Location: Cowley Beach, Queensland (near Townsville)
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: 1997
I was a reservist in the Army at the time and we were doing an exercise at Cowley Beach in Queensland. I was a medic but we still went out on the manoeuvres. There were about ten of us on an expedition carrying full equipment in fairly thick rainforest and gums several kilometres inland from the beach, at an Army training property.
We were trudging through the bush, and one person was starting to have difficulty, so I took the radio pack from her, and was also carrying an M60 machine gun as well. I too, began getting tired, and started lagging behind the rest of the pack.
I decided I needed to have a rest, so I found a great bush, and lay down on my stomach, because of the radio pack, put the M60 to one side and had a quick rest. I was there about 2 to 3 minutes, and was close to getting my breath back and ready to stand up and carry on. It was then that something touched me on the back of the head. It was like the pressure if you push your fingers into your thigh to make an indent.
I looked over my right shoulder, and there behind me was this large creature about 5 foot tall but unbelievably broad, from where I was, it looked about 3 feet wide. It moved to my right in an arc until it was in front of me. It was starting to get dark in the bush, and as it moved all I could see was a silhouette of the figure. I do remember a smell the whole time, the only way I could describe it is like rotten meat that has been left out in the sun all day.
It had Reddish-brown hair, sort of long all growing in the same direction. But the one thing I really remember was the size of its feet, they were great big flat things but the big toe was about 2 inches wide. The foot was very padded on the outside, but I don't know how many toes it had, as I just kept focussing on that huge big toe. I remember thinking if you saw a human with a toe like that, everyone would laugh at them.
The skin was dark coloured, but it may have been covered in mud. It was silent as it moved the only sound was the odd breaking twig. It walked funny, almost a waddle, moving from side to side, and dropping its head forward. It was hidden amongst the leaves of the bracken a little, but its head looked like a deflated footy, there was no neck, it was just sitting on his shoulders.
It was a fairly solid build all the way, there didn't appear to be any change in the shape of its body. I was so hot, the sweat was dripping into my eyes, I lowered my head for a second to wipe the sweat from my eyes, looked up and it was gone.
I suppose I saw it for about a minute. It was a fairly flat area of land, sloping slightly down to where it finished up. The creature was about 2 metres behind me when it touched me so he must have had pretty long arms. When it got in front of me it would have been about 4 metres in front.
I would say it would have weighed over 100 kilos, but it moved like a cat but had to be heavy to be built like that. I didn’t see any muscle definition, but I had the feeling I wouldn’t like it to get hold of me. I wasn’t scared, rather curious, and would liked to have sat up, but I didn’t want to make sudden movements in case I scared it.
After it disappeared, I got up on my feet to look around. I went forward to where I last saw it, but I couldn’t see any footprints, it had been standing on bracken and mulch. There was no sign of hair or anything.
I told the rest of the group when I caught up with them, but they didn’t believe me. So when we got back into M (name with held), I asked the local Service Station owner if there had been any sightings.
I told him my story and he said you have seen the " M Man". Apparently, a local legend, for over 100 years.
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