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Indochinese Manbeasts: Batutut / Rock Ape / French Era & Vietnam War

Hom.sap.sap. is just plain quarrelsome -- not surprising that MHB, if they spend any significant amount of time on planet Earth, don't (per most reported material) want to have much to do with us.

Returning to Southeast Asia, about this and particularly the American era, there's an interesting thread from 2003

forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7961
Link is obsolete. The cited thread is being consolidated along with this / these post(s) into a separate thread on Indochinese manbeasts.
 
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Thanks, oldrover, for the linked-to thread -- intriguing contents. Karl Shuker, mentioned thereon, a cryptozoologist new to me: from a quick Google, he seems good for some interesting stuff.
http://www.karlshuker.blogspot.com

It's for certain that a fair number of guys who served in the Vietnam war, tell of encountering there, ape-like creatures -- some very large -- not in the standard list of fauna of the area. One must make of this, what one will...

Mention made in the linked-to thread, of the "Minnesota Iceman": the suggestion, often heard, that the Iceman was a MHB killed in Vietnam and smuggled from there to the USA. I personally harbour great doubts about that whole saga: complicated skulduggery on the part of a large number of different "players", some of them seemingly dodgy individuals. The whole thing screams to me, "total fraud" -- JMHO.
 
You'd never heard of karl Shuker?

The thing about that account that intrigued me was the suggestion that these things were sometimes associated with rubbish dumps.
 
oldrover said:
You'd never heard of karl Shuker?
Clearly, a "biggie" in the subject whom I'd hitherto missed.

The thing about that account that intrigued me was the suggestion that these things were sometimes associated with rubbish dumps.
Yes, a curious (in both senses !) feature. Not all that reclusive and retiring after all ? Wonder if this seeming proclivity might be made use of for research purposes...
 
I have been looking through my files and I have found out a bit of information about the Vietnamese wild man.There was an organisation called the Vietnam Cryptozoic and Rare Animal Research Centre in 2008 which may still exist.Helmut Loofs-Wissowa was investigating the wild man as far back as 1998 as was Vern Weitzel( [email protected].)

In 2008 DAO VAN TIEN,Department of Zoology, Faculty of Biology,University of Hanoi,Hanoi,Vietnam was investigating the Wild man.I happen to know its been reported by American Vietnam War veterans("rock ape").If you can track down this site that gives alot of information:

coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/wildman/tien.txt
Link is dead. The latest (2012) edition of the MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:


https://web.archive.org/web/20121010124600/http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/wildman/tien.txt

See subsequent post(s) for the text content of the MIA webpage.
 
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... In 2008 DAO VAN TIEN,Department of Zoology, Faculty of Biology,University of Hanoi,Hanoi,Vietnam was investigating the Wild man.I happen to know its been reported by American Vietnam War veterans("rock ape").If you can track down this site that gives alot of information:
coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/wildman/tien.txt
Link is dead. The latest (2012) edition of the MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121010124600/http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/wildman/tien.txt
See subsequent post(s) for the text content of the MIA webpage.

Here is the text of the MIA webpage containing Dao Van Tien's article.

[Vietnamese diacritics in VIQR format: DA`O VA(N TIE^'N]

* This is an edited translation of the instalment dealing specifically with Vietnam in Prof. Tien's series of articles "The Facts About Forest Man" (hereafter rendered as 'wildman' in accordance with recent usage in English) which appeared in Tap Chi' La^m Nghie^p (Forestry Review), Hanoi, Nos. 3-7, 1990. The present translation is from No.6, pp.39-40 and No.7, p.l2.

The editor of this report wishes to thank Mrs Oanh Collins, <[email protected]> Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, for the initial translation and the author for agreeing to minor amendments of his original text. H.L.-W.

Elements of this document are to appear in the Newsletter of Cryptozoology (in press), however the editor of the Journal of Cryptozoology did not accept this article on the principle (apparently) that the Journal publishes only original articles. To our knowledge, B. Heuvelmans and B. Porchnev's fascinating description, "L'Homme de Neanderthal est toujours vivant," has not been published in English.

Whatever foreigners might think of this article, written without access to a comprehensive library, it is the product of the best recognised and most senior Vietnamese field biologist. There have been at least two Vietnamese expeditions in search of this ape. And a number of veterans of both sides (including my highly respected wife) claim to have seen them. Yet the publication of this information is surprisingly limited. [I note a brief but important mention by Ciochon, et al., in "Other Origins", which dealt mainly with _Gigantopithecus_.] Even as a skeptic, I am surprised, after being encuraged by Dr Loofs-Wissowa to check in Vietnam, at the number of reports emerging, some of them from reputable scientists.

If you know of reliable sightings of an ape in Indochina,you may respond to Dr Loofs-Wissowa or me at
<[email protected]>. Vern Weitzel

----

WILDMAN IN VIETNAM

DAO VAN TIEN

[Vietnamese diacritics in VIQR format: DA`O VA(N TIE^'N]

Department of Zoology, Faculty of Biology, University of Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam.

edited by

HELMUT LOOFS-WISSOWA

Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University,
Canberra, Australia.

