DANIEL PACE: The European Wildman

Hello:

In medieval England, Germany and Switzerland there used to be sightings of so-called hairy "wild men" that were not ape-like Bigfoot giants but man-sized hairy men with a bearded European man's face. The sightings, still reported only in Switzerland where I visited last year, are of a naked hairy man of a European type like the wild men depicted on heraldic coats-of-arms. I'm sure you have seen many examples of these where you are in England. The European wild man always appears holding a wooden club of oak. As far as I am aware, no prehistoric 'cavemen' were completely hairy as the wild man and no prehistoric 'apemen' were over 4'11". So how does one account for the often 6-feet-tall wild man? Is it perhaps a thought-form
like the yeti of Tibet?

Daniel Pace
Florida

MICHAEL NEWTON: True Giants—True Story?

We’ve all heard stories of Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Yowie—pick your moniker of preference. By any name, it’s said to be a hulking, hairy biped of six to nine feet tall, leaving trails of humanoid footprints fourteen to sixteen inches long. But what if there was something even bigger lurking in the wilderness? Let’s say a creature resembling Bigfoot but towering twelve to twenty feet tall, with feet twenty to thirty inches long.

It would, to say the least, be startling.

In fact, for generations there have been reports of truly massive “Bigfeet” seen in North America and all around the world. Coupled with claims of Sasquatch popping in and out of UFOs, they have embarrassed authors who treat cryptozoology as a serious discipline, but simply ignoring the hairy Goliaths hasn’t made them go away. Neither has the incessant ridicule heaped upon seemingly sober witnesses by sceptics and professional debunkers.

Now, at last, veteran cryptozoologists Mark Hall and Loren Coleman have tackled the problem head on, in their new book True Giants: Is Gigantopithecus Still Alive? Their answer to that question is a qualified affirmative.

Hall coined the term 'true giants' back in 1992, thirty-odd years after Ivan Sanderson proposed the prehistoric ape Gigantopithecus as a Bigfoot-Yeti candidate—or “neo-giant”—within a list of four proposed unknown hominid species worldwide. Sanderson, however, chose to skirt the issue of bipedal monsters twice the normal size ascribed to Sasquatch. Myra Shackley followed Sanderson’s lead two decades later in her book Wildman: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma (1983; American title, Still Living?), while paleoanthropologists Russell Ciochon, John Olsen and Jamie Janes considered Bigfoot tangentially in their 1990 work Other Origins: The Search for the Giant Ape in Human Prehistory. Grover Krantz endorsed an evolved and altered species of Gigantopithecus as Bigfoot in 1992, naming it G. canadensis.

While most students of cryptozoology recognise “Giganto” as a favourite Bigfoot/Yeti candidate, many may be unaware that German anatomist-anthropologist Franz Weidenreich (1873-1948) renamed the creature Giganthropus, treating it as a primitive ancestor of Homo sapiens. Weidenreich’s view did not prevail against Edward Cope’s rule that population lineages tend to increase in size over evolutionary time, but dissenters persist—including authors Hall and Coleman, along with Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy.

Whether or not readers of True Giants finally agree with their premise, Hall and Coleman rate kudos for collecting all the available evidence on “true giants” and reviewing it even-handedly. The final product is a handsome volume, featuring cover art by Alika Lindbergh (former wife of Bernard Heuvelmans) and twenty-three black-and-white illustrations, with all material fully sourced. Overall, True Giants is a valuable addition to the literature of Sasquatchery and natural mysteries.

DALE DRINNON: RECENT POSTINGS ON CHINESE 'WILDMAN' HAIR SAMPLES

Local people think hair of unidentified creature could be from "Wild Man"
Global Times
November 23 2010

The Shennongjia Nature Reserve in Hubei province has examined a strand of hair which it has not managed to identify, prompting local people to speculate that it may belong to the "Wild Man" – China's own Bigfoot.

Piao Jinlan, a researcher at the reserve, said that scientists need to continue their tests before they can identify the species. The hair is said to be thicker than human hair and thinner than horsetail hair, and the reserve posted a photo on its website on November 22.

More than 400 people have claimed to have seen the half-man, half-ape "Wild Man" in the area in the last 100 years. Witnesses describe the creature as walking upright, more than 2 meters tall and with grey, red or black hair all over its body. An investigative team was set up in 2009 and started a large-scale search for the mysterious creature in Shennongjia this year.

http://china.globaltimes.cn/top-photo/2010-11/595939.html


Shennongjia releases micrographs of unknown animal's hair
November 25, 2010

The Shengnongjia National Nature Reserve has released the micrographs of unknown animal hair on its website on Nov. 22. The micrographs show that the hair of the unknown animal is very different from human hair and horse tail hair. Therefore, the exact origin of the hair is worth studying. The micrographs that have been released are from the molecular lab under the Research Institute of Shennongjia National Nature Reserve. Using a microscope, Piao Jinlan, a researcher from the molecular lab, observed the unknown hair samples, which included black and light brown hair, and translucent cream-colored hair from the area where locals originally found the unknown hair.

She also used horse tail hair taken from a ski field located in southern Shennongjia and women's hair as references to compare her findings. Researchers spent nearly half a day to compare the hairs and their observable internal structures and agreed that they cannot determine whether the unknown hair is human hair or horse tail hair.

