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The Cousin we don’t talk about: What is Bigfoot?
Posted on Friday, May 19, 2006 (CDT) by Thoth
 From the Cascade Mountains of North America’s Pacific Coast to Central Asia to Australia, people have reported sightings of large, unknown hominid creatures since long before stories were written down. These creatures have been known by names such as Bigfoot, Almas, Yowies, Yeren, Sasquatch, Yeti, Swamp Ape, and Mawas to name but a few.
The size of these creatures seems to range from somewhat smaller than humans to a massive 10 feet and sometimes beyond. Often these sightings are written off as a misidentified bear, or an overactive imagination. But the sightings persist from so many parts of the world that they cannot be dismissed outright.
What if Bigfoot and his relatives are real animals? What could they be? Are they only bears, or could they be a species of animal as yet unidentified by science? Or, could Bigfoot be a species believed to have lived in the past but extinct today, like a species of ape or an archaic form of human?
There have
been examples of animals once thought to be extinct turning up very
much alive. The coelacanth was known only from the fossil record, and
was believed to have died out with the dinosaurs. It was identified by
accident however after being found in a fishing net in the Indian Ocean
in the 1930’s. Also, a species of rodent thought to have disappeared
from the planet 8 million years ago, the Laotian Rock Rat, was found
very recently in a market in Laos, destined for the stew pot. Some
large mammal species were thought to be hoaxes and tall tales until
seen by Europeans; explorers had heard tales of the mountain gorilla
for centuries, but they were not recognized by Western science until a
specimen was seen in 1901.
In the rainforests of
Southeast Asia, researchers are hot on the trail of a possible Bigfoot.
In Vietnam, the creatures are called Nguoi Rung, which simply means
“forest people.” In some areas of Vietnam it is interesting to note
that these creatures are said to use fire, and to sometimes try to
interact with people. In areas closer to Laos, it is sometimes known as
“khi trau”, which translates as “big monkey.”
 In Malaysia, this creature
is known as either the mawas, a name which is also used to indicate the
orangutan, or the Hantu Jarang Gigi, the “snaggle-toothed ghost“. Most
of Malaysia is heavily forested, and has remained relatively
undeveloped until recently, although humans of one type or another have
lived here for about 1 million years. Legends about these creatures and
reported sightings date far back into the region’s history. One local
people, the Orang Asli, have a legend of a creature called the
Serjarang Gigi, or “Hairy Giant.” These creatures were said to be eight
feet tall with huge arms and large, widely-spaced teeth.
In the reports of mawas
sightings, the creatures are invariably bipedal, and range from dark
golden brown to black in color. The mawas are described as being
powerfully built creatures, and range in size from about 6 to well over
10 feet in height. The mawas hair is not said to be as long over the
whole body as that of Bigfoot-type creatures in other parts of the
world, nor is it as dense. The mawas sightings occur in forested areas,
and seem to focus around water or around fruit trees. They seem to
travel either singly or in small family groups. From the eyewitness’
descriptions, the mawas are said to eat fruit and have a fondness for
fish.
The Malaysian sightings
have made news around the world lately, and have become the focus of
heated debate among researchers as to what these animals could really
be. Plaster casts of footprints have been presented as proof along with
a supposed hair sample. A group called the Johor Wildlife Protection
Society has made statements that they know of the existence of a colony
of the animals, which they call orang lenggor (Lenggor People). This
group claims a member of their society has researched and interacted
with this colony for six years now. Another researcher, a respected
conservationist named Vincent Chow, has co-authored a book based on 11
years of researching the mawas. Mr. Chow says the book contains
detailed photographs of the mawas, photos with enough detail to show
individual features. In this book, Mr. Chow and his co-authors will
reportedly make the startling claim that the mawas are actually a
previously unknown group of survivors from an ancient era, our own
ancestor, Homo erectus. The book is not available as yet, but will
hopefully be in print soon.
What could these mystery creatures be?
One possible Bigfoot
candidate is a huge ape known from fossils from Southeast Asia, and has
been proposed as Bigfoot by many researchers. The ape is
Gigantopithecus blacki, an enormous vegetarian ape who lived during the
Pleistocene era.
 Gigantopithecus was
discovered in 1935 by G.H.R. Von Koenigswald when he was browsing
through a box of so-called “dragon bones” in an apothecary’s shop in
Hong Kong. Von Koenigswald realized that several large, yellowed molars
were actually fossilized teeth. Eventually, over one thousand teeth and
three separate jaw bones were discovered at various sites in China and
South East Asia. Although no other remains for G. blacki have ever been
found, the ape’s size has been estimated based on the size of the jaws.
