ORANG PENDEK EXPEDITION 2015: Trail Camera Photos

ORANG PENDEK EXPEDITION 2015: Interview on Paranormal Central

Just a few days ago I participated in my first ever internet radio talk show.I was interviewed by the folks on Paranormal Central which is broadcast on Livestream and Art Bell's Dark Matter Radio Network. The subject matter was my recent expedition to Sumatra and you can see the show here(part 1) http://new.livestream.com/ParanormalCentral1/events/3827303

and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkKtxbb2SuE

It was a great experience and I'd love to do another show in the near future.

ORANG PENDEK EXPEDITION 2015: Photos from the Rainforest

After a 20-month break I was back in Sumatra to conduct my fourth Orang Pendek expedition.Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words I'm starting off my report with a series of photos.The last one is a bit strange.

ORANG PENDEK HYPOTHESES

Considerable amount of discussion and speculation on the Web regarding the possible identity of the infamous short person of the Sumatran jungles.Since I will be conducting my fourth expedition in a matter of days I have prepared a brief photographic comparison of three possible "candidates", starting with the least  plausible hypothesis and ending with my personal favorite.I will expand on these when  get I back.

                                 THE HOBBIT HYPOTHESIS

 PYGMY ORANG UTAN HYPOTHESIS

                        

   ROBUST SIAMANG  HYPOTHESIS

MANDE BURUNG: The Indian Yeti of the Garo Hills

One of the lesser known Asian hominids is the Mande Burung  of northeastern India.Said to roam the subtropical rain forests of Meghalaya,particularly the western region of the Garo hills.Reports and sightings are rare,however, curiosity got the better of me and I ended up visiting the area in April 2011.

 

The most challenging aspect of organizing an investigation into this region is the ongoing  violence between the Garo and Khasi  ethnic groups.When this does occur the state is closed off to foreigners.About 3 months prior to my arrival there were a series of  deadly clashes which I was sure would prevent me from entering, luckily things calmed down and I was able  arrive in the town of Tura via Guwahati without incident.An interesting note is that  the Garo people are said to be of Tibetan ancestry while the Khasi have roots in Burma and headhunting was still known in the early 1960s.

Once there I was able to organize several long hikes into the  forest.The park is famous for the endangered western hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock) which are heard more often than seen. I was also prepared to do a multi-day trek across the park but was told there was only one full-time professional guide in the region and he was currently trekking in the Khasi Hills and needed to be booked several weeks in advance.

Strangely enough none of the locals seemed to know much or care  about the Mande Burung. I did meet a government botanist carrying out a taxonomy survey in the park and when I brought up the subject of a yeti-like creature inhabiting the area he shook his head in disgust and told me it was nonsense.However,a few days later as I was wandering the outskirts of Tura I met and chatted with a local outdoor enthusiast who had camped and hiked most of the national parks in Meghalaya.He told me that some villagers believed  that a chimpanzee-like creature did inhabit  the deep jungle and from time to time would raid crops that fringed the forest.

Other than that I was unable to extract any additional  info from the locals.

Will I return one day?Probably,as I was there during my "pre-trail cam period" and I would love to do a hi-tech expedition,which to the best of my knowledge has not been attempted.

For more detailed information about the Mande Burung please visit the link below:

http://www.mandeburung.4t.com/index.html

YEREN: The Wild Man of Shennongjia

Much has been written in the annals of cryptozoology about the wild man of central China but very few foreigners have actually conducted field research in the region.Below are a series of photos taken from my Febuary 2010 Yeren investigation deep into Hubei province.I had just finished a 6-month stint as an ESL teacher in  the city of Nanning and my reward was a weeklong cryptozoological excursion into the infamous  Shennongjia National Park.An incredibly diverse region with  habitats ranging from sub-tropical to alpine and Yeren reports since time immemorial.

                                           

 

  



After a several days of exploring the forests in southern part of the park I headed up north to the restricted area around the town of Songbai.It was here that I wanted to trek and visit the

Shennongjia Museum of Natural History where Yeren casts and a model are supposedly on display.After successfully getting through two checkpoints I walked around the town in search of accommodation.After passing a large police station several times I found a small hotel where I checked in without any difficulties.For the next few hours I wandered around the outskirts of town looking for trailheads as well as the museum.



