Legendary Creatures of Australia - Documentary

Australia. Having been relatively isolated from the other continents for much of its history, this land has developed and preserved many things which are not seen elsewhere. Can we say for certain that all of them are accounted for, or is there more to discover in this unusual land? Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to Fire of Learning. This is the Campfire series. In this episode, we're going to be traveling to the fifth world to discuss many of the strangest things said to have ever been encountered there. From cryptids, to supernatural creatures, to extraterrestrials, and more. Before we begin, we would like to mention that the sources we used to produce this video are listed in a link in the description. This video was made without the use of AI. We would also like to thank Jesse and Bill Rose for being our most recent supporters on Patreon. They join these supporters listed here who help to make videos like this possible. Now then, let's get to it. For four and a half years now here on our Campfire series, we have searched the planet, analyzing dozens of mysterious stories and reports of creatures and entities alleged to exist, but whose existence has yet to be confirmed by science. However, we want to begin this presentation today with a creature that is somewhat different from all the others we have so far discussed in this series. This creature can be regarded as a cryptid in the sense that it is an animal which is claimed by some to exist, but for which there is not sufficient evidence to prove scientifically that it does exist. But it most definitely did exist in the past, the recent past. In fact, the extinction of this animal occurred within living memory, with the last of them perishing in 1936. Presumably the last of them anyway, not everyone is so sure. In fact, there is good reason to question whether this date was the true date of this animal's extinction, and even some cause to wonder if it's still out there, hidden somewhere on the island of Tasmania. This animal is the Thylacine, and it may be one of if not the most likely cryptid to truly, currently exist. While the Thylacine may look like something from a fairy tale, it was very much real. The Thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial that once lived in Tasmania, Australia, and the island of New Guinea. It is also commonly referred to as the Tasmanian Tiger or the Tasmanian Wolf, though this is purely because of its behavior and appearance. Being a marsupial, it was not actually closely related to either. Just to be clear, the Tasmanian Devil is a separate creature. On average, the Thylacine stood at about 60 cm or 2 feet at the shoulder, and was about 115 cm or about 4 feet long, excluding the tail, roughly equivalent in size to a dingo or coyote. Apart from its distinctive stripes, the Thylacine was also known for its ability to open its jaw unusually wide, up to about 80 degrees. Both sexes also had pouches, though only the females carried offspring in them. Our understanding of Thylacine behavior is imperfect, but according to historical research, it was nocturnal and crepuscular, sleeping in dens during daytime. It was reclusive, quiet, and relatively slow moving. It walked on four legs but had the surprising ability to hop on two legs like a kangaroo, possibly to move more quickly when alarmed. It was probably an ambush predator that primarily preyed on small animals. It preferred to hunt in open grasslands, shrublands, and eucalyptus forests. The length of the average lifespan is uncertain, but most researchers seem to believe it was anywhere from 6 to 10 years. In the 2011 movie The Hunter, starring Willem Dafoe, it is asserted that the Thylacine produced a venom that paralyzed its prey. This is not true. This was invented to make the plot of the movie work. Unfortunately, none of the noises the Thylacines made were ever recorded. However, various witnesses from the 18th and early 1900s describe at least six distinct vocalizations. For example, they seem to have made a noise that many witnesses described as a coughing, wheezing, or smothered bark. The downfall of the species is believed to have begun around 3 to 4 thousand years ago. Exactly why remains subject of uncertainty and debate, but regardless of what drove it, it appears that Thylacines had disappeared from the Australian mainland by at least 2 thousand years ago. They then persisted exclusively on the island of Tasmania for another few millennia. British settlement of Tasmania, which began in 1803, is believed to have been what finally drove the animal to extinction. The Thylacine quickly became considered a pest because it preyed on livestock, though it seems reports of livestock predation were exaggerated. To what extent though is uncertain. Contrary to popular belief at the time, experts today believe that the animal would have actually struggled to kill an animal the size of an adult sheep. In the 19th century, the Tasmanian government began to offer a bounty for Thylacine scalps. The population was drastically harmed by this, as farmers and hunters killed thousands of them. Alongside this habitat destruction, the introduction of dogs, and possibly even disease, may have contributed to the species decline as well. It was not until July 10th of 1936 that the Tasmanian government moved to protect the species. By this point, it was far too late. The last known wild Thylacine had been killed by a farmer 6 years earlier, and only 2 months after it received this protected status, on September 7th, 1936, the last known Thylacine overall died in captivity at the Bomares Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania. It is widely claimed that the last Thylacine was a male named Benjamin, but it was recently discovered that this is a myth that was invented in the 60s by someone who falsely claimed to have worked for the zoo. The last Thylacine was a female who did not have a name, so far as we can tell. In 1982, after over 50 years since the last proven observation of the Thylacine in the wild, and 46 overall, the animal was officially declared extinct. 