Could you explain further about “whole matrix of information and context of different sorts which support the reality of the yowie”. Why is it that yowie-suspicious events like rock throwing, wood knocking, and rock clacking have only recently been reported (within the last 10-15 years), only after becoming a popular feature in many North American Bigfoot reports, and are only reported by “yowie researchers”? If such events are genuinely occurring then they should also be mentioned in the forums of scouts, bush-walkers, prospectors, campers, etc. Such people spend a lot of time in the bush, would be curious about what could be causing it, and who would not necessarily associate such things with yowies yet there is no mention.

It should be noted that quite a few “yowie researchers” have more of an interest in perpetuating the yowie folklore (and their own place within it) than of collecting and analysing potential evidence and data. Hence the vagueness and lack of detail in many reports and in their own alleged (and often dramatic) encounters.

Could you also provide any information about any historical reports that link the yowie to human disappearances. The ones which I have seen are, at best, from 3rd hand sources with details that vary depending on who is doing the retelling, and have no means of being independently verified.

I agree that the question as to whether the yowie actually exists is an interesting one. Yet the ever-elusive answer is well obscured by the mountains of fiction which surrounds it. This needs to be adequately acknowledged and remedied if we are to make any actual progress.

Eyewitness experience is not quite in that category usually having more localised validity and related to local experience and knowledge. Eyewitness accounts are still valuable and at the least mean there is a good case for research into the yowie phenomenom with some confidence it is a real creature and at somepoint absolute physical evidence could be obtained.

Apart from eyewitness accounts there is a whole matrix of imformation and context of different sorts which support the reality of the yowie. It still remains a hugh and interesting mystery and one which conventional scientists have some difficulty in dealing with until they are forced to!

I think if the evidence for the yowie is looked at objectively it would be a form of self delusion not to appreciate that there is a significant probability a real creature is involved and a real opportunity to find something wonderful!

The stick business you mentioned is an area that may well have some basis in fact and would be pretty clear to someone like a bushman or traditional aboriginee but naturally could be wishfull thinking on the part of non-experts and easily ridiculed ,like a lot of this type of evidence discretion is needed and value given to it when it seems appropriate.

In my opinion yowies may well be resposible for human disappearances and I think there are historical reports. Clearly however as you perhaps infer the police are not likely to put any disappearance down to this cause whatever a bushwise policeman may think.

The question has to be raised – What yowie evidence?

There is plenty of fabricated and suspect evidence but still nothing concrete on our Hairy Man. Sticks in formation, sticks leaning against trees, broken foliage, bark missing from trees, rock cairns, feelings of being watched, indistinct footfalls in a forest – these are things which pass for evidence within “yowie research”. In the absence of actual physical evidence people are encouraged to grasp at straws. It is simply promoting self-delusion.

Logic 101 indeed!

I’m confused that this kind of assumption keeps finding its way into the cryptid discussion, as simple logic clearly disputes it.

How can something “have been discovered by now” when every observation is discounted, without even cursory review, as a mistake? A human or two DOES go missing at times, every place in this world that is wild. In many if not most cases, no trace is ever found…and everything BUT a cryptid is postulated as the cause, whether or not there is any evidence.

Here, try this on. Someone is missing; no trace is found for weeks. Here’s the speculation: maybe he drowned. Maybe he starved to death, well off trail. Maybe a croc got him. Maybe a yowie …

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How in the WORLD are you going to trace a predator that no one will entertain the possibility even exists?

Answer: YOU WILL NOT.

You will simply say something else did it…EVEN IF THE EVIDENCE POINTS AWAY FROM THAT SOMETHING.

No, you WILL. Large humanlike footprints? Oh, that must be a bear. In Oz???? Well, maybe it’s a bear that escaped from a circus. No circus missing a bear? They’re obviously lying. Or maybe this guy was killed by a huge, barefooted vagrant. Days away from a road.

This is what has always happened with cryptid evidence. Loony explanations are accepted out of hand, as long as the agent is something mundane. (See: conga lines of otters.) If a predatory primate is a possibility at all – and the evidence says it is – than it is EQUALLY likely as an answer to any unanswered disappearance for which no evidence points to a cause.

If you dispute this, re-take Logic 101.

We erase animals when we have evidence for what did it. And we frequently erase animals just to feel good that we did something, when we have no idea what did it. And we have been – times beyond counting – wrong, demonstrably, in the animal(s) we erased.

This drawing is from a 1994/95 sighting from Eden, NSW. Hardly recent.

“I’m nowhere near happy with the idea that the Yowie might be real” – Darren Naish

I suspect it is because of the high number of bogus reported encounters and almost complete lack of phsysical evidence. What little evidence there is is suspect or fabricated – like the yowie footprint cast from Harrison’s 2009′s alleged “yowie attack” whose toe impressions match Harrison’s own.

That is why Harrison is desperately releasing material via YouTube but all of it is largely out of context and with few, if any, supporting details. Alas, the damage to his reputation has already been done.

Do people who hoax yowie encounters and evidence have legitimate yowie experiences? Can hoaxers be trusted to accurately record the details of other people’s alleged encounters?

Don’t be fooled, people – some prominent yowie researchers are among the most prolific hoaxers.

These aren’t recent videos and most are up to ten years old or more. I guess that should be mentioned so people don’t think there is a sudden rash of yowie sightings and reports.

Those ones with people sharing actual real experiences on video are interesting to watch though.

I disagree with the assessment that yowie is carnivorous. For the simple fact that there would be a human or two missing at times. And when humans are attacked, we find, categorize, and erase that animal …It would have been discovered by now.

I think the large primates of the world would be herbi-or omnivirous. Sasquatch in the Pac Northwest are now said to follow the berry harvest south-to-north. Surely they would be able to support themselves better, like bears, as an omni-eater.

I’m definitely not a scientist of any kind, but common scents can smell a rat. And a carnivorous (Group name?) sasquatch, yeti, yowie…whatever has Denmark writ large.