Johor Pix Hoax: More
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 4th, 2006
The book above is the source of the recreations that were photographed, and then scanned, taken out of context, or otherwise shown to Vincent Chow as evidence of the “Johor Hominid.” We all know now it was an elaborate hoax, with a society created, some guardians, and eventually a website supporting this misinformation.
This discovery is to be fully credited to Jean luc Drevillon, who cc’ed the following email to me early this Friday, August 4th morning (at 3:25 AM) but unfortunately via the Editor email address at Cryptomundo. I did not see this until mid-day when it was recently relocated. It contained all the specifics, as follows, to the exact source of this hoax. (Please, anyone, leave comments below, or you may directly email me at lcoleman (at) maine.rr.com if you have breaking news.)
Sent: Fri 8/4/2006 3:25 AM
Subject: johor hoax
Jean luc Drevillon august 4th 2006
Dear Vincent Chow.
Greeting.
I m a french hominologist and i follow the johor bigfoot affair since the begining. I hold the evidence the johor’s photos are a hoax. The picture of the eyes released today had started me thinking and i have recognized the Australopithecus’s eyes in a french TV documentary. I believe the Johor photos are the photos of the book “L’Odyssee de l’espece”, the book of the TV documentary “L’Odyssee de l’espece” released in french in 2001. I show you some scans of the book, on the picture lucy1-page38 you can recognize the eyes of the photo released. On the picture habilis1-page56 you can recognize the hand holding the stone and the face in the drawings. All of this is a hoax.
You can purchase the book .(on Amazon)
Yours faithfully
Jean luc Drevillon Toulon, France
This was followed by all the photographs that probably were scanned from the book and shown to Vincent Chow as the three said to be part of the 14. It is a deceitful and sad hoax.
Click image for full-size version
Click image for full-size version
Click image for full-size version
For a complete rundown on all the August 4th breaking news on the “Johor Hominid” hoax discovery, please also see:
More Johor Fallout: Peter Loh Reacts.
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.
I am stunned that anyone could look at those pictures and believe that they were of real creatures. While they’re certainly good costumes, anyone with even a passing knowledge of any natural science should be able to tell that they are just that: costumes. Unbelievable.
Not necessarily costumes. Some may be. Others look like animatrons or robotics. The eyes of certain creatures up there resemble eyes of animatrons; bulging and fake.
Pathetic hoaxers…
Animatronic models still involve costumes. My point is simply that anyone with half a brain should be able to tell that those aren’t real creatures. 🙂
Now that I look closer, some are computer animated, too. And now the fact that they were purloined from previous informative films? This guy was nuts; trying to fool an entire world!
So let me get this straight; a guy (the name evades me…who was it?) scanned these images and then had people sketch them, saying they were real photographs? Shouldn’t the owners of JH.org be in some sort of trouble for:
a-being in cahoots ‘in flagrante delecto?'(spelling…?)
b-being idiots
I think they should. Anyone can realize those are elaborate hoaxes… Except, I guess, the founders of that idiotic site.
I got in countless arguements with the bloggers there on evolution vs. creationism (…ha…), and how these must be false info. They are still believing… Even after the photo releases.
Sad
It’s easy to believe those pixs are real…
Especially to those that want to believe.
I think Vincent Chow now regrets that he didn’t show the photos earlier to someone who could tell right away that these aren’t real creatures (in fact, I’m sure most people familiar with wildlife photography will be able to tell the difference)…like many of you have said…sad.
what’s more sad… the fact the whole thing is done and a hoax or the fact Chow could have saved time, money, and his career by just showing someone these pics months ago.
I remember wathcing this same show on the discovery channel. I think it was called “a species odyssey” something like that.
The picks of the apes with stones was a discussion of how the first primates made a discovery that stone can cut when one ape cut his finger on the stone and then later when trying to get to the meat of a dead crocidile the ape used that stone to cut into the meat. Then the leader took the stone and was sniffing it as in the pic above.
Toooooo Funny they got fooled or tried to fool us.
I never saw the show, though I have seen many interesting shows involving the like. They do make the creatures quite realistic, which, I guess, is why its so easy for the naive or believers to succumb so fast.
Well I held out hope but I also was right on the Money and what a BIG BIG JOKE. My gosh How far back will this hoax set back BF researchers. They will be told yeah right just like Johor. This was the worst ending that we could have had.
And you know what I am angry that Chow and Ang put us through this. Like WE ALL SAID SHOW THE PIC’S AND WE WILL KNOW. Who is EVER GOING TO BELIEVE OR TRUST THESE TWO EVER AGAIN. Not me.
Everyone seems to be saying these are pathetic and not believable, but I’m sorry, they’re quite good simulations, especially of the females. I can see how one could be fooled, especially if they were wise enough to copy them slightly out of focus or limit viewing in detail.
That said, as I posted last night, the fact that -any- photo was shown blew the lid off the story, as it invalidated all their reasons for not showing the pictures to begin with. Glad it’s over now.
The “squatter with testicles” pics are IMHO quite obviously someone in elaborate makeup… hell, the ‘Dawn Of Man’ costumes from 2001 looked better and more convincing! That being said, there IS a certain “creepy authenticism” to the “female” pics, especially the one where she’s looking into the camera. I can see why Chow/Ang/etc would’ve gotten worked up about that one, but as soon as you factor in the glaring inconsistencies between the squatter and the female, the researcher’s BS detector should have went off.
