How Old Are India’s Giant Footprints?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 10th, 2006
Early Indian news reports seem to be linking the finding of "giant" footprints in India with the "Malaysian Bigfoot" media madness, and the the temporary closing of China’s Shennongjia Nature Reserve (or "Bigfoot Park" in some stories), the alleged habitat of the Chinese Wildmen or Yeren.
But are the Indian reports clearly of an archaeological nature, and not about hominology? Inquiring cryptozoologists desire more exacting details!
January 10th’s Silicon India report and yesterday’s Times of India news item are broadcasting the message that the giant footprints found in India are in some way related to a giant "Bigfoot" candidate. But is there more to this than meets the eye? Here, from Silicon India’s "Footprints of giant man found in Kerala" on Tuesday, January 10, 2006, is the broader details:
KARALMANNA: A team of amateur anthropologists claims to have discovered footprints of a "giant-man" in a forest in Kerala who had a feet size of 29 inches, lived in a shelter 50 meters high and weighed well over 400 kg.
Members of the "team" said the "creature" may have been 17 feet tall, perhaps the "largest human form to roam the earth." What does this mean? A current True Giant footprint discovery or some tracks from the ancient candidates to contemporary accounts?
The article continues:
Announcing the ‘discovery of existence of ‘Bigfoot’ Monday, the team said the foot prints of the mammoth creature was found in a remote forest, about 60 km from Palakkad town in Kerala in South India.
When were they found? Exactly where? On the surface? During a "dig"?
I have to wonder, couldn’t this be an announcement of a recent find of fossil footprints, that has become caught up in the media circus about the Malaysian "Bigfoot"?
Silicon India notes:
"This is a site where many unknown geological, archaeological and anthropological facts lie buried," S R Krishnaswamy, the man who led the team said adding, "It’s a treasure-trove. Basically, the site where Bigfoot once roamed has a rock-shelter whose roof is 50 meters long, shaped into a circle. This would’ve been a deep jungle in the remote age."
"Once roamed"?
What are truths behind this developing story?
++++UPDATE 10 JAN 2005++++
As we speculated, this has turned out to be a story about some thing that belongs more in the realm of archaeological, or perhaps even geology. The one photo we have seen shows a find that is of a footprint-like depression in a rock.
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.
My guess is that this is a report of the tracks of an ancient homonid that once roamed that part of india. It was a homonid with big feet, but not Bigfoot. It truely seems like any homonid that hasn’t been 100% verified is now becoming bigfoot, and I’m not sure if thats a good thing.
I was born in India, and I know a very respected orthopedic surgeon here in the U.S., in my state of North Carolina, who is also from there and who has seen a rock with the imprint of a giant foot on it, though this was in Pakistan on a visit that he took there.
Apparently, there is definite evidence of gigantism in that part of the world – I recall being told by my mother, who was born in Pakistan, that she had seen huge (she called them giant) dogs in the Baluchi region of Pakistan. That is the same area where the bones of the biggest known land mammal in the fossil record have been found, the Baluchitherium, aka the beast of Baluchistan. As an aside, the rock band Van Halen have a song called “Baluchitherium”.