Muttering and rambling like some kind of brain-damaged human.
The family farm ran to a couple of hundred acres, most of it bush, with a few paddocks for the cows. At thirteen, our witness spent hours at a favourite spot in the scrub, building little shelters and fires. One spring afternoon around four, a call echoed across the property: a high-pitched sound like a hyena laughing, lasting a solid five seconds. It seemed far off, and there was a pocket knife handy, so the young camper stayed put.
Around six, walking home for dinner, the teen heard something heavy crunching through the brush off to the right. Kangaroos sound like that, so it was worth a look. Through the trees stood what looked like a tree trunk, until it moved.
It walked around a patch of bush in odd stops and starts. It smelled wild, like an animal, though not as foul as some stories say, and it was making noises to itself: muttering and rambling, with now and then a high-pitched "hm?" sort of huff. It crossed about 30 metres in front, seemed to look straight over, froze, and showed its teeth. Our witness was big on animals and knew that's a threat display in primates.
Then it was off up a steep bank to the left, snapping branches as it went. As soon as the noise faded, the teen ran harder than ever before, stopping only to catch a breath and watch the treeline, and heard one more call: a high howl with a kind of animal laughter at the end. The parents thought it was a deer or a kangaroo. Their child couldn't sleep properly for days.