Using living apes as a comparison, Gigantopithecus’ size has been put
at around 10 feet in height with a weight of 1,200 pounds. G. blacki
was a vegetarian who ate mostly bamboo, much like the giant panda with
whom it shared territory. This huge ape also probably lived alongside
early humans, since it is generally believed to have died out some
100,000 years ago. It is possible that competition with pandas and
being hunted by early humans caused the extinction of
Gigantopithecus.
 Although Gigantopithecus
seems a likely candidate for Bigfoot, there are several problems with
that idea. The physical proof for Gigantopithecus itself is scant,
limited to some one thousand teeth and three jawbones. These few
remains were found only in Southeast Asia also, so there’s no proof
this ape would have been present in all of the areas where we have
reports of wildmen today. However, if other animals, possibly including
humans, could have passed over a Bering land bridge into North America
from Asia, it’s certainly not a stretch of the imagination for
Gigantopithecus to have done the same.
Also, we don’t know if
Gigantopithecus walked on two legs or on four. Almost every sighting of
a Bigfoot-type animal has been of a bipedal animal; that is, one who
walks on two.
Another candidate for
Bigfoot’s true identity has been proposed from our own family tree. Our
direct ancestor Homo erectus was first identified from fossils found in
the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The first remains were found in China
and Indonesia originally, then also in eastern Africa. Homo erectus
fossils have been found from Africa and the Middle East to East Asia,
and possibly Europe, making Homo erectus our best-traveled early
ancestor. Homo Erectus used tools like modern peoples, which probably
allowed him to spread over such a huge area.
 Homo erectus first appeared
some 1.8 million years ago. They are believed to have died out around
400,000 years ago, although the recent discovery of small human remains
in Indonesia could prove otherwise. Dubbed “Hobbits” by the press,
these small remains named Homo florensensis were found on Flores
Island, and are strikingly similar to Homo erectus although smaller.
The Homo florensensis remains are believed to date to just about 12,000
to 18,000 years ago, which means they would have lived alongside modern
humans. It is possible they were still living in even more recent
times, as the local peoples there have stories about creatures they
call Ebu Gogo, or “the grandmother who eats everything.” This hominid
was a small creature, only standing about 3 feet high when fully grown.
Even though it is probably
not the source of local Bigfoot stories, the existence of Homo
florensensis shows that other species of human could and most likely
did live alongside modern humans in some parts of the world. However,
it could very well be the basis of sightings of another mystery hominid
called the “orang pendek”, or “short fellow.” The orang pendek is
believed to live in the forests of Malaysia, and there are tales of
similar creatures called nittaewo in Sri Lanka, along with others from
many other islands in Indonesia and the Philippines.
The mawas of Malaysia
 Though sightings of large,
manlike animals in Southeast Asia are not new, and in fact date far
back into the past, recent developments in that region of the world
could shed light on the mystery of Bigfoot. Researchers in Malaysia
have been documenting possible sightings and tracks from these
creatures, called mawas by the local peoples. There have been rumors of
a possible captured creature, a claim which has been vehemently denied
by the Malaysian officials.
The speculation about the
mawas’ existence could be answered later this year, when Vincent Chow
releases a book he has co-authored on the subject. Mr. Chow claims to
be using photographs in this book of the mawas which will definitively
prove not only their existence, but also what they are. Mr. Chow’s
ideas on these creatures are surprising, and will be discussed further
in this article.
 So, of the two candidates
discussed above, which is the better match for the mawas? Both are
believed to have roamed Southeastern Asia during the same time period,
and undoubtedly lived side by side. Open-minded scientists who have
considered the existence of Bigfoot often give Gigantopithecus as the
possible culprit, and although this large ape does match some
descriptions of mystery hominids, what we know of it does not
completely match the Malaysian sightings. Gigantopithecus would
certainly have been large enough to fit the descriptions of the mawas
from eyewitnesses. Gigantopithecus would have been enormously strong,
with the heavily muscled body and limbs Bigfoot-type animals are said
to have. But researchers are certain it was vegetarian after thorough
examination of its teeth, where the mawas are said to have a fondness
for fish also.
Our other candidate, Homo
erectus, was slightly smaller than the eyewitness accounts of the
mawas, although a person coming across an unexpected large animal in a
dense forest could well make errors in judging that animal’s size.
Researchers are fairly certain that H. erectus was omnivorous, and have
found crude stone tools they think were used by H. erectus. Some of the
local traditions in Southeastern Asia tell of the mystery hominids
using tools like humans, such as the Nguoi Rung of Vietnam. Since
researchers have found much more of the remains of H. erectus than
Gigantopithecus, they have been able to reconstruct with confidence
what our ancestor would have looked like. H. erectus was fully bipedal,
though with a sloping forehead and heavy brow ridges. We know that H.
erectus was strongly built, like the mawas and other Bigfoot-type
creatures.
