August 2, 2007
Yu Zhenhuan, above, wants to carry the Olympic torch before the Beijing Games. One of the world’s hairiest men, who nicknames himself “King Kong”, has launched a campaign to carry the Olympic torch during the relay ahead of next year’s Beijing Games. (Reuters: Claro Cortes IV)
Occasionally skeptics will try to debunk a Bigfoot case from the past by pointing to abnormally hairy people or feral human beings as a solution. Is this possible? Feral adults and wild children certainly have existed and have been found. The Tenth Edition of Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae (1758), lists seven cases of “wild children,” and down through the years real historical incidents of dozens of feral people have filled the pages of psychology journals and natural histories. Deserted children raised by wolves and bears are more than folklore, but they have little to do with our survey of undiscovered primates. Misidentifications of “wild children” and “wild people” seem highly unlikely since the individuals are often dirty but not hairy, often elusive but not uncatchable. These individuals are more a matter for human psychology than primate biology. Likewise, on very rare occasions, otherwise normal humans will display a recessive gene that leads to an excessive amount of body and facial hair. These hirsute anomalies became the “bearded ladies” of former circus freak shows. But there really is no foundation to arguments about feral or hirsute people being mistaken for the hairy bipeds of this field guide. The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, page 164.
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 Abominable Snowman, Almas, Bigfoot, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Forensic Science, Sasquatch, Yeti