More Good “Bigfoot” News Out of Malaysia

One of the great things about the explosion of media interest in the "Bigfoot" stories out of Malaysia is that the papers have to come up with more and more details to keep the interest level of their articles sharp. And these news items gives us the opportunity to learn more new news, and some old too.

This weekend, of course, we’ve seen recycled stories of the last two weeks – expeditions planned, expedition delayed, teams to investigate – so much so that the media is losing track of the chronology.

What seems certain is that officials in Malaysia are taking the accounts seriously, and sincere examinations will be taking place.

Take, for example, the Independent’s article for January 29, 2006. Jan McGirk in Bangkok reports on some intriguing "new" historical background:

Malaysia has been gripped by Bigfoot fever since November [2005] when…three labourers digging a fish pond said they glimpsed a Bigfoot family of three on a river bank in Kota Tinggi reserve. They dropped their tools and fled but returned with an educated colleague to inspect and photograph the enormous footprints. A clump of brown fur, drenched with sour-smelling sweat, was also said to be recovered from the site, along with scattered fish bones.

Last August [2005], a frog catcher from the Orang Asli tribe claimed he encountered an auburn-haired tropical yeti scratching itself on a tree. Hamid Mohd Ali, 31, stopped about 30ft short of the creature which was twice his height. "I could see its teeth but I did not wait to find out if it was smiling at me or whether it saw me as its meal," he said. "In this year alone, four villagers have claimed to have seen it and we think this is because of the shrinking jungle."

Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most distinguished primatologists, is an unashamed Bigfoot and Yeti enthusiast. "You’ll be amazed when I tell you that I’m sure that they exist," she said in one interview. "The existence of hominids of this sort is a very real probability."

The Malaysian state of Johor is organizing an official search for one of its most famous and elusive inhabitants: the legendary apeman Bigfoot.

The hairy hominids are known by a variety of names around the world: Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti or the Abominable Snowman. But Malaysia, where tribal people call the creatures siamang, Mawas, or Hantu Jarang Gigi, ("snaggle-toothed ghost"), will be the first country openly to endorse an official attempt to track them down.

[The siamang ( Hylobates syndactylus), needless to say, is a known primate, an ape, and not a cryptid, as this article by McGirk would have you think. The siamang is the largest and darkest of the gibbons.]

While most media accounts are repeats of the same old Malaysian stories, occasionally there’s one with new material.

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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