HAIRY MAN OF SHARK BAY
“ … there was something at the waterhole watching them … “
Former shire president, John Sellinger, who believes he once had a personal encounter with the Yowie – or whatever it might be – says the big hairy creature was well-known to local Aborigines long before it was first seen by Europeans.
Tribal legend has it that the unidentified creature has always haunted a local waterhole and periodically emerges to search for food and to frighten hell out of everything that sets eyes on its gruesome features.
Tourists travelling the road into Shark Bay, just south of the Tropic of Capricorn, speed past the 40-Mile Tank after having heard of many sightings in the area.
“They won’t stop for a drink any more,” said John Sellinger, “not even if their tongues are sticking to the roofs of their mouths.”
The Hairy Man of Shark Bay, he says, is firmly entrenched in the mythology of local Aboriginal folk who have been aware of the creature’s existence for generations, extending back over a century prior to European settlement. Even in modern times, it is interesting to note, local Aboriginal people have a strong belief in a “little hairy man” ghost they call “widarji”, as well as a female equivalent – a beautiful female spirit who always appears in a red dress – known as “willagiddi.”
Back in the 1970s, when John Sellinger was working on a pastoral property on Dirk Hartog Island, he was disturbed one night by peculiar noises coming from the kitchen. When he went to investigate, he found food scattered over the floor and “something really frightening” disappearing out the door, “a sort of shadow.”
“I was one of those times when you can feel your flesh crawl and the hair stands up on the back of your neck,” said John. “I couldn’t tell you how many people around Shark Bay might have seen the same thing. Some people who have seen it, or only heard it, say it has a very strong smell.”
More recently, a married couple, tourists, camped near Woodleigh Station on the Wooramel River.
“Their dog started howling something awful,” John Sellinger said. “The wife became very upset. Both of them had the very uncomfortable feeling there was something peculiar at that spot.
“In the end, they moved camp and felt a whole lot better about it. When I spoke to the fellow – he seemed very sensible and level-headed – he said he felt there was something at the waterhole watching them.”
Suggest to the ex-shire president that the Hairy Man is a fabrication to attract tourists (and it does!), he responds: “Okay, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take you to the 40-Mile Tank and leave you there for the night. If we find your bones there in the morning, we’ll know if there’s really a Hairy Man or not.”
Denham businessman, Barry Edwards, appears to have had a more personal sighting of the mysterious creature.
In 1964, while conducting marine research at Monkey Mia, he was awakened in his tent during the night by an unusual noise.
“In the moonlight I could see this big bloke, or whatever it was, bent over the food cupboard. All I could see was a silhouette of him against the canvas. I yelled out. The bloke jumped up, busted the tent pole, and bolted out on to the beach,” Barry recalled.
“Of course, I s—- myself and went and locked myself in the car. Next morning I went for a look around and I saw footprints going off along the beach towards Red Bluff. They went around the corner a little bit. I followed them, but they went into the bush and disappeared, as though he had took off and flew away.”
Were they human footprints?
“The sand out there is very coarse and soft coral sand. No four-wheel-drive job. Footprints don’t leave a clear outline. They were just a hole in the beach. But they were big. They were about seven feet apart at least. He was running. They were like bloody horse’s hooves.”
When Barry Edwards reported the incident to the police, it was implied he had been spending far too much time out in the sun. They did not investigate his claim.
Back at the wrecked camp site, the frightened marine researcher conducted his own examination of the immediate environment, hoping to rationalise the experience for his own peace of mind.
“But there was nothing,” he shrugged. “No tyre tracks, no campers, no tourists, absolutely bloody nothing. Just those big footprints on the beach that vanished into thin air …”
A couple of days later Barry allegedly had a second unnerving experience. Still camped alone on an isolated beach, he hooked a 13 ft. tiger shark as part of a field research programme and pulled it up on to the sand to remove the jaws and to record its other relevant dimensions.
After going out into the ocean for about three miles in his dinghy to check other shark lines, he returned to the beach to find the shark with a bone-handled knife embedded in its head.
“To this day, I don’t know where that knife came from,” he said. “There were no other tracks in the sand, only mine. I didn’t say abouthing about that to the coppers, not after the last ribbing they gave me … Why would anyone want to stab a dead shark?”
