MYSTERIOUS WORLD: The Hunt For The World's Missing Apemen

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: AN APE-MAN IN PRE-COMMUNIST SHANGHAI/CHINESE FORTEANA

Whilst looking for mystery animal reports from Hong Kong last week I came across a rather interesting report of an ape man in pre-Communist Shanghai. I wasn`t aware of any other urban ape-men until Richard Freeman passed on details to me of an orang pendek type creature in Singapore (see below) from his forthcoming book on orang pendek. The only other reference I am aware of to this Shanghai (or, rather, Pootung) ape man is in the book Outbreak! The Encyclopaedia of Extraordinary Social Behaviour by Hilary Evans and Robert Bartholomew.

China Mail of August 26th 1947 said: “ The Pootung Ape-Man Moves To Soochow

Reports of the Pootung monster spread to Soochow Creek and families living in sampans were made panicky and confused during the night by stories of a half-human, half animal monster that scratched the eyes of several children living in sampans. The reports started last week in the Pootung area and spread quickly up and down the water front. The reports. The reports, coupled with rumours that an abduction gang is in operation, led to six volunteer policemen beating a woman to death in an attempt to get a confession and beating another unconscious.
Families living in sampans on Soochow Creek, which winds through the heart of Shanghai dividing the former International Settlement from the former Japanese Hongkew district, said the monster appeared on Saturday night (1).The police were unable to find evidence (?) while strangers were threatened by sampan folks. Confusion started when a sampan woman lulling a baby to sleep screamed for help when she thought she saw a dark form rising from the water.

Alley Cat

The Customs and Harbour police rowed up the creek and could not find anything, while crowds gathered on the bank.

Shortly after midnight last night, hearing screams from another woman again the dwellers of the smelly tidal creek, which carries much sewage in Shanghai, found a brown and white alley cat splashing about dozens of families in terror- United Press (2)

Outbreak! Says: “Cryptozoology, per se, also shows up marginally in relation to a “Water Monster Panic” that occurred in Shanghai,China, in August 1947, An “amphibious monster scare” resulted in the death by drowning of a man who jumped overboard when he heard screams of what he thought was the monster. Two other men were beaten to death by a crowd “who believed they were somehow linked to the monster” (3)

Freeman has written: “The New Paper, Singapore`s first English language paper launched in 1988, has run a number of such reports [of small upright, walking apes-RM]

A 48-year old taxi driver, called Serangoon made the following report.

“When driving my taxi past the Fire Station on Upper Bukit Timah road in the middle of the night I hit what I thought was a child that ran out in the middle of the road.It was on the car bonnet and then snarled at me-it was like a monkey but so big! It ran off injured covered in blood, and holding its` arm which was broken. (4)

1 August 23rd 1947
2 China Mail August 26TH 1947
3 Cryptomundo June 6th 2009
4 R.Freeman Unpublished manuscript of book on Orang Pendek in e-mail to R.Muirhead of 22/10/10




CHINESE FORTEANA

I hope to start seriously collecting data for a book on Chinese Forteana; I hope the most comprehensive collection yet. If anyone would like to help collect info, please can they contact me at richmuirhead@ntlworld.com? Thanks.

SMART PATROL/MR DNA DEVO

We`re Smart Patrol
Nowhere to go
Suburban robots that monitor reality
Common stock
We work around the clock
We shove the poles in the holes
(Shove it)

Wait a minute somethings wrong
He`s a man with a plan
He`s here to do us a favour
A little human sacrifice
It`s just supply and demand…..

LINDSAY SELBY: The ucu

The Ucu, also known as Ucumar or Ukumar-zupai, is Bigfoot-type creature reported as being seen in the Andes range of mountains in South America particularly in Chile and Argentina. The Ucu is said to be the size of a large dog and walks erect. Unlike the Yeti it prefers the more tropical regions of the Andes mountain range, rather than snow-covered peaks. The locals say the Ucu likes to eat payo, a plant similar to cabbage, and emits a sound like uhu, uhu. It is not just locals who have reported hearing or seeing the creatures.

In 1956 geologist Audio L. Pitch, while walking on the Argentinean side of the Andes, found footprints 17 inches long (about 42 cms) at a height of about 6000 feet (2000 metres). Some reports say 16000 feet (5333 metres), which sounds a bit high up.

