Out Of The Dreamtime - The Search For Australasia's Unknown Animals- Chapter 1

Rex and Heather Gilroy are recognised internationally, as one of the world’s foremost husband and wife research teams. In the field of Australasian Unexplained Mysteries research they have no equal. They are at the very “cutting edge” of not only Australian Cryptozoology and Yowie [Relict Hominology] research but are also the foremost authorities on the ‘unwritten’ history of Australian discovery and exploration, as well as pre-Aboriginal Stone-Age Australian occupation research.

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. Rex and Heather are determined to place their evidence on whatever subject before their readers so that they can judge for themselves with an open mind, rather than be told what to think by the ‘establishment’ academics.

Rex, a self-taught historical researcher, archaeologist and naturalist, together with Heather, operate the “Australian Yowie Research Centre”, “Australian Cryptozoological Research Centre” and the “Australasian Cryptozoological Research Centre” at Katoomba NSW where they live. They frequently tour the country lecturing on their findings. Their files bulge with thousands of reports on a wide variety of phenomena apart from their Cryptozoological and Relict Hominological [ie Yowie] researches.

Heather & Rex Gilroy.
Photo © Greg

Currently celebrating 50 years as the founding ‘father’ of Yowie and Australian Cryptozoological research, Rex Gilroy, Australia’s first and foremost ‘Yowie Man’, is able to draw upon his lifetime of dedicated field research in the preparation of this book, and also two more books on the Yowie mystery to follow this massive work now before the reader.

Rex Gilroy has many imitators, but none can ever equal his 50 years of achievements, nor the massive library of files and specimen material that he and Heather have gathered. When not in the field, Rex and his wife Heather [a Registered Nurse by profession] are at home writing books, surrounded by their huge library, and Rex’s natural science collection of thousands of insects and spiders, fossils, rocks and minerals, zoological, anthropological and archaeological specimens. The largest collection of its kind privately owned in Australia,

Rex hopes to eventually be able to leave his collection in a specially built museum at Katoomba in perpetuity to the Australian nation, where it can be preserved for future generations as a public educational implement. 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.

No part of this publication including all photographs and illustrations may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review, written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

Dedication

This book is affectionately dedicated to my loyal, supportive and dedicated wife, and Number One researcher and fieldworker, Heather. This book is also affectionately dedicated to my late father W.F. [Bill] Gilroy [1904-1996], whose tales of his native Scotland and the Loch Ness Monster, led me, from about the age of five [!] to my lifelong research of the natural sciences and the fields of Cryptozoology and relict hominology, which has resulted in this book.

This Book is also Dedicated To

* The open-minded, free-thinking visionary, who does not know the meaning of the word “impossible”.
* The field-working, rugged adventurer who never stops at the foothills, and always wants to see what lies beyond the next mountain.
* The dedicated individualist who has the courage and fortitude to defend his ideas, regardless of overwhelming opposition.
* All those who against all reason, dare to dig deeper than anyone before them in their search for the truth.

Our acknowledgements would not be complete without recognising the contributions, support and encouragement in every aspect of our researches by the late Don Boyd, former editor of the legendary “Psychic Australian” [later renamed Paranormal and Psychic Australian and Strange Phenomena] magazine.

Don did not live to see the publication of this book, but it was due to his urging that I preserve my researches in book form, that I now have several titles behind me already and more to follow. Early in my magazine writing period, Don taught me how to hone down my writing skills. My success today as a writer is largely due to his support and encouragement.

Preface

Monsters in Our Own Backyard

This book is about Impossible as well as Possible animals. ‘Impossible’ because they are species not supposed to exist, and ‘Possible’ because they are long-extinct species which may still be alive. Sightings of such animals occur regularly throughout the world, in remote mountain ranges and forests, as well as in lakes, rivers and the ocean depths. I doubt that there are few lay people who have never heard of such mysterious creatures as Scotland’s notorious “Loch Ness Monster”; the Yeti [“Dweller among the rocks”] of the Himalayas; or ‘Bigfoot’ of North America. Or, the giant snakes of the Amazon jungles; and the Mokele-mbembe of the Congo, giant dinosaur-like reptiles of pigmy folklore and now the subject of serious scientific attention.

These are but a few examples of the more famous ‘unknown’ animal species believed to exist throughout the world. There have already been a great many books and magazine articles written, about these and other strange creatures reported seen in remote corners of our planet. Yet these publications, with few exceptions, have left out one vast region of the world. It is a region which has for too long been overlooked and ignored by researchers of zoological mysteries; Australia, and its neighbouring islands. And yet, this region holds a great many zoological mysteries. For, while everyone has heard about the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, Bigfoot etc - how many overseas readers have heard of the Yowie?

