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Indian Yeti / Barmanu

Yes, devolution in the selective sense.
Apart from the orang-pendek the three i think are most likley are the yeti, the yeren and the almasty. There is maes of room in plases like Tibt for these things to remain unseen.
As for the Garo Hills i've been there. I've seen just how small the opulation is and how undisturned the jungle is. There is jungle from the Garos through Assam right into Bhutan.
 
oldrover said:
As much as I agree with everything you say about the Yowie, I don't think we've got anything like a complete fossil record of large Australian mammals.

Yes, but is there a region in the world where we have a complete fossil record of large land mammals ? The existence of gaps is inevitable, but where Naish is right, is that large groups are always found on long periods.

lordmongrove said:
Apart from the orang-pendek the three i think are most likley are the yeti, the yeren and the almasty. There is maes of room in plases like Tibt for these things to remain unseen.

Tibet is large, but populated and well known, with important Chinese military monitoring.
The yeren : I remember that three or four decads ago, a hand attributed to a large macaque had been found. But there does not seem to have been more follow-up. It was probably an unusually big macaque, and it wouldn't account for sightings of bipedal man-ape beings.
The almasty : Caucasus is a range of mountains filled with villages, peasants, shepherds etc... Its existence is as likely as that of an unidentified ape-man in the Alps.
 
amyasleigh said:
undiscovered breeding populations of large, purely-flesh-and-blood creatures in such a crowded, tamed and cleared country as Britain, are IMO out of the question.
In modern times, absolutely agree - but go back just a couple of centuries, pre-industrial revolution, when much of the UK was still forested the wodewose or woodhouse was frequently referred to.
Analis said:
...The almasty : Caucasus is a range of mountains filled with villages, peasants, shepherds etc... Its existence is as likely as that of an unidentified ape-man in the Alps.
As lordmongrove said earlier in the thread:
lordmongrove said:
I have spoken to people who have seen these things in Sumatra, India and Russia and they don't seem to have a reason to lie. Often they seem amazed that people from the outside world are interested in what is just another animal to them. I recall talking to one old woman in Russia who had seen an almasty shortly after WWII in Kazakhstan. She said 'why are you interested in such a crazy topic?' ..
Certainly in the case of the Almasty the indigenous peoples are well aware of them, and even regard them as a pest in some areas.
 
Just finished reading Wildmen by Myra Shackley which has information about man beast type cryptids. The question was asked could these be remnants of neanderthals?
 
stuneville said:
amyasleigh said:
undiscovered breeding populations of large, purely-flesh-and-blood creatures in such a crowded, tamed and cleared country as Britain, are IMO out of the question.
In modern times, absolutely agree - but go back just a couple of centuries, pre-industrial revolution, when much of the UK was still forested the wodewose or woodhouse was frequently referred to.
“Taken on board”: I seem, though, to have read and gathered from various sources (don’t have “chapter and verse” to hand), that even a fair number of centuries pre-Industrial Revolution, a lot of Britain had already been cleared and deforested – limiting potential cryptid-habitat “from way back”.

I frequently wonder – in general, not particularly in respect of Britain – why deforestation never seems to turn up specimens of “mysterious hairy bipeds”, for discovery and scientific documentation. Or am I “missing a trick” somewhere, and in the real world things don’t happen this way, in such situations?
 
Analis said:
...The almasty : Caucasus is a range of mountains filled with villages, peasants, shepherds etc... Its existence is as likely as that of an unidentified ape-man in the Alps.
Irresistible to mention – though taking it that final words above, are rhetorical citing of a randomly chosen wildly improbable situation – something which appeared a few years ago, on the discussion board called “cryptozoology.com”. A (translated) quote from the book “Sauvages et Velus” by Jean Roche. Caveat: some consider this author to be credulous-verging-on-delusional – am appending the following just for interest, without implying that I think it at all likely to be true.

Roche cites “reports of hairy wildmen being more or less enslaved in the French Alps, up until the 18th / 19th century. There are even reports dating from the 1950s, where old folks in the Alps remembered seeing the last of these wild men, begging for food in the villages, before they eventually died out. They were called ‘cagots’ and lived in stone huts in the mountains, where they looked after the sheep during the summer pasture. Apparently these huts can still be found in some remote areas. When this type of herding disappeared, so did the ‘cagots’ – they were not needed any more. These ‘cagots’ appeared to be similar to the Almas of the Caucasian area, i.e. a more neandertalian type of hominid.”

Roche is also quoted as stating that these “hairy wildmen” in the southern parts of France, were much reduced in numbers during the Middle Ages, owing to the Catholic Church – with a goal of getting rid of the creatures, not of ministering to them – finding means of branding them as diabolic, and thus having them killed in large quantities.

