The Gatton Yowie, 1998

     Monday 9 February 1998: there I was, at my desk, minding my own business - or rather, my employer's business - when the phone rang. I found myself talking to a rather excited man, who initially refused to give his last name, asking if I knew anything about apes in Australia. Apparently, he had phoned the Queensland Museum and had been transferred to Dr. Ralph Molnar, the dinosaur expert, because he was the only staff member interested in cryptozoology. Dr. Molnar had then referred him to me. I told him that, yes, I had recently had published a book on Australian mystery animals, and that I had reluctantly accepted that the "yowie", or Australian version of the bigfoot, really existed. He now wanted me to promise that I would believe his story. I explained that this was too much to ask before I heard it, but that I could promise to take it seriously. He wanted information because of a dramatic incident experienced by a couple of his friends at Gatton, but if I ever mentioned his name, he would deny everything. Clearly, I was not dealing with any publicity hound.

Forgotten Sea Serpents of 1879

     I am about to travel overseas, but first I might as well return to chronicling past sea serpent reports which have apparently remained unnoticed by former compilers. As explained in earlier posts, they were published in various newspapers around the world, then picked up by the press in Australia. Again, I have chosen what appear to be the earliest and fullest accounts, but it is possible that the original reports appeared a couple of months before. In the late nineteenth century the world press took sea serpent sightings seriously - sometimes too seriously. I have omitted some too outrageous to be true, including some in which the animal was alleged to have been captured, or at least a specimen taken, then never heard of again. Anyway, we shall start with the first of 1879.