Much has been written about England’s mystery panthers and pumas [actually escaped illegal pets] but few overseas publications have given much attention to the giant “Australian Panther”. Scotland’s ‘Nessie’ is known worldwide, but how many Australians have heard about their own ‘Nessie’, the Moolyewonk, or Mirreeula of Aboriginal folklore? Giant sea and lake-dwelling creatures are to be found in the Australasian region that could quite easily rival ‘Nessie’ in scientific interest once they became better known. Overseas mysteries such as the Yeti, ‘Nessie’, Mokele-mbembe etc, are interesting, but I do not feel they are as fascinating as the many animal mysteries to be investigated within the Australasian region.

They are all here, the ‘extinct’ Tasmanian Tiger, the “Australian Panther”, Giant Australian Monitor Lizard, giant snakes, giant sharks, giant eagles and more. They are the “Monsters in our own back yard”, our very own Australasian ‘unknown animals’ begging to be recognised and investigated. There remains only the equally enigmatic ‘Bunyip’, that most fabulous of all ancient Australian Aboriginal animal traditions to be mentioned. And he deserves pride of place, for in the course of this thesis he holds an important place in the unravelling of the many mysteries to be revealed in this book.

As will be shown in Chapter One, the Bunyip, as just about every Australian knows, was more than one animal, and similar ‘Bunyips’ under a variety of names, were known to the native tribes of New Guinea, the Solomon, Fiji, Tonga and other West Pacific Islands, and also New Zealand, where old Maori traditions speak of the giant Plesiosaur-like water monster, the Taniwha, of which there was also a land-dwelling form, as will be seen in the course of this book. In recent years much has been written about the sauropod-like Congo ‘neodinosaur’, the Mokele-mbembe, so it will surprise many readers to learn that New Guinea also has its traditions of dinosaur-type giant reptiles, and that old Aboriginal traditions speak of a bipedal flesh-eating reptilian monster called Burrunjor, claimed to wander the more remote regions of Australia’s far north, attacking Aborigines and animals alike, leaving in his wake huge footprints.

Burrunjor is claimed to have attacked Europeans as well, and there are many people who claim to have seen these reptilian nightmares, as we shall see. Another form of reptilian nightmare of the Australian bush is the giant snake, a mystery involving more than one species it appears, and there are marine forms as well. Much has been written on the Aepyornis or “Elephant Bird”, the now extinct giant flightless bird of Madagascar, which was apparently still alive in the 13th century. It was a member of the Ratite family, which besides the Australian Emu and New Zealand Moas, includes the African Ostrich, the Rhea of South America, and Cassowary of Queensland and New Guinea.

The ancestors of these birds evolved upon the great supercontinent of Gondwanaland around 60 million years ago. Aside from modern-day sightings claims of a large Moa in New Zealand, and also the turkey-sized ‘extinct’ little Scrub Moa, New Guinea may be the home of a mysterious 5.5m tall, Emu-like giant flightless species. And, in the wilds of the New South Wales south-coastal mountain ranges and Blue Mountains west of Sydney, tales persist of a species of Giant Emu, which continues to leave its monstrous tracks in the forest soil, just as it has done since early European settlement times and before.

The distribution of relict hominids and hominoids also extends beyond the wilds of North America, Russia and mainland Asia. Besides island south-east Asia, manbeast traditions are commonplace to New Guinea and Australia - home of the elusive Yowie - and on through the Solomon Islands to New Zealand, where the Moehau ‘manbeast’ is said to reign in the South Island wildernesses.

This book presents a great deal of evidence for surviving ‘relict hominids’ in the Australasian region and geological reasons for their distribution as far afield as the West Pacific Islands and New Zealand; however, for the full story readers are directed to my book “Giants from the Dreamtime - the Yowie in Myth and Reality” [Uru Publications 2001].

As Dorothy says to the Man of Straw and the Tin Man in the MGM 1939 film version of Frank Baum’s book “The Wizard of Oz” - “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!”. We have them all in Australia; the ‘extinct’ Marsupial Lion, the ‘extinct’ Tasmanian Tiger, and even fossil remains of a giant ancestor to the Koala [which is, of course, not really a bear]; dinosaurs extinct and perhaps alive; giant lizards, Plesiosaurs in the Hawkesbury River, if not elsewhere around our coastline, hairy sub-men and giants, now emerging from out of the mists of the Dreamtime led by that other enigma of Aboriginal tradition, the Bunyip, to reveal an hitherto unknown zoological ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ to fascinate both laypeople and Cryptozoologists alike .....

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