1936 is, again, the year in which the last known Thylacine died. While there is no definitive evidence, it is a very realistic possibility, even probability, that there were other members of the species who continue to live in the wild past this date. But for how long? It is difficult to say. The odds that the Thylacine still exists are admittedly not very good, but they are not zero either, and there are credible researchers who take the possibility that the animal remains alive hidden in the landscape of Tasmania seriously. Tasmania is an island about the size of Ireland or West Virginia, but as the home of only half a million people, contains only a fraction of the population of either of these examples. Most of this population is concentrated around the city of Hobart in the southeast and in the central north. Much of the island remains undeveloped wilderness, much of which is dense forest, especially in the west of the island, some of which can be difficult to access. The idea that a species could retreat to this wilderness and remain hidden from humans for decades is entirely conceivable, especially a relatively small, shy animal. Again, we don't have definitive evidence to say that this was the case, but we certainly can't be confident that every single Thylacine had been accounted for. The scientific community has declared animals extinct only to find them alive later on before, although admittedly many of these examples pertain to smaller and or more elusive animals. Still, the idea is controversial to say the least. The conclusion that the Thylacine is extinct is not a careless assumption. It is a conclusion reached after numerous thorough attempts conducted by professional scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike to locate them that have been undertaken in the many years since its purported extinction, some of which were motivated by offers of large cash rewards, each ended in failure. Some of these researchers, like Jeremy Griffith, Eric R. Giler, and Nick Mooney, devoted years of their lives to investigating sightings and searching for the Thylacine themselves only to come up empty-handed. However, there have been thousands of reported Thylacine encounters in the years since extinction, some of which were reinforced by photographic and video evidence. While nothing has been proven legitimate, it is important to note that some encounters were very detailed and made by credible and knowledgeable witnesses, such as Hans Narding. Hans Narding was a Parks and Wildlife Service ranger who lives in Tasmania. He had been birdwatching one day in March of 1982, the year the creature was officially declared extinct near Tagari in the northwest of Tasmania. That night, he slept in his vehicle. He awoke around 2am to the noise of something moving outside his vehicle. He shined his flashlight into the cold, rainy, dark forested landscape, and the light landed on what he claimed he quickly realized was a Thylacine, about 6 to 7 meters in front of his car. The sighting he claimed lasted for around 3 minutes, during which time he studied the creature as best he could. He claimed he was absolutely confident that it was a Thylacine, even counting the number of stripes on its back and determining that it was a male. He had been reluctant to reach for his camera for fear of disturbing the animal, and indeed, he claimed when he finally did so, it ran off. A detailed sighting from someone so knowledgeable and experienced with Tasmanian fauna encouraged an extensive year-long investigation into the area. This, however, was ultimately fruitless. In a 2023 paper titled Resolving When and Where the Thylacine Went Extinct, a team of researchers led by Dr. Barry William Brook of the University of Tasmania performed a statistical analysis of 1,237 reported Thylacine sightings made from the year 1910, or about 26 years before extinction, up until recently, which they organized according to the quality and credibility of the reports. They argued that, while the Thylacine is probably currently extinct, it may have actually lingered on for decades in the remote areas of the island until the 1980s or even early 2000s, likely somewhere in the western part of the island. While Dr. Brook told Australian Geographic that he would guess its extinction likely happened in the 1980s and that the ubiquity of video cameras in the modern world, specifically in the form of wildlife cameras, should have led to the proven discovery of one by now if it were still out there, according to their analysis, there is a small chance it still exists. It should be noted that not all Thylacine reports are restricted to Tasmania. Some have come from the Australian mainland. A famous example is the 1973 Doyle sighting and accompanying video. The video, taken by Liz and Gary Doyle in South Australia, shows an unidentified quadrupedal animal running from a distance. The footage is interesting in that the animal appears to be a light brown dog-like animal with an unusual gait and what vaguely even looks like stripes on its back. However, unfortunately, the footage is not of sufficient quality to determine what exactly the animal was. It has been suggested that it could have been a fox suffering from mange. Scientists are less convinced of the possibility of the species' continued existence on the Australian mainland, largely because the available evidence suggests they disappeared there thousands of years ago. Some have also considered that there may still be Thylacines in the dense, poorly explored forests of New Guinea, with rumors specifically pointing to the Baliem Valley in the Indonesian half of New Guinea. Oddly, there have even been a handful of relatively recent Thylacine sightings in the US, Canada, and Britain. But while some of the sightings, specifically those in Tasmania, may indeed be genuine and point to a later extinction date for the Thylacine, if not its continued existence, certainly not all reports can be relied upon. Animals like dogs, cats, foxes, and pademelons have been misidentified as Thylacines numerous times, and hoaxes have been perpetrated as well. For example, people have painted stripes on dogs and photographed them from afar in attempts to fool the public. The most recent hoax