The year 2003 is an important
one in the life of Rex Gilroy, for it marks his 50th year as a natural
science researcher. It was in 1953 that is parents took him for
his first visit to the Australian Museum in College Street, Sydney.
On that hot Sunday afternoon he was captivated by the insects and
other zoological displays; the fossil life forms; the archaeological
and anthropological exhibits.
And the nine-year-old
left vowing to become a naturalist and form his own collection of
"bugs and rocks". Up until then he had been fascinated
by his Scottish father's tales of ancient castle ruins in his homeland,
and the legend of the Loch Ness Monster.
These tales, he would
realise in later years, launched him on the path that led to the
studies of our 'unknown' and 'unwritten' history of pre-Aboriginal
stone-age races, and pre-Cook/Dutch exploration and colonisation
of Australia; the founding of Australian Cryptozoology and Yowie
research.
His fledgling collection
of "rocks and bugs" would grow from two cardboard shoe
boxes in 1953 to become the largest privately owned natural science
collection in Australia, displayed in museums he established on
the Blue Mountains [and more recently in Tamworth NSW] over the
years.
It is now stored at his
home where it continues to grow. Rex can trace his interest in nature
back to about the age of four, and can remember his mother showing
him a trap-door spider's hole in the back yard garden of the family
farm at Lansvale on the Georges River, one early morning.
His love of nature steadily
grew from that experience. In 1954 while his parents were on holiday
at Katoomba, he was taken to the then Natural History Museum of
Charles Melbourne Ward, next to the Hydro Majestic Hotel at Medlow
Bath.
This began a lifelong
friendship and it was 'Mel" Ward who taught the young budding
naturalist how to keep notes as well as properly prepare, classify
and preserve specimen material. By
the time Mel Ward died in 1966, his protege was already operating
his first museum out on Mount York peninsula at Mount Victoria and
attracting media attention.
Rex Gilroy's schooling
began at Villawood Infants [1948], and once moving on to the adjoining
Primary School, he was forever borrowing books on insects, dinosaurs,
ancient history and asking his teachers questions which even they
had no answers for unless they consulted library books.
Moving on to Liverpool
Boys High School in 1957 at age 14, Rex Gilroy became a denizen
of the school library once again. It
was here that books on the Tasmanian Tiger [Thylacine] and other
animal mysteries [largely overseas ones] led him to begin researching
these creatures more deeply.
"I recall that it
was in the month of March, when to avoid doing sports I volunteered
to assist the Librarian. While
stacking books and sorting them out I came across a book on Aboriginal
tales. Among these were the first I ever read on the Yowie, or "hairy
man". Yowie research began then and there. The rest is history",
says Rex.
His grandparents owned
a riverfront house about a kilometre from the farm, and until his
death in 1947, his grandfather operated an estate agency in nearby
Cabramatta. "Until my Grandmother's death in 1951, my mother
often took me to visit her, and I enjoyed running off [the district
still had a lot of undeveloped bushland then, particularly on the
Gilroy farm and along the River] to stand on the river bank, and
imagine Arabian and European pirate ships sailing up that river".
"Little did I know
that in the years ahead I would discover plenty of evidence that
this river had been visited not just by Arabs, but Spaniards, Phoenicians
and other ancient explorers", he adds.
The family moved to Katoomba
in May 1958 and Rex discovered he was in the midst of a virtual
laboratory in the form of the Blue Mountains. Here, while completing
his last six months of High School he rapidly added to his growing
natural history collection. Here he learnt that the surrounding
valleys were the fabled home of a variety of mystery creatures;
the 'extinct' Thylacine, the "Blue Mountains Lion, the "Australian
Panther", giant-sized monitor lizards, Yowies and pygmies!
Learning of his interest
in the Yowie, his Katoomba High School friends christened him the
"Yowie Man", calling the Yowie Rex Gilroy's Hairy Man"!
It was not long before the local radio station [then 2KA] 'discovered'
the young naturalist of North Katoomba, regularly interviewing him
on all manner of natural science subjects, and before long he had
his own weekly [pre-recorded] radio program.
It would take the newspapers
a few years yet to 'discover' him, and when they did, in 1963, there
were regular articles about his researches and major discoveries.
He received attention for his participation in an Australian Museum
Butterfly Tagging program to study the migratory habits of species
such as the Wanderer, Painted Lady and Caper White species, which
make yearly seasonal migratory flights in large numbers across hundreds
of kilometres.
Yet, because Rex Gilroy
was a mere 'amateur', and because he was beginning to receive a
lot of media attention, the Australian Museum scientists for whom
he had devoted so much time and effort in the Butterfly Tagging
program, as well as donating hundreds of insects for research purposes,
dropped him from their list of helpers!
Similarly, over the years
certain university academics who frown on any amateur involvement
in the sciences, would wage a war of sorts against Rex in his efforts
to publish his theories and discoveries, approaching gullible journalists
'advising' them not to interview him or publish his researches.
