Location: Manumbar, Queensland
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: 2015
Time: 9am
Witness: Rod Benfield
[Manumbar Road, between Wrattens Forest and Gallangowan State Forest]
I used to go out to the back of Manumbar to get tree logs for a guy with my brother in-law in his 9 ton truck. It is a dirt road for a fair way, and the time was around 9oclock in the morning.
We were in the truck heading down the road when I needed to go for a Pee. I asked the brother in-law to stop, and he pulled over to the side of the road. I got out and for some reason I decided to go through the barbed wire fence. I crawled through the barbed wire fence and headed towards a tree [on the edge of the tree line].
Just as I put my hand on the tree, this rather large Gorilla / man looking thing came charged straight at me. I turned and ran back to the truck as quick as I could. Funny thing was I was getting snagged on the barbed wire fence on the way in, but I didn’t even touch the barbed wire on the way out!
It was a very large, cranky man-like gorilla type thing. I basically got the impression he didn’t want me there at the time.
On the other side of the fence was mainly gum trees and brownish foot and a half high flexi type grass in amongst the trees [10 metres from the fence]. The tree I leant on was probably about 6ft across. It was flat ground, and behind the trees was a creek. I thought maybe that’s where he was coming from.
I lent up against the tree to have a pee, I looked up, and he was hunched over looking like he was going to launch, much the same if you see gorillas charging on a documentary, that’s how he was. He had one hand on the ground like a football player, ready to launch off the ground.
He was really tall, really muscular, but not as hairy as what some people say they are. I could see a lot of muscle. He was very very strong. Really well built with big shoulders.
He was on his way to me when I put my hand on the tree. When I saw him, I should have known better not to have looked at him, but I looked. He was ripping anything out of the ground that got in his way. He just charged. I’m not sure if you would call it a growl, it was more of a roar. He was charging and pulling things out of the ground. After the first two or three seconds I’ve seen this thing coming for me, I’ve decided discretion is the better part of valour and I wasn’t sticking around for him to grab hold of me. I ran and slid under that bottom piece of wire and it never touched a piece of clothing. I slid all the way back to the tyre of the truck. I was moving.
When I first saw him, he was about 10 to 15 metres away and I was about 10 metres from the fence.
When you’re a young fella and you get yourself into a few fights, the sort of look you get when you want to hit someone would be the best description of the expression on his face. He was pissed off. He was angry. When I first saw him, he was already cocked and ready to go. I’d say he saw me coming through the fence.
On the way out, I was really moving. He stopped at the tree I was at. It was open ground from the tree to the fence. Thinking about it now, I think it was a mock charge. A “Get out of here, I don’t want you here”. I can’t understand what I did wrong.
When he was crouching down, he would easily have been 5 -1/2ft off the ground at the shoulders. Standing up he would have been about 7-1/2ft to 8ft. He had big arms. He was extremely athletic looking. Big chest; I’d be proud if I had pecks like that. He was a big boy. The arms seemed a little longer than a human arm. He had big hands and big forearms. Any bloke wold be proud to have a set of shoulders like that. The neck was a little bit shorter than a normal neck. It was a thick neck with big trapezius, which I guess is why people think they have very short necks.
You could see through the red/brown hair to the skin. It was a dark tanned skin that looked like leather, and tough. A tough leathery look on the arms and shoulders. The front of his chest hardly had any hair. There wasn’t a lot of hair on the face. I didn’t look at his face for long, it wasn’t a pretty thing. He had big chiselled looking teeth and there was a bit of drool going on. He was really pissed off.
He had a normal type of nose, but broad, not as pronounced as what we have on our faces. Big flared nostrils. I had the impression it looked like a gorilla at first, then I noticed the the eyes were shaped like ours but a bit bigger with a bigger pupil and he had the whites of his eyes. His eyes opened right up, he certainly didn’t like me.
He had the impression of a chiselled square type jaw line. Under the eye ridge he had big sunken eye sockets. He was ape’ish with some human features. Gorillas have really big canines, he didn’t.
If I was to estimate an age, I would say maybe early 30’s. He wasn’t pretty. He was fairly well weathered. The skin was tougher than a human, it was a bit like a gorilla’s skin. Leathery looking skin like it had been out in the sun a long time.
If he really wanted to hurt me, he could have quite easily in seconds. There was so much power in him, he could have run me down in 2 seconds if he wanted to.
I got into the truck and said “Did you bloody see that!”, and the brother in-law said “Did a deer chase you or something?” By the time I got back to the truck, I was sweating.
I don’t know where he went, he was just gone. There was still some dust in the air. I don’t know if he went behind the tree or shot back down to the creek.
Afterwards, it probably took me a good 18 months to go into the bush without my brother in-law or my wife. Nobody could get me to go in the bush for about 18 months. I wasn't going back in for anyone. That type of thing doesn’t go away. I still won’t go far into the bush by myself, not without somebody else with me.
Even going in on a horse while mustering, I won’t go in first. I’ll wait for everyone else to go in. I just won’t go by myself.
If they want to catch you, they’re going to get you. You won’t get away from them. With the amount of power they can unleash, what change have we got…..
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