In 1957 similar tracks were reported in the province of La Salta, Argentina. The same year residents of Tolor Grande told journalists about a nightly chorus of eerie sounds like calls of an animal, emanating from the near by Curu-Curu Mountains. The cries were attributed by the locals to the Ukumar-zupai and the community remained frightened for some time afterwards. Anthropologist Pablo Latapi Ortega wrote that traditional stories of these giant ape-like creatures continue to be told today.

In May 1958 a group of campers in Rengo, 50 miles from Santiago, Chile, reported that they saw an apeman. Police were called and they took statements from the witnesses.

Carlos Manuel Soto gave this statement to the police: “I saw an enormous man covered with hairs in the Cordilleras”.

The stories sound very similar to traditional bigfoot and yeti reports. There appears to have been no recently reported sightings. As always the similarity of sightings and creatures in different parts of the world does make you think, could there be a population of unknown hairy bipeds still alive in the world today. Well, gorillas were considered a myth at one time; now they are on TV documentaries, so maybe not as impossible as some sceptics would have us think.

LINDSAY SELBY: The Chuchunaa

Reports from Russia tell of a creature known locally as the Chuchunaa, which is over 2 m (6/7 feet) tall, clad in deerskin and unable to talk, although it does utter a piercing whistle. A man-eater, the Chuchunaa often steals food from settlements. Observers say that the creature has a protruding brow, long matted hair, a full beard, and walks with its hands hanging below its knees. Soviet scientists speculate that the Chuchunaa represents the last surviving remnant of the Siberian paleoasiatic aborigines that retreated to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka rivers. The last reliable sightings were in the 1950s and this animal may now be extinct. (Anonymous; "Yeti or Wild Man in Siberia?" Nature, 271:603, 1978.)

The Chuchunaa are a type of bigfoot said to inhabit Siberia They are usually described as being 6 or 7 feet tall (2 metres), have broad shoulders and come in a variety of colours, some on the same creature. What makes them different from other hairy hominids is they are often reported as wearing animal skins. As Siberia is extremely cold, one shouldn’t be surprised at this. The Chuchunaa is also called other names including Mirygdy, Mulen, Tjutjuna and in one village they named one Mecheny or 'the marked one.' This particular creature had lighter-coloured arms than the rest of its fur. Many have speculated that they are a relic neanderthal group and represent the last surviving remnant of the Siberian paleo-asiatic hominids that retreated to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka rivers.

Their existence has been taken seriously by the authorities. In 1928 the Soviet Union sent out search parties to gather information on them .

In 1933 Professer P. Dravert called upon the government to make hunting of them illegal on the grounds that all people of the U.S.S.R. deserved equal protection

The Soviet News Agency TASS said specialists at the Institute of Language, Literature and History in Soviet Yakutia, northeastern Siberia, have been evaluating testimony of Siberians who claim they encountered the man-like creature called “chuchunaa”. The Soviet historian and ethnographer G. V. Ksenofontov wrote in his book Urankhai Sakhalar: 'The chuchunaa is a human. He feeds on wild deer and eats the meat raw. They say he tears the skin off the wild deer and wears it, just as we do the hide of a fox. He lives in a lair like a bear. His voice is unpleasant, grating and hoarse. He whistles, frightening people and reindeer. Men come across him very rarely and often see him running away… The chuchunaa’s face is black, and it’s hard to make out the nose and the eyes. He can be seen only in summertime. In winter he is not around.”' (In the Footsteps of the Russian Snowman, by Dmitri Bayanov, 1996. Pyramid Publications )

Yakutia, one of the leading newspapers in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) published in May 2004 a report concerning the protection of the natural world in Yakutia. It had the following paragraph:

'The Screaming of Sendushnyj. Mount Kuorat-Khaja lied opposite the fishing village of Chekurovka 2). On a dangerous steep slope lied the ruins of an aeroplane. Some old people claimed that in 1957 hunters from the surrounding villages killed a Chuchunaa, the snowman. It is said that its body was brought on the Lena river to Yakutsk [capital of Yakutia] and disappeared there. The legend has it that Chuchunaa lived in the mountains of Verchojansk. It caught reindeers, the skins of which it wore. It is further said that upon meeting people, the snowman would scream quite terribly. In the Tundra, this snowman was named Sendushnyj, after ‘sendukha’, an old name of Tundra. Although this legend defeated any commonsense, it refused to die. On the other side of the mountain range, in the areas of Najba 3), some reported of a highly discreet creature that was called Ikki-Mterlljakh, literally meaning ‘two meters tall’. It is claimed that those who were hunting, fishing and/or collecting firewood along the riverbank saw the snowman. It is also reported that as dawn set in, he would enter the village.'