Would consider the above-cited as insanely unlikely (adding my usual rider of “taking it to be about purely-flesh-and-blood beings”) – but possibly an interesting oddity, if one is the kind of person who has any patience with such, taken in that spirit. I understand that the author’s “Savages et Velus” – with much content on supposed European (particularly Western European) wildmen – is available in French only. Have long intended to try to obtain a copy, and grapple with the language – if only to find out whether there is anything worthwhile in the content, or whether I’d rate the book as 100% bilge.

stuneville said:
lordmongrove said:
I have spoken to people who have seen these things in Sumatra, India and Russia and they don't seem to have a reason to lie. Often they seem amazed that people from the outside world are interested in what is just another animal to them. I recall talking to one old woman in Russia who had seen an almasty shortly after WWII in Kazakhstan. She said 'why are you interested in such a crazy topic?' ..
Certainly in the case of the Almasty the indigenous peoples are well aware of them, and even regard them as a pest in some areas.
Re Almas -- I have to put myself here, in Analis's camp (see top of post) -- at any rate, as regards the Caucasus (off Europe's "beaten track" but still a relatively developed and populated area). I started a thread on this sub-forum a bit more than a year ago, commenting on this topic. The "Almas in Caucasus" scenario as often depicted -- the locals know all about the creatures, but the world at large has their existence concealed from it / doesn't know / writes the matter off as myth -- I just cannot buy this as credible in a context of purely-flesh-and-blood beings; least of all, with the area having spent three quarters of a century under (of all hyper-inquisitive and intrusive regimes) Soviet Communism. Am inclined toward my cop-out -- if that's what it is -- of the paranormal being involved: if Almasty are physically there, it's only for some of the time...

(Am shortly going off on a week's holiday, out of Internet range: that, the only reason for foreseen non-posting for a while.)

(stu edit - corrected quote tags, cos previously looked like I was directly arguing with my own point of view...)
 
stuneville said:
Analis said:
...The almasty : Caucasus is a range of mountains filled with villages, peasants, shepherds etc... Its existence is as likely as that of an unidentified ape-man in the Alps.
As lordmongrove said earlier in the thread:
lordmongrove said:
I have spoken to people who have seen these things in Sumatra, India and Russia and they don't seem to have a reason to lie. Often they seem amazed that people from the outside world are interested in what is just another animal to them. I recall talking to one old woman in Russia who had seen an almasty shortly after WWII in Kazakhstan. She said 'why are you interested in such a crazy topic?' ..
Certainly in the case of the Almasty the indigenous peoples are well aware of them, and even regard them as a pest in some areas.

Well, Caucasus is also filled with civil servants, police officers, the military, professors etc... It is not a backwards area. Why have so few of them documented almasty ?

The great number of testimonies leads to another paradox : if almasties are so common, then why can't they be found ? When locals in the Alps say thay have seen ibexes and chamois, there is no need to mount an expedition to find them. And if there was one, it would find them immediately. Even the rare bears in the French Pyrenees can be traced easily.

As for local opinions about their nature, things don't seem so clear-cut.
The situation with the Caucasian natives is in my opinion similar to the relation between alpine natives and the dragons and tatzelwurms. Michel Meurger showed in his books on dragons that they were seen as 'supernatural', but also as normal, and that in XIXth century alpine peasants sometimes made no distinction betweeen a viper and a tatzelwurm. And we should take into account that natives' opinions may vary too. After all, western opinion about Sasquatch varies... So it's not impossible that according to his or her perspective, and of his or her witnesses, a western observer could come from the conclusion that caucasians consider the almas as normal creatures, or as supernatural ones.

But certainly, almasty reports are sometimes filled with fairy and poltergeist lore, as I had noted in another thread. There are other examples where they clearly feature details from local demonic lore. Notably that to get free of a female almasty, one has to hand her breast and to suck it. In my opinion, it strongly points towards a paranormal nature.
 
Well, I was going to forget another thing : I have Sauvages et velus. As I remember that I read somewhere an example of the breast-feeding detail (as absurd as it may seem), I'll try to check this book again to see if it is inside (but not immediately, as I won't be there for more than two weeks).
 
Lordmongrove, sorry I meant do you mean hominid in the selective sense. I mean are we talking about something like H. erectus which deliberately manufactured its raft. If so personally I think that’s fine they got to Flores after all. But of course that’s not what the reports portray, that’s an ape. Is that what you meant by;

May be it is some kind of hominid that rafted to Australia when the coast was closer to Indonesia 20,000 years ago but the modern sightings seem to portray a creature much like the almasty with only primative tool use and no fire. I have never been convinced by the 'devolution' idea.

That a more sophisticated tool using creature H. erectus regressed into a giant ape like state. If so I agree, I don’t think that that idea holds water.

About;

In modern times, absolutely agree - but go back just a couple of centuries, pre-industrial revolution, when much of the UK was still forested the wodewose or woodhouse was frequently referred to.

And

I seem, though, to have read and gathered from various sources (don’t have “chapter and verse” to hand), that even a fair number of centuries pre-Industrial Revolution...

Large scale forest clearance is an ancient pastime in Britain. I was surprised when I realised that how many of the wooded and apparently rural areas we have where I live, have got industrial archaeology under them, from Roman to pretty recent. I even stumbled on a fragment of canal once that no one seems to have marked anywhere.

I believe the forests were dramatically reduced in the prehistoric period, and again depleted in the Roman era, but in various places grown and receded according to the local economic or social needs. I doubt there’s much if any primary forest left in either Wales or England, not sure about Scotland.

Despite the fact that to me at least the Yowie represents convincing evidence that people will see these things whether they’re there or not, as for the Yeti and Yeren I still can’t quite let go of the idea that there may have been something behind them at one time. There’s the case of the stories from Flores of a small race of people, now with evidence to say that at least at one time there was another diminutive human species there. But then of course you get those stories from most other parts of the world as well.

