Johor Tracks Being Destroyed
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 23rd, 2006
Breaking news from Malaysia is hitting the wires today that local authories are bulldozing and destroying physical evidence of the Johor Bigfoot. Cryptozoologists and hominologists are outraged. Our message to Malaysia: Stop the destruction!
Reports for March 23 exclaim:
Tracks resembling giant footprints in forests around Kampung Lukut and Kampung Temening are being erased, seemingly to distract foreign tour groups on Bigfoot sighting expeditions here. The authorities have cut the eco-tourist influx at these villages and nearby foothills by bulldozing and clearing the secondary forest where the Bigfoot footprints and other evidence were discovered.
The New Straits Times broke the story, after they found the secondary jungle area beside the tar road where a set of Bigfoot footprints was first found by local jungle trekker Kong Nam Choy on January 16, 2006, was destroyed.
Tracks found by Kong Nam Choy in January 2006.
After the Destination: Truth expedition of February 20 found footprints at Kampung Lukut, a new wave of ecotourism was stimulated and foreign tour groups came in large numbers.
The cast discussed around the world: Joshua Gates shows the media the footprint cast his group discovered in February 2006.
After the initial media flap concerning this first foreign discovery, tour groups in Singapore began organizing Bigfoot tours to Kota Tinggi. Reportedly, tourists would arrive in cars and vans at 6 am, to trek into the secondary jungle. Authorities reaction to this: destroy the cryptotourists’ objective, the jungle where the prints exist.
The reporter R. Sittamparam, in the New Strait Times for March 23, 2006, makes this observation:
It is sad to note that the authorities who showed little interest in promoting ecotourism here had chosen to take this most irrational step to stop the foreign visitors following the global interest in the Johor Bigfoot.
Biodiversity researcher, Vincent Chow said with some help from the relevant authorities, the villagers in the area could have reaped some benefits from the tourism potential of the area.
“The people’s representative here should look into developing this ecotourism potential and charge visitors a fee to enter their land and provide car parking or guide service.
“The whole of Kota Tinggi should be promoted as Bigfoot country as ecotourism has already been generated by the Bigfoot phenomena here.”
Clearly, merely from a scientific point of view, this is a major disaster. Destroying evidence and habitat, and not dealing with simple crowd control, is hardly a responsible reaction to an overwhelming interest by the general public in the mystery of the Johor Bigfoot. Our hope is that the authorities re-think what they are doing.
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.
Heads up….incoming….Bigfolks….the National Geographic Channel aires the “Apemen of Sumatra” this evening….check your cable guide for details….
seeing is believing
ole bub
Hi…Please note that some errors have crept into your information on Bigfoot. Josh Gates, the opportunistic “sci fi” tv host from LA, does not have any bigfoot plaster casts in his possession (although the 28 yr old did hold one up to the camera on 20 Feb 2006 and instructed his crew to film the SPI and Seekers groups making a cast with the equipment that these day-trippers personally brought to Johor from Singapore. There were half a dozen witnesses to the event…even though half the “Truth” crew quit early that day and already had checked into their hotel.
My understanding is that the Bigfoot plaster cast stayed in Malaysia, with “Uncle” Syed in Kuala Lumpur, and it is to be presented to the government’s Bigfoot search committee. Gates did manhandle the item–in fact he was very reluctant to put it down—so it is likely that he already corrupted any DNA samples that may have clung to it. There is a remote possibility that a copy was custom made for Neil Mandt’s cheesy “Destination Truth” show, but it will not be the original. The LA crew left Malaysia within days of the discovery of the tracks by the SPI group.
It is unfortunate about today’s date…but my comment is not April Foolery. I was there.