Location: Laidley, Queensland
Event: Yowie Roadside Sighting
Date: Aug 15, 2001
Date of report: 15th of August, 2001
Source: Interview with Witness
On the evening of the 15th of August, Mrs. Crouten was working as a cook at a function for the local Doctor. After finishing for the night, she drove North by herself between Mulgowie and Laidley.
She recalls that there was a car ahead of her at a distance of around 150 metres as she drove down the lonely stretch of farmland properties at 11pm. The houses in that particular area of road are sparse, and the entire area is agricultural.
The road was dark, as there are no street lights and few cars travel the road during at that time of night. The far fringe boarders of the land are surrounded with mountainous terrain and one main creek weaves its way through the area with one major crossing under a bridge at one end of the road.
As Mrs. Crouten’s car drove North towards Laidley Creek, a creature appeared on the right side of the road and proceeded to cross the road behind the car ahead of her. “It was walking slowly on all four’s,” she stated. “It was as if it had no fear of either the cars or the cars headlights. It was covered in dark hair, however not very large, larger than an Alsatian Dog, however it looked like a large version of an Orang-utan.”
Mrs. Crouten said that although it was quite dark, she had a good view of the creature and it was certainly no dog or any animal that she was familiar with. She had slowed down as she reached the crossing point of the road and had a very good look at it as it entered the field on her left hand side. “It had a distinctive ‘Monkey’s bottom”, she said emphatically. Due to the darkness she could not give a colour other than it was dark in colour and could not give many further details other than the next day they found it was more than likely heading in the direction of Laidley Creek
Mrs. Crouten was shaken up about her sighting enough to call the local Police and report it. The officer on Duty Senior Constable “J” (name with held), said when speaking with the AYR, that she was clearly shaken and believable. He drove her back to the point of sighting in his Patrol car. He added that due to the fact that they were both in a small environment within the car, he knew that there was no alcohol in her breath and she was a sane and rational individual.
Snr. Cons. “J”, said that Mrs. Crouten is a person of credibility and he takes her sighting very seriously.
Following up on the investigation further, I visited the Mulgowie Hotel, which is the closest major land mark to the site. The Publican who had only lived in the area for 2 months said that there was a legend of the “Mulgowie Yowie”, however he knew of no recent sightings.
“The day after the sighting I was speaking with a Property owner who lives in a direct line where the Yowie was seen heading, not far away, and he said that this sighting may have answered some questions for him,” said the Publican. The man said he was awoken by his dogs going stir crazy towards the Creek, the like of which he hasn’t seen before and to the extent where he had to go out there and bring them in.”
Further investigations are following, as there are other sightings in the area that we know of and have been involved with. In 1998 there was a sighting of an 8ft Yowie near Gatton, which was witnessed at night by an entire family while driving home from Toowoomba. Gatton is the very next town to Laidley. On the other side of Laidley, we have a property that is suffering stock losses where the calves are being “carried” and dumped after being torn in half.
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