Location: Shark Bay / Denham, Western Australia
Event: Yowie Sighting
Date: Various
[Female Contributor]
We’ve known about these stories of the Hairyman for ages. I’m indigenous – from the Malgana People at Shark Bay. My family date back to this area from the 1800’s.
Talking to my mother, Elders and non-Aboriginal people, there have always been stories that have been passed on for years and years and years. From many years ago.
Mum hadn’t seen one, but she new of them from what the Elders and family told her.
My brother had an experiences where he didn’t see it, but he was scared witless. The truck he was driving had broke down at Hamelin Station and because he didn’t want to wait out there, he decided to walk into Denham, which was about 80kms away.
Being a young person, he thought he would get there before sundown. He got to somewhere before Nanga, when all the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he had the feeling of being followed. He heard sounds that he had never ever heard before. He was terrified.
He jogged all the way to the turn off to Nanga where he thought he could get a lift and he was absolutely exhausted. When he sat down at the sign post, he heard this noise that was guttural and growling that he’d never heard before, so he ran all the way into Nanga. He still remembers it vividly. He said he’d never been so scared.
There have been many sightings here – and interestingly, most sightings have been by non-Aboriginal people.
My mother has a letter from a fairly ‘well-to-do’ family in Perth, who came up here to camp, and they had a sighting of one. I will find you the letter. The lady who wrote this, outlined what happened. She said it didn’t seem very interested in them. It resembled half man and half ape, and it just loped along the beach and then went back off into the scrub. They were terrified when they saw it.
That was at the Big Lagoon in the 1970’s. Back then it was more remote than what it is now.
There was also a man who owned the local store here, Barry, and he encountered it. That’s the one Mum wrote about in her book. That happened in the Shark Bay area as well.
Many of the people who live in Denham have always been wary of them in the 40 Mile Tank area. There’s been many stories passed down about the sightings out there.
The 40 Mile Tank, which has now been torn down, has also been well known for Min Min lights which I saw many years ago. My brother filmed a Min Min light on his phone not long ago. It’s a very interesting part of Shark Bay, where many of the sightings have been, and where the most eerie things have happened.
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