The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot
By paranominal
Published: November 22, 2009
Tagged with: Aborigines, ape, Bigfoot, British Settlers, Colonists, Creatures, Deep Forests, Eyewitnesses, Hairy, Island Continent, Many Names, Mystery, Product Description, Rugged Mountains, Search Australia, Yahoos, yowie
Unfortunately my order including the above title never arrived and has apparently been lost in tansit
Rating: 1 / 5
For anyone who has heard, or never heard of the Yowie, this is the best book to buy and find out all about it! The Yowie is definitely not ‘case closed’ – Paul and Tony prove it in their book and blow wide open the case for the Yowie, going back into the Aboriginal dreamtime and forward to today with a book chock full of well documented cases.
I’ve just received a copy of this book from the UK (via Amazon US) – I couldn’t wait for the Australian edition. I loved the Turramulli pic on the cover (and so did my kids – I’ve had it up on the study wall for quite some time now!). The Turramulli story (by Percy Trezise and Dick Roughsey – an Australian classic first published in 1982) has kept my littlies entertained for weeks!
I think I can truthfully say Paul and Tony’s new book sets a new benchmark for all things Australian cryptozoological. Stupendous Fantastic Amazing (no acronymical pun intended!). I’m just over the moon to be lucky enough to have/view such a definitive reference book on The Yowie. Nothing else remotely compares (well, at least not to me!).
Congratulations to Paul and Tony – I’m sure they’re going to be busy with their new website – yowiefile – which tells you more about their book, and maybe, just maybe, the fourth estate will be beating a path to their door too. Great Stuff.
Rating: 5 / 5
As avid bigfoot fans know, there isn’t much in the way of info on the Yowie. This book is not necessarily the most well-written or well-organized book on the subject of bigfoot in general, but it is by far the one book you SHOULD own if you want to understand Australia’s version of bigfoot.
The book does an admirable job of going back to early aboriginal history to provide the reader with possible glimpses into ancient Yowie existence, it’s behavior, and hostile relationship with natives. This gives the reader a good foundational context for better understanding the Yowie phenomenon in today’s Australia.
The book provides the reader with sightings accounts from each territory within Australia at the back of the book and also goes into detail on the more key encounters.
I certaintly think it’s possible. Australia has approximately 3/4 the land mass of the continental United States. However, at 20 million residents, Australia has only 1/15 the population of the United States. There are many remote areas for an intelligent hominid-type creature to still carve out an existence.
Additionally, it’s always interesting to read bigfoot-type books written by authors outside of the United States. Canadians, Australians, Chinese, Russians, etc. are so much more open-minded to scientific investigations of cryptids than most of the establishment in the United States. It’s always a refreshing perspective for me to read books written by individuals living in other nations.
I highly recommend you make this one of your next additions to a growing personal library on bigfoot-type creatures.
Rating: 5 / 5
I started reading this book from page 1 then realised you can just open it up anywhere you like as it is largely a huge compilation of case studies. This is also possible as the authors are neither for nor against the existence of yowies. I guess they want them to exist … don’t we all. So it essentially is a huge reference guide with touches of humour thrown in.
Rating: 4 / 5
The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper is an enjoyable and informative read that adds a new dimension to the mystery of giant, undiscovered, upright walking primates.
As the title implies, this book tracks the “Yowie,” an Australian cryptid supposedly resembling the famous North American Sasquatch. Healy and Cropper are researchers who have compiled a large collection of Yowie reports from a combination of first hand interviews and print media. The chapters work through a selection of their archives chronologically, covering creature reports from the early days of Australian settlement up to present day, also touching on sightings of the “littlefoot,” and concluding with a summary of the evidence and resulting theories.
The main text of the book is fun, interesting, and highly readable. Those familiar with the bigfoot phenomenon in other parts of world will be amazed by the close correlation with Yowie reports, which are often apparently completely isolated from North American influence. Many of the most in-depth and fascinating stories are covered, with lots of first-hand accounts, illustrations, and documents being included. I must commend the authors for remaining objective in their writing, and for avoiding any temptation to impress their personal opinions on the reader. In fact, in true scientific fashion, there are several occasions in the text where Cropper and Healy explicitly acknowledge cases whose seeming incongruence “poses a difficulty to investigators,” and yet they don’t shy away from presenting the breadth of the phenomenon… from the textbook cases to the downright unusual. A compendium of your old, rehashed, formulaic stories this isn’t.
Additionally, as an American, I’m only vaguely familiar with the Australian landscape and local customs. The authors do superbly to accommodate readers in my position, including everything from simple maps, to a glossary of abbreviations, and metric/imperial conversions in an attempt to make the text globally accessible. Healy and Cropper use geography to tie many reports together, making the included references invaluable.
My one complaint about this book is that the size is somewhat deceiving. As any Bigfoot reader will know, presenting a catalogue of reports is a perilous pursuit which often bogs down and becomes redundant and unenjoyable. The main text of The Yowie avoids this problem spectacularly, but the reader will come to realize that only 200 of the 320 pages of the book are actually the authored “chapters.” The remainder is simple appendices, the largest of which is a flat catalogue of a couple hundred sightings, most unedited, and many not longer than a couple sentences. Although the appendix does create an effect on the reader by evidencing the sheer number of reports available, it won’t offer most casual readers much entertainment.
Ultimately, I would rate The Yowie a “must read” for all Bigfoot enthusiasts. It opens the door to a new continent for Sasquatch researchers to explore, and although it does not provide any conclusions, it deepens and reinforces the mystery in new and fascinating ways.
Rating: 4.5/5
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Matt LaPlante
1/28/2008
Rating: 5 / 5
Unfortunately, the authors forgot to mention that the major contributor (and at least one other) is a yowie-hoaxer. Can hoaxers have legitimate yowie encounters or be expected to keep accurate notes of other people’s alleged yowie experiences? Hardly.
Were the authors deceived or did they know? Either way, it leaves little confidence in their interviewing/questioning techniques.
Most yowie stories are just that – stories. Hoaxing, exaggeration, and fabrication are rampant even from some of those who claim to be “researchers”. A few reports warrant further analysis but the details are often less than adequate.
Rating: 1/5