Reuters ran the following report in August 16th 1990:

Soviet KGB border guards were put on a state of maximum alert after a night patrol sighted a creature 2 meters tall with brilliant eyes. The beast, which surprised the guards of the Red Flag border post in the Soviet Far East, resembled the mythical Abominable Snowman, or Yeti. Soon afterwards it was seen trying to climb up to a roof, but eventually retreated to the forest.

Russian researcher Alexei Sitnikov and his team reported a sighting that took place in 1993, while on their way to Lake Tonee. The scientists had been planning to study the area for several years, but had been unable to do so because of a lack of resources and the state of the Russian economy. Their expedition was to search for proof of the possible habitation of a gigantic serpent/ snake in the region. They had barely begun their trek when they encountered a creature known to the locals as "snow man." They were crossing the river on a raft, and on the other bank of the river noticed a man who was covered with reddish fur. The creature turned around, made a sound resembling grunts, and then disappeared in the thicket. Sitnikov said that the creature was only 10 feet (3 metres) away when they saw it, and it was plainly visible. The creature was about 7 feet (2 metres) tall with dark fur but not thick. Its head was somewhat triangular in shape, widening toward its base. It had small eyes, wide nostrils, and a slit in place of a mouth. The neck was not visible and it looked as if the head was placed on wide shoulders.

In December 2002 the Russian newspaper Yakutsk Vechernij (Evening Yakutsk) printed a report of the journey of two journalists on the track of a strange animal. In a village in the Verkhoyansk region, Barylas district, an unknown animal had been caught in a wolf-trap in the middle of March 2002. It was already dead when discovered and described as "like a primate" about the size like a large dog. The whole body, apart from feet and face, was covered in fur. It had a long tail. There are three versions about what happened with the corpse: the teacher Jakob Potapov from the neighboring settlement Borulakh said that the body had been taken to the capital Yakutsk; others claimed that the animal had been torn to pieces by dogs; another version was that "frightened people" had buried the corpse together with the trap. The chief of the Sartan town concil, Sergej Slepzov, talked about another similar case 6 months earlier. A young man, Albert Slepzov, had found a dead unknown animal similar to an ape. It was suggested that it could be a Chuchunaa. Some local people who had seen the dead animal called it Aabasi kiila. The reporter Elena Tikhonova and the photographer Michael Kotschetov contacted the relatives of Albert Slepzov in the settlement Badagaj. They confirmed that Slepzov had found a strange animal but were unable to say what happened with the corpse.

This is just a selection of reports of the creature. So once again only eyewitness testimonies and no physical evidence. Some of the eyewitnesses were scientists and local people who would recognise a known animal, you would think. There are a few scientists that believe a relic neanderthal group or groups exist today in remote regions. The fact that this creature wears skins could be an indication of this. Others dispute the theory on the grounds that neanderthals were only at their greatest height 5 and a half feet tall (1.7 metres) and not as tall as the Chuchunaa are reported to be. This of course does not take into account that the creatures may have evolved over the last 10,000 years or interbred with humans and grown taller. If the financial position changes in Russia, more expeditions may be funded, one can only hope. In such a remote region, one would need to be well funded and prepared to be able to stay for long periods of time, to collect testimonies and if possible, physical evidence.

NEIL ARNOLD: China’s Child-Stealing Monster

When your parents told you the bogeyman would come and get you if you misbehaved or wouldn’t go to sleep, and you sniggered into your blanket. It’s time to think again….

From the St Petersburg Times, August 25th 1947.

‘Chinese Claim Strange Monster Steals Children –
Shanghai – Villagers and peasants around Pootung, across the Whangpoo river from Shanghai, have established a day and night watch for an amphibious monster which they believe is carrying off children.

Descriptions of the alleged beast vary, some saying it is half-man, half-ape, others that it resembles a huge wild boar. Whether children actually have vanished is uncertain, but two sets of parents , both sampan dwellers, have told of snatching their children to safety in the past week when the monster grabbed for them.’

