Jonathan Swift [1667-1745] in his book, “Gulliver’s Travels” [1726], described Australia long before the voyage of Captain James Cook RN [1770], with information which could only have come from ancient Chinese writings on the mysterious southern continent. He also described a primitive hairy race that inhabited that land as the Yahoos.

Jonathan Swift
Photo courtesy of the British Information Service, London UK.

The Yowie Mystery - Living Fossils from the Dreamtime.

Copyright © 2007 by Rex Gilroy
All rights reserved
First Edition

Rex and Heather Gilroy are recognised internationally as Australia’s foremost relict hominid researchers. This book celebrates Rex Gilroy’s 50 years as the ‘father’ of Yowie research. Rex and Heather are also recognised internationally as one of the world’s foremost husband and wife research teams in the field of ‘Unexplained’ mysteries.

These daring and outspoken researchers are no friends of the Australian hard-core, narrow-minded scientific establishment, who would prefer that books of the kind produced by the Gilroys were prevented from publication.

When not carrying out field work, Rex and his wife Heather [a Registered Nurse/Midwife by profession] are at home writing books, surrounded by their huge reference library of books on all manner of scientific subjects. Besides their many and varied researches, Rex and Heather Gilroy are also involved in community service work as members of the Rotary Club of Katoomba.

Dead Horse Gap, near Thredbo. This wild region of the Snowy Mountains has been a “hairy man” locale since the first years of 19th century settlement hereabouts.

During June 1999 a stockman was riding his horse through wild scrub overlooking the road near where this photo was taken, when he spotted a number of “huge man-like footprints” in a mud patch.

Dead Horse Gap
Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2007

Excerpts from - "The Yowie Mystery" - Living Fossils from the Dreamtime.
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CHAPTER FOUR
NEW THEORIES ON HUMAN EVOLUTION – PRIMATES IN TERTIARY AUSTRALIA?

Is the conservative picture of human origins correct? The amount of fossil hominid, particularly giant hominid footprints, coming to light across Australia not only demonstrate the presence of human ancestors here in times comparable to those of Africa, Europe and Asia, they suggest a whole indigenous variety of races occupied this landmass, not just in Pleistocene, or Pliocene times but much earlier!

The foregoing statement is heresy to the ears of hard-core university-based scientists indoctrinated with the ‘holy writ’ of the “Out of Africa” school of human origins. Yet there is plenty of evidence to overturn this time-honoured dogma. So what has all this to do with the subject of our book – the Yowie? Indeed it has a great deal to do with these mysterious hominids, for the authors believe that, in order to learn the true identity of these beings, it is also very necessary to know their origins which lie in the dim past of humankinds’ beginnings.

In our previous book on the Yowie mystery “Giants from the Dreamtime – The Yowie in Myth and Reality” [URU Publications 2001] we presented our own up-to-date evidence of that time in the form of fossil hominid skull-types which prove beyond doubt that these beings, so commonplace to the ancient folklore of our Aboriginal people, were none other than Homo erectus, our immediate ancestor. In the years that have followed the publication of “Giants from the Dreamtime” much new fossil material has come to light, which not only further confirms the Homo erectus origins of the traditional Yowie, or “Hairy Man”, but also that the very origins of our ancestor appear to lie firmly in Australia!

If indeed Homo erectus evolved right here in Australia, then what race did ‘he’ spring from? Who were ‘his’ parents? We believe that not only can we answer this question, but that certain fossil evidence now in our possession allows us to look much farther back in time, to reveal an hitherto unknown Australian primate fossil record [scant though it may be at present] which suggests that more than one primate species evolved here in Australia, from which, quite independent of Africa, there arose a group that left the trees for a terrestrial bipedal existence, and who gradually evolved into the earliest ancestral hominids, long before their African cousins began leaving the trees around 6 million years ago!

If the authors appear to be more concerned with fossil evidence in this book rather than modern-day encounters with primitive hairy hominids in the bush, giant or otherwise, which are all too commonplace to the overseas Yeti and ‘Bigfoot’ literature, this is quite true, for this book is an attempt to present an intelligent approach to Yowie [relict hominid] research in Australia and also in its near island neighbours where we find other close relatives of our ‘hairy man’.

There are also other reasons for our ‘scientific’ approach. For one, in order to encourage a more open-minded view among Australian, and also overseas scientists on the ‘relict hominid’ mystery it is necessary to present the best SCIENTIFIC evidence. Only this will ever have any chance of winning this all-important support and this at a time when the subject has suffered considerable discredit in scientific circles, due to the antics of certain individuals already discussed in the Introduction.

Another, and very important reason to present scientific evidence, is not only to reveal the “fossil foundations” as it were upon which the Australian relict hominid theory stands, but also to encourage by our example, future young and enthusiastic, honest relict hominid researchers to penetrate the Australian bush, forearmed with research findings so as to know what they are truly searching for and thus know in advance how they are to research these ever elusive, mysterious survivors of our prehistory.

Besides the scientific evidence to be presented in this book, there will be sightings reports, even claims of close encounters, and finds of freshly made relict hominid footprints. This circumstantialevidence for modern-day Australian relict hominid survival will largely consist of evidence investigated by the authors and their field assistants, discarding many suspect cases that we have had to deal with over the years.

Rex Gilroy
Australian Yowie Research Centre,
Katoomba, NSW
Monday 25th June 2007

Australian Yowie Research Index | Entire Web site © Rex & Heather Gilroy | URU Publications ® ™ Rex & Heather Gilroy. All Rights Reserved

Excerpts from - "The Yowie Mystery" - Living Fossils from the Dreamtime.
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Mysterious Australia | Entire Web site © Rex & Heather Gilroy | URU Publications ® ™ Rex & Heather Gilroy. All Rights Reserved

Australian Yowie Research Centre Est...1976 by Rex Gilroy for the sole purpose of Scientific Study of the Australian Hairy - man
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