While spending the night at Thuan Chau (1) on a zoological research trip to the north-western region in 1963, I was given the following information. In an area named Son La there existed a type of wildman called Pi` Cang Co'i (2) who always went out foraging at night and sneaked into houses to steal food. My informant had himself seen him on a moon-lit night through a crack in the window. This wildman was about 1.50m [about 5ft.] tall, hairy all over, walked on his legs and had a human-like face. Disturbed by a noise he quickly jumped to the ground, ran off and disappeared into the bush. Commenting on this matter I wrote in my diary with a question mark: "All monkeys and apes in Southeast Asia, with the exception of the loris, are active during daytime and sleep at night, just like humans; thus, this Pi` Cang Co'i is perhaps only a burglar disguised as a wildman so as to frighten people?"

On another research trip in the Sa Tha^y (3) area (Gia Lai - Kon Tum), in 1979, I was also told that local people here discovered there was another type of wildman: taller than an ordinary person, ferocious looking, hairy, and walking upright on his legs. He uses his hands and fingers to pierce the trunk of banana trees to get juice and often lets his blood drip on the trunk. I recorded this in my diary again with a question mark.

In 1981, coincidentally, Prof. Pham Huy Thong lent me a book entitled "Neanderthal Man is Still Alive", written by Heuvelmans and Porchnev (B. Heuvelmans and B. Porchnev, "L'Homme de Neanderthal est toujours vivant," Paris: Plon, 1974). It was a book which gathered all the information in the world about wildmen from the past to the present. According to Prof. Thong, when Dr Heuvelmans sent him this book, he wrote: "try your hardest to provide more information about wildmen in Vietnam to the science world, because you have the perfect opportunity".

After reading over and over the part of the book dealing with wildmen in Vietnam, I had come to single out the following points as being the most important to mention:

1. In 1968, at a county fair in America, there was a wildman's body shown in a glass coffin preserved in ice. The exhibition was held to make money.

2. The owner of this wildman's body was an American Air Force Captain, Capt. Hansen, who fought in Vietnam. In his book, Prof Heuvelmans was able to hypothetically reconstruct events leading to the body being exhibited in the U.S. As was reported in an American newspaper in 1966, U.S. Marines once shot and killed "a huge ape" in the Highlands not far from Danang where Capt. Hansen had been stationed; as there are no huge apes, such as the gorilla, in Vietnam (only small gibbons), this must have been a wildman 4 Hansen then arranged for the body to be flown to the U.S. in the same manner as the bodies of American soldiers killed in action, refrigerated it and, having retired from the Air Force, showed it on country fairs.

3. This exhibition created world-wide public interest after having been visited by many scientists, among whom was Dr Heuvelmans, who published a scientific article on it. Hansen only allowed ordinary photos to be taken, not X-ray photos.

4. According to Dr Heuvelmans, the wildman was covered with hair except for his face and palms, he had a big face, a short forehead, massive brow ridges, no lips and hardly any chin, a big chest, long arms with big hands, slender fingers and long thumbs, normal legs having human-like feet with curved-in toes; the toe nails were thick and pale yellow. Body height: 1.80-1.84 metres (about. 6ft.), hand length 26cm (10 inches), width 12cm (almost 5 inches) (see illustration) (5). Coming closer to where the ice had melted, Heuvelmans could smell the characteristic odour of putrefaction. After his return home, Heuvelmans wrote an article about this wildman in a scientific journal, and gave it a scientific name: _Homo pongoides_ (ape-like man) (6).

5. There was a lot of confusion in Hansen's theories about the origin of the body; at one time he said he bought it in Hong Kong, at another he shot the creature in America... A number of magazines suggested that the whole matter was a fabrication, the more so when Hansen refused to sell the body to the Smithsonian Institution for any sum of money.

6. Many years ago, the Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, after a visit to a revolutionary area, wrote about the wildman in Dac Min that according to a Dac Min official, not long ago on an assignment, local people caught a wildman and wanted to bring him back to headquarters; as he refused to eat or drink, the officials in charge decided to release him back to the forest. But he died and was buried on the side of the road. (7)

When I finished Heuvelmans' and Porchnev's book, my doubt about the wildman's presence in Vietnam had begun to lessen. The body which Hansen exhibited could well have been that of a genuine wildman. However, the unclear origin of the body and the fact that Hansen would not sell it to the Smithsonian Institution, could be because he was worried about breaking some kind of law and would be caught. Eventually, Hansen closed down the exhibition and announced that the body had been destroyed. It is a great shame!

Since 1980, a number of zoologists have carried out further research in the areas of Gia Lai and Kon Tum. They interviewed some local officials who had worked in the jungle for many years. It could be possible that a group of wildmen still survive, not many, only a few adults with their children. Occasionally, they come back to the jungle late at night and make noises, although this could not be understood and did not sound like human language.

One official came to headquarters to look for the person who was with Burchett at the time; he was the one who really met the wildman, but unfortunately he was away.