The Daytona Beach Morning Journal of the same day added, ‘The neighbourhood has no doubts about its existence, however, and had erected a bamboo watchtower which is manned constantly. Volunteers also patrol the creek banks.


The China Press, an English language paper, said a 30-year old woman was killed last week by a posse which threw her into a pound when she refused to confess to any knowledge of the monster. Reasons for suspecting her were not given.’

NEIL ARNOLD: The Phantom Ape-Man

There is nothing like a chilling ghost story at this time of year. And one of my favourite ghoulish tales comes via Rev. Archdeacon St. John D. Seymour, and concerns a bizarre entity once said to have haunted an Irish castle. Certainly, a handful of reports of phantom ape-men and spectral monkeys litter world folklore, and in the UK a scant few exist. Such a tale is mentioned in True Ghost Stories by Marchioness Townshend and Maude Ffoulkes, who comment that “]'the truth of this story was vouched for to Mr. Reginald Span by the Vicar of the Anglican Church, Arizona, as it happened to some friends of his when they once rented a picturesque castle in the South of Ireland.'

The story goes that a 'Mrs. A.' was sitting in her bedroom awaiting the arrival of her husband when the door in the corridor began to bang. Strange footsteps appeared to creep about the premises but Mrs. A. felt no fear and attempted to confront whoever had encroached upon the property. With candle in hand she peered into the darkest corners of the place and suddenly noticed a figure heading towards the staircase. The apparition turned to look at her, and this is when she became terrified. The head of the spectre was certainly human but the rest of the form belonged to a huge ape. The monster glared at Mrs. A. but then suddenly vanished into thin air.

Mrs. A. was eventually calmed by her daughter. A few nights later Mr. A. experienced the same ghastly beast. He’d been coming upstairs from the hall one night after everyone else had gone to bed when he heard a peculiar laugh coming from the direction of the landing. Looking up, Mr. A. observed a hideous face belonging to an ungainly figure, leaning over the banister. Although the face belonged to a young man, the rest of the body was covered in reddish-brown hair. The laughter of the creature echoed trough the halls as Mr. A. ran upstairs to confront the presence. The rest of the family were naturally disturbed by the mocking and they all hurried from their beds.

The next few days were very quiet in the household until one afternoon when Mrs. A, whilst sitting arranging flowers in the drawing-room, felt two hands rest on her shoulders. Thinking it was her daughter, Mrs. A. turned but found herself face to face with a laughing monstrosity, which stood over six feet in height and was covered in hair similar to that of a gorilla. The hideous ape-man disappeared as soon as a friend came to aid Mrs. A.

The family decided they’d had enough of the castle and the mocking spectre, and so headed back to the U.S.A. shortly after.

DALE DRINNON: On the Identity of East Asian And North American Giant Manlike Apes

On the Identity of East Asian And North American Giant Manlike Apes As Represented in Traditional Art and On the Identity of Both with Gigantopithecus sp.


During the 1980s I was a student assistant for the Anthropology departments at both IU-Bloomington and at IUPUI and I did artwork for both of them. One of the things I did was a speculative reconstruction for Gigantopithecus (Scan included here), which was in general agreement with the version that Grover Krantz came up with subsequently.

At the time it was still a widely held viewpoint that the Miocene apes had descended from small monkey-like ancestors that ran around on all fours much like large macaque monkeys (Proconsuls were supposed to fall in this category) but that many of the intermediate ones were bipeds like today's lesser apes like the gibbons and siamangs. The Miocene apes Oreopithecus and 'Ramapithecus' were generally thought to be bipeds. Using skeletal material from those early apes I made an allowance for larger body size and came up with this reconstruction. It is mostly speculative, of course. However, the point had been made and was then widely circulated that the ancestors of the modern apes were probably bipeds like today's lesser apes, and that the quadrupedal stance of modern apes was a secondary adaptation. Indeed, gorillas and chimps are knuckle-walkers while orangutans place the hand differently on the ground, indicating that the quadrupedal stance was separately evolved along different paths (a source for this is the popular book The Red Ape).

