Yowie Checked Out By Bigfoot Expert
American experts will conduct tests next week to see if their country's mythical Big Foot has an Australian relative - the yowie.Dean Harrison, who heads Yowiehunters, a Queensland group dedicated to searching for the elusive ape-like creature, says the American scientists will examine supposed evidence of a yowie found last year on a property near Springbrook, in the Gold Coast hinterland.
"We are sending off the footprints and hair samples to the Texas police pathology forensics unit, who are world leaders in forensics," Mr Harrison said.
"The prints will definitely be matched with those from the Big Foot."
The Australian samples will be examined by Texas police pathologist Dr Jim Chilcutt and Dr Jeff Meldrum, of Idaho State University, as part of a documentary to be filmed by the Discovery Channel, he said.
Mr Harrison said the footprint casts were made after a night expedition last October.
"We had been tracking this creature for about 15km and towards the end of the night he actually followed our cars through the bush," he said.
The yowie hunters then contacted the owner of the property, who went out the next morning and cast the prints in plaster.
"The next weekend, we had fallen asleep about 3am and woke up at 6am and found the same footprints around our camp," Mr Harrison said.
"So he'd actually come up from the valley and walked around us in our sleep, and we have the photos of those footprints."
Last weekend, four yowie hunters and an Australian-based film crew from the Discovery Channel went to Taree, on the New South Wales mid-north coast, where Mr Harrison said he had previously seen evidence of yowies.
The Discovery Channel crew did not leave disappointed, he said.
"The cameramen were as white as sheets after their encounter.
"The were growled at by a creature about 20 metres away and they saw the red eyes of the creature coming through the bush," Mr Harrison said. But the crew failed to film the yowie, he said.
The camera crew would travel to Houston, Texas, next week for the forensic analysis, but Mr Harrison said it was not known when the Discovery Channel would air the documentary.
Results of the tests were expected in about 10 days, he said.
• Story originally published by •
The Sydney Morning Herald / Australia | By Rosemary Desmond - August 18 2000
