Mulgowie Yowie

THE HUNT for the Mulgowie Yowie continues. The elusive creature has not been officially seen since August 15, 2001, when Mrs Crouten, a cook working for a local doctor, saw the yowie-like animal at midnight on the corner of McGarrigal Rd and Mulgowie Rd.
     The QT reported the incident and interviewed Senior Constable Johns, who said the lady "saw something that looked like an ape approaching the road" as she was driving along.
     It was walking on all fours.
     Snr Constable Johns says the lady was lucid and sane, so he accompanied her to the site to search for the beast after she reported it.
     The report ties in with what Mrs Crouten told the Australian Yowie Research organisation.
     The group's website records her as saying the creature was "covered in dark hair" and "looked like a large version of an orang-utan".
      The sighting set off alarm bells with yowie experts around Australia and they descended on Mulgowie Hotel, where they told the publican at the time, Rob Vidler, about a terrifying tale.
      "After it happened we had yowie hunters come in who were looking for it," he says.

      "They told me there were places nearby where people had been forced to flee their homes because the yowies were there. But I couldn't imagine people moving out because of yowies."
      It had earlier been reported in 1998 that a giant 2.5m-tall yowie had startled two men near Gatton.
      The yowie was believed to have roamed from its home in the hills behind Mulgowie.
      The yowie seen by Mrs Crouten is believed by experts to have been a son or daughter of the giant yowie seen near Gatton. One of the men who saw it told Australian Yowie Research it was "covered with a light brown hair, like a monkey's hair".
      The man presumed the yowie was a male because he "saw no breasts".
      The QT spoke to cryptozoologist and yowie expert Tim the Yowie Man about what yowies are.

     "There are a few spots around Australia where yowies pop up more often that not and south-east Queensland, from Mulgowie to the Gold Coast hinterland, is a hot spot," he says.
     "A yowie is a creature spotted in the Australian bush that is yet to be scientifically identified, that most people describe as the Australian version of Bigfoot or the Abominable Snowman.
     "Most yowie reports describe them as over seven feet and hairy, ape-like creatures. In Queensland there are often two categories of yowies - the small ones that come in at three or four feet and the bigger version.
     "The Mulgowie Yowie is one of the more well-known yowie legends of Australia and one zoologists want to get to the bottom of.
     "The reports from Mulgowie seem to be of either a tall one or a small one. It is on all-fours or on two legs. So if there is a yowie in Mulgowie, there has got to be more than one.
     "In some parts of Australia the Aborigines would draw in their dreamtime caves and they would also have caves with drawings of real creatures that people might encounter when they walk through an area.

     "The yowies were often not drawn in the dreamtime cave, but amongst the creatures like kangaroos and turtles. That suggests the Aborigines believed they were a real creature they were sharing the bush with."
     Since the European invasion of Australia there have been "literally thousands of sightings of people claiming to see these big hairy creatures, mainly up and down the east coast of Australia and a couple of hundred kilometres inland".
     "Whether they are some link from the evolution of man from years gone by, or some introduced ape, there is no physical evidence to be able to confirm either of those claims," Yowie Man says.
     He recalls how in the Mulgowie vicinity in June 1999 two men reported "a foul stench in the middle of the night".
    "They heard a shriek and when they went over and had a closer inspection, and shone the torch on this creature, it got up and ran away. It was described as a seven-foot tall hominid-type creature".

     "I don't know when it started, but the legend of the yowie was talked about when I was a kid."
     Meanwhile, Vidler has a hunch the yowie was "a big black dog that lived in the area that had a funny arse on it".
     "I didn't read anything into it myself, but a lot of people did," Vidler says.
    "The people who saw it were coming from a private party. What they saw nobody will ever know. It is a cultivation area and no footprints were found when people went looking for it.
     "I'm not a disbeliever but, until I see it with my own eyes, I won't believe it. It is like flying saucers. They could be there, but I'm 59 and I've never seen one."
     Emmerson admits the Mulgowie Yowie has "got a ring to it".
     "We just don't want to be known for growing corn," he grins.
     As for whether the rugged terrain around Mulgowie could hide such a creature, Emmerson is not ruling it out.
     "There is a lot of steep terrain you can't even ride a horse into with steep canyons and gorges up on Mt Mistake," he says.

     "There are several areas cattle don't go, but possibly yowies could, even if they are eight foot tall and run on all fours."
     Of course, our yowie hunt has met with scepticism and some humour.
     The QT stopped off at Grandchester Hotel on our travels and the legend of the yowie was alive and well.
     One bearded patron told us he knows a Mulgowie bull rider who "grows extra fingernails and hair follicles on the night of a full moon".
     "He's the yowie, no question" the patron told us.
     The Yowie Man, who saw a yowie in 1994 (see story on page five), says yowies may not be flesh and blood-type creatures.
      "In looking for them for 20 years, I have never seen another one and never come across any physical evidence to say they exist," he says.
     "Some people believe yowies are a paranormal being ... that some people can see and some can't, a bit similar to ghosts that some people can see and only at some stages.
      "That might explain why no one has found a carcass or any physical evidence of one. But the legend lives on nonetheless.

