Editorial: Release Johor Photos

The drawings by Vincent Chow and Sean Ang, at one level, are to be appreciated. At another level, they have caused further frustration and a growing level of impatience within the general cryptozoological community.

Here is Cryptomundo’s Peter Loh drawing of the head of a Johor Hominid (then called Mawas) – the first drawing allegedly based on Chow’s photos – compared to a photograph of the head of an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), also called in Indonesia, mawas.

As far as can be understood from the new stories being told, we now don’t know where these alleged Johor Hominid photographs were taken, who took them, or when. We all thought they had been taken out of the country with a “former Communist guerilla” who departed. However, now it appears Vincent Chow still holds some of them. But the tale has changed; sometimes they were taken by a team of people protecting the Johor Hominid, and sometimes it is all about one primary person.

To all our surprise, with the addition of a new webmaster, the photographs have reappeared and although they cannot be published for some reason, they are being traced. But what do they show? A chimpanzee-like head? A mask? An unknown hominid? An actor performing for a reality television program, a documentary, or a motion picture?

Neither chimp masks or a gorilla head match the traced drawing of the Johor Hominid.

When I conducted the Myakka “Ape” photographs investigations, I decided to be as open and sharing with all the information that came my way, as possible. In the Myakka case, the Florida photographer was unknown, so it became all the more important to involve anyone and everyone in identifying that person. In these Johor events, it dismays me that the photographer is known, but his identity hidden by the primary investigator. Furthermore, the photographs, which hopefully hold their own information, remain unreleased, hidden from other researchers and helpful investigators. Why?

The comparison game begins to take on a silliness that is usually found in political circles.

Primary questions in this ongoing situation remain unanswered, and the mere creation of a website (which is a form of publication) is difficult to understand if the photograph is NOT going to published there. If the need was for a formal scientific paper to be written and published, to then have a website appear with a chatroom, well, seems a questionable move.

The Johor Hominid “photographs” could even be of a recreated paleoanthropological species model, used within a documentary or, as here, for National Geographic.

As members of the hominological and cryptozoological community, we understand that many eyes looking catch the monkey, so to speak. With the release of the photographs, only then can a concerned united effort be forthcoming to identify many of the basic elements of this mystery. But the way this is being played out, the skeptics and critics from within are being given plenty of ammunition before the first photographic images grace the pages of a website, book, or journal.

Presently, we are confronted, as well, with Sean Ang publishing two of his “hand-traced” sketches of the Johor Hominid (see below):

Even before the Chow head drawing appeared, everyone was talking about the Johor Hominid Hand. But the time seems beyond talking about drawings.

Patience and passion are good virtues, yes, but good judgement is another one, and it is needed currently. This continued web-based publicity and enticing the public with an ongoing censored release of data must be challenged. Please, Vincent Chow, if there is good evidence of a Johor Hominid, open the book, metaphorically speaking, on the case and release the photographs. Look to how Ivan T. Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans found it necessary to publish in a timely fashion on Homo pongoides. No matter the eventual outcome, the situation can’t get much worse than this one has become.

Loren Coleman 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.

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