Mission Monster Monitored!

Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 2nd, 2012

Does the Mission Monster look like the Myakka Skunk Ape, shown above? (The creature was renamed after its exact location was re-established.)

There is breaking news out of Texas:

Creature sightings reported in Mission for weeks
May 02, 2012

By NAXIELY LOPEZ/The Monitor
NEAR MISSION — An orangutan-like primate reportedly roams the streets here, but no one has been able to capture an image of it — much less the animal itself.

Several law enforcement agencies have heard reports — often rumors — of a large orange- and red-furred animal that wears a white beard, but only one has a documented case.

On April 15, the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office received a call concerning the creature from a homeowner in the 6200 block of Western Road, according to information from Sheriff Lupe Treviño. Jose Garcia spotted the animal running into an orchard in the southwestern corner of Mile 5 and Western Road shortly after 10:15 p.m., according to the report. And Garcia told authorities a family member also saw it, several days earlier near Mile 3 and Western Road, west of Mission.

Investigators who went to the scene solicited the help of John Franz, a Brooks County cowboy, to help apprehend the animal. Dispatchers clocked in Franz’s arrival several hours later at 3:29 a.m. April 16. It’s unclear from the report if anyone else spotted the creature or if it was caught.

LATEST ENCOUNTER

Tuesday morning, Mission police became the latest to catch wind of the animal when they received a report from a student aboard a school bus. The sighting of a large primate — later described as the size of a 13-year-old boy — was reported near Stewart Road and Mile 2, said Cpl. Manuel Casas, Mission police spokesman. An officer searched the area, but did not find anything, he said.

Lupe Tijerina, who owns a home just north of the intersection in Mission, was cutting the grass outside his home Tuesday afternoon. The 77-year-old said he hadn’t seen or even heard of the alleged primate roaming his part of town.

“Ah, Chihuahua. Oh my golly,” Tijerina said after hearing the animal was reportedly the size of a teenage boy. “That’s scary. We have a lot of grandchildren and great-grandchildren over here.”

Mission police later corrected the initial information released and said the sighting had occurred near Mile 2 and La Homa Road, which placed the new sighting in Palmview’s jurisdiction.

Palmview police Chief Chris Barrera said he heard of reports in Mission, but his office had not received any calls.

Norma Vargas, 42, works at the H&H Meat Market at the Palmview intersection where the alleged orangutan was spotted Tuesday morning. Though she hadn’t seen the animal, she said, her 10-year-old son Alberto had mentioned a sighting about two weeks ago as they drove through a neighborhood near Mile 6 and La Homa Road and came across a group of sheriff’s deputies standing outside a home. Her son asked if she knew why the officers were looking up at the trees. She said no.

“They’re looking for a monkey who bit his owner,” she recalled Alberto telling her, and one of his friends who lives in the neighborhood had spotted it.The Brownsville Herald

Orangutan

The rest of the article can be read here. It is a dismissal ending about spider monkey sightings and drug dealers’ released pets. It really has nothing to do with the above, but it is what the media does with such accounts, sometimes.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


12 Responses to “Mission Monster Monitored!”

  1. Hapa responds:

    I remember watching the MonsterQuest episode on the Skunk Apes/southern Bigfoot, and they depicted the animal as having a orange-ish hair color. Considering that Giganto was a close relative of Orangutans and might have crossed the Bering land bridge/Beringia, one can make a case for this being a “Southern Fried Bigfoot”. Having said that, though I have never been to Brownsville Texas, I know it is at the southern tip of the state and I find it funny how such a big ape species could survive in a region as heavily trafficked as the Mexican/American border region. However, this could very well be a SFB (Southern Fried Bigfoot) that has wondered greatly away from its home turf, much like the Polar Bear that was shot while roaming deep in the Alaskan Interior, a great distance from the nearest Polar Bear (see MonsterQuest episode on monster Bears).