During the 1980s also, it was becoming clearer how Gigantopithecus fit in with the other fossil apes. It was not a part of the more primitive Dryopithecines but of the more advanced Sivapithecines (which also included 'Ramapithecus'). This could be told because the enamel on their teeth was much thicker (and hence more human-like: thinner-enamelled chimps and gorillas must be degenerated in that respect). So that there was nothing basically wrong with the idea that Gigantopithecus was a biped or would tend to evolve in that direction: the other early apes were already inclined to be bipeds (more recent fossil finds are tending to confirm this)
In this case, my Gigantopithecus reconstruction struck me as reminiscent of a Mexican precolumbian figurine of Xolotl, which seems to have an ape's head and massive torso on short legs but human feet. The statuette also has other human-like features: the arms are long and most especially the teeth include fangs.

John Green once said that the Sasquatch could be compared to a gorilla's torso, and arms and legs long enough to be comparable to a human being's. I include also a mock-up showing that idea by way of a comparison.

The ape-like face, with its strong browridge and cheekbones framing very round eyes, is also reminiscent of an illustration from Ivan T. Sanderson's Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, toward the back part of the book and showing a mask from Inner Mongolia.

This mask has a decidedly ape-like head and jaw, but it also had to be worn as a mask and so the cranium had to be fitted to a human head for the wearer. If the original had an ape-like top to the head, that part would cancel it out. But in this case it is the jaw that is of primary interest.

Both the Mexican Xolotl and the Mongolian mask have the same stylisation of the fangs, which is rather odd in itself. The fangs come in a set from the upper jaw and a set from the lower jaw. In this case, after subtracting the mistaken double-fangs, the depiction of the mandible resembles Gigantopithecus, especialy in the appearance of the teeth. Given the size of the mask and how large the lower jaw is on the mask, that might even be a pretty good size-match for a Gigantopithecus jaw in absolute size.

(A and B, Krantz's reconstruction compared to the Mongolian Mask. C and D., the jaw from the mask reconstructed and compared to the jaw of Gigantopithecus)

Similar masks are found in Tibet and they have been associated with the (larger-sized form of the) Abominable Snowman. On the North American side, fewer of the masks are skeletal but many are ape-like, and they are supposed to represent creatures called Sasquatch in English. There is a historical precedent to these ape-like representations: my IU-Bloomington North American Archaeology text included an illustration of one of the 'Stone monkey heads' found in the northwest Coast region in a datable context: this one was 500 BC (scan also included). It might not be the most monkey-like ones of the series but at least it is dateable.



These various depictions tend to reinforce one another, making allowances for the differences in style. They occur over a wide area, geographically, and over a long span of time, historically.

As far as direct evidence goes, a letter in Ivan Sanderson's files mentioned a hunter in southeast Asia that took a tooth out of what he called a Kung-Lu that he had shot. They described dimension of the tooth match Gigantopithecus. Spanish conquistadores also reported giant human teeth that also match the exact size and weight of Gigantopithecus teeth in both Mexico and Peru (these were about the same size as horse's teeth but are unlike them in shape: a horse's molar has a long cylindrical continuously-growing root and a lophodont chewing surface: these were described as bunodont with normal human tooth roots. Examples are quoted on some Creationist blog sites. There are also the old illustrations of these but unfortunately with no indication of scale). What is more, the same teeth are still being reported as in the mouths of large ape-like creatures in South America. Eberhart has an entry about them under Dientiendo, Big Tooth.


Gigantopithecus fossils


Krantz has been criticised as being presumptive and unscientific for saying that the shape of the jaw in Gigantopithecus indicated an upright stance. They say there is no evidence in absence of the body. It is well to remember that this was also the case in the Australopithecines when fossils of only the head and jaws were available: the shape of the jaws suggested an upright stance for the same reason. And eventually the fossils representing the vertebrae, pelvis and legs were found, all proving that it had indeed been so all along.

On the other hand, the old drawings with Gigantopithecus standing on all fours like an immense gorilla are definitely a fantasy with nothing to suggest that. At the time, none of the apes were going on all fours, knuckle-walking like that, and there is every reason to think that even if the Gigantopithecus WAS a quadruped, it would never be a knuckle-walker in the same way as a gorilla knuckle-walks, nor yet would its limb proportions be like the big gorilla Gigantopithecus reppresentations.

Patty Unretouched, Do not pay any attention to Retouched ones!

