Read More

Read More

Batutut -
The Batutut or Ujit or Người rừng, sometimes also known as "forest people", is a proposed hominid cryptid, reputedly similar to the bigfoot, thought to inhabit the Vũ Quang  nature reserve and other wilderness areas of Vietnam, Laos and northern Borneo. The Vũ Quang has been the source of a number of newly discovered mammals by Dr. John MacKinnon. Mackinnon claims to have first observed tracks in 1970 that led him to believe that a hominid similar to the Meganthropus lives there. Mackinnon's 1975 book In Search Of The Red Ape describes his experiences and findings. A 1947 sighting by a French colonist refers to the animal as a L'Homme Sauvage (wild man). Vietnamese scholars refer to the animal as the Người Rừng ("forest man").


Map of  Vu Quang National Park

It is described as being approximately 1.8 m (6 ft) tall and covered with hair except in the knees, the soles of the feet, the hands, and the face. The hair ranges in color from gray to brown to black. The creature walks on two legs and has been reported both solitary and moving in small groups. The creature is most often sighted foraging for food from fruits and leaves to langers and even flying foxes.
In Borneo, witnesses describe it as four feet tall and very aggressive, occasionally killing humans and tearing out their livers.

 Ccryptozoologist Loren Coleman believes that the Batutut are a surviving population of Homo erectus or Neanderthal and this could be possible. The Vũ Quang and wilderness of Vietnam is rather large and still somewhat unexplored.

Sightings -
In his book Very Crazy G.I. - Strange but True Stories of the Vietnam War, Kregg P. J. Jorgenson relates a sighting of such a creature by a team of US soldiers. The men referred to it as a "Rock Ape" reporting it as being small in stature, about 5 feet tall and having a reddish tinge to its fur.
Two Người Rừngs were reportedly captured by tribesmen near Dak Lak Province in 1971. In 1974 a North Vietnamese general, Hoang Minh Thao, requested an expedition to find evidence of the creatures, but it was unsuccessful.

In 1918 a hunter, Mr. Van Heerwarden found some odd human type tracks but never seen what or who made them. In 1923, Mr. Van Heerwarden found these human type tracks again and followed them. He followed the prints until he spotted a wild man in a tree: "I discovered a dark and hairy creature on a branch. ... The sedapa was also hairy on the front of its body; the colour there was a little lighter than on the back. The very dark hair on its head fell to just below the shoulder-blades or even almost to the waist....Had it been standing, its arms would have reached to a little above its knees; they were therefore long, but its legs seemed to me rather short. I did not see its feet, but I did see some toes which were shaped in a very normal manner. ... There was nothing repulsive or ugly about its face, nor was it at all apelike". The above quote is from Abominable Snowmen, by Ivan T. Sanderson. Abominable Snowmen is available on Kindle - get it now by Clicking Here!

More recently the now canceled TV show Destination Truth made a trip to look for Batutut. Josh Gates and his team went to Vietnam and found large human type footprints and also managed to filmed a possible Batutut with a thermal imager.
Here is a clip of it.

Gates and his team made a casting of the humanlike tracks and took them to be examined by noted Bigfoot researcher, anthropologist Jeff Meldrum.  Meldrum called the print "a significant discovery" and one of the best pieces of evidence he had seen.

With all the similarities to Bigfoot it is not surprising that the Batutut is sometimes called the Bigfoot of Vietnam but I find the Batutut to also be similar to the orang-pendek.

While putting together this post from various sources and adding in some of my own thoughts, I was surprised at some of the information I found. One thing I found rather interesting is that the overall size of reports of this creature falls well within the range of human sizes. I could not find any reports stating that the creature was over 6 foot tall or a hulking 10 foot beast. It makes me wonder if this is maybe just a scientifically undocumented monkey species of some sort. A little over one year ago a new spices of monkey was discovered in the Congo. The Lesula was the first new monkey species discovered in 28 years. It has a strikingly large, almost human like face with human type eyes and a pink face.
So could the Batutut be just another yet to be documented monkey species? possibly, then we can also question what is bigfoot? Monkey, Ape, lost man, hybrid or maybe we should just call most of them Primates at this point. It would seem more fitting.