occurred in April of 2024, when a supposed American tourist claimed to have encountered a living Thylacine in Tasmania while driving at night. He sent pictures of his purported encounter to the prominent wildlife biologist Forrest Galante. Various experts have analyzed the photographs, and there seems to be a consensus that the incident was a hoax. The evidence we have cited in this video suggests that the last Thylacine died with dignity, having lived its life, perhaps a full life, mostly away from humans, in the dense forests of Tasmania just a few decades ago. But this is not certain, and thus we can't help but wonder, could it still be out there? Either way, there will likely be more to be said about this magnificent animal, and we look forward to what further research brings us in the future. August 7th, 1993. A 27-year-old woman known as Kelly Cahill and her then-husband Andrew were driving through the Dandenong Ranges near the city of Melbourne in Southeastern Australia, specifically along Belgrave Hallam Road in Narwhalen. They were on their way to an evening barbecue at a friend's house. At some point along their journey, Ms. Cahill noticed an unusual sight, what she described as five to six orange lights arranged on a distinct circular blimp-shaped object sitting low on the ground in a paddock off in the distance, something unlike anything she had ever seen before. She was only able to glance at it for a few seconds before it passed behind the trees as they drove into a forested area. When the couple arrived at their friend's house, she mentioned the strange sighting to them, but not much was made of it. As the Cahills relaxed and conversed with friends, she forgot about her sighting. Ms. Cahill had no idea that she was about to become the primary subject of the most famous story in Australian history of an encounter with entities alleged to be extraterrestrial in origin. At around midnight, the couple were driving home in the same area when Ms. Cahill noticed the mysterious object appear again. This time, it was in the air at a height of about twice the height of the trees. She was now able to get a better view of it. She claims that she realized that the orange lights were actually windows and that she could even see figures in them. The object then flew away at great speed, then returned a few moments later and flew over a field near them. At this point, what she described as a wall of light appeared on the road ahead of them, which blinded them as they drove into it. Then, she blacked out. The next thing she knew, she and her husband were hundreds of meters further down the road with no memory of having gotten there. There was no object nor anything unusual in sight, just the countryside, the road, and her husband driving along it. She claims she felt strangely relaxed. The couple continued on their way home. When they arrived, Ms. Cahill noticed that they were an hour and a half later than expected and could not recall how that had happened. This was only the beginning of a series of unusual, difficult to explain things she noticed after passing into the light. Later, upon examining herself, she discovered a red, 10mm triangular mark below her navel she could not explain. A few weeks after that, she was hospitalized for a womb infection, which she claimed doctors treated with antibiotics but could not explain the origins of. She also began to suffer from headaches and what she called out of body and out of mind experiences. A number of strange things also began to happen around their house. For example, the television would turn on and off, and their car would start all on their own. Around the same time, the visitations began. Ms. Cahill claimed she would awaken sometimes at night during disturbing dreams to find that she and her family were not alone in their home. A tall, dark, shadowy figure with glowing red eyes, wearing what appeared to be a hood, had somehow entered her room during the night as she slept and stood over her, watching her, speaking to her while she slept. Each time, just as she woke up enough to confront the intruder, it would stare for a moment, then fade from sight. As these unusual disturbances continued, Ms. Cahill became certain that there was more of the night they had seen the strange object than she or her husband could recall. Fearing her memory had been lost, she returned to the area in which she had seen the light and even consulted hypnotists to attempt to recollect any lost memories. Indeed, over time, memories of a profoundly dramatic and frightening experience began to surface and fill in the gap in between the wall of light and the moment she awoke in the car. She recalled that when they passed into the light, she and her husband stopped the car and got out to look at the object, which they could now see was enormous, the height of a three-story building and as long as an Olympic swimming pool. They noticed two other cars had done the same, meaning four other people were present, six in total. It was hovering over the field with its orange lights glowing and what she described as a blue fluorescent mist underneath it. Then, she noticed seven or eight figures emerge in front of the object, tall, dark, skinny figures, much like those which would later appear to her in her bedroom. She was able to hear them speak, but not audibly, it was more like she heard them speaking telepathically. She claimed she heard one of the figures suggest killing them. The figures began moving towards them. As they did so, she said their eyes began to glow red. She wanted to move, but felt her body frozen and her mind dulled by some kind of unseen force. She was then hit in the stomach with what she described as a kind of energy force that knocked her backwards. She then went blind and felt incredibly ill. Paradoxically, as they came close to her, Ms. Cahill claimed she heard one of them, this time audibly, tell her and her husband, quote, we don't mean you any harm, end quote. She then felt the figure place its hands on her, and then her memory went blank to a point she could not recover. The next thing she could recall was the memory of waking up in the car. Realizing what had happened, Cahill