Plateau cliffs, when the cattle and also his horse suddenly took fright.

It was at this moment that, barely 16m ahead of him, an enormous muscular, hairy man-like beast appeared on the edge of the forest, menacingly brandishing a large tree limb. The beast, whose face Richard later described as being somewhere between human and ape, stood its ground snarling, as the terrified stockman turned his mount to gallop off down the slope.


Carrai Foothills 1965

8ft hairy man-like Beast

The story is still recalled of when, in 1965, a husband and wife left their remote farm near the Carrai foothills to drive to Kempsey for shopping. Their 15-year old daughter was left alone to do housework in their absence. She had tidied up about the house and was in the backyard feeding chickens when the family dog, chained up near the house, began to bark furiously, then cringe and 'crawl' inside its kennel.

Suddenly feeling that something was behind her, the girl turned, dropping the bag of chicken-feed she was holding, and screamed in terror. There, standing several feet from her and towering over her frail five-foot height was an enormous, hairy manlike beast, a good eight feet tall. It showed a ferocious look in its eyes, which she later recalled were set deep inside big eyebrows. Large teeth showed from its snarling mouth.

The beast moved towards her, but the girl, although terrified, regained her senses enough to turn and rush up the back-door steps into the house, slamming and bolting the the door as she did so. For some minutes, she later recalled, the beast seemed to pace around the house emitting a loud grunting noise, then all went silent.

She was beside herself with terror by the time her parents returned a couple of hours later, and although she could describe exactly what she had seen to her parents, and later to police, nobody in authority took any action. No search was organised to attempt to track the mysterious intruder due to the vastness of the nearby forest.

The Carrai is a mysterious, eerie, foreboding place in which few people dare to camp at overnight. Weird cries from the forest depths, and the sounds of twigs snapping underfoot as mysterious upright-walking creatures move about in the forest, have all too often terrified campers who have sometimes caught a glimpse of some huge hominid from watching them from the trees illuminated in the campfire glow.

Lamington Cliffs, Numinbah Valley 1965

Hairy ape-like Giant

In 1965, a group of mountain-climbers were moving through a rainforest at the base of a Lamington cliff face in Numinbah Valley when they spotted what they later claimed was a "three- metre-tall, hairy ape-like giant" clambering over boulders, leaving behind an overpowering, rotting, animal-like-stench.

Lamington Cliffs, Numinbah Valley 1965-Related in 1979

Manbeast

In 1979 a Mr Brian Cook wrote to me of an experience he had 14 years before in 1965: "After reading an article in 'People Magazine' dated 16th August, 1979 on the "Great Australian Yowie Hunt", which told of your lifetime's dedication to this mystery I thought I would write to you.

I know its very true because I have seen the same kind of creature. In Carnarvon 14 years ago my brother and a mate together with myself, all teenagers, were walking along the side of a hill and at the bottom was a small creek. I saw it first - it had just come out of the water because its hair was all hanging straight down and dripping. I never saw its face as it lay with its back to us."

"I waved my brother and our mate over and they started to panic. I was also pushing a truck tyre at the time and aimed it straight down the hill at the creature. I don't know if the tyre hit the manbeast as we had by then begun running for home."

"A truck driver a few days later reported in a newspaper that he had seen what must have been the same creature just out ow town one night as it crossed a road into dense scrub. For a while locals were wary about going into the bush hereabouts for fear they might meet up with the 'hairy man'."

Papua New Guinea 1965

Female Mabi

In another startling incident, claimed by natives to have taken place in the Mt Hagen region, but which was not reported until some years after the event, about 1965 a 1.8m tall female Mabi is said to have been captured by hunters and held captive in their village, where she eventually gave birth to a male child of one of the men.

As he grew older the boy looked completely unlike a normal human. He died of some disease about 1973. The beast woman had however long since wandered off into the bush never to return.


Kow Swamp Remains 1967

Ancient burial Sites

In 1967, at Kow Swamp in northern Victoria, archaeologists found ancient burial sites between 15,000 and 9,000 years old. The skeletons unearthed display anatomical features distinct to those of modern Aboriginals. These people were far more robust and heavily built in physical appearance, for their skulls were very thick, longer and larger than any modern Aboriginal types, with receding foreheads and thick eyebrow ridges, huge cheek bones, jaws and teeth.

Northern Victorian tribes once spoke of a race of primitive, stone tool-making people that roamed the Kow district of northern Victoria, and who differed physically from the Aborigines. In 1967 archaeologists excavated fossil remains at Kow Swamp of a people whose skulls displayed facial features of Homo erectus [Java man] appearance [see Chapter Four].

Tidbinbilla 1967

Large hominid Footprints

It was in the wild mountain country of Tidbinbilla to the west of Canberra that, one dark winter's night in 1967, Mr John Green and a friend, Mr John Fisher, were woken up on Mr green's farm, by loud noises coming from the stables area.

