Location: Darwin – Fannie Bay
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: 1979
Time: 8pm
I was living in the NZ and came to Darwin due to business (building company), which was a bit of an adventure for my husband, son and myself.
My husband was away in Jabiru. I was on my own at the end of Fannie Bay renting an old shack and a couple of caravans. Next door to us was mangroves. I had been sitting there reading and had the feeling someone was watching me. I looked up out of the glass louvres and there was nobody there.
The next day, I was sitting there reading and I looked up and I saw these eyes. I was pretending to continue reading. I got up, looked around, moved to the door and couldn’t see the face anymore.
When I opened the door, here was this person staring at me. I think we were both shocked. He didn’t go away. I think I was taller than him. He wasn’t an aboriginal person. He had no clothes on, which really startled me. I’ve never seen anyone with no clothes who was hairy like that. It wasn’t fury hair – my husband used to have quite a hairy chest, but it wasn’t that type of curly hair, it was longer, perhaps 2 to 3 inches. It wasn’t thick, because you could see skin between the hair.
I was staring at it and it was staring at me. His eyes were wide. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t running away. He just looked curious, curious about me. It was almost like I was ‘different’ in the view of this person. There was something about it that wasn’t right. I’ve never seen anybody like that. Then I thought I might phone the Police, because I was on my own. I shouted at him, but this person didn’t flinch or jump, he just turned around and walked back into the bush.
He wasn’t upright as he walked, but also not stooped, but more bent from the hip forward.
I phoned the Police and they turned up very quickly. I explained to them what I had saw. They checked up on me everyday and had a Police car patrolling.
I didn’t believe in the Yowie because I’m not a child and don’t believe in fairy tale myths. I didn’t think any more about this until one day I was doing a google image search and saw a picture of someone’s drawing of a Yowie – and I’ve thought Ohhhhh….. Ohhhhh….. When I look back, I think what a shame I didn’t recognise it and said something. Then I’ve looked at your Website and thought again, Ohhh…
It was a long time ago. I’m now 67 (date reported to AYR 16-12-2019). In the late 70’s I would have been about 26 or 27.
I’m pretty sure I was taller than him. I’m not sure what details I gave to Police, but they should still have a record.
[Witness Sketch]
We were both looking at each other, startled. I think he was startled that I opened the door and was facing him. He was looking at me like he had never seen anyone like me before. If it were a peeping tom or a voyeur, or something, he would have gone immediately, but he stood there and didn’t move.
My first husband was very hairy and my second husband was black, so I’m used to non-white people. But the hair on this was different. I had never heard of a Yowie at that stage.
From his hips to his mid thighs, he was much hairier. The top half was hair sticking out in every direction and you couldn’t see where the beard ended. It wasn’t long, perhaps 4 or 5”. The eyes seemed further apart than a human rounder and more sunken in. It was wider in the head. Not a broad nose. The whites of the eyes were cream rather than white and the iris was brown. There was a difference between the age he looked at the skin around the eyes; it was wrinkled. The skin under the hair was more of a grey colour or a washed out black.
He had a stocky neck.
The hair was the same colour all over. It was dark brown. It was stocky, but not muscly. Broad across the shoulders. The rib cage was wider and didn’t tapper down like ours. The legs when he was walking, were never straight – you know how we walk, the front leg is forward and the back leg goes straight, his didn’t. The upper leg was longer than the lower leg. He had large calves. His arms were hanging down by his side. I couldn’t see genitals because it was too hairy. I had it in view for the best part of a minute.
It wasn’t too long after that when I moved.
© Copyright AYR
Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
www.yowiehunters.com