began to contact local UFO and paranormal investigators, namely Bill Chalker and John Alcatel. Alcatel was the head of an organization called Phenomena Research Australia, or PRA. These researchers interviewed her and investigated the location in which it was said to have occurred. When PRA put advertisements in local newspapers asking, with intentional vagueness, for anyone who had experienced anything unusual in that area to contact them, they allegedly received many calls from people claiming they had seen UFOs in that area, as well as, eventually, four witnesses who came forward, claiming to have been the occupants of the cars that had stopped on the road alongside the Cahills. After the researchers interviewed these other witnesses, it was claimed that their stories, descriptions, and experiences before and after the encounter were not only incredibly similar to Cahill's, in spite of never having heard her story, but that they were even able to add further details. One of them claimed to recall being examined by a dark hooded entity while lying on a table. In 1996, Kelly Cahill published a book detailing her experience titled Encounter, which became very popular in Australia. She went on to give many interviews and talks about her experience around the world. However, then, suddenly, in 1998, she stopped and withdrew completely from the public eye. None of the other witnesses, including her husband, ever came forward publicly to discuss the incident and reinforce her claims. PRA, which had tasked itself with searching for physical evidence and interviewing the witnesses, and had promised a 300-page report on the subject, never published anything. The case, essentially, suddenly halted and went quiet shortly before the turn of the millennium. What happened to Kelly Cahill and the others involved in this case? A point of great interest is that Ms. Cahill's story bears very striking resemblance to a famous incident which we have dedicated an entire video to, the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, which had occurred 32 years prior. Late one night in September of 1961, an American couple, Betty and Barney Hill, were driving through the mountains of New Hampshire when an unusual light appeared in the sky. The light gradually came closer and closer to them, until, suddenly, everything went blank. The Hills then awoke what seemed like a moment later to find themselves driving much further up the road with no recollection of what had happened to them, feeling calm and relaxed. They too arrived home much later than they expected. In the days following, they noticed unusual things on their bodies and vehicle, and began having nightmares. This led them to seek out hypnosis, which allegedly revealed memories of having been taken aboard a strange ship and analyzed by unusual beings. In the decades that followed, there would be many other cases like this. However, Kelly Cahill's experience was distinguished by one very important detail, the number of witnesses. However, while it seems to be what made this story famous, there is an issue with this detail. As we mentioned, the other witnesses have, to date, never stepped forward publicly, preferring to remain anonymous. Allegedly, two of them tried and even gave presentations about their experience, but then quickly withdrew from the public eye for fear of losing their jobs. We could find no records of these presentations, though that is not to say that they did not happen. As far as we know, and it is possible that we're mistaken, it seems Ms. Cahill never even met these other witnesses. Therefore, everything we know of every other witness, apart from Ms. Cahill's husband, has come second hand from the UFO researchers. Thus, we cannot verify that these witnesses even existed, let alone that they were really there that night, nor especially that their stories really did match. As for Mr. Cahill, much like Barney Hill, Ms. Cahill claimed he initially said that he was not convinced that the abduction really took place, even vehemently arguing that the whole thing was her imagination. She claimed that their disagreements and the strain that the incident and the publicity that followed it placed on them was the main reason for their eventual divorce. However, according to Ms. Cahill, years later, Mr. Cahill admitted to her that he did recall the abduction, and had even seen UFOs before that encounter, but having come from a deeply religious Islamic background, did not believe the creatures were extraterrestrials, but rather demons, and therefore wanted to avoid the subject entirely. He seemingly still does, and thus has never provided his own account. Therefore, while these other witnesses may very well exist, and while Ms. Cahill's explanation for her husband's reluctance to publicly support her story may very well be true, the only verifiable witness of this incident is Ms. Cahill. What about the results of the investigation carried out by PRA? Why was their report never released to the public? According to a 2020 article by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as Ms. Cahill began withdrawing from public life, she asked the researchers to remove more and more of her information from the draft of the report until Alcatel regarded it as so reduced as to be useless. Allegedly, according to Ms. Cahill, the investigation was 18 months long and cost the modern equivalent of over half a million Australian dollars. The researchers allegedly uncovered a large triangular mark in the field made of pyrene, remnants of tannic acid coated in an unidentifiable waxy substance, a high amount of sulfur in the area, and what was described as a large semicircle-shaped magnetic anomaly, as well as a number of other irregularities. Alcatel has reportedly mentioned that he is still open to releasing their research, but remains reluctant, suggesting he isn't willing to spearhead the case without Cahill or the other witnesses. And what caused Ms. Cahill's disappearance? According to the same ABC article, Bill Chalker claimed the unwillingness of the other witnesses to step forward and what he claimed was a lack support from PRA harmed the case's credibility and discouraged her. She