Davies Expedition To Depart
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 8th, 2009
Cryptozoologist Adam Davies is returning to Sumatra looking for more evidence of Orang Pendek. Above he is shown with a previously recovered cast of an alleged Orang Pendek footprint he and his native trackers found.
Please click on the image for a larger version of the photograph.
On display at the 2006 Bates College exhibition, "Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale,", above is shown the Adam Davies-Andrew Sanderson-obtained Orang Pendek original cast, from September 2001.
Extreme Expeditions author and cryptozoologist Adam Davies will lead a new group of explorers including Chris Clark, Dave Archer, and Richard Freeman, to Sumatra in search of a mystery primate and other unknown species.
Expedition organizer and multiple time adventurer into the area, Davies knows the local people well, and re-established contact with the Kubu people, who may have been the first inhabitants of Sumatra. The Kubu and their headman, who will aid Davies’ team, have seen the creature in what to Western eyes are poorly explored rainforests.
The group of British explorers and scientists, some invited by Extreme Expedition’s Davies from the UK’s Centre for Fortean Zoology, are about to embark on an expedition in search of an unknown hairy hominoid and other cryptids reported from this part of Indonesia. The expedition departs on Sunday, September 13, 2009.
The four-man team will search the jungles of Sumatra for what locals call the Orang-Pendek. The powerfully built, upright-walking beast may be genetically aligned to the orang-utan, fossil forms of smaller hominoids, and the other small mystery apes and undiscovered little people reported from mainland Asia.
In the same island chain, on the island of Flores, subfossil remains of the tiny hominid known as Homo floresiensis (which the media termed “Hobbits”) were unearthed in 2003.
Westerners have sighted the Orang Pendek too, including Debbie Martyr, now head of the Indonesian tiger conservation group, and wildlife photographer Jeremy Holden. Davies, as he has been telling Cryptomundo for months, has maintained close contact with Martyr to plan this expedition.
Davies’ group will look for other cryptids too.
Also reported in the same jungles are large horned snakes, called nagas by the Kubu, said to be 30 feet (10 meters) long.
Furthermore, there are reports of a golden cat with a stubby tail and large canine fangs. This locally known and named creature, the cigau, may be a surviving form of Homotherium or scimitar cat, which is a felid physically resembling the extinct saber-toothed cats. Fossils of Homotherium have been found in Indonesia that are only 10,000 years old.
As Davies notes from his past experiences in Sumatra:
I have found prints that have been analysed by a number of leading primatlogists/anthropologists, including Dr. David Chivers and Dr. [Jeff] Meldrum, and has been identified as an “unknown primate.”
[For example, on one of my trips,] we did find a Sunbear [foot print], but the cast of the unknown primate was also…identified as such by Dr. Meldrum.
I have also found hair samples, which again affirm the Orang Pendek to be an unknown primate, (see my Extreme Expeditions for reference).
Above shows the rather specific Orang Pendek track previously found, photographed, and cast by Davies and Andrew Sanderson. It shows toes at the end of the foot and another out to the side, which would be the hallux or big toe (which is typical for a pongid).
Please click on the image for a larger version.
The original 2001 Orang Pendek cast on display at Bates College is now available in first-generation copies, such as the above, thanks to the collaborative efforts with the International Cryptozoology Museum by Adam Davies & Jeff Meldrum.
Please click on the image for a larger version.
For more information on Davies’ previous Orang Pendek expeditions, refer to:
Extreme Expedition: Travel Adventures Stalking the World’s Mystery Animals by Adam Davies.
Artist Richard Klyver’s drawing of Homo floresiensis standing on Indonesia, on the cover of the above field guide, mirrors the descriptions of the Orang Pendek.
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.
This trip is good news and I am sure something good will come out of it.
I hope there is a more satisfactory outcome from dna analyses considering advances that have been made in this area! Sample are coming in but very few results are obtained that seem to fit what is being reported.
All best wishes to the team who are undertaking this expedition and may they shake hands with Mr and Mrs Orang Pendek-after the group photo. Well you have got to be positive!