Is there a third candidate?
 While Vincent Chow and his
associates are prepared to present their proof that the mawas are a
surviving population of H. erectus, another group of researchers in the
area has already released their report, and have stated that the mawas
are an unknown population of an animal already well-known to science,
the orangutan.
A group called the Asia
Paranormal Investigators has released an extensive report of their own
investigation into the mawas, including field research and interviewing
eyewitnesses in Malaysia. API published their report on Feb. 6, 2006,
and it details their own research into the area, its peoples and
history. API came to the conclusion that the mawas were orangutans
based not only on their interpretation of the sightings, but on a news
article from China:
I found a Chinese newspaper
published on the 25th Feb 2006 revealing that a former Sultan of Johor
once reared and later released 40 Orang Utans to either the zoos or the
forest. Could this be the Colony of 40 Bigfoot mentioned by the Johor
Wildlife Protection Society? Could it account for some of the sightings
of Bigfoot prints being found?
Also from the same report:
The Sin Min Daily published
an article on the 25th February that said a former Johor Sultan once
reared forty Orang Utans, but released them sometimes in the early
1970s. The Royalty being interviewed called the Orang Utan a gorilla,
but the actual animal could be clearly discerned from the attached
photograph in the article.
Could this be where the
claim of the colony of Bigfoot originated from? Perhaps there really
was seventeen Orang Utans released into the Forest at one time.
The report from API also points out that the word “mawas” is another name for orangutan in some parts of nearby Sumatra.
Although orangutans still
roam the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, they were known to live also in
the nearby area we now call Malaysia in the past. During the last Ice
Age, sea levels were much lower and most of the large islands of what
is now Indonesia were still connected to the mainland, so any
orangutans in Malaysia today could be left from this time.
Orangutans can range in
color from red to a very dark golden brown, and the large males can
sometimes be close to five feet in height. Orangutans are bulky
animals, with heavy shoulders and wide chests, much like the mawas.
Though the largest male orangs usually travel on the ground because
they are so heavy, orangutans are arboreal or tree-living creatures.
But it is important to note that orangutans as we know them do not walk
upright unless they have been trained to, and they are almost
exclusively vegetarian. Also, orangutans do not match the facial
description given by people who claim to have seen the mawas.
Is a different species of human living in the forests of Southeast Asia today?
If Mr. Chow and his
associates are correct, there could be groups of an archaic human still
living today. This is a startling idea to modern humans, as the last
other type of human, the Neanderthals, is thought to have died out some
29,000 years ago. If we did live side by side with the Neanderthals, it
is believed that our contact with them was rare, and that the
overlapping periods were very short. We aren’t sure why this close
cousin went extinct, but we modern humans firmly believe that we are
the only species of human alive today.
But with the discovery of
the tiny H. florensensis, this attitude has been challenged. Our small
cousins lived on the islands of Indonesia while we were there, perhaps
scavenging from our gardens or middens and hiding from the tall cousin
with the more advanced tools. We know these small humans were hunters,
and they were believed to have hunted the large Komodo dragons and
similar lizards along with a species of now-extinct elephant and other
fairly large mammals. But how similar were they to us, and how similar
would a surviving H. erectus be?
To answer this, let’s look
at another ape, the chimpanzee. These animals live in the forests of
equatorial Africa, where they have existed alongside humans for
millennia. Even though our last common ancestor with the chimpanzee is
believed to have lived some seven million years ago, recent DNA tests
have shown that we share a surprising 96 to 98 percent of our genes
with this distant relative. In fact, because we are so alike, when
scientists first classified the chimpanzee in 1775, they were
originally placed with us under the genus Homo. But because of
controversy over placing what was considered a mere animal in the same
group as man, the chimpanzee was reclassified sometime around 1816 into
its own genus, Pan. If we share so much with an ape not in our direct
ancestry, how close would Homo erectus be?
The implications of finding
a living but more primitive human in the forests of Southeast Asia are
staggering. Would these creatures be considered humans, or animals?
Would we feel obligated to extend protection to them if they were found
to be extremely closely related to us? Indeed, many indigenous peoples
around the world thought of these mysterious forest roamers as another
type of people, and the names given to them mean simply, “forest
people.” Finding a close cousin of ours living in what we consider our
own back yards would force us to redefine who and what human beings are.
Video:
Bigfoot Sighting Video: A 5-minute documentary chronicles a compelling but little-known bigfoot encounter near Oxford Mountain in southeast Idaho.
