More Johor Fallout: Peter Loh Reacts
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 4th, 2006
Artist Peter Loh, who was there from the first, to hear of the leaked info on the photographs, puts pen to paper to record his editorial feelings for Cryptomundo about this sad outcome.
For a complete rundown on all the other August 4th breaking news on the "Johor Hominid" hoax discovery, please also see: Johor Hominid Photos: Hoax! Johor Pix Hoax: More.
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.
Well, they couldn’t convince us, but they sure managed to con Vince… 🙂
Thanks, Loren, for putting up the drawings!…Looks like some of the Malaysian Bigfoot stuff in here will have to be moved to your other category…Hoaxes!
Oh, my That’s funny!
I am glad someone finally did this… Kudos to the artist!
Is this any surprise to any one here. Darm them toons are 2 funny.
the truth is refreshing, love those toons.
So, is this hoax universally known?
Peter, I can understand you wanting to distance yourself from Mr Chow, but remember you said this in May;
“Mr. Chow, IMHO, is a man who comes across as a very learned and experienced 59 yr-old guy who exudes an air of confidence that could only have come from a man who knows exactly what he’s talking about and is dead sure that he has solid evidence. I could tell that this self-confessed “nature man” is also passionate about wildlife and conservation- he has a deep respect for nature. In short, he seemed to me, while we chatted, to be a straight-forward, nature-loving person who didn’t beat about the bush when questions were thrown at him. He spoke with such authority and sincerity that I was convinced that this man was serious and very likely telling the truth.”
I see no issues with Loh’s earlier comments.
Vincent Chow was hoaxed too, of course, and I see nothing in what Peter has said or drawn regarding this all that make us think any less of the passionate but naive awareness of Mr. Chow.
If the photo could finally be released, even a snippet, why not from the beginning? And then we may have avoided all of this.
Still, there is nothing in what is said in the Peter quotation above that does not still ring true, within context.
What annoys me is the newspaper column that some fool inevitably writes about how “this closes the book on Bigfoot” and “stories of hairy monsters are fun, but they’re just stories.”
How many of these have been written over the years?
The interesting thing is everything Chow said in the describing the Photos was true They were very clear and what he said could be seeen could be seen.
He was duped I am sure, a pity, but I am wondering how many he has unknowingly irritated over the years and how many he thought were friends are enjoying this entirely too much.
We know what’s out there…time to get back in the field and prove it…
I’ve eaten so much crow over the years…I’ve developed a fondness for it…it’s an acquired taste…JMHO
Unlike Alton…I don’t smother mine in every hot salsa known to man…LOL
No bucks…No bigfoot…
ole bub and the dawgs
As I said…Malaysia truely Asia… They just want tourist money to flow into their country
One Eyed Cat: while the pictures might be “clear,” that doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. For me, the real issue is how anyone who calls himself a scientist could NOT know that the pictures were of costumed actors/models/etc.
GREAT JOB, PETER AND LOREN, what an utter disgrace what dr. chow and his circus crew provided this is absolutely the biggest hurtful thing they did to cryptozoology. GREAT QUESTION WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? WHERE DOES CRYPTOZOOLOGY GO FROM HERE? everybody is saddened by this garbage provided by these scammers. Without no body we are left wondering these humanoid apes exist we will never know now.
Loren,
How do we know that Chow was hoaxed? Can we really be certain of anyone’s innocence in this matter at this point?
jjames1 point taken, my point was Chow’s descriptions were accurate.
How could a scientist be duped? Probably the same as everyone else. They are as human as everyone commenting on this blog site. Malaysia is not known as a high tech place from what I understand and somethings are learned by exposure that Chow may have limited access to –or none. In other words he may HAVE never seen anything like them before.
An example, I can, usually, tell the difference between a TV program and a Commercial just by looking. The subtleties of difference between the two have been honed by a liftime of seeing them. On the other hand, my 86 yr-old Aunt can very eaasily get confused which is which. She has watched TV her entire ADULT life, yet my eye was trained since childhood.
Perhaps not the best example, but the best I can do at a moment’s notice.
At this point, blame not on the old guy. He was misled, by a bunch of people led by a so-called “PhD” holder, some professor in some university in the East, who got a silly looking footprint and publicized it. During a telephone interview which I had listened to and translated, in the first place, the main witness had called the creature he saw “orang utan”, but after sometime, due to influences by this group who started putting in distorted pictures into the minds of the innocent aborigines, the original orang utan was said to look like something else, and the creature which was originally an orang utan is actually the Bigfoot.
As for Mr Peter Loh, well, mind you I bet he is trying hard to stay away from any association with Vincent Chow, because now he realised his own folly, following the “Professor from the university in the East” and being put into such a difficult position for supporting the wrong facts.
