Location: Pilliga (30 kms north of Coonabarabran), New South Wales
Event: Roadside Sighting
Date: Sept 1978-79
Terrain: Road through bushland
Witness: Peter
My friend and I were driving along the Newell Highway at 3am, from Narrabi to Coonabarrabran before the turnoff to Gunnedah, we would have been travelling about 90 mile an hour. We had the windows down and the stereo blaring to keep us awake. There were a lot of dead kangaroo on the road. We saw in the driving lights up ahead, what looked like a large wild pig.
I slowed down a bit, and flicked the lights to scare it off. I changed down to third gear, and flicked the lights again, but the thing still didn't move. There was a truck coming toward us from the opposite direction, it was probably 700 metres away from us at that time.
I dropped down to second, and flicked the lights again. I said to my mate "S**t have a look at this!" He replied "What the F***'s that". This thing was on it's hands and knees over a roo carcass in the centre of the carriageway. The head was bobbing up and down as if it was eating, we never saw it eat, but that was the impression we got.
This thing stood straight up, just like you or I would, from a kneeling position, and stood and looked at the car. It was brownish/red colour, and it had no neck (it must have been a rugby player) and I remember lots of wild hair about 2 or 3 inches long, and even a lot of facial hair. We were so stunned, that I nearly drove straight into it.
I stand 6foot 5, so I estimate this thing was at least 71/2 foot if not 8 foot tall. At the distance we were from it, the driving lights didn't even reach up to it's face, so we didn't really get a good look at it. It was a solid thing, a distinct shape of a person, with very broad shoulders. In proportion, the arms hung just below the crutch line just like ours do. What amazed us most was that the crutch line was at roof height of our car. (A Torana XU1)
I had to go onto the other side of the road to get around it, with the truck still coming at us. As we passed it, we got this horrible smell, like someone had vomited all over the place. As we drove past it, it just slowly turned, by moving it's feet and watched us, I looked into the rear view mirror, and could still see it there, staring at the car. I quickly dropped into first, and did a quick turn around. At this stage we were about 50 metres from it, and it was fully lit in the driving lights.
Once we had turned around, it bent down, picked up the roo carcass and dragged it off into the bush.
I don't know what came over me, but I grabbed the torch out of the glovebox and took off after it. I got about 20 metres into the bush, and realized where I was, and what I was doing, and hightailed it out of there back to the car. My mate had wound up all the windows and locked the doors, I said let me in. He yelled "NO you're mad". While I was out, I walked over to the side of the road, and you could see the drag marks through the gravel and the loam soil leading into the bush, where the roo carcass had been dragged. There was no trace of the smell from before.
I finally got back into the car, and we drove to Coonabarabran, and pulled into the third service station on the left. I filled up the car, and my mate went inside to have a coffee. The attendant came out and asked me "what's wrong with my mate?" I said, "we saw something up the road that frightened the S**t out of him." He asked, "What was it?" I said, "just fill up the car, I don't know!" He insisted and asked again, "No seriously what was it?" I said, "I don't know." To me, this guy was just as spooky as what we had just seen.
He insisted I go into the servo, and have a look round. We went into the restaurant, and there were all these hand drawings on the wall. And I said, "that's what we just saw. What the F*** is that thing." He said, "a Yowie."
While in the restaurant, a trucker related to us a story of another trucker, only hearsay mind you.
Apparently this trucker had pulled into a wayside stop in the Tilga scrub in the middle of the night. He heard scratching on the door, and he pulled open the curtain of the sleeper, to be face to face, with a strange looking face.
I wouldn't have believed it, but there was a photo of the scratch marks on the wall with the drawings. I said to my mate, "c'mon let's get out of here, these people are Kooks."
But what must have happened, is when we drove out of the servo, someone must have taken down the rego of the car. Over the years, people kept trying to contact me. The car was registered at the time, at my parents farm, and people kept contacting her, and she in turn got in touch with me, I was in and out of the army for some time. It was someone at the Katoomba Museum who was trying to contact me. He kept trying for years, the rego, was the only way they would have known.
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