Primates are grouped into monkeys, apes and hominids. Most monkey species have tails, but this is not true for apes or hominids, as they do not have tails, so until we can find out more about these creatures maybe Primate is a good name for now. If we consider the above primate information, we can deduce that Bigfoot would most likely fall within the apes or hominids area, which causes debates in the bigfoot community. I have never heard of any reports of bigfoot having a tail. Just remember this is a broad approach and each groups has groupings and characteristics that need to be considered. So in the end much more study and research will have to be done not only on the Batutut but our beloved Bigfoot.

Thanks
~Tom~
[Sources: cryptozoo-oscity, Wikipedia ]





This post sponsored in part by

Read More

Flatwoods Monster Newspaper Clipping

The Flatwoods Monster - is known as the Braxton County Monster or the Phantom of Flatwoods.
It is an alleged unidentified extraterrestrial or cryptid reported to have been sighted in the town of  Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia on September 12, 1952.

town of Flatwoods

On an episode of MonsterQuest the Flatwoods monster was referred to as Lizard Monster.

The description of the unknown creature varies a little. Most agree that it was at least 10 feet (3 m) tall and that it had a red face which appeared to glow from within, and a green body. The creature's body was described as being man-shaped and clad in a dark pleated skirt; later described as being green. Some accounts record that the creature had no visible arms, while others describe it as having short, stubby arms; ending in long, claw-like fingers, which protruded from the front of its body.
There was also a large, pulsating, red ball of light that hovered above or rested upon the ground associated with the Flatwoods monster, that has led many to believe it is UFO related.


Here is the Sept. 12, 1952 account of this event. (Wikipedia)
-Start-
At 7:15 PM on September 12, 1952, two brothers, Edward and Fred May, and their friend Tommy Hyer (ages 13, 12, and 10 respectively) witnessed a bright object cross the sky. The object appeared to come to rest on land belonging to local farmer G. Bailey Fisher.
Upon witnessing the object, the boys went to the home of the May brothers' mother, Kathleen May, where they reported seeing a UFO crash land in the hills. From there, Mrs. May accompanied by the three boys, local children Neil Nunley (14) and Ronnie Shaver (10), and 17-year-old West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene 'Gene' Lemon, traveled to the Fisher farm in an effort to locate whatever it was that the boys had seen.

Lemon's dog ran ahead out of sight and suddenly began barking, and moments later ran back to the group with its tail between its legs. After traveling about ¼ of a mile (400 m) the group reached the top of a hill, where they reportedly saw a large pulsating "ball of fire" about 50 feet (15 m) to their right. They also detected a pungent mist that made their eyes and noses burn. Lemon then noticed two small lights over to the left of the object, underneath a nearby oak tree and directed his flashlight towards them, revealing the creature, which was reported to have emitted a shrill hissing noise before gliding towards them, changing direction and then heading off towards the red light. At this point the group fled in panic.

Upon returning home Mrs. May contacted local Sheriff Robert Carr, and Mr. A. Lee Stewert, co-owner of the Braxton Democrat, a local newspaper. Stewert conducted a number of interviews and returned to the site with Lemon later that night where he reported that "there was a sickening, burnt, metallic odor still prevailing". Sheriff Carr and his deputy Burnell Long searched the area separately, but reported finding no trace of the encounter.
Early the next morning; on Saturday September 13, Mr. A Lee Stewart visited the site of the encounter for a second time and discovered two elongated tracks in the mud, as well as traces of a thick black liquid. He immediately reported them as being possible signs of a saucer landing based on the premise that the area had not been subjected to vehicle traffic for at least a year. It was later revealed that the tracks were likely to have been those of a 1942 Chevrolet pickup truck driven by local Max Lockard, who had gone to the site to look for the creature some hours prior to Stewert's discovery.

After the event, Mr. William and Donna Smith, investigators associated with Civilian Saucer Investigation, LA, obtained a number of accounts from witnesses who claimed to have experienced a similar or related phenomena. These accounts included the story of a mother and her 21 year-old-daughter, who claimed to have encountered a creature with the same appearance and odor a week prior to the September 12 incident; the encounter reportedly affected the daughter so badly that she was confined to Clarksburg Hospital for three weeks. They also gathered a statement from the mother of Eugene Lemon, in which she said that, at the approximate time of the crash, her house had been violently shaken and her radio had cut out for 45 minutes, and a report from the director of the local Board of Education in which he claimed to have seen a flying saucer taking off at 6:30 on the morning of September 13 (the morning after the creature was sighted).