They got out of their beds quickly to investigate. When they dashed outside, torches in hand, they found a large hole kicked in the barn wall and an old horse missing. A search for the horse that night failed, but in the morning they finally discovered it, far away up the end of a paddock, trembling with fear. Large hominid footprints were found about the barn.

Hairy man-ape Creature

Some weeks after this incident, a group of hikers caught sight of a 2.6m tall, hairy man-ape creature standing on a nearby rocky promontory in that same area. Could it have been the same mystery intruder on John green's farm?

Turon River 1967

A big hairy Thing

"Red Jack Ellis", a local identity, told George and Janice on another occasion that he could take them into areas where the monsters have been claimed seen. Jack's daughter, when 12 years old, in 1967 was with her father and mother being driven across one of the concrete weirs of the Turon River late one moonlit night, when she asked them if she could dangle her feet in the water for a few minutes. Jack agreed and pulled up.

As she put her feet in the water one of the thongs she was wearing fell off and floated away downstream. The girl chased after her thong down and around a curve in the river, and waded out into the water to get it. Then, turning to wade back to the bank, she was confronted by a huge creature, standing there on the bank looking at her in the moonlight.

The beast, she described, was "a big hairy thing at least 2.4m tall." She ran through the water and down the bank to the car. She was "white as a ghost" and couldn't talk about her experience. In fact, she never told anyone about what she had seen that had frightened her so much until several years later. The spot where the girl had come face to face with the hairy giant was the same spot on the Turon River where George and Janice Gibbs were to have their own experience with a manbeast ten years later!


Katherine River, Arnhem Land 1968

Monster killed her Dog

We now journey 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 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 Arnhem 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.

Mount Kosciusko 1968

Large bear like Creature

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 the roadside scrub.

Bundaberg 1968

Pgymy sized Natives


A few years earlier, about 1968, a Bundaberg farmer, living on the upper reaches of the Herberton River, reported seeing a whole tribe of pygmy-size natives, men, women and children moving through jungle in the mountain country behind the town.

There are also numerous cave paintings, often thousands of years old, believed made by these people, hidden deep in jungle-covered rock shelters throughout the Atherton/Cape York ranges.

In 1978 I made an inspection of one of these cave art sites, which besides depicting the stencilled arms and hands of the small artists, included various animals and hunting scenes of long ago.

Mt Kosciusko Road 1968

Mystery Beast

Despite a lack of interest among Australian scientists, quite believable sightings of Yowies continue to be made. For example: one night in March 1968 a motorist, Mr John Noyce, was driving on the Mt 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, much taller than a man, was covered in long hair. However, before Mr Noyce could get a good look at the mystery beast, it walked off into roadside scrub.

Megalong Creek 1968

Animal hide clad black Creature

Another sighting claim, made by a family picnicking near Megalong Creek on day in September 1968, when they spotted "an animal hide-clad, 2ft tall [ 0.61m] black creature - probably male - running across open ground in the paddock of an adjacent farm property, to disappear into thick scrub.

Paua New Guinea 1968

Huge male Masalai

In 1968 a huge male 'Masalai' carried off a native woman from a village in the vicinity of Mt Dom, a massive sentinel rising 4,396ft above the surrounding jungle terrain.


Numinbah Valley 1969

Tall hairy man Beast

A farmer, "Doug", had experienced some eerie happenings on his Numinbah Valley property. He had found giant footprints and heard weird cries at night. In 1969 he was working in a field one day when he saw, some distance away, a three-metre-tall, hairy manbeast walking across thee field carrying a dead calf.

Grabbing his .303 rifle, he fired at the monster as it effortlessly cleared a wooden paling fence in a single stride and escaped into rainforest.

Hairy man-like Creature

Tweed Valley: In another incident a few years earlier in the Tweed Valley, a stockman, Richard Adams, was mustering a mob of cattle on horseback when the cattle and his horse suddenly took fright. It was at this moment that, barely 16 metres ahead of him, an enormous, muscular, hairy manlike creature appeared menacingly, brandishing a large tree limb.

The snarling beast, whose face Richard later described a being somewhere between human and ape, stood its ground as the terrified stockman turned his mount to gallop off down the slope.

Atherton Tableland December 1969

Hairy male man Ape

The Atherton Tableland, rising high above Cairns, is the scene of frequent 'hairy man' reports. During December 1969, several timber-cutters claimed they saw a two-metre-tall, hairy male "man ape" watching them among trees as they worked near the town of Atherton.

Earlier that same year, another logging group operating in the Kuranda district reported seeing three strange hominid creatures-an apparent male and female each of two metre's in height, and a juvenile of about 1.3 metres-foraging in a gully below them.