Am shortly going off on a week's holiday, out of Internet range

Have a nice trip.
 
Point taken re the forestation - however, the fact remains that, at any given time up until the 17th century, a significant portion of the British mainland would have been forested and largely uninhabited. Wildlife of all kinds would have shifted with the changing patterns of forestation.
Analis said:
stuneville said:
Analis said:
...The almasty : Caucasus is a range of mountains filled with villages, peasants, shepherds etc... Its existence is as likely as that of an unidentified ape-man in the Alps.
As lordmongrove said earlier in the thread:
lordmongrove said:
I have spoken to people who have seen these things in Sumatra, India and Russia and they don't seem to have a reason to lie. Often they seem amazed that people from the outside world are interested in what is just another animal to them. I recall talking to one old woman in Russia who had seen an almasty shortly after WWII in Kazakhstan. She said 'why are you interested in such a crazy topic?' ..
Certainly in the case of the Almasty the indigenous peoples are well aware of them, and even regard them as a pest in some areas.

Well, Caucasus is also filled with civil servants, police officers, the military, professors etc... It is not a backwards area. Why have so few of them documented almasty ?
It's not backwards, but despite having an infrastructure, it's still a very big, sporadically populated area - and big tracts of it are to all intents and purposes wilderness.

Analis said:
... The great number of testimonies leads to another paradox : if almasties are so common, then why can't they be found ?
To quote lordmongrove again "I recall talking to one old woman in Russia who had seen an almasty shortly after WWII in Kazakhstan. She said 'why are you interested in such a crazy topic?'"

Perhaps it's because the locals aren't looking for them, by dint of already knowing they're there? And Almasty hunters - usually Western - aren't nearly as common as Sasquatch hunters, covering a potential area of comparable size.

Analis said:
After all, western opinion about Sasquatch varies... So it's not impossible that according to his or her perspective, and of his or her witnesses, a western observer could come from the conclusion that caucasians consider the almas as normal creatures, or as supernatural ones...But certainly, almasty reports are sometimes filled with fairy and poltergeist lore...
And indeed, so do Yeren and Sasquatch ones (eg braiding the manes of horses.) Wouldn't surprise me if some Yowie ones do as well - worth noting though that Native American tribes often had separate names for Sasquatch-type entities that indicate an accepted difference between flesh and blood creatures (whom they regarded as another tribe in many cases) and supernatural beings. Which could tie in neatly with:
oldrover said:
Despite the fact that to me at least the Yowie represents convincing evidence that people will see these things whether they’re there or not, as for the Yeti and Yeren I still can’t quite let go of the idea that there may have been something behind them at one time. There’s the case of the stories from Flores of a small race of people, now with evidence to say that at least at one time there was another diminutive human species there. But then of course you get those stories from most other parts of the world as well.
..and, as with Flores, who's to say that some time in the future fossils, or other findings in Australia, Europe and North America won't turn up similar evidence for large bipedal primates? As we've already discussed, total reliance on the fossil record can be misleading - not only can some soils destroy any evidence given time, but it can only ever be representative. An archaeologist of my acquaintance once pointed out that drawing conclusions purely on artefacts can lead to horrendous false-syllogisms: rather like saying "I've dug over every square metre of this field, and haven't found a single human bone, therefore humans have never existed in this field, and I therefore extrapolate have never existed in this county."

You have to take any and all evidence holistically - and sightings at least show that people are seeing (and occasionally interacting) with something - similarly what about sound recordings of howls, etc? They're not wolves, coyotes or humans (the vocal tract is too long) - and that's before we even get onto footprint evidence - granted many are fake, but what of the ones that Krantz, Meldrum and Napier regard as legit, and have said so despite the reputational risk they have run by saying so?

I don't know if BHMs are flesh and blood, ghosts of BHMs, some kind of dimensional entity, or a combination of the above and many more - what I am sure of, though, is that people are seeing something, and they're seeing them all over the world - and it's distinctly unFortean to tell them they're not, simply on the basis that they can't be.
 
.and, as with Flores, who's to say that some time in the future fossils…

Absolutely, there’s nothing to say that next week we won’t find similar fossils in France for example. Personally I find the possible relationship between the fossils and the stories on Flores very interesting, but I honestly have to note that it could be coincidental. And without more definite evidence you do have to consider that, even if like me you find it unlikely. That’s a very different thing to an over dependence on the fossil record, in fact it acknowledges that the presence or absence of fossils in Cryptozoology isn’t an absolute indication of anything.

Of further interest is the similarity between the Flores stories and the Vedda’s accounts of the Nittevo. Also Mike Morwood one of the discoverers of the Hobbits was interviewed the other day by Pat Spain, and said that in his opinion they lived at least until the 1920’s and possibly still existed somewhere in Indonesia.

...or other findings in Australia, Europe and North America won't turn up similar evidence for large bipedal primates?

Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, even South America yes, but not Australia not primate fossils, obviously excluding human.

As an aside I can’t help wondering whether the Yowie is a modern continuation of the early settlers’ attempts to Westernize the unique fauna of Australia.

