Mande Burung Expedition Launch
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 5th, 2010
You’ve read the cartoons. You’ve heard about the confusion about the sightings and samples from Mande Burung or Mande Barung (also referred in stories on “Yeti hair“) and the ghoral results.
Now Extreme Expeditions author and cryptozoologist Adam Davies is going into the jungle in search of the Mande Burung. Davies will lead his latest extreme excursion into the rainforests of the West Garo Hills District, State of Meghalaya, India, which is very near Bangladesh. “Meghalaya” literally means “The Abode of Clouds” and is the name of that small state in northeast India.
We have met the Mande Barung or Mande Burung before (see below).
Earlier in the month, Adam emailed me with the facts about his expedition, asking me to hold off in posting the announcement until this week.
He wrote: “I will be leading a team to look for the Mande-Burung shortly. I find it fascinating that the sightings may point to the existence of a relic Gigantopithecus population. I will be leading the team, and have organized it, along with Dipu Marak. I have enclosed some bullet points and facts:
~ The Team will be on expedition for approximately three weeks. We will depart on Halloween, 31st October, from London, and return on November 19-20, 2010.
~ The team is headed by me. I will be joined by Dave Archer and John McGowan, who will be bringing their tracking expertise to the Team, whilst Dr. Chris Clark and Richard Freeman, will be providing Technical and Zooalogical expertise respectivley.
~ Dipu Marak, will head up the Indian Team, which includes both trackers and porters.
~ We will be deploying both traditional tracking techniques, as well as using hi-tech equipment such as infra-red, camera traps, thermal imaging and filed microscopes as well as a helicam, if appropriate. We will use silicon molding should we get any tracks to cast.
~ The team will be engaging in both arduous physical treks, and night stakeouts.
~ We have already arranged a series of appointments with alleged Mande-Burung eyewitnesses.
~ The expedition will be filmed for a forthcoming documentary.~ Mission statement: I would love to see one, but at the end of the day, it is all about the science. Getting pictures on the camera traps would be amazing. What the expedition really hopes to do though is get tangiable physical evience of the creature, should it exist, which can then be analyzed by independant scientific experts, (e.g. to extract D.N.A.).
I also hope to have a great adventure when we are there, and chill with the locals!
Please click on the above cartoon for a larger image.
Remember in June 2007 when artist Peter Loh, making contact from Singapore, sent in the above illustration to go with the breaking news (here, here, here) coming hot out of the rainforests of South Asia of a strange new creature, the Mande Burung (= Wild Jungle People)?
The hominoid was then back in the news in 2008.
Chad Arment made reference to a news item about the Achik Tourism Society (ATS) studying the Mande Burung of the Garo Hills in Meghalaya, which is “assumed to be an ape like creature like the Yeti.” (The ATS was previously cited as the source of the past Mande Burung too.)
An artist’s impression of the Mande Burung.
The May 6th, 2008, article noted:
The ATS has also come up with very comprehensive report and descriptions of Mande Burung or the so-called Bigfoot. It is big, apelike creature with thick hair covering its entire body. The colour of the hair is reported to be black or blackish brown. It has some kind of foul odour/smell emanating from the body. It has a footprint/pug mark size from 13 inches to 15 inches in length. It may be around 7’5″ to 9’ tall. It may weigh around 300 kgs. It is noted to be herbivorous creature, who eats banana, tubes, tree roots, fruits, berries, barks of some trees, sawe trees and is also reported to eat crabs. It walks on two legs (biped). (As reported in 2002 sighting). It sleeps in the nest built on the open ground (as reported in 2002 sighting). It is shy and is basically harmless (as reported in 2005 sighting). It is a creature with phenomenal strength.
The article also intriguingly mentioned that:
Those who have seen this ape like mammal have interesting stories to reveal. It is reported by the villagers that on one occasion, a man who was passing through a forest was captured by this mammal and forcibly made him do breast feeding. This was reported on January 18, 1999. His account said, “The milk was sour with a mixture of bitterness.”
Besides Mande Burung and their breasts, Adam Davies’ team should be on the lookout for ghorals, too.
The “Yeti hair” sample.
Goral (Rajaji National Park): Photo by AJT Johnsingh
Goral.
Hairs believed to belong to a Mande Burung/Mande Barung/Yeti in India actually were from a species of a goat-antepole-like animal, the goral, US scientists found out in 2008. This discovery was exciting to the specialists involved in the finding.
DNA tests on the hairs, which came from the Indian state of Meghalaya, showed they are from the Himalayan goral (Nemorhaedus goral), an animal with a grey-brown coat. This was a startling find, in and of itself, and one that Adam Davies and his team should take into account during his quest.
The Himalayan goral, also known as the gray goral, is a small, rough-haired, cylindrical-horned ruminant native to the Himalayas. In the past, it was also known as Urotragus goral. The Himalayan goral is found in the forests of the Himalayas, usually between 1000 and 4000 meters in elevation. Groups of animals typically occupy a territory of about 100 acres.
Finding evidence of ghorals in the Indian state of Meghalaya would be a worthy discovery for Davies.
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.
Thanks for this post, Loren.The story about being forcibly suckled worried me a little!!!! I will certainly try to avoid any hairy backed women with pendulous breasts.
Come to think of it, that’s good advice wherever you are in the world…
I will update you all on what I find when I get back.
Have a safe journey on this expedition Adam.
Best of luck on your expedition Adam. You live the life I would like to live if I had a do-over. Searching for Yetis, Orange Pendaks, and Mande Burung. I sit at a boring desk day after day. You the man!
Brilliant effort Adam and the CFZ! Adam is the CFZ Expedition Co-ordinator and an accomplished cryptozoologist. It’s so inspiring seeing people organise and embark on expeditions ‘in search of’. Good luck lads!
I commend Adam Davies for his guts in going to the rainiest place on earth in search of a cryptid. Luckily November is not monsoon season in Meghalaya.
Dipu Marak who is the go-to guy up there in the Garo Hills wants people to know that it is not Mande Barung as some western media have called it, but that the correct name is MANDE BURUNG.
I wish the Extreme Expeditions team all the best, but lads avoid Cherrapunjee and Mawsynram because they both hold records for wet weather. If you do have to go there then you’ll need a few hot cuppas in Shillong after your expedition!
Namaste.