DON'T blame the Mulgowie Yowie for stock losses.
     That is the word from cryptozoologist and yowie expert Tim the Yowie Man. The QT was told by one landowner to investigate the legend of the Mulgowie Yowie after he lost several sheep in a recent attack.
     But Tim the Yowie Man says yowies are not known for making flagrant attacks on stock.
     "It is very unusual that a yowie would go to an area where there are stock and attack at random. All reports are that a yowie eats just what it needs to survive," he says.
     "Most stock losses I would put down to wild dogs or cats."
     Tim the Yowie Man said he saw a yowie in the wild in the Snowy Mountains in 1994.
     "That is what prompted me to look into the yowie phenomena," he says.
     "It was eight foot tall, long arms, no neck, covered in black fur and loping through the bush."
     Tim the Yowie Man says Mulgowie is a noted "hot spot" for sightings of the elusive creature.

Mrs. Crouten's Sighting:

On the evening of the 15th of August, Mrs. Crouten was working as a cook at a function for the local Doctor. After finishing for the night, she drove North by herself between Mulgowie and Laidley.
     She recalls that there was a car ahead of her at a distance of around 150 metres as she drove down the lonely stretch of farmland properties at 11pm. The houses in that particular area of road are sparse, and the entire area is agricultural.
     The road was dark, as there are no street lights and few cars travel the road during at that time of night. The far fringe boarders of the land are surrounded by mountainous terrain and the one main creek weaves its way through the area with one major crossing under a bridge at one end of the road.
     As Mrs. Crouten’s car drove North towards Laidley Creek, a creature appeared on the right side of the road and proceeded to cross the road behind the car ahead of her. “It was walking slowly on all four’s,” she stated. “It was as if it had no fear of either the cars or the cars headlights. It was covered in dark hair, however not very large, larger than an Alsatian Dog, however it looked like a large version of an Orang-utan.”
     Mrs. Crouten said that although it was quite dark, she had a good view of the creature and it was certainly no dog or any animal that she was familiar with. She had slowed down as she reached the crossing point of the road and had a very good look at it as it entered the field on her left side. “It had a distinctive ‘Monkey’s bottom”, she said emphatically. Due to the darkness she could not give a colour other than it was dark in colour and could not give many further details other than the next day they found it was more than likely heading in the direction of Laidley Creek.
     Mrs. Crouten was shaken up about her sighting enough to call the local Police and report it. The officer on duty Senior Constable “J” (name with held), said when speaking with the AYR, that she was clearly shaken and believable. He drove her back to the point of sighting in his Patrol car. He added that due to the fact they were both in a small environment within the car, he knew that there was no alcohol in her breath and she was a sane and rational individual.
     Snr. Cons. “J”, said that Mrs Crouten is a person of credibility and he takes her sighting very seriously.
Following up on the investigation further, I visited Mulgowie Hotel, which is the closest major land mark to the site. The Publican who had only lived in the area for 2 months said that there was a legend of the “Mulgowie Yowie”, however he knew of no recent sightings.
     “The day after the sighting I was speaking to the Property owner who lives in a direct line where the Yowie was seen heading, not far away, ahd he said that this sighting may have answered some questions for him,” said the Publican. The man said he was awoken by his dogs going stir crazy towards the Creek, the like of which he hasn’t seen before and to the extent where he had to go out there and bring them in.”
     Further investigations are following, as there are other sightings in the area that we know of and have been involved with. In 1998 there was a sighting of an 8ft Yowie near Gatton, which was witnessed at night by an entire family while driving home from Toowoomba. Gatton is the very next town to Laidley. On the other side of Laidley, we have a property that is suffering stock losses where the calves are being “carried” and dumped after being torn in half.

Further Information:

A Lockyer Valley Hotel last night was abuzz as amateur detectives, wrangled with the news the Mulgowie Yowie was back.

Hotelier Mr. Robert Vidler said “investigations” were yet to unearth any witnesses.

“We think one of the long-haired locals could be responsible, but we’re not ale to come across anyone yet,” he said. “And the hotel wasn’t even open last night – so I can’t be blamed.”

Snr Const Johns of Laidley Police, last night sprang to the defence of the surprised woman who spotted an “ape-like creature with a bare bottom” on the Mulgowie road early yesterday morning. “the woman is a respectable woman and had not been drinking. She was perfectly certain of what she saw and there was no deviation in her story,” he said yesterday.

The stunned woman watched as the “orang-utan-like creature” no larger than an Alsatian” dog strolled across the road in front of her car. She called Police.

He linked up with the woman and went back to the intersection of Mulgowie and McGarrigal roads. He surveyed the area where the creature “ambled” from an unfenced paddock.

The legend of the Mulgowie Yowie dates back some 18 years when a creature was spotted in the foothills behind Laidley.

The Chronicle – Susan Searle