You do have to take evidence holistically but unfortunately, and I do mean that, this includes the huge amount of negative evidence against the existence of BHMs. While negative evidence is difficult to consider conclusive, I think in this case it’s fair to say it significantly outweighs the supporting evidence. Meaning the onus is to prove that things like howls, footprints and even that which personally I find most difficult to dismiss eye witness accounts, have significant weight to overturn it.

This argument though only applies to a flesh and blood explanation. None of the objections I’ve raised apply to the paranormal, as I’ve said before while it isn’t the one I favour, I think it’s one of the two explanations left on the table.
 
The fact that the Chinese millitary are in Tibet i think counts in favour of the yeti. I don't think they would tell anyone if they saw it. Tibet is not heavily populated there are hundreds of square miles of wildreness as there is in China. Hair taken from central chine were a yeran had been seen scratching against a tree was examined in China the UK and the USA. Their conclutions were that it was an unknown primate.

As for the Caaucausus, i've been there. There are still masses of wildreneness. You can go for miles on end without the slightest hunt of another human. Obne of the witnesses who saw an almasty was the deputy director of national parks. I interviwed him. I think he, if anyone should know what he's talking about
 
H. erects or somthing akin to it may have reached Australa via rafts. We don't kno how hairt erectu was. It was fairly tall but not as large as most yowie reports. they may, if this is what thy are, have got bigger in the intervining 20,000 years or so. But on the other hand why such primitive tool use and no use of fire?

Lets get one thing straight here. The Caucausus is not overpopulated. Yes there are towns and small cites but up in the mountains proper its little villages. Karbadino-Balkaria is very wild. It isexcellent habitat for a large ominivore. Gregeory Panchenko, the Ukrainian biologist who we worked with calls the almasty the ecological twin of the brown bear. Gregory is a well respected biologist. He's seen an almasty close up. All he would get from telling lies is scorn and possable career damage.
 
(stu edit - corrected quote tags, cos previously looked like I was directly arguing with my own point of view...)
Thanks! Am not bright, I'm afraid, with anything involving computers...
 
lordmongrove said:
The fact that the Chinese millitary are in Tibet i think counts in favour of the yeti. I don't think they would tell anyone if they saw it.
Back to the Net, after a spell away... One might ponder as to why the Chinese military would, if they regularly encountered yetis, “keep it dark”? I’d imagine equally likely, their seizing with enthusiasm on an amazing scientific discovery...?

Some American students of Bigfoot assert that the creatures are frequently encountered on a number of military bases, chiefly in the wilder and more westerly regions of the U.S.A. Per such accounts, military personnel serving at these venues are under orders to ignore and not to discuss the BF (which on the whole just do their own thing, and don’t bother the humans). This chimes in with the scenario quite often postulated by “Bigfooters”, that the U.S. authorities are in fact aware of the existence and nature of Bigfoot, but keep it under wraps, in the light of a variety of contentious issues likely to boil up and give trouble, if that knowledge became available to the public. Is a similar situation seen with the Chinese military in Tibet – keeping “schtum”, to avoid the occurrence of alarm and despondency among the Han Chinese settlers in the region?

As for the Caaucausus, i've been there. There are still masses of wildreneness. You can go for miles on end without the slightest hunt of another human. Obne of the witnesses who saw an almasty was the deputy director of national parks. I interviwed him. I think he, if anyone should know what he's talking about
The big problem I find with the Caucasus / Almas situation as perceived, is not about disputing the existence of big, empty wilderness areas in the region; but concerning the frequently cited instances of quite close interastion between the local rural population, and "Almas-kind" -- to the point of, according to some, many locals having had, some generations back, Almas "live-in servants".

In a context of "purely-flesh-and-blood" creatures, I just cannot credit the situation of the locals having this order of closeness with the cryptids, but with outsiders -- including "educated / inquisitive / officialdom-representing" permanent residents -- being oblivious to the crypids' existence; not in a pretty well European-mainstream part of the world. Such a set-up, in the 19th / 20th century Caucasus, strikes me as equally unbelievable, as the similar one with the "cagots" postulated by Monsieur Roche in the French Alps up to the 19th century.
 
I've heard of the US millitary thing with bigfoot before. There might be something in it.
As for the almasty i think storiesof interbreeding and almasty servents are just folklore. Wild stories were told about gorillas in Africa (they come into villages and carry off native girls to rape, they beat elephants to deah with tree trunks) but it dosn't mean that gorillas don't exist. Almasty are supposed to approach remote farms and the outskirts of vllages. Some people have left out food for them (Gregory did this when he got his best sighting) but the taller tales i think are just that, tall talls.
 
I've heard of the US millitary thing with bigfoot before. There might be something in it.

Only if everyone involved is an automaton and none ever think about acting in their own self, or it could easily be argued the public’s, interest and spills the lot.

Some people have left out food for them (Gregory did this when he got his best sighting) but the taller tales i think are just that, tall talls.

