Location: Fraser Island (Between One Tree Hill and Govi on Eurong Beach)
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: Easter, 1983
Time: 8-9pm
We camped in a lightly forested area on the other side of a small hill or ridge from the beach. There was a small creek and the area behind was more densely forested. At nights my friend and I had been walking up the beach far away from camp so his Dad didn't bust us for smoking cigarettes.
On the last night we went in the opposite direction since we had stolen some glass Chinese fishing floats, off some poor guy who was camped down that way and we didn’t want to get busted by him either.
It was a nice bright night and we had a small fridge magnet torch and a small radio cassette player.
We were in a rocky area close to the hill that runs along the tree line where there's some vines and bush starting to grow and beyond the hill was a more bushy area.
Report:
It was here that we smelt a disgusting smell. It was a very strong permeating odour that hung thick in the air. My friend remarked that it smelt like rotten eggs. Thinking it was something like a dead Brumby or buried fish heads we started looking for the source of the odour.
Getting closer to the bush and shining the torch around the rocks we heard a noise, then we found ourselves staring at one of those old grey dead driftwood trees that are along the beach on Fraser Island.
There appeared to be a figure sitting close to the trunk on a large branch that jutted out to our left.
We were standing there with this stink in the air looking at the silhouette of this tree. We could see pretty well but couldn’t make out this shape on the branch. First we thought it looked like a monkey or little kid; definitely wasn’t a Possum as it kept changing position and stretched out along the branch and kind of turned into silhouetted shapes.
While we were discussing this and shining our torches around, a huge hulking figure suddenly appeared standing there looking over the branch and facing in our direction.
We remarked that it was some bloke, when all of a sudden all hell broke loose. The branch was ripped away from the tree with a huge crack, then thrown or dropped to the ground with a huge thud. At the same time this figure gave out a horrible high pitched scream which turned into a huge, deep, roaring scream.
At first I thought the branch had fallen on him and he was in pain but it turned into this powerful screaming roar that seemed to go on forever.
We just stood there in shock, then took off back towards our camp and slightly towards the water away from the bush, with me in front and my mate close behind. We could hear the thing coming after us and when I looked back I could see this huge black hairy beast running on all fours with glowing red eyes.
It was snorting like a Bull while making an odd high pitched whining noise and running on an angle towards us at great speed. It also made a noise like hoof hoof the whole time, which was unnerving as well; I’ve since heard this could be air escaping from its diaphragm and not an aggressive
noise as I thought. Within a few seconds it was right up beside us and running on two legs, slightly hunched over.
He was sniffing and checking us right out with a bizarre twitchy, quivering movement of his head and having a real good look at us. Just casually running beside us as we were running for our lives and looking over at it in shocked amazement.
At this close range he looked basically like a really huge ugly naked hairy man. His hair was long and shaggy and his face was leathery like an elder Inuit/Eskimo person. He was also a bit froggy looking with a wild eyed look and a bit like a large chimp with a leathery bat face as well.
His body was massive like a Bull but bigger in the chest and shoulders. His arms were huge and very long but more wiry compared to the rest of his body.
The arms were long and thick like a sloth and had claws or long fingernails and the hair on his arms was like a chimps but longer with some skin showing where he stretched, (maybe I was looking up his armpits).
Although his skin appeared to be all Black, up close he was lighter in the face. I don’t remember his feet very well but seem to think they were quite flat. He was baring his teeth most of the time which seemed to be more sharp or pointed than human teeth. Basically he was a huge stinking naked
froggy looking Neanderthal man covered in thick Black hair and very animal/ape like as well.
At first, when he closed in on us and reared up beside my mate, I thought for a second it was human and it was now time for us to fight this huge bloke as we had a slim chance of getting away.
Next thing you know it was up beside me and I knew it was something completely different altogether.
Everything went weirdly calm for a bit and then we lost it and we started swearing and abusing him out of the terror we felt. Then he went feral and started screaming and grunting right at us. He was grunting and snorting the whole time with a hoof hoof noise and breathing heavily.
My friend yelled at me to run closer to the water, so we moved to the firmer sand and the hairy man stayed where he was, running beside us, all hunched over and snorting and screaming like a mad red eyed black Werewolf, all hunched over and close to the ground, with his arms pumping in an odd way suspended off the ground.
As he was running, he was turning to face us and really trying to scare us, screaming in some garbled language and snorting as he ran. He stayed beside us doing this for a while before moving off closer to the tree line. He stuck by the tree line for a while, running ahead of us maybe a few times like he was going to head us off, then dropping back, but we kept running straight. He then ran into the bush sounding like a huge Bull or Elephant stomping and smashing everything in his path while making an incredible amount of noise. He was still going off at us with the screaming and seemed to stay beside us and maybe sometimes running in front and dropping back.
Thinking now, I wonder if there were two of them, as the noise was so intense and possibly another one was stomping through the bush while the chase was happening. We could still smell it and eventually things quieted down and we kept running all the way back to our tent, as we were sure it was still following us.
We turned up exhausted and raving like lunatics about the huge naked hairy man that chased us down the beach.
That night there was a strange chirpy chattering outside our tent. It sounded like a Possum or Mammal but was kind of creepy and menacing. While this was happening I could see a long thin branch that was being repeatedly dragged over the top of the tent.
The noise was making everyone uneasy and my friends Dad said he didn’t know what it was but probably was some kind of Sugar Glider or Possum or small branches rubbing against the tent in the wind. It went on through the night but eventually we all fell asleep.
We left the next day and never went back to the spot to see what happened, although we wanted to. I don’t know about any tracks in the sand but there would have been a clear track through the bush from his trail of destruction.
All in all I have to say that this was both the strangest and scariest thing I’ve ever experienced anywhere.
I’ve seen: Sea Snakes, Sharks, Scorpions, Centipedes, been followed by Dingoes and nearly trampled by a Brumby while Eel fishing on the many trips I’ve had to Frasers with my family, but I’ve never seen anything like this.
My friend was sure it was a Yowie and I felt the same way. We had both heard of them before and there was nothing else it could’ve been no matter how hard we tried to rationalise or figure it out.
Funnily the only other trip I went on with his family was to Blackbutt where his Grandmother warned us matter-of-factly not to bother the hairy men if we see them as they often crossed her property.
Anyway my good buddy who shared this experience sadly passed away at quite a young age. He wanted to see a Yowie and he did.
We may even have had another Yowie experience at a Newell Highway rest stop a few years later as well. We had always known what we saw that night.
It was the hairy man/yowie and was a terrifying experience to say the least. The yowie caused so much mayhem and confusion and could’ve killed us within seconds if he wanted to.
The amount of noise he made was insane, along with the stomping, heavy breathing and smell.
It was a like a nightmare I would wish on no one and after all these years I still find it hard to comprehend the bizarre series of events that happened that night.
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Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
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