Resources:
- “Closer to Man than Ape”, Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian Tuesday, January 24, 2006
-
“From the Teeth of the Dragon: Gigantopithecus Blacki”, by Eric Pettifor
-
“The Malaysian Bigfoot
Enigma” by the Asia Paranormal Society, 1st released on 6th February
2006, Last Updated on 23rd April 2006
To visit the homepage of the API, please follow this link : http://www.api.sg/
This article was written by FyreSpirit.
© Thothweb - http://www.thothweb.com
All images copyright © by
their respective photographers. This article is copyrighted. No part of
this article can be reproduced without the written permission of
ThothWeb.
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Re: The Cousin we don’t talk about: What is Bigfoot?
by ithilien on Friday, May 19, 2006 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | there are many reports of this creature doing "normal" animal like things...eating, raiding food storage areas, eating roadkill, drinking water, but at the same time there are many paranormal incidents noted. For instance...the creatures are described as floating, walking slowly but seeming to cover large areas of ground, passing thriough stiff undergrowth easily, causing confusion or forgetfulness in the viewer, disappearing, rapidly changing locations, communicating telepathically, accelerating to unbelievable speeds, etc.Many are described as "shadows," without facilal features, It is impossible to ignore these reports, and only selectively chose reports that fit with the reviewers "beliefs." Indeed, the "what do you believe bigfoot is?" is the most pointless question ever. Beliefs don't have any bearing UNLESS the individual has SEEN or eperienced this creature, a personal belief that perhaps cannot be generalized. It is also dreadfully unscientific for any "researcher" or group to make assumptions about anything for which there is no evidence. When you read for example the late grover Krantz's assumptions of how many b/f exist, how they migrate, what they eat, what the breeding population is,etc you are astonished that any scientist could say such things. there is absolutely no evidence that can support any of his assumptions. So this article while interesing and well written, is essentially pointless, because it seeks to discuss the origins of something we have no evidence actually exists and have no evidence of its nature beyond highly subjective first person accounts that differ widely in nature. People who develop ingrained and stubborn belief systems (I'm not saying the author is one) are drawing conclusions before evidence is obtained. People that have never seen it and think they know what it is are the most out on a limb.
The whole area is confused with trickster energy (please read Hansen's "The Trickster and the Paranormal" for the best explaination into the study of psi phemon i have ever read) I fear these entities are beyond our ability to discover or understand and perhaps no definitive answer will emerge. My prediction: the Johor bigfoot flap will recede in time, after no further evidence is forthcoming and no animals are discovered. The "research" will become muddied with claims and counterclaims of fraud, the original witnesses will pull back from their original statements (i am not sayiing their original statements were not true) and competing researchers will ultimately fail. So it has even been and so it will be. (PLEASE read Hansen.)remember...you read it here first! |
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Re: The Cousin we don’t talk about: What is Bigfoot?
by ScullyMACK on Friday, May 19, 2006 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | Can we all just STOP calling the GIGANTOPITHECUS an ape...it was not an ape. It was infact a much larger HUMAN. I wish someone would take a look at the few fossils because they wouldn't see anything relatively or even remotely ape-like.
SCULLYM |
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Re: The Cousin we don’t talk about: What is Bigfoot?
by shotguneddy on Friday, May 26, 2006 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Could it be that we are looking at an ancient chimera. A throw back to a time when the Anunnaki created Nephilim? See Genesis Chapt. 6. Has the genetic genie been let out of the bottle again? Are the fallen ones (aliens? ha!), still taking (abducting sound familiar?) wives. Does history repeat it's self? |
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Re: The Cousin we don’t talk about: What is Bigfoot?
by themystic on Sunday, January 14, 2007 (CST)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | I'm commenting on this subject because at about the age ten I stood face to face with the elusive being know as bigfoot! I'm now 40yrs old it's been 30yrs I still stand by what I saw! This house I'm in right now sits about 200yrds from where the sighting took place. I was very close to the being 2' to 3' feet from him on a full moon night in late summer. The being walked up behind me as I was climbing over a 5'ft barbedwire cattle fence on this property. I describe him as being about 7'ft tall with long brown thin straight hair covering his general body exculding directly in face except where beard would normally be on a human and palms of hands. Imagine chewy off of star wars with a thinner coat of hair and more human facel features. I't seemed to be male although at time I could've cared less one way or the other I was close enough he could have easily slapped my head off. He did raise his arms and growled at me as I staired frozen in my tracks with shock for a momment then turning and running away from his direction. Even though he stood on the otherside of the fence during this sighting he could have easily caught up with me. Anyway since then I have not seen the being again but I'm sure they still exist some where I feel they are more advanced than we consider them to be maybe even dimentional in nature. I've found few belivers and many critics but I know what I saw. The people that do belive are usally one's who also have had a similiar experience. So there my story and I'm sticking to it! Any questions wish to ask me about this feel free. |
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