After finding several interesting paths into the forest I headed back to town and just along the main road I came across a billboard for the Museum of Natural History.It shows a Yeren that significantly differs from what  is usually presented in the western media.Often a very shaggy looking beast with a large lion-like mane is depicted.Yet here the Yeren  is very hominin in nature and could easily be interpreted as form of Pieking Man(Homo erectus).To my understanding the tracks are very similar to a Sasquatch/Bigfoot but much smaller which would indicate a man-sized creature and  most reports ,albeit rare ,would corroborate this.

About 15 minutes after photographing the billboard I was approached by a policeman and told to leave the area immediately or face arrest.Luckily,just across the street a mini van was heading back to Shennongjia town and I hopped in without much hesitation.

 

I have no immediate plans on going back however,if do end up returning to China for professional reasons I will definitely conduct a more extensive investigation and expedition.

I have also posted additional photos on YouTube which you can view below.

   

 





INVESTIGATING THE HAIRY MAN OF OZ

Does a bigfoot-like creature roam the coastal mountains of eastern Australia? In April and July of this year I was finally able to investigate the Yowie phenomenon some twenty years after first hearing about it.

My first stop was Springbrook National Park which is located 25km west of Coolangatta on the Gold Coast.The dominant habitat here is subtropical rainforest and the region has a history of regular sightings since the late seventies.

 

Unfortunately,the area was hit by a storm about a month prior to my arrival resulting in damage and closure to the 15km Warrie circuit which I had hoped to explore.I was therefore limited to a couple of shorter but still very interesting trails.Luckily enough I did encounter two veteran park rangers clearing debris and I was able to have a lengthy discussion about Yowies in the area.

They were both extremely skeptical and after years of working in the bush they had encountered nothing nor found any signs or evidence to indicate that a massive creature resembling a bipedal gorilla inhabited the region.They did say that most of the recent reports were coming from the semi-rural Hinze Dam area just north of the park. However,one of them added that a good friend had spotted a Yowie a few years back while hiking up the infamous Mount Warning,which is just a two-hour drive south. 

After a week of camping and exploring the the trails it was time to head for the coast for some sight-seeing.My final thoughts on leaving were that the area was  just not "wild" enough to conceal a breeding population of  large hominoids, even if they were nocturnal and semi-nomadic as it is widely believed.

 

Mount Warning, NSW, Australia
 

Some ten weeks later I boarded a plane for Sydney,the goal this time was to explore the southern portion of the Blue Mountains and  set up a couple of trail cams which I would  then retrieve two weeks later. After a fair bit of research and several email exchanges with local Yowie enthusiasts, I decide to focus my efforts on the bush-walking and fire trails  near the vicinity of Springwood. The forests around this town on the Blue Mountains Line, have long been considered to be the number one hot spot for Yowie sightings in the country.Local residents have been encountering large creatures with glowing red for almost four decades and some have even claimed habituation with the beasts.

The weather conditions were perfect for long hikes,with highs around +15C and evening lows around +3C. Most of the Blue Mountains are classified as a wet eucalyptus forest but the more exposed  sections have a very dry and somewhat arid appearance.However,the deeper gullies are dark and damp and can be bit menacing when explored for the first time.

    

After purchasing detailed maps of the area I set out on some very long bush walks in search of ideal cam spots.After a week of hiking through some beautiful and moderately challenging trails I selected two locations that I thought a large creature might  just potentially pass through ,I then flew up north to the Townsville.Two weeks later I was  back to retrieve my trail cams and  to my amazement I had recorded more than 600 photos.After quickly playing back the pics I was quite surprised that only a feral cat showed up on one of them.Strangely enough my bait (pieces of fruit) was completely untouched, as I had hoped to at least catch some  forest wallabies in action.

If these present day sightings and aboriginal legends are to be believed then what exactly are we dealing with?Since there are no primates  in the Land Down Under the likelihood of a creature related to a gorilla or orang utan or some robust form of Homo erectus is probably nil.

The best theory I have heard was put forward  by a local researcher who hypothesized that Yowies were a relic population of Australian mega fauna.Large marsupial creatures that have survived to this day and and through convergent evolution superficially resemble large gorillas that primarily locomote bipedally.Sounds very plausible and it would explain the three and four-toed tracks and claw markings on trees that are found from time to time.

 

Alternatively,we could be  dealing with something a bit more sinister but I will leave that hypothesis for another day.