eventually wanted nothing to do with the incident and moved past it. And thus, perhaps Australia's most dramatic UFO incident was publicized, exploded, and then evaporated. With no evidence to analyze nor other witnesses to consult for the time being, the story remains only a story. We hope that you are enjoying the video so far. If so, we would like to encourage you to consider subscribing to support the channel and keep up with more content like this in the future. Now back to the video. The aboriginal peoples of Australia have long told of an ancient race of beings that dwell in the forests along the pacific coast of the island, who are to be avoided at all costs. They have been referred to as the Australian vampires, though this is an imperfect comparison. Indeed, there is not much that compares to these horrendous creatures. They are known as the Yaramayahu or the Yaramathahu. The Yaramayahu are specifically found in the mythology of the southeastern part of the island. According to aboriginal writer David O'Napin, it is described as a horrifying humanoid creature, sometimes said to be frog-like in its appearance. It stands at about four feet in height. Its skin, hair, and eyes are blood red. Its head is disproportionately large. It does not have teeth and instead opens its large mouth to swallow its prey whole, much like a snake. Its favorite prey is human beings. The Yaramayahu is said to wait at the top of fig trees for its prey to pass under it. It then leaps onto its victim, latches onto them, and begins drawing their blood with cup-shaped suckers on the tips of its hands and feet. The creature draws just enough blood to leave its victim alive but faint. It will then stop and walk around for a short while while the victim lays there in an agonizing daze. The Yaramayahu will then return, lay upon the ground, and devour its victim head first like a snake. It will then rise, walk to a nearby stream or lake to drink a copious amount of water, and then sleep. When it awakes, it will regurgitate the victim, who has likely remained alive throughout this process, and then will rest again. When the Yaramayahu awakes, it will agitate its victim to check for signs of life. If none are shown, it will walk away, then return and try again. If still no signs of life are shown, it will repeat this process two more times, walking further each time before returning. If no signs of life are shown by the final attempt, it will hide and wait for the victim to reawaken, watching them closely. Should the Yaramayahu fail to perform this ritual, it is said that the spirit of the tree in which it dwells will enter the creature's body and produce a loud mumbling noise that ends with what is described as an intense silence that kills the Yaramayahu. Its spirit then becomes a fungus that grows on the tree and produces a dull glow at Tails advises that the best opportunity to escape the Yaramayahu is when it is napping after first regurgitating its victim. Others recommend playing dead until sunset when the creature sleeps, as it will not eat a corpse. The Yaramayahu cannot run quickly, and thus if the victim is able to, their odds of escape become favorable. Should they fail to escape however, the Yaramayahu will repeat this process of consumption and regurgitation. Each time, its victim will reemerge shorter and with redder skin, until eventually they become a Yaramayahu themselves. Aboriginal mythology adds that if a victim does escape a Yaramayahu, the creature may cause a drought throughout the land, which will force the people to come to the trees to attempt to extract sap from the bark, which allows the Yaramayahu another opportunity to attack. In the north of the island, in a region known as Arnhem Land, there is a somewhat similar figure known as Garkane. Garkane is the name of an individual spirit being who lives in the rainforest of this region, along the banks of the Liverpool River. He is a humanoid creature, though he has flaps of skin on his arms and legs that allow him to glide through the air. By day, Garkane sleeps under piles of leaves, but it is held that when the sun sets, he awakens to hunt and kill those whom he finds in his domain. Garkane leaps from the tops of trees onto his victims, envelops them in his wings, and then suffocates them to death. He then proceeds to consume the interloper. Aboriginal tales emphasize that he does not know the secret of fire, and thus consumes his prey raw. The spirit of the victim will then be doomed to wander the wilderness for eternity, unable to rest. Tales of beings such as these remind the listener that should they find themselves in the forests of Australia, they should proceed with caution and remember to check above them from time to time. October 22, 1977. A group of students, including future Australian Senator Bill Ochi, then age 12, are camping in the wilderness in the rural town of Springbrook in Queensland. According to Ochi, at about 12.30pm, while looking through the window in their cabin, he and his peers observed something unusual emerge from the nearby wilderness. He described it by saying it was about 3 meters or 10 feet tall, covered in hair, had a flat face, and walked to one side in a crab-like style. He added that it was smashing trees and saplings like matchsticks as it walked along its path. The creature was allegedly seen several times on that day in clear weather and broad daylight, and then again on the following day by about 20 kids overall. At the closest sighting, the creature was a mere 10 meters or about 30 feet from the camp, though this occurred at night. The creature was often observed through binoculars, however, and Ochi claimed that they were even able to measure its footprints up close. In spite of its humanoid appearance, it was said that the footprints were too large to be those of a human. This story was publicized in an article published the following month by the Gold Coast Bulletin, after Ochi contacted them and reported it against the wishes of his teachers. It is a typical example of a story of an encounter with a creature found in Australian folklore, known often as the Yowie. While this encounter is among the more famous, it was not the first, nor