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: The Bhutan Yonquis

Australia has its own mystery ape: the yowie. By all accounts he is similar to the Himalayan yeti, the North American sasquatch and the yunqui of Puerto Rico, to name just a few of the mystery animals that have become big uncouth shambling brutes in the wilderness of the human imagination. ('Yunqui' is Argentinian slang for a North American, quite possibly the origin of 'yankee')

Yowies are believed to inhabit rainforest and gumtree forest beyond the Great Dividing Range. I thought that the best way to find a yowie would be to live within their habitat. Keep a camp oven simmering with ham hocks and oxtail and other goodies. No dogs, no guns, no sharps. Perhaps a few plump women. And exude an ambiance of passive, patient gentleness.

I wanted to see how the experts searched for a yeti so I watched a documentary titled The Bhutan Yeti, which was made by the Destination Truth team from California. They flew to the remote Kingdom of Bhutan. There they filmed local colour - archery, buddhist monks, prayer-wheels, white-water rafting and so forth.

With time to spare they made the creative decision to go and search for a yeti. So they drove to remote Sakteng, a preserve where the mysterious yeti and other better documented creatures live in peace. At least until the Destination Truth team arrived.

They set up base camp with a great array of fancy equipment.
White people have long meant the indiscriminate use of murderously powerful firearms. The mere presence of Americans should have ensured that every yeti for leagues around would run away. But these people were experts so they clearly knew what they were doing.

To their credit they found a tree with scratch marks on it, and collected a tuft of long white hair that later defied DNA analysis. Apparently the lab involved had no great ape DNA for reference purposes.

It was all very high-tech. Spock on Star Trek pioneered a blue light that shone into his eyes every time he tried to read his instruments. The Bhutan yeti team took a leaf from his book and went out into the darkness harnessed up with special dangling lamps that shone directly into their own faces. This made possible the use of in-your-face night-vision cameras. This was essential as they had brought along a girl whose task was to exude fear and to squeal in panic whenever crew members made noises off camera.

The yeti hunters blundered out into the night in twos and threes, clattering over rocks, getting entangled in the shrubbery and variously shouting, talking in stage whispers and operating walkie-talkies. One has to admire their technique. Clearly the purpose was to amuse and disarm the yeti so they could see him while he was rolling on the ground laughing helplessly.

The Destination Truth team had a fascination for the gorges. They had to shout above the noise of the rapids. Unable to hear or see their quarry, they searched caves in places prone to flash floods in case they were occupied by retarded yetis. Strangely enough, nothing whatsoever lived in those places.

They did find a cage-like gondola used to cross a ravine. They sliced through the rope that was used to tow it from one side to the other, no doubt because getting stranded in the middle made good theatre for the inevitable ad-break. Good PR, guys. The girl came in useful there.

They did bring back pictures of bones from the "meti", the brown bear of the Himalayas (you try saying "yeti" with your lips half frozen). Veteran researcher Dr Matako Nabuka says it is the source of the western myth that there are hairy hominids living in the region. How dare he say that?!

At the culmination of their hunt for this shy and elusive creature the Destination Truth team spotted movement with their infrared equipment. The yeti/ tiger/ bear/ wolf/ whatever it was had conveniently found the carcass of a deer. Following it, they found a deer leg. This resulted in a lot of excitement: "Whatever this thing is it's rippin' up animals in its path...!" leader Josh Gates shouted.

The thermal images could indeed have been a yeti that had shorn off his dense insulating coat. More likely it was a stray member of the Destination Truth team.

Gates now used a wonderful technique: the Californian Shout. Yetis being shy animals, the Destination Truth leader took off after the suspect animal, shouting Words of Power in order to make the fleeing creature freeze in its tracks.

"I don't know how much more I can do to get up close to where this animal is supposed to live," he yelled as he clattered up the hill, his lamps and equipment flailing around him. "It's moving. Go go go!" he shouted into his walkie-talkie. Back at base camp they seemed confused as to where to go.

"We're trying to chase it down now...it's scrambled up a hill, I think - we're actually in pursuit of it now... I don't think it has anywhere to go; we're going to chase it down," he shouted in heroic tones of uncertain determination.

If it was a yeti then in his terror of Gates he must have scaled the Himalayas and headed for China, for he was seen no more.

