Nguoi Rung: Viet Nam’s Bigfoot
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on August 10th, 2006
Stan Courtney has posted an interesting letter from a Viet Nam veteran on his website. Click on the link to read the letter in its entirety.
Here is a portion of that letter:
It was 1969; I was on patrol one evening, just before dark in the North Two Corp in North Vietnam. We were returning to the hill, when we encountered hostile fire, the squad was caught off guard so we used what cover was available. The fight had been going on for only a few minutes when movement caught my eye. Through the thick vegetation I saw what I thought was a large man breaking cover from behind my left side. As the thing ran past me I realized it wasn’t a man, and was not really sure of what I was seeing. The thing was about 7 feet tall and had an enormous build, though not completely covered with hair, the thing had reddish brown hair covering a good portion of its body. It had covered about 30 yards very quickly passing within just yards of my position, when it got hit in the crossfire. The thing stumbled once or twice but never fell.
Below is an artist’s conception of the Nguoi Rung.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Looks like a cross between our Bigfoot and Emperor Ming.
I wouldn’t call that a “massive build”, either.
There were numerous sighting reports of this creature during the Vietnam conflict, not just from Americans but from all involved. One of the rumors about the “Minnesota Iceman” said it was shot in Vietnam and smuggled to the US in a body bag.
If I recall one of the wounds on the “Minnesota Iceman” was a bullet wound through the eye. I could be wrong but isn’t that a common area for a shot by a sniper? Wouldn’t be a farfetched scenario for a military sniper spotting something unusual from a concealed position and deciding to take it out and see what it is. (And then smuggle it out of the country and sell it to the “wealthy owner” in the Iceman story.)
Interesting about the dead enemy soldier. There are stories of Yowies (Coories & Goolagahs) tearing apart early prospectors and loggers in Australia. Kinda makes you think twice about chasing after one in the middle of the woods. If you were so inclined to do so…
One thing I know almost nothing about: what kind of documentation exists for sightings of these animals? How many have come forward?
It occurs to me that the Internet has done a great job coalescing sasquatch sighting/sign evidence into a body of data of considerable (you mean ALL of these are hoaxes or mistaken identity?) stature. There may be a similar body of info for the Southeast Asian animal(s) that hasn’t been so assembled yet, i.e., a whole lot of evidence, just none of us knows how much.
Look how long it took the saola to be confirmed, in country ravaged by bombs and covered with troops. If you could miss that, you could miss anything — particularly something that really WANTED you to miss it, and was smart enough to really act on that desire.
Where did the supposed connection with the Minnesota Iceman originate? I know Heuvelmans mentioned it, but I can’t recall reading his source.
DWA-
Follow the link for the blog above, and then follow the links at the blog. There have been a number of sightings and interactions over many years. There are even accounts of them kidnapping humans and holding them captive like some of the Bigfoot stories. There even was a pair that was allegedly captured and handed over to South Korean soldiers. Don’t know how credible the information is, but this is all in the links from the blog entry.
Hello, my first comment.
First let me say that I do believe in possibility of the existence of unknown hairy bipeds but this story doesn’t jibe with me. Now I’m not a Vietnam veteran but I do have some military experience and I have an avid interest in military history & affairs.
I clicked the link and read the whole letter and I have a problem with the terminology used in the in letter. An example would be the statement “North Two Corp in North Vietnam”. Whether describing a military corp or corp zone as in the case of our involvement in Vietnam the corp number was always referred to in Roman numeral form. It is possible that an enlisted man may not know the difference in terminology but the II Corp zone was located in South Vietnam not in North Vietnam. I don’t think anybody who served in Vietnam would not know the difference from the North and South. No Corp zone extended into North Vietnam and US conventional ground forces never operated in North Vietnam.
Also the use of the term “Tops” when describing his 1st Sargeant instead of just “Top” doesn’t really jibe with me either. But the biggest hole I found was what happened the next day. I have a difficult time believing that a 1st Sargeant would let his troops out of the firebase to find “Bigfoot” in a warzone. Especially after engaging in a firefight in the same area the day before.
There is to many things wrong with the story. I have to put it in the BS bin.
Mr. Spencer you left some excellent feedback on this letter. It seems most animals would be running in the opposite direction when explosions begin. I usually place primates at the top of the intelligence ladder and think that if there were a hairy biped in Vietnam it would be long gone from this area.
Agreed Dan….
