Location: Stanthorpe, Queensland
Event: Yowie Sightings (Various)
Date: 1934-37
Terrain: Farm field
The gentleman in this interview, is certainly of strong character, he was a teacher, both in Australia and New Zealand, and a Member of the Australian Army for 2 years in 1943/44.
The "Hairy Man" incident was when I was somewhere around 12 to 14 years old.
We had been in the paddock picking peas. They were put into sack bags. My brother and I each carried 3 of these bags back to the house, and left the others in the paddock. Thinking we would go back and get them later. After dinner, Dad asked "Did you get all the peas back from the field?" of course we had to say "No".
Dad sent us back to the field to get the rest. We went down to the field, to collect the other sack bags, and this "thing" that was leaning over the bag of peas, stood up. I thought it was someone playing a joke on us, dressed in a fur coat. I yelled "Whoever you are you don't scare me"
It took no notice of me. I threw a clod of dirt. It started moving with a forwards and sideways movement, and a aaawnk, aaawnk sound. It turned and ran over a drain and away.
I took off running, and passed my brother. We both ran fast, until we got to my Grandfather's house.
The creature would have been somewhere between 5 foot 6 inches and 6 foot tall. There was no hair on its face. It had dangling arms, and sort of waddled, a sideways type movement as it walked. It made several guttural noises. It had long dangly hair over it's body, it just looked like a man in a suit.
More recently, another sighting, was when my two sons and I were out with a detector. We came across these footprints in the sand on the side of the creek. They were larger than the detector. The print would have been 10 inches long, and very deep into the sand, I would say 3 or 4 inches. It had 4 toes, but no instep, a very flat foot. And the prints were on a slight angle to the degree of travel.
There has been a history of sightings in our family.
My Dad and his brother lived near the Folkstone Range. They found something eating the carrots in the shed, and they always claimed it was a Hairy Man.
My Aunt Emma, was about 7 years old, and she went looking for the cows, to bring them into the shed, and she found this "monkey" up a tree, throwing nuts.
Then there was Walter, was on the back road from Stanthorpe to Mount Tulley. He was riding his horse, and this 'Hairy Man" reached out and tried to grab the bridle. All he could talk about was these huge cheek pouches he saw.
My sister's sighting, she's 10 years younger than me so it would have been about 1940/41. She came running into the house, " Mummy, mummy there's a man up in my cubby. It was some time later, when we were looking at some magazines, and she saw some pictures, and she said "That man, it was just like that!" It was an article on bigfoot.
But all of these sightings were really treated as jokes, no one really took the stories seriously.
It was only when we saw an article in the newspaper about 7 years ago that I started thinking about all the sightings.
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