Anyone who sees a Yowie will talk in whispers to his closest friends but if anybody should ask him about the sighting - he will deny it.

Since the 1890’s Yowie sightings have been a regular occurrence in the Upper Clarence Region of Northern NSW, if we are to believed local folklore.

Two sightings in the 1970’s caused much media speculation and scientific teams attempted to investigate the reports, but unfortunately the women who reported the sightings were subjected to ridicule and no further sightings have been officially reported.

The most recent alleged sighting was at the end of November 2001, very early in the morning when two women went out to check on a mare due to give birth. Low cloud hung over the escarpment and the light was poor. The two women saw what appeared to be an ape like creature, about six feet tall and covered in dark hair.

After the initial shock, the younger woman got out and followed the creature at a safe distance while the older woman went back to the house to get a camera. The younger woman watched as the creature moved over toward the rock face of the escarpment but the cloud and mist rolled in and the creature disappeared from view.

When the second woman arrived back with a camera they went to the place where the creature was last seen, but it had disappeared. They drove back to the house, thinking that nobody would believe them.

When they rang their neighbors they were told to “just shut up about it, don’t say anything, it will only cause trouble” the women were confronted with this attitude from every person they asked.

Another sighting on the same section of mountain range just twelve months earlier caused a similar reaction, the woman involved in that sighting rang a friend to tell what she had seen, the friend told her to pull herself together or take a holiday.

Many timber workers tell of sightings in the same region over recent years, one was in the River Tree area about ten years ago when a truck driver had a close-up look at a Yowie. That sighting lasted for about five minutes and the creature was within twenty meters of the timber rig.

Hoaxes and practical jokes would explain some of the sightings but scientific research into the sightings has been hampered by the reluctance of people to report sightings.