The subtle errors in nomenclature and unit designations…including the reference to conventional forces north of the DMZ…raised serious red flags with me too…simple enough to verify…there are many sites dedicated to de-bunking service related claims…
After a skirmish or engagement…you are policing the area for casualties…not cryptids…JMHO
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ole bub…SSGT USAF, SAC Castle AFB, Ca. 4017th CCTS, B-52’s and KC-135’s 1967-70…1st Sgt, “E” Company, Oklahoma Military Academy 1964-67, and the killer dawgs
Sky King,
Perhaps the artist needed better descriptions. If told ‘Football player built’ he/she might get it closer, unless of course it is not understood to be American football.
The military errors are an interesting note. And something to know when finding these things.
The confusing elements of that first sentence had me reading and re-reading it over and over.
Reading the full story at the link, it seems even less believable; guys at a firebase being kept awake by howls? Sure seems like it would be a relief from mortars and rockets, downright peaceful by comparison.
File under “Fiction”, and not too good at that.
kidkarysma Says:
Mr. Spencer you left some excellent feedback on this letter. It seems most animals would be running in the opposite direction when explosions begin.
Kidkarysma, maybe you don’t know this, but often, in the middle of a jungle firefight, there IS no “opposite direction”!
I’m sure some ‘Nam vet here could further elaborate. I’ve known a number of them, and heard their stories.
I give my kudos to D. Spencer. Great work at seeing the detail. Not many people would have picked up on that. Sky King you also prove an interesting point. When engage in a firefight, maybe there was no place for the creature to go. But why (if it had any sense) would it want to kill let alone pursue the people with firepower (“we found the body of an enemy soldier that had been almost entirely torn apart”). It would seem as though the creature would know to stay away from the people with guns. Seemed like it would have taken off. Who knows, maybe it wanted revenge after getting hit in the crossfire.
So sorry, but this one is just a little too farfetched. As Mr. Spencer pointed out, all the military “mistakes” makes this story hard to believe and makes the credibility of the storyteller iffy. And the artist depiction of a “massive build” is way off in my opinion.
SPC McGaha, U.S ARMY
I wanted to clarify about the illustration used in this post. The story and the illustration are unrelated.
I found the image by doing a google image search for Nguoi Rung.
Were there areas of vietnam that wasn’t involved in major fighting, besides any demilitarized zones? Animals are very smart, even the dumb deer around northern california disappear around the beginning of deer season. Most around where I hunt usually head into town, where it is illegal to shoot. I’ve seen some resting on the front lawn of the city courthouse. My point is that it doesn’t seem “logical” for a smart animal to be where constant fighting is. I will admit that the jungles down that area do (did) have interesting things to be found. I know that vietnam use to (before agent orange) have the world’s largest bamboo, some bigger around than a common sized man could get his arms around. There is no reason to doubt an “intelligent” ape that has the ability to walk upright.
Even if this story is not real I am 100% certain that known and probably unkown animals have been killed during fighting. They always say war is hell even for the critters who have nothing to do with the war itself.
GREAT STORY, could be a real possibility that the minnesota ice man was killed during the vietman conflict. That sure is a big apelike creature some what neanderthal like. If they could prove this thing is real what a find it would be.
While this story may or may not be B.S., there have been reports of a “wild man” or hairy man thing running around in the Vietnamese area over the years.
This is just one more tale, and perhaps the Vietnamese would have more to say on the subject.
I don’t know about the alleged errors in military terminology. As far as the creatures direction goes, it doesn’t sound like it was running toward the battle, it just happened to be caught in it. And for a large primate species one could understand it attacking one of the enemy soldiers. (Assuming the whole story is not BS.)
As far as whether it would keep a whole firebase from sleeping, I could believe that as well. Some of the alleged North American vocalization recordings are pretty creepy and unnerving.
So I’m not saying that the story is authentic, just that I don’t think what I addressed above is too damaging to its credibility.
Hopefully a Vietnam veteran can comment on whether the terminology used indicates that the writer really didn’t know what they were talking about.
A few years back I asked a friend, who was a Recon Marine in Vietnam, about sasquatch like animals being seen during the war. He said he hadn’t seen any. He told me that there were, what they called, rock apes that would sometimes throw rocks at them. He said they were about four or five feet tall. He did say that such an animal could exist and stay hidden in Vietnam.
would like to add thanks to all who have served.
I agree the voice recordings are creepy and alittle scary they are such piercing screams yells. That maybe can prove these hominids are real.