Johor Mawas Photo Analysis

With reference to yesterday’s blog, “Rival Group Claims ‘Johor Bigfoot’ Are Escaped Orangutans,”, here today for critique are the photographs and sketches that the API, SPI, Vincent Chow, and others feel are supportive of their theories. An even dozen different images are given for your insights.

First, you can see for the API analysis of this issue, they have used Cryptomundo’s Peter Loh drawing of the head of a Johor Mawas and positioned it next to a photograph of the head of an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). Their contention is that the Loh blue-tinted Mawas resembles the Indonesian mawas, the orangutan.

Of course, one of the major problems with the API theory is the upright nature of the reported Johor Mawas or Bigfoot, as shown here, from a local’s drawing of the often-encountered hairy bipedal hominoid.

The above sketch must be compared to the API’s photographs of the non-released members of the orangutan colony that were given by the late Sultan of Johor some 30 years ago to the Perth Zoo, at the same time other orangutans were allegedly released into the Johor jungles. These photographs are of contemporary members of the colony that would be about the same age as some members of the escapee survivors, if they exist.

On the following map, the red areas are Malaysian and the black ones are Indonesian. Peninsular Malaysia (i.e. where the State of Johor is located) is not known to have any orangutans (called mawas in Indonesia), as only Sumatra and Borneo have orangutans. The Malaysian Johor Bigfoot, Orang Lenggor, or Mawas are felt to be escaped orangutans by the API, but not by Dr. Vincent Chow and the SPI. The map more clearly shows the political divisions between the countries and the island versus mainland nature of the known orangutan existence versus the “Bigfoot” sightings.

Dr. Vincent Chow’s theory, of course, compares what he has seen in the unpublished photographs of the Johor Bigfoot, as shown in this drawing (and the one at the bottom of the page) by Peter Loh, with the reconstruction of Homo erectus, which have been found in fossil form throughout South Asia. The “Peking Man” and “Java Ape Man” – two early popularized names of Homo erectus – carry the strong association between Asia and the erectus hominids.

Another piece of evidence that may or may not have some impact is the footprint cast found in Johor. Does it have anything to say about the animal that made it? Is it from an ape? Is it a hoax? A natural depression in the ground extended by an animal stepping in a hole? Or an overlapping combination of two rhino tracks?

As news reporter Jan McGirk of The Independent has pondered, does this Johor track resemble the Bili Ape cryptid footprint cast found from Africa? Or does comparing it firmly put to rest the cryptid anthropoid nature of the Johor Mawas?

Above, in 2003, Shelly Williams displays for the media the cast of a track of the unknown ape, the so-called Bili Ape, found in Democratic Republic of Congo.

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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