Back to square one I guess.
I rcall saying it appeared some — with egg on their faces — were about to start crying to get out of the frying pan. or close to that.
I hope those ‘Guardians’ get banned from public life for this — did they have a grudge against Chow? Or were they thinking ‘Gullible fools, We’re gonna be RICH!?’
Quick rich schemes have a tendency to go the opposite way.
They are good costumes or models. As photographs, though, they are obviously too good – too close up, too clear. No one could get pictures that perfect of a shy, intelligent species of primtate. They would actually have been more convincing had they been rephotographed to appear at a greater distance.
The question remains: how did anyone look at these and think they were real pictures taken under field conditions?
This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. What a sad day in crytozoology. This whole thing could had been avoided. Everyone involved in this hoax should be held accountable including Dr.Chow. Where do we go from here this whole story went for a long time. Is there any hope for us ever to see real photographs of unknown humanoids. What a disgrace. We all were excited at the possibilty that dr. chows photographs were going to show real humanoid like apes. I admit it was caught up in the whole story.
As a previous poster stated Chow should have shown the pics to some experts for their opinion but no…
Evidently he was looking to garner all the limelight himself and it backfired.
I am an accountant by trade and have just an amateur’s interest in Cryptozoology and even I can tell the pics are fake. This from someone who is supposed to be an expert in the field is just pathetic MR. Chow.
MR. Chow you just bought the ticket to career oblivion… have a nice trip.
This trip down the lane of non researched, undocumented and bad science it just disgusting. Makes me wonder how many box tops Chow had to send in for the “Dr.”.
It makes you wonder how anyone thought they could get away with it by taking pictures from such a readily available book and television series.
This is all too funny.
Yeah. I agree. Quite idiotic.
Already mentioned in the first place, there was no such creature in my country. But I was fired many times by some who went round gathering publicity with a silly looking footprint cast that looked more like Sesame Street’s Big Bird’s footprint instead of the gentle giant’s prints. Publicly fired at that for pointing facts and not grabbing on thin air, aye! And these who are hungry for publicity kept saying how pathetic we were for making analysis, ask us to wait till we see the photographs. Heck, now we see, SO WHAT? Just proves, another hoax, another round of false publicity, another round of intentional dissemination of misleading information.
I had been watching Vincent’s site since it first launched, and after about a week, doubts started to creep into my head. Too many things didn’t add up…
Then when the “photo” showed up, it was amazing how quickly things fell apart. Literally minutes after the hoax was revealed, the site was down for maintenance… hmmm… qawinkydink?
I have also been keeping an eye on events today as they have unfolded here, and it really drives home the point of how powerful the internet is!
Some may think that Vincent & Sean got taken in too (like many of us), but I am sure they knew full well what they were doing… They just didn’t count on the internet being as powerful a tool as it is, and people being smart enough to use that power. They hoped they could play the world as fools… I think we can all now agree on who the fools really are, and there are only two of them. They wanted notoriety, and they got it. The only problem is, it turned out to be not quite the kind they wanted (I assume). They are now cemented in history as two of the biggest horses @$$’s in the crypto world.
I wouldn’t be suprised if their next job’s had the phrase “Do you want fries with that?”.
Nicely put CHICAGO DAN, we all were excited now we are left with nothing. This whole thing is ridiculus. It comes down to this we need to get body of one these alleged bigfoots where ever they are to prove once and for all they exist.
I’m not a professional researcher by any means… just an IT professional with an interest in wildlife and cryptozoology (among a great many other things). The photos, I’m sorry, look obviously fake to me. Put them next to a picture of a live chimpanzee or gorilla… cosutmes are easy to spot.
It figures!
jjames1 Says:
Animatronic models still involve costumes. My point is simply that anyone with half a brain should be able to tell that those aren’t real creatures. 🙂
I’m at least SUGGESTING that everyone on the Malaysian end was a witting party to this hoax, which was intended to be a “funding magnet”.
pandafarmer Says:
“what’s more sad… the fact the whole thing is done and a hoax or the fact Chow could have saved time, money, and his career by just showing someone these pics months ago.”
I hate to go into this area again, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO reason to believe that the entire crew isn’t involved in this damnable hoax, including Chow and Ang.
Well, that’s that then!
sighs of relief or snorts of disgust abound.
One more round of “Johor Gin” ™ for the road, then it’s back to the Blobsquatch hunts and the Wookie Invasion of Oz!
Oh, it’s a Cryptastic world! It is.
Wow, I leave for four days and I miss the big breaks in the news.
If these photos were scanned from a French book, when Chow said he had “photos” did he mean he had scanned images on a computer? Does that not suggest he never had or had access to “original photos” developed by a conventional camera. Or did someone print these off on photographic paper?
Either way, kudos to Jean luc Drevillon. He should be considered a hero in the crypto-community.
Scarfe, please catch up in your reading and digest all the four or five blogs on this for August 4 and 5.
There is no one (intelligently) saying that Chow is the source of any scanned photos. Someone else was feeding him the photos and not letting him release them. We know why now….
Loren,
I know he’s not the source of the images, but he said he had seen the images. I’m wondering if he ever saw physical photos (i.e what you would normally get when developing photographic film) or if he just saw these scanned images. Did he ever hold the images in his hands, and if so, in what form? Just on computer paper? Photographic paper, etc.?