But whatever it is, I am writing this representing my OWN country. Said it many times before, there’s no such creature in my country, and yet I was called “pathetic”, “jealous” etc. for not supporting the blind faith the group had been trodding along with. We wanted peace and quiet. We had not started any of these for tourists money. Track back into the history of the whole series of events, it just started as a mere reporting of some fun news that none of us in Malaysia really bothered upon. Only the English language newspaper spoke about them, the Chinese newspapers made no reportings as the Chinese papers had some other ‘fun’ news to report based on the tastes of their readers. But there came upon a troop of intruders, scouting by boat, by land… and making a cast out of what seemed to them like a big footprint, but which obviously was a set of prints set atop of each other, coincidentally formed like a whole print (I’ve personally seen more than 10 of these prints, and upon close examination revealed several prints which formed to look like a whole print!). Then the mess started.
This group went round telling media A and media B and media C with the perceived astounding discovery they made, and made loud proclamations that the team I was in with our research and interviews were just jealous and gathered wrongful information, stating that their cast was the best evidence. I had a mind to make casts out of the 20-odd prints I saw on the ground when I visited the site, if it would just outnumber them, but we thought better of it, leave it alone with just photographic evidence. Got bored with these nonsense claims, and tired with defending and so took my time off from the research work from the team that I started out with. And this morning, as I opened my email, got the link of Cryptomundo from a trusted friend, and I can just say, finally indeed, the truth is known.
Now what I wish to say is that, tracing back to the source of this mess, it is no wonder that Vincent Chow can be misled into believing in the total untruths. The team that was injecting false information to him and other serious researchers is also a “Dr”, and supposedly the head of a paranormal research group. Which makes it even more of a pity.
Dark-Obsessor Says
So, is this hoax universally known?
Don’t depend on others, D-O! Every man must decide for himself! There are no “truths” here, only intelligent analyses!
I think it’s time to resign from the ancient self-flaggelations brigade retire their retribution and self-doubts! NOTHING is to be gained in that game…
This is a NEW DAY! Don’t dwell on the past, my homies!! MOVE ON!!
Now, I must make it clear that I don’t doubt Vincent’s sincerity and passion in his pursuit of the truth, and this man is truly a nature-lover. I believe he is a victim here. He was duped.
As I recall, it all started with SPI’s invitation to anyone interested in joining the team in their investigations. This led to my meeting with Kenny Fong and, subsequently, Vincent Chow at a press conference. Now, up to that point in time, Kenny had no idea that there were photographs. SPI had merely tried to gather more evidence to support the initial sighting. The photo claim was as much a surprise to Kenny as it was to me.
From what I’ve witnessed, and in my opinion, Vincent Chow was more of an influence on Kenny Fong than vice versa. I doubt that Kenny would have been able to mislead Chow if he had wanted to as Chow appeared to be commanding the proceedings. In fact, we were trying to gather information from Chow instead of feeding him with “misinformation”. The fact remains that Chow was pretty confident of what he had seen, evident from the smugness he exuded. Who is to blame then? Like I said in my cartoon, it all boils down to a matter of sound judgment on the part of the eyewitness. Without hard evidence, we could only hang on to this till the rope snaps.
Peter….
Probably a good idea to discuss some research and photograph protocols…nice cartoons…a shame folks reputations were damaged…they will get over it…JMHO
No bucks…No bigfoot….
ole bub and the dawgs
Couldn’t understand all the fuss about the “footprint” anyway. Looked more like “bigbird” to me. So, when the photos were slow in coming…we shouldn’t be surprised that they were bogus.
Wayne
Such a disappointment!! Oh well, let’s turn our attention to Pine Ridge, eh?
I just don’t know if I can believe that Mr. Chow had no idea these photos were fake.
Why is everyone so certain that Chow was merely duped? Is it far-fetched to imagine he could have been in on the hoax all along?
One Eyed Cat Says:
“jjames1 point taken, my point was Chow’s descriptions were accurate.”
Your point is very clear, but what motivation would he have to mischaracterize what he saw in the pictures?
Had pc problems this weekend, was unable to do anything after my last post.
Personally, I just didn’t and don’t find the toons all that funny. Something about kicking a man (Chow) when he’s down just doesn’t sit well with me. If one truly has respect for Chow, now would have been the time to show it. I feel bad for Chow — but I still can’t believe he thought those photo’s were of real animals. Standing behind someone, during the worst of times is a difficulf but admirable thing to do. Drawing cartoons to further embarrass someone is very easy.
It was just my opinion that Mr Loh was taking an easy shot, that’s all. Maybe I’m just tired of cartoons and sketches.