There were efforts by
one individual in particular to prevent him from obtaining the lease
[including its later renewal] for the Mount York Museum. When he
opened his museum [a former kiosk] in 1965, at 21 he was the youngest
museum curator in Australia.
On the Blue Mountains,
and elsewhere across Australia, Rex would soon become famous for
his spider researches, becoming known as an authority on the Blue
Mountain Funnel Web Spider [Atrax Versuta], Australia's deadliest
Funnel Web and spider species.
Once he began giving
lectures at schools and clubs in 1963 Rex Gilroy was soon in wide
demand as a speaker, and today his slide talks on a variety of subjects
are very popular, making him continuously sought after.
Another field of research
with which he has had a long association is Ufology. Having seen
his first UFO over Katoomba on January 15th 1959, which spurred
him on to gather all the evidence he could on the mystery, he would
also go on to found Australian 'ancient astronaut' research.
Rex Gilroy is an open-minded
researcher who involves himself in all aspects of the 'Unexplained",
and openly encourages everyone to keep an open mind, learn to question,
and don't allow themselves to be told what to think. In this endeavour
he have been very successful with students - including young university
students - and this brings him into conflict with the conservative
academia on a regular basis.
The late Don Boyd [former
editor of "Psychic Australian" and "Strange Phenomena"
magazines] called him "an inspiration and a breath of fresh
air to all researchers of the Unexplained". (A
new section on Don Boyd up soon)
Rex Gilroy is indeed
an inspiration. He has been responsible for encouraging a great
many young people to pursue university careers in history and the
sciences generally, and like him always keep an open and enquiring
mind.
Rex Gilroy himself was
a poor student, a slow learner who was overlooked by the educational
methods of that day, and had to teach himself. His home is overflowing
with books, thousands of them. Here he is also surrounded by his
huge collection, which includes several hundred rock inscriptions
of Phoenician, Egyptian, Libyan Celtic and other ancient visitors
who came to these shores thousands of years before Captain James
Cook.
Here he keeps his collection
of huge stone 'megatools' and other evidence of giant hominids,
as well as a fossil skull collection showing the evolution of Homo
erectus into Homo sapiens in Australia long before modern humans
supposedly first evolved in Africa.
His research on our
pre-Aboriginal history alone has taken up the past 35 years of his
researching life.
Rex met his wife Heather
in 1972 and since then they have become Australia's most famous
research 'team', making regular field investigations Australia-wide,
as well as in New Zealand on a variety of endeavours. They
have found evidence of a surviving Little Scrub Moa colony in the
North Island and in 2004 they will search areas in the South Island
for the equally supposed long 'extinct' Giant Moa. The regions where
they flightless birds are believed to survive is virtually impenetrable
mountainous scrublands.
The 'father ' of Yowie
research, he established the "Australian Yowie Research Centre"
in 1965 and officially at his Katoomba home in the 1970's where
all manner of evidence of these relict hominids is gathered and
scientifically researched. Rex Gilroy was first to realise that
the Yowie, or "hairy man" was living relict populations
of Homo erectus, a tool-making, fire-making race and our immediate
ancestor.
Yet, for all his 46 years
of research into the Yowie mystery alone, he has had to face up
to not only an often violent academic opposition, the ridicule of
ignorant journalists, but the plagiarism of jealous 'researchers'
who, unlike Rex and Heather Gilroy, seek only quick fame and MONEY
using his hard-won findings for their own personal, selfish gain!
In the word of American
author/publisher-researcher, David Hatcher Childress "I wouldn't
want to be Rex Gilroy".
In the course of his
field investigations, in July 1999 Rex Gilroy was lost in the dangerous
Kanangra Boyd National park overnight, soaking wet in -3 degrees
temperatures, and fighting hypothermia and hallucinations, had to
battle his way up an escarpment through dense scrub, to be found
the next morning, still on his feet despite exhaustion and a dislocated
right shoulder!
In 1995 Nexus published
his first book "Mysterious Australia" [soon to be re-released
by URU Publications]. This book continues to inspire and encourage
other future young researchers.
In 1999 the Gilroys
formed URU Publications and have so far published "Pyramids
in the Pacific - The Unwritten History of Australia" and "Giants
From the Dreamtime - The Yowie in Myth and Reality", with more
titles on the horizon, including a monster book on unknown animals,
which is seen as the 'Bible' of Australian Cryptozoology, just as
their "Giants From the Dreamtime" is hailed as the 'Bible'
of Yowie research in Australia.
There have been attempts
by university academics to discredit Rex Gilroy's books, even to
the point of sending a delegation to the Gilroy home to ask them
to withdraw "Pyramids in the Pacific" from sale while
a university historian went over the text, and who would subsequently
tell them what they had to remove and what they could retain!