Did Destination Truth go to Bhutan to find a yeti or did they go there to make a dramatic documentary about uncouth monsters running around terrifying innocent native wildlife? I ask you: what were the yunquis really doing in Bhutan?
_____________________________________________

PHOTOS

BhutanYonquis1 how to sneak up on a yeti
BhutanYonquis2 in full cry
BhutanYonquis3 revelation
BhutanYonquis4 cutting edge documentary work
BhutanYonquis5 a yeti bad hair day
BhutanYonquis6 yunquis in deep thought

WHAT HAPPENED AT BOLAM LAKE

Tim was, I think, very brave to say what he did about his own experiences, in his article about the `Oz Factor` which we published this morning. I can appreciate that because, as he alluded in his article, something very strange happened to me almost exactly six years ago, in early 2003. So, for those who are not aware of it, I am republishing a piece I wrote for a popular magazine soon afterwards...

I am a scientist, and although my job entails traveling around the world investigating accounts of mystery animals, I have – nearly always – been able to provide a solid scientific explanation for the things that witnesses have reported. However, a couple of years back – almost three years to the day that I am writing this – I found myself in the position of being confronted with something that I really was unable to explain within any scientific frameworks…..

“What the hell was that?” I shouted as a giant man-like creature ran through the woods before me, illuminated only by the headlights of my Jaguar. It was well over 7 ft in height, thickly built, and was as fast as an Olympic athlete. But it wasn’t human. Was this in the forests of western China? In the foothills of the Himalayas? In the dense woods of the Pacific north-west of the USA? Nope. It was just after dusk, on a January evening, in a country park less than 40 miles from Newcastle city centre.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the only professional organisation in the world dedicated to research into mystery animals. In our time we have camped out on the shores of Loch Ness, searched through caves systems in Thailand for giant snakes, hunted Vampires in Puerto Rico, and trekked through swamps in Florida in search of the mysterious `Skunk Ape`. Just before Christmas 2002 we began to receive reports of a giant, hairy, ape-like creatures appearing in isolated tracts of woodland across the United Kingdom. We were sceptical at first, but we could not ignore these reports, and so without further ado we decided to go and investigate.

These things have been seen all over the country, but the biggest numbers of sightings were at an isolated country park – at Bolam in Northumberland. We have been investigating reports of strange animals around the world for 15 years now and we have the equipment to carry out investigations under all sorts of conditions. However, bizarrely, we have never gone on an expedition during an English winter before. However, over the years, we've got quite good at putting expeditions together on a shoestring and with only a couple of days to prepare ourselves.

Within days we were in a pub outside Newcastle with `Naomi` - a forty-year-old housewife who has asked to remain anonymous - and her fourteen-year-old son. `David`. She told us how – in the first week of January – they had been visiting the country park when they had an encounter with “a huge, black figure like an enormous shadow only dark and solid”, and she told us that even though the thing was standing still she had the feeling that it was “rushing at her”.

Another witness, Neil – a young man in his early twenties – reported how he had been night fishing at the lake with two friends. When they saw a giant figure “with shimmering eyes”, staring at them from out of the woods. On another occasion they were camping out when they heard the noise of a huge animal moving through the undergrowth outside their tent. They were too scared to look out, but in the morning their camp was wrecked and their bait was gone.

On our first day at the lake something very strange happened. Every piece of electrical equipment we had with me – including our mobile phones and the laptop computer – ended up with a flat battery, and strange noises were heard in the woods by several of our party. However, nothing could have prepared us for the shock, and thrill, of encountering the `beast` itself. Although our encounter lasted only a few seconds it has become indelibly etched into my brain, and I know it will remain with me forever.

What was it we saw that evening? I am certain that it wasn’t a man. It was too large and too fast. Could it have been an animal? As a scientist, although I am perfectly happy to admit the possibility that huge unknown species of ape can and do live in central Asia, and even in parts of North America, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot believe that there is an entire population of unknown great apes living in modern Britain undetected by man. It has to be something less tangible, a phantasm whose existence is governed by completely different rules of physics to anything that we as scientists presently know. If we could find out what it was, and how it can exist, then science would know a heck of a lot more about the workings of the universe than it does at the moment.

One thing is completely certain, however. Although I have seen many strange things and been to many strange places in my career as a monster hunter those few seconds in mid January was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me, and I know that I will remember them for the rest of my life.