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Bigfoot Worldwide?

C

carole

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Aug 1, 2001
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We’ve all heard about the Yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and I believe there is a Russian equivalent, although I can’t remember its name

As a non-cryptozoological expert, I’d like to know if there are reports of bigfoot-type creatures from other parts of the world.

My question was prompted by reading a section in the Companion to the Folklore, Myths and Customs of Britain by Marc Alexander. This mentioned the Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui. The idea of our own British Bigfoot is a tantalising speculation. And what about other mountainous areas – the Alps, the Andes and even Australia and New Zealand, which have vast areas unpopulated by man.

Sorry if this has been covered in other threads . . .

Carole
 
Large, hairy, bipedal creatures have been reported on every continent with the exception of Antartica, as well as several Pacific island countries.
 
Have there been looked at the times of these sightings? Like have they all been saturday and sunday mornings? :)
 
I havent heard of half of them, but there do seem to be ape cryptids just about everywhere in the world...

The Big Grey Man, as I understand him, was not so much a cryptid as an immaterial (disappearing/walking thru stuff) apparition.

De Loys "Ape" ("Ameranthropiodes Loysi") is not an ape but a spider monkey, however it may still be an unknown, much larger than usual spider monkey.

Africa has the Koolookamba which are possibly a more bipedal member of the chimp genus (Oliver might be one), the "Pygmy Gorilla" which could be the same creature, and I think in Heuvelmans's "On The Trail Of Unknown Animals" there are reports of tool using "hairy pygmies" which could be surviving Australopithecines.

The Almas (which i think Zana was one) are/were i think Neanderthal type hominids rather than apes - Zana had children by normal human men, which grew up to be odd looking (with possibly Neanderthal-like skulls) but fully human in mental capacity etc. She could just have been a mutant/deformed feral human though, like the recent Nigerian case of the boy abandaned (because of his disability) and raised by chimps.

I think cryptozoology.com mentions something apelike in Australia and/or New Zealand.
 
Don't you find it interesting that cryptic "ape-men" are reported just about everywhere in the world that humans are found?

You don't suppose we could be confronted here with a case of psychological projection do you? :eek!!!!:
 
psychological projection

I think in *some* cases there is the strong possibility that sightings are feral humans (tarzan types) who the viewer cannot admit as human because they cannot cope with the idea of human beings being "degraded" to that level (especially in the colonial era when prevailing racist theories suggested there were gradations from "most human" to "human but less human"), so they turn it into some kind of "missing link" ape-man as it is inconceivable to them that a "real" human could live like that.

One example is the orang pendek sighting I put a thread about which was over 5ft tall and had hair on its head down to its waist, which the hunter who saw it felt he could not shoot because it was too human. (However the more recent orang pendeks, which are 3ft tall and covered in red hair, are clearly not human). Another one is Zana the Russian "wild woman".

However as Ballzack says there are too many examples which couldnt possibly be human (8ft, hair covered sasquatch, 3ft hair covered orang pendek, etc) so I think there are probably some "real" cryptid apes (not necessarily ape men) out there.
 
Well, what I find hardest to handle is that they seem to occur everywhere. And in the case of the yowie, the example I'm most familiar with, there is a major unresolved issue - Oz held no large mammals (rats and bats don't count) until the aborigines arrived somewhere between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. Supposed yowie hair samples have been shown to have come from dogs, horses, others critters and .... humans!

No, sorry, until someone shoots one of the b*stards and its dissection is written up in 'Nature' I'm sticking with the psychological projection theory.
 
The most interesting (and most commonly overlooked) reports come from Africa. Just think how much room they could have to hide.... I remember reading one reporst by some hunters who claimed they were surrounded by these creatures once but they just walked up to them snapped their spears and walked off. I've also read reports about them stealing food straight from the local tribes. Whatever these creatures are, it seems the cleverest ones are found in Africa.
 
The Orang Pendek being rumoured to talk may be nothing special. The Orang Utan also was. It was said it could talk but didn't because it knew then it would be put to work.
 
Yeah, people seem to often quote that scientists also didn't believe in the Gorilla even though the natives talked about it. And if you look at what they said, then yes there were some humanoid creatures running around. But pretty much everything else they said turned out to be wrong.
 
Actually that wasn't what I was saying. What I was saying was that natives sometimes talk bollocks. Sometimes you hear someone using as an argument that "The natives have always knwon they were there" like with the yeti. But then stuff like the bad reports about the gorilla, and that yeti scalp made from a goat shows that they can easily be wrong. We should not dismiss their stories, but taking them at face value because they have been said by some noble natives isn't any good either.
 
"Psychological projection" theory

Attempting to resolve a mystery by positing a theory that's basically meaningless scientifically might be useful if one wants an easy way to reassure oneself of one's rationalism, but it's still meaningless.

I can at least understand, if not necessarily accept, the idea of an animal yet to be described by science wandering about some god forsaken part of the planet - but "psychological projection"? An empty pseudo-scientific phrase used to explain away, rather than explain.
 
Sebastian said:
Don't you find it interesting that cryptic "ape-men" are reported just about everywhere in the world that humans are found?
Click to expand...