About that sighting;

While he remained hidden in a barn in Kuruko ravine, Kabardin Republic, Russia, on August 25, 1991 biologist Gregory Panchenko observed an Almasti enter through a window and plait a horse’s mane. The horse did not offer any resistance. After a short time, during which it made high pitched, twittering sounds, the Almasti departed through an open window above the barn door. Panchenko verified that the horse’s mane had new and clumsily plaited braids that were not there the day before.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z9gM ... O3GDjyS17J

There are other references to him having claimed this;

. There, at night, he observed a possible Almasty for a few minutes.[4] [4] .., Panchenko showed a braid made from horse hair, which might have been braided by Almasty.

http://www.stgr-primates.de/reports.html

So that supports him having made this claim. I see this as a problem, one of the main researchers on the subject is saying something very bizarre. Not so much because it’s said to be a behaviour shared by Bigfoot, which apparently is supposed to be a different type of animal, meaning that this unique behaviour is shared by two different species each with serious questions hanging over them. But because it’s also behaviour attributed to fairies.

forteantimes.com/features/ar ... _mane.html
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2010030...icles/3016/straight_from_the_horses_mane.html


As the article above recounts there was recently a spate of this reported in Britain. As the article also mentions becuase it was pretty much dismissed by experienced horse owners as being nothing unusual, it seems likely that mane plaiting, like fairy rings and marsh gas, are a natural occurrence that’s become intertwined with folklore.

This raises a strange coincidence that something that occurs naturally, that’s also been attributed to fairy folk, is also something practised by the Almasty. I don’t mean to be rude but I can’t begin to believe this is on the level. It also occurred to me that this may be why while there are plenty of English language references to him having seen one, details are very scarce. It’s a similar question I asked you about the Yowie article on cryptomundo, do you think the account was originally designed for a particular demographic.

According to current reports of natives in Kabardino-Balkaria, before the Second World War it was not rare that a single Almasty lived in a local family over many years. In this connection one can hear the following story: The Almasty who lived with the humans received every day his meal. Each time when the family had lunch or dinner, they set out a serving in the courtyard. But when they forgot to do this, and when they later returned home, they realized that he had made a large mess in the house looking for his dinner
.

http://www.stgr-primates.de/reports.html

This also feels to me like a folklore motif . Not least because of the question of superstition, taboo and fear associated with the Almasty sightings mentioned on this board and elsewhere which contradict this type of familiarity ever actually taking place. Aside from how totally absurd that a suggestion they could have stayed undetected under those circumstances during the Soviet/WWII era would be. Consider the turmoil and amount of troops brought in to enforce collectivisation alone.

Thing is if you don’t accept that and it’s what the locals are saying what are you left with? Surely you’re in danger of quite naturally but unconsciously westernising the Almasty so that it fits into our view of what a plausible cryptid should be.

Gorillas are a bad example, where gorillas are people are poor so they shoot gorillas because they went to survive. Where the Almasty is people are poor but for some reason, people don’t shoot Almasty to get a better standard of living. Taboo doesn’t cover it because there would have been a large foreign transient military population there especially in Soviet times. And sort of returning to the first point about the US military firstly as it’s been pointed out that the Soviets were willing to officially study the question, there’s no reason to suppress it, especially from their own sanctioned researchers. Secondly even if it was a totally verboten subject corruption in the Soviet system was endemic, someone would have spotted an opportunity.
 
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Panchenco himself was quite retisent to talk about it to me at first because he had no evidence to back hisstory up. He had told it to other researchers and it was published in the book In The Footsteps of the Russian Snowman. Panchenko was not happy about this but the cat was out of the bag. Why the hell would a biologist make up such a story? For that matter why would a geographer and deputy head of a national park say he had seen one?
As for the plating of the horses mane, yeas fairies were supposed to do this as well as riding the horse till it sweats (hag ridden) but i see no contadiction in a real creature doing it and i see no contadiction in two different primates doing it. Primates are inquisitive creatures that like to fiddle with things. I've worked with dozensof species and many pick up similar habbits.
No one shoots the almasty as it is considered to be a man not an animal. One hunter we heard of had what he thought was a bear in his gun sights but when he saw it was an almasty he did not shoot.
There are cases of almasty being seen and even captured during the war.
 
I hope you won’t see this as me having a go, it isn’t. It’s the arguments I’ve got a problem with not individuals.

Panchenco himself was quite retisent to talk about it to me at first because he had no evidence to back hisstory up. He had told it to other researchers and it was published in the book In The Footsteps of the Russian Snowman. Panchenko was not happy about this but the cat was out of the bag. Why the hell would a biologist make up such a story?

He was obviously quite happy about it at one time, otherwise why was he waving the supposed braid around on French TV in 2002? What could have changed do you think? As for why they would make it up, I can’t say, what are the usual reasons?

Primates are inquisitive creatures that like to fiddle with things. I've worked with dozens of species and many pick up similar habbits.

Similar habits, you think of another example that equates to this? Either way this is mane braiding and it’s a problem because he’s tied the Almasty to a known folklore motif. Maybe this is why he’s grown reticent about talking about it. What makes a good cryptid in the former USSR isn’t necessarily the same as what cuts it over here.

No one shoots the almasty as it is considered to be a man not an animal

This is special pleading, this is a region prone to armed violence and people trafficking*. As the locals are supposed to be so well aware of these creatures using this as an argument as to why no ones going to go for the jackpot means they, especially the criminal element, would have to regard them as more important and sacrosanct than people.
* http://www.genevadeclaration.org/filead ... -Paper.pdf
 
The local people look on the almasty as a human. They don't shoot it because it is a wildman. It is no threat (apart from stealing food on occation) and it would be no use to anyone. As i have stated before they don't have any idea of the scientific importance of the almasty.

