CALL it what you will: A Yeren, a Yeti or a Yowie, but the fact remains that people the world over keep seeing these big hairy buggers lurking in the night.

The latest sighting took place recently just north of Bexhill when a Lismore resident and music videographer spied the classic creature crossing a moonlit Bangalow Road.

The witness, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said he was driving back home from a night of

filming at Eltham and had just turned onto the Bangalow Road heading for Lismore when he spied a creature jumping a barbed wire paddock fence before briefly pausing at the edge of the road.

Suddenly the beast moved across the two lanes of bitumen, raising his arm to apparently shield its eyes from the bright high beam glare of the approaching car.

"I would have seen it for between 20 and 30 seconds," the witness recalled.

"It was really moving at the time. It leapt the fence no problem.

"All I can remember was seeing this large black object with a solid build, lanky legs and long lanky arms.

"It wasn't clothed ... it wasn't wearing clothes like a human."

The witness said the creature ran with a fast, stooped pace. It had high shoulders and almost no neck and a small head.

"It was like its head was shrunken into its shoulders," he said.

Sydney-based yowie researcher, Paul Cropper, said the recent sighting revealed some "classic" elements which provided a common thread linking many experiences by many people over many decades.

"The fact that this thing was heavy set, with long arms and a small head ... these are classic traits," Mr Cropper said.

The area where the yowie was seen has a long history of similar sightings. There have been stories about them in The Northern Star since the 1800s.

In fact Mr Cropper emailed us a clipping from our own paper dated May 17, 1878 in which three descriptions of yowies were published - all of them seen in the west of NSW.

"There is the valid question of why no one has run a yowie down with a four wheel drive," noted Mr Cropper. "But the fact remains that for well over 100 years, from early settlement to modern times, people have claimed to have seen the same thing."

The amateur cryptozoologist said he was fascinated by what could be called the UFOs of the animal world.

"It's a puzzle and I am trying to put the pieces together," he said.

"I have spoken to over 100 people who have seen a yowie and I feel they have had genuine experiences."