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Wool Woman
Back in the early 1960's the first eye witness accounts were reported
from several high country sheep stations of what came to be known as
a "Sheep Child". In each case the subjects reported seeing
a child accompanied by a small feral herd of sheep.
In all but one of these cases this phenomena was said to take place
at dusk and in poor visibility. This wild story was corroborated by
several unrelated witnesses during the 1960's, all of them separated
by at the least one hundred miles (although some of them were actually
next door neighbours)
The one exception to this is the account of one young musterer who was
lost in a freak weather incident where thick mist came down at full
noon . Blinded by the mist as he tried to muster his stock this witness
states that he was led from what he thought was the correct direction
to follow by repeated sightings of a child accompanied by a small band
of feral sheep. When the witness later consulted the sheep station map
he found that at the point of each sighting he had been about to take
serious wrong turns over cliff edges.
Many journalists have tried to make a case for a connection between
these strange sightings and the movement of people out into the country
living in communes. A change had come over some parts of society in
the 1960's causing some people to leave the cities and towns in order
to go back to nature and live in the country. Some of these people went
on to build communal homes together.
"Sheep Child" Sightings Continue
Some people have suggested that an unregistered birth might have slipped
by the authorities due to the laid back nature of these communes and
their inhabitants. This atmosphere may allow for the possibility of
a young unregistered child running away to be raised by wild sheep.
However a few lonely sheep musterers claiming that at the end of the
light of day, as the sun bends past the horizon, a child accompanied
by a small feral herd of sheep would disappear over the brow of a mountain
was not enough to mobilise the day's emergency services. Since the sightings
did not converge with any reports of missing children large scale searches
were never conducted. A brief search was made by locals in some of the
earlier cases but nothing came from them.
After the initial reports the general response was to write off the
sightings as a trick of the light or else exhaustion on the part of
the musterer.
These few stray stories have been seen by some journalists as the first
appearances of the being now known as WOOL WOMAN.
Invasion of the Crypto-Zoologists
Over the next decade reports of strange figures in remote farming areas
continued, as did the continued reports of a feral flock of sheep. Some
carried on the belief of the so called "Sheep Child" despite
official opinion of authorities and scientists alike attributing the
sightings to a kind of collective hallucination. These officials said
it was all due to suggestion caused by the News services who touted
such wild unproven stories.
But belief in a "Sheep Child" persisted throughout the 1970's
and so did the sightings. At the start of the 1980's several foreign
tourists made treks into the areas listed with the highest amount of
sightings. Some of these were scientific people conducting research
into the possibility that a human being was being raised by wild sheep
in the high country area of the South Island. However, many members
of the scientific community in New Zealand declared the visiting scientists
as 'Crypto-Zoologists' who go all over the world on the trail of mythical
creatures none of which have been scientifically proven to exist.
Despite local scientist's low opinion of this practice the government
of the early 1980's began to get behind such research in an effort to
attract tourists to the beautiful South Island in greater numbers. It
was at this point that the history of WOOL WOMAN takes its first turn
towards the Phenomenon we have today:
In the middle 1980's a wildlife hunter from North America arrived in
New Zealand with the secret but determined goal of tracking and capturing
the mysterious 'Sheep Child' of Southland High Country fame. The famous
hunter's name was Cain le Loup (although this proved to be a false name
during le Loup's criminal trial; none of the names attributed to le
Loup were proved to be the man's true identity). From the moment of
his arrival le Loup's mission was surrounded by trouble and he was accused
of unlawful activities such as bringing unregistered and undeclared
devices into the country. However after a short delay le Loup managed
to settle on an agreement with the New Zealand government: the specifics
of which have to this day never been released into public knowledge.
Efforts to document le Loup's mission by local and foreign press were
furiously rebuffed by le Loup's personnel. Well disciplined and intimidating
security force traveled with him everywhere. Very little was known about
the enterprise by the time the le Loup's team flew their helicopters
into the wilderness of Southland high country in April 1985. After a
few weeks the press excitement surrounding le Loup faded and was replaced
by other news interests of the time. It was not until two months had
past that someone thought to ask for a progress report. They were only
to discover that the base that had housed equipment and personal for
le Loup's venture was completely abandoned. Signs of the debris left
at the base seemed to suggest a quick retreat but no information on
why or where the personal and equipment were taken was ever found.
A large investigation was put in motion tracing the last known route
of le Loup's team. This lead to the deepest most remote areas of Southland
High Country, from whence a trail of destruction pointed the way to
le Loup's whereabouts. Emergency teams eventually found the team members
huddled in the most impoverished of conditions on the side slope of
an Alpine mountain at the very foot of ice and snow. The starved team
members were taken to medical facilities several hours away. There a
tattered tale of woe was picked out from chattering of the most able
bodied left amongst the number. It appeared that the team had run into
trouble almost immediately upon arrival after an early sighting led
to a full scale chase. After mere days of hunting, the helicopter pilots
got into trouble and both machines were lost. The team broke into two
in order to tend the wounded while le Loup and his main force continued
the chase on foot. Luckily no one was lost but gradually le Loup lost
the confidence of his team. Little by little they abandoned their madly
driven leader and returned to the emergency camp in grievous states
of exhaustion.
But le Loup never returned.
Emergency teams continued to search for le Loup for several days, but
eventually had to call off the search due to extremely bad weather.
Authorities stated that le Loup's chance of survival was minimal at
that point. As time went by amazing stories of the 'Sheep Child' emerged
from the recuperating team members.
TO BE CONTINUED...