Different primates will do similar things such as feeding birds with scraps of left over food (chimps and orangs), using sticks and mud to 'paint' (gorillas, orangs, chimps), pointlessly digging (spider monkeys, colobus, de,brazza monkeys) 'drawing' shapes diliberatly in saw dust (de'brazza monkeys, diana monkeys, chimps).

I think as Panchenko got older (hes in his mid forties) he began to realize that without hard evidence a lot of people would not belive his story. He spoke of his frustration at not getting the hard evidence when the creature was so close. I think no he just wants to work at it till he gets the hard evidence.

It bolis down to this for me.
1. Every one who has seen an almasty is a liar or mistaking something else.
2. There is an unknown higher primate in the Caucasus.

If find the former much harder to belive than the latter.
 
As i have stated before they don't have any idea of the scientific importance of the almasty.

Not even remotely possible. Forget for a moment that anyone on earth would realise a different type of human was something special, and aside from the expeditions that have gone there looking for it, which would have tipped of the locals, or the fact that Almasty sightings are at least sometimes covered in the press.

Ignore the huge amount of outsiders who would have spent prolonged periods there on military and state service again many of whom would be highly educated*, after all there were nuclear weapons sited in the region. Also the related question of how many of the locals even from the most insular communities, would themselves have spent a long time away in their military service, and developed a wider world view.

The inescapable fact remains that there are a significant number of doctors and teachers, to name but two professions, permanently based in the area who would be immediately aware of their significance. And I think would be quite interested in the most important find in history.

*Also many would have been hard line communists and wouldn’t have given a rats arse about local feelings or taboos.

Different primates will do similar things...

That’s a long way from mane braiding, plus the problem stands of attributing this sort of behaviour to the Almasty as it suggests, not proves of course, but suggests that the Almasty is given similar attributes as we further west used to give to supernatural beings to explain a natural occurrence. Which raises concern when a researcher claims to have witnessed it.

Which leads on to why he’s reticent about mentioning it, mane braiding doesn’t seem very popular in western man beast circles. Even Loren Coleman he of the Kow swamp nonsense, seems to treat it light heartedly .
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-ne ... ot-braids/
As for his age, if he’s mid forties now head have been mid thirties when he was on TV in 2002, his sighting was in 1991/1992 ten years to realise it was being badly received. I’m struggling to accept that as an explanation. To me, and again no offence, it seems like a serious mistake to make the claim then back away from it, because it could be interpreted as an attempt by him, since his move to the West, to re-brand his product to appeal to an audience raised on the more westernised flesh and blood Bigfoot. Criticisms regarding branding aren't without some precedent in the Almasty’s case as someone commented regarding the title of ‘In The Footsteps of the Russian Snowman’.

It bolis down to this for me.
1. Every one who has seen an almasty is a liar or mistaking something else.
2. There is an unknown higher primate in the Caucasus.

If you use this as the main crux of your argument you’re also left having to account for the, I would think more numerous, sightings of the; the Virgin Mary, angels, demons, witches and fairies.

I hate saying that by the way, but I think there comes a point where the negative evidence becomes so overwhelming and the explanations to account for it so strained that there comes a time when you’re forced to consider the distasteful and disappointing.
 
Not wanting to come across as “piling on attacking-wise” – just wishing to engage in the discussion – regarding the matter of the locals supposedly being reticent and / or “oblivious to the significance”, I concur with oldrover’s latest post.

Most particularly re (even if marginally) the First World, I find it next-to-impossible to credit the proposition of the local people’s attitude being solidly “as above”: for me, that goes for the Caucasus, also for “transatlantic Bigfoot country” – U.S.A. and Canada. Some American “Bigfooters” will propound the notion that people in remote rural areas encounter Bigfoot with fair frequency, but consider it no big deal, and / or are almost pathologically reluctant to confide in outsiders, about anything. While there are no doubt very dark rural corners of North America: as in the discussion of the Caucasus situation, numerous outsiders, often well-educated, go into those places; and locals go out from those places (military service; seeking better job opportunities in “civilisation”; bright kids go to college) and broaden their horizons; and in some cases, having an attachment to their home patch, periodically go back. I find it hard to imagine, even in the remotest backwoods, nobody ever thus cottoning on to MHBs being around, and to the value (for scientific discovery, for self-enrichment, or both) of bringing them into the light.

My reading on the “dichotomy” set out, is a thing of “three, not two”.

1) Everyone claiming to have seen [whatever kind of MHB] is, as a friend of mine pithily put it, “mischievous or mistaken”.

2) There is an unknown higher primate in [wherever].

3) Something on this scene, is going on -- involving the paranormal / supernatural, whereby catching / killing [whatever they are], is very much more difficult than would be the case with any flesh-and-blood creature – is in fact quite likely, impossible.

Just my “take” – many will disagree. For me personally, option 3) is the least hard to swallow.
 