    This will probably be an Orangutan. But if it is a genuine Sasquatch, then the question of shooting to kill and prove it is moot: its a heavily populated area, and either some trigger-happy citizen or a trigger-happy cop will do it in unless it leaves town. Otherwise mounting such an excursion would probably be illegal in city limits, unless you are called in by State/local authorities to snag or capture it (good luck there). Capturing it might be allowable for a civilian in city limits but a shoot em up would not be smiled upon by the Cops.

  2. Hapa responds:

    BTW: another reason not to go fully loaded to Brownsville: This will most likely be an escaped Orangutan. While we don’t know whether Sasquatch is endangered or not (nobody has made a count of them Like Diane Fossey did of Mountain Gorillas, because the former hasn’t been friggin proven yet!), Orangutans are known to be very, very endangered. To see one shot and killed would be horrendous.

    It is a far safer bet to try and capture it. If it is indeed and Orangutan, it needs to be found and taken to safety before it either gets shot by cops, citizens, or hit by a car.

  3. Hapa responds:

    This is a link on Brownsville, showing among other things its geography and history.

    This city already has a rich history: if Sasquatch is found there, of all places, it will add a great deal more to it, and also to say the least boost tourism. I’ve heard its dangerous to get even remotely close to the border now, due to the violence and craziness along and below it. Perhaps this will bring to this tiny part of it a different, benevolent kind of craziness.

    BTW: I could be wrong, but is Bigfoot in Spanish “Pie’ Grande”?

  4. rickr727 responds:

    Hi Loren,
    I’m a huge fan of yours. This article came from my area and I just want to point out that the sightings are not taking place in Brownsville. Brownsville is actually around 70 miles from Mission, Texas where the sightings are being reported. The article was printed in the “Brownsville Herald” which is a partner newspaper to where the article was originally published called “The Monitor”. The sightings are taking place in Mission, Texas which is 70 miles east of Brownsville and in another county. I just wanted to clear things up.

  5. Loren Coleman responds:

    Dear rickr727: The “Brownsville Beast” has been renamed the “Mission Monster” after your good correction. Thank you.

  6. Bigfoot Believer responds:

    Loren-
    You get bonus points for the title on this one!

  7. red_pill_junkie responds:

    On orangutan isn’t the kind of exotic animal a druglord would like to keep as a pet.

  8. Hapa responds:

    red_Pill_Junkie

    “An Orangutan isn’t the kind of exotic animal a druglord would like to keep as a pet.”

    I have to admit they are very expensive upkeep animals, but if you are an ultra rich drug Lord with a bit of sick, satanic, cruel imagination, you can use such an animal as a scare tactic: Orangutans have been known to rape human women, and there have been reports of them kidnapping them as well (Jeff Meldrum, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, pages 78-79). If you’re a well read drug dealer and either want to punish a woman or a man by harming his wife or daughter or mother… I’ll let your imagination run with that.

  9. red_pill_junkie responds:

    @ Hapa:

    I dunno. These kind of people although perverted and sadistic still live by certain codes, you know? Throwing an enemy to be eaten by the lions might be seen as more acceptable than acts of bestiality to a person who still sees himself as Catholic.

    And besides, if an escaped animal would have been trained for such despicable things, we might have read of attacks to people living in Mission by now. Thank God we haven’t!

  10. Hapa responds:

    red_Pill_junkie

    Good points. Yeah I didn’t think about the fact that no Orangutan rapes have (so far) been reported. Like you said, hopefully they don’t get reported!

    In the same book I quoted, there are stories written down of Sasquatch supposedly raping and even impregnating Indian women in the west. I’m trying to remember if there have been such reports in modern times, other than one in one of Mr. Coleman’s books about a Sasquatch raping Cattle (can’t remember the book’s name)

  11. rickr727 responds:

    Just wanted to let everyone know that the “Mission Monkey” has been caught! The capture was made yesterday by local Animal Control officers. Hilariously, they used “Pan Dulce” which is sweet bread made locally here to capture it after several failed attempts using different fruits. Here’s the link to the story.

  12. red_pill_junkie responds:

    Thanks for the update, Rick.

    No one can resist Mexican pan dulce. 😉

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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