the last. All around the world, there are numerous stories and reports of a certain category of cryptid that could be termed Ape-Men. These are large, at least the size of a man but usually much greater, bipedal, primate-like creatures said to reside in secluded areas. Famous examples include the Sasquatch of North America and the As we have just seen, reports of such creatures are likewise present in Australia as well, in the form of the Yowie. Descriptions of the Yowie vary across Australia, but regarding the traits that are often reported, it is said to be a hairy, bipedal, foul-smelling, ape-like figure, which stands anywhere from 6 to 12 feet. Its feet are said to be quite large, its head round, and it may have two teeth, which protrude like fangs. The hair is typically described as a kind of reddish-brown or chestnut color, though others have reported white, gray, and black hair. Reports concerning its behavior vary. Some describe it as shy and reclusive, others speak of an aggressive and destructive creature. Over the years, many incidents of property damage and harm to both animals and humans have been attributed to the Yowie. A man named Les Holland recounted an incident that occurred sometime before the late 90s, while he and a friend known only as Stan were working on King Ranch in Cave York. He claimed that, one day, Stan got in his Jeep and drove off to check on the cattle that were located about two miles away. He was shocked to find Stan returning sometime later on foot. He informed Les that while driving along a dirt road, a huge ape-like creature had jumped out from the forest, attacked his Jeep, and knocked it over. Thankfully, Stan managed to escape. Upon returning to the site, Les indeed found the car on its side with dusty scuff marks on it, though the culprit was nowhere in sight. Consistent with its aggression, the Yowie is said to be carnivorous or at least omnivorous. It has been reported in many different environments, though it is said to be most common in forests and wilderness and atop mountains. The origins of the Yowie legend is a highly debated subject. Across the continent, Aboriginal Australians have, since before recorded history, told of a number of creatures, referred to by names such as Changara, Nukona, Jirawara, Guba, Duligarl, etc., which some have argued are merely separate names for the same creature. Perhaps the creature that we call the Yowie. As far as written records go, the first we could verify dates to 1842, nearly 60 years after British arrival on the continent. It was in that year that the Australia and New Zealand magazine published an article which discussed Aboriginal belief in a type of wild man entity called the Yahoo. This article was brought to light by Australian historian Graham Joyner in the 1970s, who composed a list of newspaper reports of alleged wild man encounters dating from 1842 to 1935, which he published in his 1977 book The Hairy Man of Southeastern Australia. He showed that there were numerous reported encounters in Australia throughout this period with creatures that were often called Yahoos, Wild Men, or Ape Men. The term Yowie was not very much in use at this time, at least not by British Australians. These reports describe Yahoos appearing to people in the wilderness outrunning horses, harassing animals and people. One man even claimed to have killed one that was harassing his neighbor's pets in the 1880s. However, as was discussed in the 2006 book The Yowie in Search of Australia's Bigfoot by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper, while it seemed Yahoo myths were well known among British Australians throughout much of the 1800s, around the turn of the century the reports became very uncommon. Between the years 1900 and 1974 only 10 reports were noted. Then, in the 1970s, talk of Ape Men once again became very popular in Australia. This time the creature was commonly referred to by the term Yowie, a term from an aboriginal language which paranormal investigator Rex Gilroy helped popularize. It was during the 70s in particular that reports of Yowie encounters like billowed cheese were very common. Before long reports were accompanied by photographs, videos, and audio recordings of alleged Yowies. To this very day Yowie sightings continue throughout Australia. Is the Yowie real? If so, what is it? If not, what is it? Australia is not, nor has it ever been, home to any known non-human primate. The continent has been cut off from the other continents by sea for tens of millions of years. Thus, if the Yowie truly is real, then it is either descended from apes that somehow managed to cross the sea in a way that nearly all other Afro-Eurasian land animals could not, which is not impossible, or it is not a true ape, but rather something quite unique. Some have proposed that it could be something more closely related to a wombat or another marsupial species. The idea that the Yowie could be a marsupial bigfoot and that nine-foot wildmen with a gift for eluding discovery have convergently evolved multiple times may be just a bit too much to accept, but it wouldn't necessarily have to be that identical. Graham Joyner held a position similar to this. He argued that the Yahoo was likely a real creature, something more like a bear-like marsupial, and that many of the 19th century reports refer to this creature, incorrectly labeling it an ape. However, he believes that the drop in sightings at the beginning of the 1900s suggests it went extinct around that time, and that the Yowie is distinct from the Yahoo, with the Yowie being a fiction partly inspired by the 19th century Yahoo. Not many researchers have embraced Joyner's hypothesis. Healy and Cropper argued that the drop in sightings could be because of the rapid urbanization of the country in that time, which led to the abandonment of the rural communities in which the Yahoo was frequently found. Gary Opet argued that modern environmentalist efforts have allowed the species to regain some of its numbers. However, the 70s were a time in which Sasquatches and Yetis became a hot topic around the world, not just Australia. This interest was sparked by the publication of the famous Patterson-Gimlin film in 1967, which allegedly showed footage of a Sasquatch in California. Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com noted that the topic attracted the attention of the aforementioned paranormal researcher Rex Gilroy around 1972. Gilroy began to look for legends of apemen in Australian history and Aboriginal mythology. Indeed, he found many examples in Aboriginal mythology of entities which ostensibly bore some resemblance to these creatures. Having made this discovery, he contacted local media outlets. Soon, it was reported across the country that Australia had its own Bigfoot. As people set off to look for it, reports of sightings began to take off. When Gilroy read Joyner's research into the 19th century Yahoo, he concluded that the term Yahoo must be related to the word Yowie, a word he had encountered which referred to a certain mythical creature of indigenous mythology. Thus, this became the predominant term for the Australian apeman. But were the terms actually related? Moreover, how similar were the descriptions of these indigenous mythological creatures to the modern Yowie descriptions? While the mythology behind some of these entities has unfortunately been lost, we do know enough to say that many of them do have attributes that are different from those attributed to the modern apeman, sometimes starkly. The 1842 article reporting on the Yahoo, for example, claims that native peoples describe it as a creature the size of a man with long white hair that hangs from its head and covers its face, extraordinarily long arms, talons on the ends of its hands, and backwards feet. Other legends of the supposedly connected entities tell of beings that possess the power to hypnotize others, and even some which can fly. It seems as though the resemblance of the indigenous entities to the modern Bigfoot type Yowie and the 19th century Yahoo are rather tenuous, at least in many cases. As Dunning points out, they are also not very similar to each other, drawing into question whether they are really different names for the same entity. The idea that the word Yahoo was derived from the aboriginal word Yowie is also uncertain. It's possible that it was. Again, the 1842 article claims that Yahoo was what some aboriginal peoples called a certain kind of creature that the British interpreted as a giant wild man. This may have been an anglicization of the word Yowie. However, Jonathan Swift's 1727 book Gulliver's Travels describes a fictional race of primate-like creatures called Yahoos that dwelled on an island off the coast of Australia. The book was published decades before Europeans knew much all about Australia, let alone indigenous folklore. Because of the popularity of the book, British explorers used the word to refer to any sort of ape-like creature from the east, like orangutans from Asia. It may be that British settlers of Australia used Swift's invented word Yahoo to refer to the ape-men of their own independently invented legends, and that the The word Yowie may simply have been chosen in the 70s from among the many names in aboriginal mythology for various creatures because it most resembled the word Yahoo. Thus, in essence, skeptics argue that the Yowie as it is known today may simply be the Bigfoot and Yeti legends transported to Australia in the 70s and then connected to creatures from indigenous legends which may or may not have resembled it, and British stories about Yahoos after the fact in order to legitimize it. It may be that each of these three categories of entity have their own independent unrelated origin, even if inspiration from the others was involved in the latter two cases. However, the question remains, if the Yowie is not real, what have so many people been seeing and reporting? As for Joyner's bear-like marsupial that went extinct in the 1800s idea, it's an interesting idea, but there isn't any more evidence for that than there is the modern Yowie. Actually, less, because no one has ever described seeing a creature like that. There are then, admittedly, not many animals in Australia that could be easily mistaken for a Yowie. The only native animals which can reach a comparable height are emus and kangaroos, perhaps the best candidate is the red kangaroo, which, standing at about 6-7 feet on average, matches the Yowie in size and, with its red fur, in color. They also scream and growl in ways that sound like what one might expect from a Yowie. The red kangaroo may very well be responsible for at least some sightings, though the resemblance is not exactly striking. Many Yowie sightings, like O'Cheese, are made in broad daylight with many witnesses involved. How likely is it to mistake a kangaroo for a Yowie in those conditions? As always, other explanations, like hoaxes, are not off the table, though it has to be admitted that some stories are hard to explain. Still, skeptics are largely of the opinion that there should have been clear, indisputable evidence of something as distinctive and large as the Yowie by now if it truly did exist. The evidence that does exist is far from conclusive and often inconsistent. However, believers disagree and many witnesses are confident in what they have seen. Ultimately, until more tangible evidence is produced, the Yowie will remain a mystery. It is in the inland waters and swamps of southeastern Australia where one of, if not the country's most well-known cryptid, is often said to dwell. With a firm presence in the mythology of many of Australia's aboriginal cultures, the stories of this creature long predate the European settlement by thousands, or some have argued, perhaps tens of thousands of years. The creature is known by many names, but in English as the Bunyip. The Bunyip is described as a large amphibious or semi-amphibious entity which poses substantial danger to any humans who have the misfortune of crossing paths with it. It is generally said to be extraordinarily quiet, but will, from time to time, make a great booming roar, a trait for which it is famous. Beyond this, however, there is an enormous amount of variation to the descriptions of the Bunyip across different indigenous mythologies and modern folklore. In many cases, it is described