Virgin Mary, angels, demons, witches and fairies are all given supernatural significance. I only met one man who thought the almasty had supernnatural atriubutes and he clearly had mental problems. All the others seemed like odinary folk who attached little sgnificance to what they had seen.
I really don't see the problem with hair brading. Why wou;d that be different fro other odd habits primates pick up?
Gregory actualy saw the creature in the act of doing the platting. He was hiding under a load of hay only 10 feet from it. Why the hell would a bilogist, and one who is well known in Russia, Ukrain and Germany lie about this. It would only do him damage. I was in the mountains with Gregory and found him to be an excellent naturalist and not in the least credulos.
There have been and still are military precences in the Cacausus but any almasty is going to put as much distance between itself and a hord of heavy booted soldiers as it can. Besides one was captured examined and later shot during WWII.
I've been to the Caucasus and spoken to the people. They accord no special significance to the wildman, but they know it exists
As for the 'supernatural' explanation. It's not a term i like, i would prefer paranormal. I've toyed with the idea and come up with some theories of my own on the 'high strangness cases'. But what we are doing there is essentialy explaining one mystery with another.
 
While there are no doubt very dark rural corners of North America: as in the discussion of the Caucasus situation, numerous outsiders, often well-educated, go into those places; and locals go out from those places (military service; seeking better job opportunities in “civilisation”; bright kids go to college) and broaden their horizons; and in some cases, having an attachment to their home patch, periodically go back

Another major point.

Again I’m sorry to say what I’m going to say.

Virgin Mary, angels, demons, witches and fairies are all given supernatural significance. I only met one man who thought the almasty had supernnatural atriubutes and he clearly had mental problems*. All the others seemed like odinary folk who attached little sgnificance to what they had seen.

It doesn’t matter what the explanation is, the point is hundreds or thousands of people claim to have seen them. And if we go with there must be something there because x amount of serious people have seen them, we’re stuck with the above too. And whatever they did or didn’t see judging from some of your comments, with which I agree, I take it you don’t think it was the blessed Virgin. So we’re left with a hole in the original argument.

* I may be totally of the mark here but would this be to do with the body and the German cars.

I really don't see the problem with hair brading. Why wou;d that be different fro other odd habits primates pick up?
Gregory actualy saw the creature in the act of doing the platting. He was hiding under a load of hay only 10 feet from it. Why the hell would a bilogist, and one who is well known in Russia, Ukrain and Germany lie about this. It would only do him damage. I was in the mountains with Gregory and found him to be an excellent naturalist and not in the least credulos.

The problem with hair braiding is that it’s a folklore motif. It’s part of mythology built up around an animal, like women mating with dolphins in the Amazon to explain Sironemelia. Nothing non human is braiding horse hair except wind, rain and other horses. It happens all over the world where there are horses and in each of those places there’s probably a nice story attached to it. It’s what we’d now call an urban myth, but years ago the sort of thing that was incorporated into folklore. And the catastrophic problem is that Gregory Panchenko claims to have seen it happening.
Incidentally Karl C Beyer who’s also been there seems to note a lot of superstition attached to the Almasty.

Why the hell would a bilogist, and one who is well known in Russia, Ukrain and Germany lie about this. It would only do him damage. I was in the mountains with Gregory and found him to be an excellent naturalist and not in the least credulos.

Firstly he made these claims years ago, before he was so well known. Secondly what is he well known for?

According to Fortean Times, he is working there as a recruiter of Russian science personnel. But in Hannover he declared several times that he lives from his income as a writer of books and articles, which he publishes mainly in the Ukraine and Russia.
In the Ukraine, he is a well-known author of fantasy and science fiction literature. Short biographies outlining his writing activities may be found of the website of Zvedzdnij Most, an annual fantasy festival which takes place every year in Kharkov, and in the Russian Fantasy: Who is Who? He won a literature prize for his most recent book in this field: Gorizonty Oruzhija (Horizons of Weapons, 2007).[6] He regularly participates in literature conferences and festivals of the fantasy and science fiction scene in Russia and Ukraine. Among others he held lectures at the fantasy festivalPortal 2005 in Kiev and in May 2008 at the European Science Fiction convention Eurocon-2008 in Moscow. The subject of his lecture in Moscow was current German fantasy literature. He has also publishes on historical weapons and the art of fighting
.

http://www.stgr-primates.de/personal.html

I’m not criticising that, I think he’s to be admired to make a living from his talents, but he’s not known for his scientific output is he, so how much damage could it do him. Which makes me wonder again why he’s so reticent about discussing it. As for why would he make it up I can only say again, I don’t know what are the usual reasons?

Anyway is the mane braiding the only bizarre claim he’s accosiated himself with? Apparently not going by this short review of one of his books. First he quotes another researcher regarding Almasty comb making;

“Naturally I tried to find out what these combs look like. But what they make them for is a complete mystery, because their fingers are very long, they have very long fingernails, and that is completely adequate to comb their hair. Maybe it’s an element of the imitation of humans. […]” (p. 83). “ […] There were Almasty observed that combed themselves, combed their head with this comb, and then took the comb, stuck it under their belt, and left.

