April 20, 2006
Officials in Malaysia are clearly attempting to overturn the recent story that any “baby Bigfoot” has been captured. Dispatches of the denial news are being disseminated widely, as for example, from South Africa, below.
Yesterday, this was big breaking news, all over the internet and many website. You can see the breaking details, translations, and more here on Cryptomundo, as it was noted yesterday, and is updated below:
April 20, 2006
No baby Bigfoot, say Malaysian officials
Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian wildlife officials denied capturing a baby “Bigfoot” Thursday, amid fevered speculation over the existence of the mythical creature in the nation’s southern jungles.
The Berita Harian newspaper reported that a young Bigfoot was caught by a group of men thought to be from the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) near the southern town of Kota Tinggi two weeks ago.
The paper quoted local residents as saying they had spoken to men who described shooting the creature with tranquiliser darts. The locals then peeked into the back of the their truck to see a large, hairy creature.
But the department’s director-general Datuk Musa Nordin denied the report.
“During the period reported, Perhilitan did not mount any operation in the area,” Musa said in a statement carried by the official Bernama news agency.
Freddie Long, the Tourism and Environment Committee chairperson in southern Johor state, said that if a Bigfoot had been captured, it should have been given to local authorities for research.
Bigfoot fever erupted last December when some workers claimed to have spotted three of the beasts, two adults and a youngster, on the edge of a Johor forest reserve.
The tale was given wide coverage in the national press which also carried stories of other sightings, some dating back decades, and printed photographs of supposed footprints – vague impressions in the jungle floor.
Local authorities treated the claims seriously, with plans for an official expedition to track down the mysterious beasts, and setting up a telephone hotline to report sightings.
Suggestions that the story has been cooked up to lure tourists to Johor have been denied.
Stories of mythical ape-like creatures have been reported in wilderness areas all over the world. They are known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch in the United States and Canada, and yetis in the Himalayas.
Credit: Sapa-AFP.
Cryptomundo will keep our eye on this developing story.
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.
Filed under Bigfoot, Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Malaysian Bigfoot