“Chimp” With Club Update
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 26th, 2006
= Misidentified Bigfoot?
The Cryptomundo story on July 25th, California "Chimp" With Club: Is It Bigfoot?, was picked up by such outlets as The Anomalist and Boing Boing. The story now has jumped to the wire services, with UPI sending it around the world (from India to Florida) for Wednesday, July 26.
In Monday’s 4:30 PM late dispatch from the Ventura County Sheriff’s department, via the Ventura County Star, authorities still were not able to locate the alleged "chimpanzee" seen with a club in his hand in a Thousand Oaks backyard. By late afternoon, there were no more sightings of the chimpanzee.
No new reports of sightings occurred on Tuesday, July 25, either, to the best of our knowledge. I expect that if there is more activity, we could hear about it first from Cryptomundo readers.
Cryptozoologist Chad Arment, author of two books on the subject as noted in the previous column, had this to say about one element of the event:
There’s another question that’s begged: why was it called a "club"? That implies cultural purpose (a tool for bashing things), as opposed to just a big stick. Was the animal seen using it, or just carrying it? Did the stick appear modified in any way? Or is there a belief that any stick carried by an ape is a "club"? (And, I suppose, was "club" part of the original description, or did the newspaper modify the report?)
Cryptomundo looks forward to any new sightings or a resolution to this mystery, soon.
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 suspect this is going to be an interesting story to follow. No matter what happens, does not happen or whatever
As Chad Arment notes, there could be doubt to whether or not it was a “club” to begin with.
How would a chimpanzee be mistaken for a bigfoot? Most people believe that bigfoot is quite large, at or in excessive of seven feet. An adult chimp only grows to 3 or 4 feet tall
Scarfe – Please read the discussion about this in yesterday’s comments. Bigfoot have to be small before they are big.
🙂
2001
:A Space Odyssey
This is interesting. If you do a Google Earth search for that address in Thousand Oaks California, one would see the terrain for that area. If an unidentified primate was seen in the back yard of a house there, the club would most likely have been a Nike driver. The area in mention is surrounded by a country club. My guess comes to two possibilities. One, and escaped pet chimp, or a Sasquatch that is looking for a spot on the next U.S.Open.
When found I hope they do not kill it.
Ah so the mental pictures we have because of ‘club’ may be misconstrud because the exact kind if ‘club’ was not given?
Interesting insight.
According to the BFRO database Ventura County is pretty sparse as far as sightings are concerned, only two documented in the database. So maybe it really is just a chimp looking for some tee time. But who knows, California is second only to Washington for US sightings.
There once was a man who claimed he observed two Bigfoot like creatures who were both under 5 feet tall. I think they were both carrying sticks too. I read about it in the book by Rene Dahinden. If I’m wrong someone please correct me.
Going out on a limb here, but if one identified the animal as a chimp (arguably one of the most easily identifiable primate)…. wouldn’t we assume that they are correct? People aren’t stupid and I don’t think its up to us to second guess someone else’s identification of this animal, particularly since none of us have seen the said animal.
Chimps have been known to readily adopt human behaviour. If they see humans using an implement, they will attempt to emulate its use. Chimps have even been known to take up smoking to emulate human behaviour!
How can we assume that this isn’t an escaped pet / show animal?
I’ve been to Thousand Oaks hundreds of times. It’s just north of where I used to live. There are plenty of hills and mountains for a chimp to hide out much less in someone’s backyard.
Bigfoot, are you serious? There was a tiger that roamed throughout nearby Simi Valley a couple years ago. It was finally shot. Or maybe it wasn’t a tiger, maybe it was the only Sabertooth to survive the Pliestoscene.
In 2005 there were chimps that escaped a chimp sanctuary about 40 miles north of 1000 oaks. Except maybe they weren’t chimps- maybe they were baby gigantopithecus.
😉
If it was a full fledged chimp then I do believe it had a stick, though it could have been a good sized stick. Here in America, where we don’t get a lot of interaction with other primates, we tend to place them in the same “category” as most other animals, incapable of using tools. They have proven that chimps do use some pretty decent looking tools, though very simple in concept. If he saw them before they saw him, he might have been a bit scared, nervous… and grabbed the stick, as chimps do to look meaner, and was just “waving it around”. You probably have seen those documentaries, mostly lifting it into the air and pounding the ground, with a loose grip. Sometimes losing it in the excitement. To people here that is something out of the ordinary. So, the chimp had a club. Now if the club was actually fashioned as such, then I think we are working with another hoax or something of that nature.
I wonder if chimps are smart enough to play golf.
# Mausinn Says:
The area in mention is surrounded by a country club. My guess comes to two possibilities. One, and escaped pet chimp, or a Sasquatch that is looking for a spot on the next U.S.Open.
If there’s anything to the vocalizations I’m hearing late at night here in NM, we have a Sasquatch that does a good Tammy Wynette imitation, so why not the U.S. Open?
Maybe this is Bigfoot’s “Breakout Year”. Where’s Arthur Godfrey when we really need him?
This is southern California… must be a performing chimp on the club circuit. 😉
So, is that a photo of the ape or something…?
Most people only know chimps from TV, where they are nearly always infant chimps. A full-grown male chimp is as tall as a man, if standing up (which unlike the bonono, they can’t do for very long – bonono’s walk upright in order to carry sticks), and rather more massive.
I think we humans tend to over-estimate the size of animals we see when we are scared or startled. (that is more of an aside)
An escaped chimp scared and engaging in a charging display seems the most likely explanation for this one.