So we’ve got a comb making belt wearing primate? Please tell me how you can make a wooden comb with the sort of tools the Almasty is supposed to have. And then explain to me how a man who’s happy to overlook this can be taken seriously.
Worse, he seems to think they also have a working knowledge of Karate;

In the chapter Almasty and Karate, the author analyses reports from eye witnesses with whom the Almasty behaved aggressively, for example, to defend themselves. Apparently, he is in the habit of “hitting with an open hand” and not a fist. According to Panchenko, the anatomy of an Almasty hand does not allow it to make a tight fist, as in humans. Based on eye witness descriptions, parallels between this and a Neanderthal hand, and the hypothesis of a “hydraulic hit” are presented. This hit “with a soft hand” has the energy, different from the usual punch with a fist, which is converted into the inner body in the sense of a contusion. A possible result of this hit could be bruising or injury of internal organs without trauma on the surface of the body. The author makes comparisons to Asian fighting techniques and writes: “All of these contusion-abilities are possible with the correct execution of the hit. [...] With the smallest mistake, the opposite is achieved…” (p. 144). This presentation is completed though testimony of the locals: “And suddenly, he hit me with such force that I flew through the entire herder’s hut and fell down.” (p. 144). “Then the Almasty hit me so that I flew a few meters away [...] He didn’t hit me with his fist, rather with the fingers like a cat...” (p. 145).

http://www.stgr-primates.de/bookreview3.html

I’m sorry I find this risible. Apart from the obvious stuff that probably wouldn’t be taken seriously on Cryptomundo, you and I both know that he’s not in a position to reach conclusions about the hand anatomy based on that. This isn’t science, it’s not even pop science, it’s totally compromising nonsense.
 
There was one guy who claimed to know were an almasty body was. When he took us to the place high on a dangerous mountain were in nearly died on three seperate occations and we failed to uncover a body were he said he burried it he claimed that djinn (islamic spirits) made the body dissapeare. He later gave us a hair from the queen of the almastys! It was nothing more than a vegitable fiber.

Not one other person made such insane claims or associated it with the supernatural. Even the deputy head of the national park didn't seem to think it was that odd.

I still can't see the problem with a primate platting a horses hair. I'm sure most cases of plating have mundane explanations but i can easily see an inquisitive creature messing about with a placid domestic animal.

I've never heard of the comb thing. Of course an almasty is not going to make a comb. I have heard of cases of them using old human clothes on occation. Sasquatch is said to do this on rare occations too. This reoprt sounds as dodgy as hell mid you.

Gregory told us about how, on the rare occatios an almasty has struck out at someone, the blows were similar to karate blows. An open handed slap sent one man 15 feet across a room after he punched an almasty. He didn't say that they wewre doing actual karate rather that the engery relese from the blow was similar. The blows were purley instinctive and not some stone aged martial art.

Apparently Gregory worked with the genetics and breeding of farm animals (or he did in 2008). The fact that he writes fiction is neither here nor there. I write fiction. I've got a horror anthology comming out and i'm working on another. These things are not mutualy exclusive.

Even if Gregorty is a brilliantly acting liar who has made the whole thing up (which i dont think he is) how about all the other people? On another occation Gregory was with a Ukranian archeologist who works for the Russian givernment (mainly unearthing Salmation tombs). He saw the creature as well. IAf these are all hallucinations i'd love to know what's causing them!

You have oly got to look at some of the things people think are the BVM in the pages of FT to see its nonsense (oil on glass ect). My point is that the almasty works as a flesh and blood creature, it makes sense. Its not a spirit or an alien or manifestation of a dayity (yes i know i've spelt that wrong).
 
Firstly thanks for the considerate response.

It is the same guy; I thought it was when I read the account.

Honestly though, with respect I can’t help feeling that you’re stuck defending someone else’s hopeless position in this instance through personal loyalty. I can understand that, but I can’t avoid feeling that it isn’t going to help.
 
All the time i spent with him he seemed like a sane, serious man with a good knowlage of the local wildlife.
I'm not on a holy crusade to make people belive in monsters. Niether do i want to preserve mystery. I do this through my own intrest. With the almasty i think something is there. With other things i have investigated i've come to other conclutions. In West Africa on the trail of the Ninki-Nanka i concluded that it was a myth born out of a demonization of a pre-Islamic python cult.
If i thought Gregory was bullshiting i'd say so.
A one time friend who came on the West Africa trip claimed to be an old Africa hand. To hear him talk you would think he was a cross between Trader Horn and Tarzan. When we actualy got over there it turnmed oout he knew bugger all and spent the whole trip wineing about how hot it was!
 
Highly interesting material, for which thanks to posters. Realise that I have only scratched the surface of the Almas-lore, that there is around.

As with the North American Bigfoot (apologies for again harking back to which); the more I hear about this whole phenomenon, the weirder it seems to become -- and weird not in the kind of way I would most like it to be.
 
I’m sorry for the way that last post may have come across I wasn’t at my sharpest when I phrased it. I just meant, and I’ve been guilty of this loads of times, it can be difficult to be objective about someone you’ve worked with and trusted. Either way it’s none of my business.

I would say though that just for me things like the comb, the mane plaiting, the hand anatomy and the speculation about the ‘hydraulic lift’ punch would start ringing some very loud alarm bells.
 
Highly interesting material, for which thanks to posters. Realise that I have only scratched the surface of the Almas-lore, that there is around.

I think the language we're up against this time is Russian.
 
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