as a long-necked creature with the head of a horse or an emu, large ears, and tusks. In some stories, the Bunyip is a kind of giant monstrous starfish. In others, a half-man, half-fish type creature with a matted crop of reeds for hair which lives in groups. And in some stories, its appearance lacks comparison, appearing as a sort of unnatural wicked beast. However, most of the time, especially as Paul Cropper and Tony Healy noted, when it is described in a sighting as opposed to a myth, it appears as a kind of seal-dog type creature, about five feet in length, with black or brown hair, prominent ears, whiskers, and no tail. In aboriginal mythology, the Bunyip is considered to be a kind of water spirit whose origins lie in the Dreaming or the Dreamtime, the period when the world was formed by the ancestral spirits. As mentioned, it is often regarded as a malicious beast, said to attack, drown, and consume any humans who wander too close to the water. According to the 19th century missionary George Tapin, it was believed that the Bunyip had magical powers and could cause disease with its roar. When British scholars and explorers first arrived in Australia and heard the tales of the Bunyip in the late 18th and 19th centuries, they took a great interest in it and set off to look for it. However, as some natives reportedly believed that the horses of the British were Bunyips upon first contact, there was some doubt as to the reality of the creature's existence. In spite of this, some claimed they did manage to encounter what they believed to be Bunyips, or the remains, which began debate about whether or not the Bunyip was a real creature, debate which lasts to this day. An escaped convict who lived among the indigenous Withorong people in modern day southern Victoria named William Buckley was possibly the first European to believe he had seen a Bunyip in the first third of the 19th century. He described what he saw as something the size of a calf, a dusky gray color and covered in feathers, and said that it only appeared when the water was calm, though he claimed he could see only their backs, never their heads or tails. He mentioned that the natives were completely terrified of the creature, and would flee at the first sign of one. He claimed he intended to hunt one, but was warned that the supernatural power of the beast was too great, and that even if he succeeded, a curse would be placed on him. In the following years, sightings of alleged Bunyips continued, and supposed remains were even produced, though a portion of these were demonstrated to be hoaxes or misidentifications. Still, the possibility that the term referred to a real, likely mythologized creature remained serious to the naturalist of the day. But what kind of creature? While some expected to find a totally new beast, others proposed that a creature already known to science was responsible for the sightings. Given the wide variety of descriptions of the Bunyip, essentially any animal was on the table, although it was likely to be something uncommon. A type of marine animal known as a dugong, which would sometimes end up in inland waters, and crocodiles were considered. Because dugongs and crocodiles live only in the north of Australia, it was considered that their appearance in the south would have been unusual, and inspired the Bunyip legend. Seals, specifically leopard and elephant seals, which could also end up in inland waters, were also top contenders. It has also been considered that the creature responsible for the famous booming noise may be the Australasian Bittern, as males make loud, booming calls near bodies of water during mating season. However, as it was considered that these creatures should have been well known to at least some aboriginal groups, and as the continent and its fauna became better explored and understood, other explanations arose. One was that the creature was real, but has been extinct for a long time. A very long time. This hypothesis was briefly discussed in our 2024 documentary What Are the World's Oldest Stories? In 1871, naturalist George Bennett of the Australian Museum proposed that the Bunyip could be a cultural memory of a creature called a Diprotodon. Diprotodon was a large herbivorous marsupial, slightly smaller than a rhino, that is believed to have inhabited the savannas and plains of Australia. It's not often suggested that it was semi-aquatic, though even if not, it or its fossils could have still inspired the legend. Another candidate is Palochestes, an extinct genus of creatures very similar to Diprotodon. The idea is that even though these animals went extinct many thousands of years ago, it is possible that they survived in the legends and mythology of the aboriginal Australian peoples, whose ancestors did encounter them. As was the focus of the aforementioned video, preservation of oral traditions for many thousands of years does seem to be possible. However, researchers take the idea that the Bunyip legend comes from a cultural memory of a real extinct creature with a grain of salt. While it is possible, there is nothing specifically suggesting it is the case currently. Bunyip sightings declined substantially in the 20th century. However, while less common to this day, mysterious, large, unidentified seal-like creatures are still reported in Australia's inland waters. Researchers tend to favor the explanations proposed in the 19th century, that these sightings can be attributed to sightings of dugongs and seals and such things. But is that really all there is to the Bunyip? Regardless of what you believe, we would encourage caution around the inland waters of Australia. We hope you enjoyed this video. If so, we invite you to come check out the rest of Fire of Learning, especially our other campfire videos, and to subscribe to see more videos like this in the future. Our last campfire video looked at Germany. There are not many true cryptids in Germany, but plenty of mythical creatures. To support the channel further, there is a link to our Patreon in the description. A special thanks once again to our current supporters listed here. Thank you for watching, and be sure to join us next time around the campfire.