An international man of mysteries and histories

Mr  Healy on the hunt for a poltergeist in a haunted ruin near Hugundra, near Cooma, in Australia...
Mr Healy on the hunt for a poltergeist in a haunted ruin near Hugundra, near Cooma, in Australia. Photo: Supplied
Mr Healy holding a plaster cast of a track left by a huge black panther that walked across a...
Mr Healy holding a plaster cast of a track left by a huge black panther that walked across a property in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, in broad daylight, in full view of several witnesses in 2016. Photo: Jamilah Bartholomew
Mr Healy examining a stick formation allegedly a territorial marker left by a yowie (the...
Mr Healy examining a stick formation allegedly a territorial marker left by a yowie (the Australian yeti). Photo: Gary Opit

A quest to solve some of New Zealand’s strangest mysteries has brought an Australian myth-buster to the South Island to authenticate  reports  of extinct and mythical creatures, UFOs and poltergeists. He caught up with Kerrie Waterworth on the shores of Lake Wanaka.

The broad expanse and deep cold waters of Lake Wanaka are home to salmon and trout and  myriad  other freshwater species  — but could it also be home to a lake monster or a taniwha (in Maori mythology a guardian spirit)? Finding evidence of lake and river monsters is just one of the reasons why  Tony Healy (73) is in New Zealand on a seven-week "monster safari".

Mystery hunter Tony Healy with a map of where the New Zealand mysteries are in  the South Island....
Mystery hunter Tony Healy with a map of where the New Zealand mysteries are in the South Island. Photo: Kerrie Waterworth

"I am really on a quest for truth."New Zealand has a range of mysteries that I am interested in, from the almost totally believable, which would be finding moose in Fiordland, to the almost totally implausible, which would be to verify 19th-century Maori reports of giant hairy men in the Catlin Mountains."

Mr Healy was also in Wanaka to meet retired bank manager Richie Hewit who has written a history of the waitoriki, or New Zealand otter.

Early reports from 1844 referred to beavers living on the east side of Lake Wanaka and later accounts by local Maori concluded the animal resembled an otter or a badger. "It would be nice to believe the otters were real, but it is getting more difficult to prove because ... if a possum fell in a creek, I don’t know if I could tell it apart from the waitoriki, so the historic reports are the ones of most value."

Born in Brisbane, Mr Healy was a bit of a "hippy type", travelling for years around the world, including New Zealand, doing odd jobs. 

When he was 35 years old, he married and moved to Canberra where he worked for the government for 20 years as a technical officer in the surveying department. His lifelong pursuit of unknown animals started in 1965 when he saw his first big cat in Australia.

"It was like an American mountain lion, sandy yellow coloured and standing in the headlights of the car.

"I thought I was imagining things and then I heard from the father of a girl I knew that he had seen one in the same area, in the cane fields near Innisfail in North Queensland.

"Since then I have interviewed hundreds of people who claim to have seen big cats in Australia and Britain."

In New Zealand, Mr Healy hoped to interview hunting and fishing guide Al Kircher, of Ashburton, who has claimed  to have seen big black cats twice, and  photographed one.

"Recently he was coming back from a fishing trip with a Japanese guy and this big cat was standing in the centre of the road and kind of stared at him and dared him down, and when the car came to a stop it apparently just walked off."

Mr Healy  has had to self-fund his research. He is a correspondent for Fortean Times, a monthly magazine of news, reviews, and research on strange phenomena and experiences and has co-authored three books with collaborator Paul Cropper including The Yowie: In Search Of Australia’s Bigfoot.

When asked if he has had any real success in his quest, he said he has had several "maybes".

"I saw what looked like a propeller wash from a boat on Loch Mora in Scotland, but there was no boat."

There is a long history of monster sightings similar to Loch Ness on Loch Mora dating back to 1887, including  in 1969 when two men claimed to have hit the monster known as Morag.

"That was really close, I took photos and the American I was with took photos, but it just looks like a white streak on the water."

Mr Healy said he had never seen a yeti or a yowie. 

"I think I have been close to them a few times, although I haven’t actually seen one.  I know they have seen me plenty of times."

Mr Healy intends to go on one more "expedition" this winter, to North Queensland, before writing his memoirs.

"Up there they have the full catastrophe. One guy told me he has seen a big cat four times on his property and down the road people claim they have seen a yowie chase and kill a dingo."

He was starting to feel his age and would most likely conduct his research from an armchair in future, he said. His memoirs will feature several chapters on New Zealand mysteries and he is very keen to hear from anyone who believes they have seen a moose, big cat, otter, moa, poltergeist, lake monster, yeti or  other unexplained phenomena, such as strange lights or phantom ships.

He can be contacted on tonyhealy05@gmail.com

kerrie.waterworth@odt.co.nz

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