The 'delegation' [which
included an elderly retired politician in his nineties!] was naturally
sent packing by Rex - after a lecture on free speech and the freedom
of people to make up their own minds about what they want to believe
about our ancient past.
At this the former politician
retorted "The public have to be told what to think sometimes!"
Back in 1965 Rex Gilroy
discovered a number of mysterious altar stones and strange rock
script at site on the Blue Mountains. It was the beginning of a
lifelong quest to uncover what has become the "Lost [megalithic]
civilisation of Uru". After
28 years he was able to 'crack' the translation of the mystery script
[Rex is deeply involved in Epigraphy] to find that this people called
themselves the Uru [a root word of 'Aryan'] and that this the THE
'mother' civilisation, which arose here in Australia to spread out
across the earth at the dawn of history.
The Gilroys, aided by
a team of trustworthy field assistants, are searching the continent,
turning up lengthy stone alignments, circles, temples and other
astronomical site of this advanced stone-age civilisation. "When
in 1965 I realised I was the discoverer of a 'lost civilisation'
I felt like Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the lost city of
Troy in 1873.
Schliemann was rubbished
by jealous university academics at the time who tried to discredit
the importance of his discovery, due to his lack of academic credentials.
I soon got a taste of what Heinrich Schleimann went through, when
I tried to write newspaper articles on my find in the later part
of the 1960's and early 1970's, and they were dismissed as nonsense
by journalists who knew nothing about these matters anyway.
"I have made many
important discoveries over the years, may with the loyal assistance
of my wife Heather. Finds which would question many aspects of our
'official' history - fossil hominid footprints, Homo erectus [mineralised]
skull-types, the Gympie and Cooktown pyramids; countless rock inscriptions
left by a host of ancient maritime peoples, and all have without
exception been dismissed out-of-hand and my work discredited in
the media, by a close-minded academic establishment.
Slander and ridicule
are no strangers to Me", said Rex.
The Lost Civilisation
of Uru is the subject of another book which the Gilroys will publish
in the near future. Like everything else they produce, or lecture
on, it is regarded as "not Politically Correct"!
Rex Gilroy turns 60 years
old on November 8th this year, and has no intention of slowing down,
He has an ancient stone harbour and two crumbling large pyramids
to continue researching as well as searches for more evidence of
pre-Aboriginal fossil remains around the country; more lectures,
as well as running his Blue Mountains UFO Research Group; The Australian-Pacific
Archaeological Research Centre; The Australian Yowie Research Centre
as well as training a number of enthusiastic, dedicated and non-profit
minded young people to assist him in the field.
He has been asked "Where
do you find the time to do all these things?" This is a difficult
question to answer for the "Yowie Man". The time to do
anything he has to just seems to provide itself!
There is another person
hogging the media calling himself the "Yowie Man". However,
this plagarist has less than 5 years 'experience' and knows next
to nothing, like others of his kind who have lately attempted to
sideline Rex Gilroy and push him out of the vary research of which
he is the FOUNDER.
They have attempted to
sideline him also from the field of Australian Cryptozoology, which
like the Yowie research Rex Gilroy was the founding father long
before any of these 'researchers' were every born!
Rex Gilroy's website
says it all. The observant and thinking viewer can make up their
own minds about this man and who is the most dedicated.
His huge natural history
collection and the associated field note books and his huge library
and photographic back-up are now all confined to his home. They
deserve to be seen by an Australian public seeking answers to the
many mysteries of our ancient past - if not the present - and unless
some generous no-strings-attached benefactor is forthcoming, this
priceless collection will remain unseen by the public at large,
and in time lost forever.
This would suit those
with a vested interest in suppressing the Truth. As Rex Gilroy is
not getting any younger a solution must be found that will guarantee
that the Rex Gilroy Collection will survive in a permanent venue
where all can see it, learn and be inspired by it.
The late Don Boyd once
summed up Rex Gilroy. "I was driving west from Sydney one night
in 1980, and having a late night look at the Three Sisters, decided
to drive over past the Gilroy's home near the Skyway. It was 3 am
or thereabouts and as I drove slowly past, I could see him working
at something, probably typing his newspaper articles.
The following night I
was driving back, and once again drove past his house for the fun
of it, and there he was, the lights burning away around 3 am again.
I don’t think he ever rests. He is always working on something,
perhaps a new theory. When
we have been out in the bush on searches, he's always up front taking
the lead, telling us to hurry up.
He never misses a beat
and I don't know where he gets the energy. You can't knock his dedication
and enthusiasm, he's an inspiration to anyone who knows him, and
I know there are even academics who pay him grudging admiration..
Gilroy command - We follow
You!"
[Don Boyd died in May
1999 from bone cancer. Through his publications he gave young upcoming,
struggling researchers a podium through which they could publish
their work. One of these was Rex Gilroy.]
Large
Black Cat Paw Print Evidence Click 