I'm afraid theres no where on earth that humans arent found these days... most reports come from the most remotest places anyway.
 
And maybe that just mean they are remnants from legends. You know, some humans meet some other humans and try justifying taking their land and such by dehumanizing them. "They are these half beast half man creatures, that eat raw meat and steal our women. And a few generations down people take it literally.
 
Xanatic said:
"They are these half beast half man creatures, that eat raw meat and steal our women. And a few generations down people take it literally.
Click to expand...

So basically, Bigfoot is a Millwall supporter :D
 
Yep - I take your point, Xanatic. This was the basis on which the British Empire was run for centuries. However, I think when it comes to cryptids, they should be examined on a case by case basis. Legends in one part of the world of a vaguely man-like creature said to possess supernatural powers and used as a boogieman to scare children should be treated very differently than something like, for example, the Yeren in China, where there is a large body of modern anecdotal evidence of something resembling a large Orang Utan, as well as yet to be properly classified hair samples etc.
 
I think Adrian with his comment on Millwall supporters very well illustrated my point that you usually try and dehumanise your opponents.
 
It's interesting that Ballzack mentions the rumour that the lesser yowie (a.k.a. brown Jack) can talk and that Xanatic mentions how people tend to try to dehumanise their opponents. In Oz there is a persistent rumour among the whitefellas that purports to explain the brown Jack in the following terms:

Before the arrival of the aborigines Oz was populated by hominids, perhaps H.erectus, (pretty scarce evidence for this, by the way) which were obliterated by the incoming aborigines. However, before their extinction there were matings with aborigines. Now, the story goes that the half-human genes were recessive, but that marriage between individuals who carried them would often result in the birth of "brown Jacks". Thus the hugely complicated aboriginal marriage laws were evolved to prevent these aberrant births. This became the ultimate "secret tribal business". Tribal groups were split into moeities, totems and skin groups which determined who could marry who, but all this fell apart after white settlement. Strangely, the story insists that interbreeding with visiting Indonesian trepangers and invading whitefellas in some way disabled the troublesome genes in subsequent generations. Following the collapse of tribal society people who could never have married under the old rules were now free to form sexual liaisons. The occasional brown Jack birth is supposedly covered up by people leaving the unwanted babies in certain areas of the bush where they can be found and cared for by the existing population of brown Jacks.

Obviously this story is greeted with denial and derision by aborigines, but there's always white folk who say, "Of course. That's what they would say isn't it." And so the story gets passed on.

And now I've passed it on to you. Oh well. I guess I was always going to come back as a cockroach in my next life anyway. :p
 
...and my thread on ape/human hybrids was parallel as well until it got derailed into wolf-dogs etc...

That "Brown Jack" thing very much reminds me of an HP Lovecraft story which was somewhat plagiarised by the movie "Congo" (link to it in the ape-human hybrid thread) and also of Will Baker's "Star Beasts"... anyone read that?

Althought thylacoleo.com, in addition to info about supposed surviving Thylacoleos (obviously) has stuff on Australian (fairly recent) fossil finds of "archaic" hominids, ie probable H.erectus.
 
Search for Bigfoot after sighting draws a blank

There has been a sighting of the legendary Bigfoot in Washington State.

A man spotted the hairy, human-like creature near his house in Forks.

An animal-control officer and Forks police carried out a search but found no trace of the Sasquatch.

"We were unable to locate, identify or capture the Sasquatch," said Forks Police Chief Mike Powell.

He said it was a relief because he wouldn't know how to deal with a Bigfoot.

Mr Powell said: "I don't know why we would impound him or where we would keep him."

Sightings of the creature, reputed to lurk in Northwest forests, are rare.


Story filed: 20:41 Monday 17th June 2002

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_609644.html?menu=
 
New photo of a European Bigfoot

Here's an interesting shot of a Western European "wildman". They are reflected in the German folklore, I believe. I would expect nothing like this left in the cleaned-up forests of Germany, France and especially tiny Luxembourg. No place to hide for something bigger than deer.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page386.html

By the way, I remember reading a 19th c. Lithuanian story about a peasant girl abducted by a "wild man". Parts of Poland, Belarus and Lithuania where they merge still have dense forests - the last remaining old European forest with some rare animal species.
 
Wildmen of the woods are found all over, there are stories from Japan, (some old, some recent) over there they call him the Mountain Man, which seems appropriate, since he likes such environs.

I was skeptical (with a K) about the yowie though. But then I heard about remains of pre modern humans found there. the Abos dont want to talk about them, because they want to be first there. (they also dont want to talk about the different peoples who came to australia, same reason)
 
<<<the Abos dont want to talk about them, because they want to be first there. (they also dont want to talk about the different peoples who came to australia, same reason)>>>

Same here, in North America. There has been that famous controversy with a mysterious non-native skull found in Washington State, and a different theory of the settlement would topple the existing privileges. In Canada, the natives have been given the official title of the First Nations, with all the trimmings - resulting in all painful issues, from taxes to native fishing being allowed while non-native restricted in the same areas, to demolition of non-natives' homes on a reserve land after their lease expires (beautiful lakeside cottages, many recently renovated, after 20-30 years of use).
 
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