With all the reports on wildmen, especially those from China, Vietnam and Russia, to conclude that wildmen do not and cannot exist, is clearly premature. There is still hope for our generation to be sure of the existence of wildmen without even actually touching them, as they have been seen and described in an almost perfect way. It is very sad for many reasons that Capt. Hansen was responsible for preventing scientific research into this matter. Maybe an exhumation of the body of the wildman in the Dac Min area mentioned by Burchett, would confirm thee above expressed hope?

We could conclude as follows:

Science has proved that the relationship between the Neanderthal and modem man is almost like that of first cousins.

Whoever shot the wildman during war time, had committed a "murder".

If we are lucky enough to meet these wildmen, face to face in the future, we should respect them and treat them as our fellow men.

The Dac Min local government should reorganise the search for the remains (bones) of the wildmen who was buried on the side of the road. These bones would attract a lot of scientists throughout the world to Vietnam.

If local people happen to meet wildmen, they should report immediately to the government officer in charge and the government should create some sort of reward to encourage people to do so.

Notes:

1. A small town about 20km (12.5 mi) north-west of Son La, in an area inhabited by the Black Tai ethnic minority, with pockets of Miao groups.

2. These words do not make any sense in Vietnamese and are very probably from the Black Tai dialect, with Pi` being the Vietisized rendering of Phi (= "ghost", "spirit" - as in Phi Tong Luang -"The Spirits of the Yellow Leaves", title of a well-known ethnographic work by Hugo Adolf Bernatzik); the meaning of cang and co'i is not yet elucidated.

3. A small town about 20km (12.5 mi) west of Kon Tum, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam; the area is mainly inhabited by Halang and Rengao (Austro-Asiatic speaking) Mountain Tribes.

4. It may be worth noting that this location is only about l50km (not quite 100 mi) distant from Sa Tha^y near Kon Tum, where the large wildman was observed (as opposed to the smaller one in the north).

5. This illustration (not reproduced here) is a somewhat free rendering of pl.48 of "L'Homme de Neanderthal est toujours vivant", being the reconstitution of a living _Homo pongoides_ drawn by the painter Alika Lindbergh. It has been modified in certain aspects (penis) since, but not yet republished.

6. Bernard Heuvelmans, "Note preliminaire sur un specimen conserve dans la glace, d'une forme encore inconnue d'un Hominide vivant" _Homo pongoides_ (sp.seu subsp.nov.)," Bulletin de l'Institute royal des sciences naturelles de Belgique. Vol.45, No4 (1969), pp.1-24, 5pls.

7. This obviously is a reference to a passage (pp.161-167) in Chap.10, "Du yeti aux elephants", of Burchen's book "La seconde Resistance Vietnam 1965", Paris: Gallimard, 1965. Inexplicably, in the "original" American edition, "Vietnam-Inside Story of the Guerilla War", New York: International Publ. 1965, this entire chapter is omitted. Investigations with the publishers, the translator into French, Michael Deutsch, and other people involved, as to the reason of this omission remained to far unsuccessful but are continuing.
 
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My brother was "marine recon in Nam durning 67-69"...he and a buddy went out in the jungle a ways to dump or bury some empty mri's (meals ready to eat) before standing down for the day...."we found a place to ditch our trash...”

a) A very small concern l have here is that MREs were not issued to US troops until 1981. During the Vietnam war troops were given the Meal Combat Individual, still referred to erroneously as “C-rations”. MREs come in green plastic pouches; MCIs in conventional tins.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that the term “MRE” is being used here generically for all military rations, like “Hoover” is for vacuum cleaners.

b) Also, though l believe that it would be entirely plausible that local animals would frequent an established military garbage dump to forage for leftover food, the account given above implies that the GIs were out on patrol away from their normal base - “before standing down...we found a place to ditch our trash...”. Unless the cryptids were shadowing the soldiers, why would they be gathering near humans?

c) It also occurs to me that US troops were required to dispose of cans carefully. This was not for environmental reasons, but because locals could retrieve discarded cans and use them in fabricating booby traps. See 3:09 in the following video:


Minor issues, but they don’t add plausibility to the story.

maximus otter
 
a) A very small concern l have here is that MREs were not issued to US troops until 1981. During the Vietnam war troops were given the Meal Combat Individual, still referred to erroneously as “C-rations”. MREs come in green plastic pouches; MCIs in conventional tins.
On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that the term “MRE” is being used here generically for all military rations, like “Hoover” is for vacuum cleaners. ...

I think ruffready was simply using the later label for field rations used earlier.

Having said that, there's another reason why someone might refer to Vietnam-era rations as MREs ...

MCI rations were "wet" and canned, whereas MRE rations are "dry" and packaged in packets. This doesn't mean these differentiating features were strictly divided at a single transition point. A dehydrated ration in packets (a la the eventual MRE) was in fact developed and issued from the mid-1960s onward as the LRP (Long Range Patrol) ration. As the name suggests, this MRE predecessor was specifically developed for units spending a lot of time far out in the bush, where the bulk and weight of the MCI rations became problems. Ruffready said his brother was Marine recon - exactly the sort of unit issued these LRP rations.
 
Vietnam War Rock Apes - Bigfoot or Big Fraud?
Mark Felton Productions

30,761 views
•May 23, 2020

 
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