Although Piao has been using and looking through microscopes for a long time, the microscopic images of this unknown animal hair still surprised her. However, she believes that a further in-depth analysis is still needed, with more scientific technical means to make a qualitative conclusion. The local nature conservation sectors said they will not rule out adopting any openly suggested scientific identification methods in order to determine the source of the unknown animal hair as early as possible and to unveil the mystery of the unknown animal.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7210877.html

DALE DRINNON: Wildmen of Southeast Asia - Tote-Up

It seems that generally there is a larger and a smaller type of 'wildman' throughout southeast Asia, and they both correspond to the types in India, Tibet and China as well. In other words, the 'wildmen' of Vietnam, Cambodia and so on are contiguous with the Chinese 'wildmen' and the Indian 'wildmen' (such as the ones recently sought by a CFZ expedition) Ivan Sanderson identified the larger type as the Tok and Kung-Lu in southeast Asia, but they are the same as the Shan (and variants) in South China and North Vietnam, as well as the larger type of "Yeti", and the larger type of Chinese 'Wildman'

Recently I was going over my records of the Vietnamese wildmen, or Nguoi Rung, as well as the possible surviving mainland orangutans, for which I make a distinction and identify with the Da Nhan and the Americans' "Rock Apes." From the information given to me by my informants (and just confirmed this morning by a message from certain Vietnamese cryptozoological authorities), the strictly hominid Vietnamese wildmen (including the Nguoi Rung) come in a larger and a smaller size; the smaller ones about five feet tall, broadly 4'6" to 5'6" and more tightly with average heights from 4' 8" to 5'4" (females on the low end of height estimates and males at the higher end) with tracks frm 6 inches to 9 inches or usually 8 inches long; and then the larger 'wildmen' that are six feet and over leaving tracks that are a foot long and over. The range in estimates would then be heights up to an estimated 8'6" and a tighter average of height estimates from 6' 9" to 7' 6" and tracks reported as 12 to 16 inches long. That is on the smaller end of Sasquatch tracks and height estimates but probably comparable with the Tok and Kung-Lu.

Against this I feel I can say now that the rock apes would more usually be between three feet and five feet tall, comparable to a chimpanzee and closely resembling one otherwise; and in this description it closely matches the Yeh-Teh, Yeren and ibagon of the more common sort. It is also likely to be the surviving mainland population of 'fossil pongo', somewhat larger than an orangutan and adapted to living on the ground more (without the more specialised traits for climbing that have been acquired by orangutans proper). The colouration of all types is highly variable but ordinarily some shade of brown; the 'wildmen' are more ordinarily dark or blackish, although white ones are regularly reported, and the apes more usually reddish brown. I should also stress that the reported appearances of the various types is extremely similar within the types: the Almas type is very similar to the smaller Vietnamese wildman or to the Rakshi-Bompo of the Himalayas and their tracks are very similar; the Sasquatch types are always described as being much like the American Sasquatch in appearance and in the size and shape of the tracks; and the rock apes or "Bigmonkey" (Mahalangur) types are illustrated as generally being extremely similar to a chimpanzee or orangutan, and including whether the same type of creature is called a Yeti or a Hibagon.

It would be helpful if we had more reports or tracks to go on, but the 'ape' tracks are generally consistent and directly in opposition to the human-like 'wildman' tracks wherever they might appear. And of the entire series, the Shipton Yeti tracks stand out not only for having the unusually large second toe, but also for being very much larger than the norm for the entire series otherwise (something like 150% larger in both length and width than usual)

On the second illustration, "Yetiscale" from the Cambodian Bigfoot site, the smaller ape does illustrate a good representation of the Yeti as commonly reported, smaller but bulkier than a regular human being. That is the exact description which I heard independantly from Vietnamese informants about the Da Nhan and from American soldiers about the Rock Apes.

WILD MAN IN LA

This almost unbelievable story turned up in my email inbox a few days ago. The accompanying text reads:

'Los Angeles Herald, November 19, 1905. Americans in the 19th and early 20th century were nuts about "wild men," which is why circus geeks were a popular attraction: It was like a chance to see Bigfoot in captivity. Everybody knew wild men were out there in the wilderness: Newspapers at this time would report rural sightings of supposed wild men (or women) all the time. They were always described as being "as fleet as a deer," many could jump 15 feet or more in a single bound (!), and they all lived on raw meat of some sort (cattle, snakes, whatever). Your typical showbiz wild man was probably just a hobo in a fright wig with just enough teeth left to bite the head off a live chicken. But as this story shows, some enterprising carnies were willing to go that extra mile to impress the marks.'

Read more (and see the rest of the clipping)

MORE ON POLISH "YETI"

People across the cryptoverse have been posting a news story, which reads in part:

http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009

"The Polish Yeti allegedly roaming the Tatra mountains has been spotted again already.

Earlier this week The Morningstarr* reported how 27 year old Piotr Kowalski from Warsaw spotted an ape-like creature hiding amongst rocks up in the Tatra mountains. Now 19 year old Justyna Folger has come forward with a video of her on a camping trip in the same area..."

I have to admit that I am not really any more impressed than I was by the first bit of footage
but the story is interesting, even though none of the footage presented so far is even approaching conclusive....