After encountering the creature, several members of the September 12 group reported being overcome with similar symptoms which persisted for some time, which they attributed to having been exposed to the mist emitted by the creature. The symptoms included irritation of the nose and swelling of the throat. Lemon suffered from vomiting and convulsions throughout the night, and had difficulties with his throat for several weeks afterward.
A doctor who treated several of the witnesses is reported to have described their symptoms as being similar to victims of mustard gas, though such symptoms are also commonly found in sufferers of  hysteria, which can be brought on by exposure to a traumatic or shocking event.
 - End-


Much like the Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster is dismissed by many as just being an Owl. The description of  the two creatures are similar but are they truly connected?



It's been 60 years after this event and it is still being talked about. The town of Flatwoods proudly displays "Home of the Green Monster" on it's welcome sign, not shying away from the story. They even have a 3 day festival, it is a 3 day festival starting on a Friday and ending Sunday afternoon, a weekend of live music, the Green Monster museum and trips to the site. There is also a Facebook page, find it HERE.


This case was also investigated by famous cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson, which was made into a free documentary movie on Youtube.



There is a lot of information out there about The Flatwoods Monster and it has been investigated by many different people over the years and at the time right after the event. No clear cut explanation has come out to totally debunk the story.

I find the story interesting and think the witnesses had something out of the ordinary happen that evening.

Thanks
~Tom~


[sources: ufocasebook, Wikipedia, noufors,]



This post sponsored in part by

Read More

If I described to you a creature that had a 10 foot long neck, a 10 foot long tail and a 30 foot long large round body, what would you guess it to be? I'm sure most of you would say that it was a dinosaur. Well this is what has been described by numerous witnesses for over 100 years.

Deep in central Africa in the Congo there is said to live a dinosaur, the pygmies of the Likouala swamp region call the creature mokele-mbembe, which translated means "One that stops the flow of rivers."

The creature has also been described as having grey to brown skin with no hair and as spending most of it time under the water. The creature is said to sometime travel in search of food or to other near by swamps and rivers, resulting in some of the reported sightings. The locals say that Mokele-Mbembe will over turn boats and kill people by biting them or hitting them with it tail but it is thought that the creature is herbivore, plant eater.

So I'm sure you are asking "where is the evidence?" or "is there any evidence?"  well there is some evidence that we should consider.

First lets consider that sightings have been reported for over 100 years now, with the earliest record dating back to 1776. There has been and continues to be expeditions in the region searching for the creature.
The next evidence we should consider is the odd Tracks. The tracks are described as a rounded shape about 3 foot in diameter having 3 toes with claws and having a stride distance of between 7-8 feet.
Here is a photo of a possible track


Dinosaur track?

There is also some possible video evidence that needs to be considered as well.  In 1992 members of a Japanese film crew allegedly filmed video of Mokele-mbembe. As they were filming aerial footage from a small plane over the area of Lake Tele, intending to obtain some shots for a documentary, they noticed something in the water and shot about 15 seconds of video. Here is a still frame from that video.


But that is not all, there have been many more expeditions into the Congo looking for Mokele-Mbeme, one in 1992 by William Gibbons produced 2 photos of unidentified objects in the water. Gibbons claimed one was the head of the creature.

Many experts have looked into the tales of Mokele-Mbeme and those who did not just dismiss it as folklore, stated it could be a sauropod dinosaur. When locals were shown a picture of a sauropod dinosaur they said that picture is of Mokele-mbembe.

Even, Ivan T. Sanderson, The man who coined of the word cryptozoology, Saw what he said and wrote to be the Mokele-Mbeme. Sanderson seen the creature dive back into the water and he stated that it's head was as large as a hippo.

So could it be possible that a dinosaur or group of dinosaurs are still living?  But before you make up your mind completely consider that it is estimated that about 80 percent of the Congo remains unexplored.
So maybe there will be a real Jurassic Park someday, and talking about movies, the movie Baby: Secret of the lost legend, starring William Katt, was based on sighting reports of the Mokele-Mbeme.

Thanks
~Tom~


[Sources: Wikipedia, mokelembembe]
[sauropod Photo: oakdome]



This post sponsored in part by

Read More