Location: Charters Towers, Queensland
Event: Yowie Attack
Date: April, 1979
Source: The Townsville Daily Bulletin writes about the Charters Towers incident on Monday the 5th of March 1979
The reported sighting of a “half-man, half-ape” on the 300ft high. Lonely Towers Hill overlooking the old gold mining town, have been the talking point for the past week in bars, barber shops, hallways and homes.
The existence of such creatures – fact or fiction – is proving to be the greatest promotional gimmick that Charters Towers (population 8,222), could hope for.
The town was a-buzzing when a young Charters Towers man told Police he had been chased and grabbed by a “small hairy man” on Towers hill late one night. Police found the youth running frantically down Rainbow Road, which leads to an isolated hill parking spot about 3km from the Charters Towers shopping centre, after they had been alerted by his mate.
They said yesterday that the youth that raised the alarm, 19-year-old apprentice baker, Michael Mangan, was ashen-faced and visibly upset when he rushed into the Police Station.
Michael Mangan
Mangan said that he had taken a group of friends up the hill in search for the creatures which he believes to roam the rugged hillside, pitted with old mining shafts. He said that his mate had become separated from the rest of the party, and when they heard screams in the darkness the raced for help. The youth – who declined to be interviewed by the press – told Police he had fought the hairy monster off with a stone.
The officer in charge of the Charters Towers Police Station, Sergeant Gill Engler, said that when the youth had been interviewed by Police he had blood on his leg. It was not his own. Sgt, Engler said, however, that a thorough Police search of the area failed to find anything.
The incident capped off months of sightings by Mangan and his friends on the hill. Mangan said that he had first seen one of the small hairy men about six months ago. “I was parked on the hill with my girlfriend at the time,” he said. “I looked across the passenger side of the car and saw a black hairy face at the window.
It was awful. The face was small and drawn back like that of an ape. We both screamed because we got such a shock. I started the car to get out of the place, and this thing raised its hand and smashed the passenger side window.” Mangan said he got out of the place in a hurry, and after the recent incident, he has no intention of going back there at night.
He described the “thing” as one metre tall, and covered in black hair. “It appeared to be half-man, half-ape,” he added. He said that he repaired the window himself, and neither he or his girlfriend said anything about the sighting at the time, because “we did not think anyone would believe us.”
It was not until one of his friends told him of a similar sighting, that he gathered a group together to search for the creature. Mangan was emphatic that the thing he saw was not a goat or Kangaroo. “It was not even Human.”
Sgt. Engler pointed out that there were a lot of goats and Kangaroo’s roaming the hill. There were also a couple of hermits living in old mining ruins and caves. “However, we are satisfied that Mangan has seen something on the hill,” said Sgt. Engler. “The officers on duty at the time tell me that when he came into the station his face was as white as a sheet. Sgt, Engler could not explain the car window glass being smashed or the blood on Mangan’s mates leg.
The incident has created a great deal of interest
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