http://www.mania.com/lair-beasts-apeman-sumatra_article_131611.html A Monstrous Book
Nick Redfern
November 19, 2011
Just published by Britain’s CFZ Press is a brand new book from Richard Freeman, of the Center for Fortean Zoology, one of the very few full time groups in the world dedicated to uncovering the truth behind Bigfoot, the Yeti, sea-serpents, the Chupacabra, and much more of a beastly nature.
Over the course of the last few years, Richard has been on a number of expeditions to the island of Sumatra in search of its very own equivalent of Sasquatch: It has become known as the Orang-Pendek.
And, having collected an absolute mass of very impressive reports, credible on the record testimony, numerous stories, and taken hundreds of photographs, Freeman has now gone ahead and published his many and varied findings in his latest book, which is titled: Orang-Pendek: Sumatra’s Forgotten Ape.
Richard says of his quest to find the answers behind the legendary mystery: “We are impressed by big things; dinosaurs, whales, rhinos, super-tankers, skyscrapers. Mention mystery apes to the man in the street and he will imagine bipedal hairy giants, 10 feet tall. Indeed most reports of such things speak of massive animals; the Yeti, the Yeren, the Sasquatch, and the Yowie.”
He continues: “But for every Bigfoot there is a Littlefoot. Stories of little hairy men are widespread - but none are as famous as Sumatra’s Orang-Pendek.”
As for the specific nature of the Orang-Pendek, here’s what Freeman has to say: “Orang-Pendek means ‘short man’ in Indonesian. The creature is said to be powerfully built and immensely strong but relatively short at around 4½ to 5ft in height. It walks upright like a man and rarely, if ever, moves on all fours.”
And as Richard has come to learn during the course of his various expeditions, the Orang-Pendek is “…generally said to have dark brown or black fur but honey colored or reddish hair has been reported. Sometimes a long mane of hair that falls down to the shoulders is also mentioned. The Orang-Pendek generally seems to be a solitary creature, though there are rare reports of groups of them being seen together.”
CFZ Press note of Richard Freeman’s Orang-Pendek: Sumatra’s Forgotten Ape that: “This book looks at the history of sightings of the Orang-Pendek; similar creatures across the world; has in-depth accounts of the author’s four CFZ expeditions in search of the creature; and finally analyses the evidence to produce a cogent theory as to what the elusive short man of the forest might actually be.”
The editor and director of the CFZ, Jonathan Downes says of Freeman’s work that: “It is a tour de force by Richard Freeman, one of the most popular cryptozoology authors on the planet and the author of Dragons: More than a Myth and The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia - The A-Z of Japanese Monsters.
And if all of that has caught your attention - and you’re interested in learning much more about a mysterious ape that isn’t Bigfoot or the Abominable Snowman - then I most definitely recommend you get hold of a copy of Freeman’s Orang-Pendek: Sumatra’s Forgotten Ape at the earliest opportunity.
Written skillfully, and in an entertaining fashion, by someone who knows his way around the island of Sumatra, who has extensively searched for the animal, and who has some amazing stories, data, and witness testimony to share, the book is likely to become one of the most important, new cryptozoological-themed books in a very long time. I don’t exaggerate!
Nick Redfern’s new book, Keep Out, is published by New Page Books in December
Showing posts with label Sasquatch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sasquatch. Show all posts
Friday, December 2, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Here be monsters
Sceptics love to poke fun at cryptozoologists, but there are strange creatures out there whose existence has yet to be confirmed by science
Carole Jahme
Friday 15 July 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/jul/15/here-be-monsters-cryptozoology
I'm not sure who or what is more monstrous: the smug sceptics or the scant cryptids.
Let me explain. Having interviewed Debbie Martyr (research conservationist with Flora and Fauna International) 12 years ago about her apparent sighting of the primate cryptid the orang pendek in Sumatra and more recently interviewing ape expert Ian Redmond on his research into sasquatch/big foot (supported by David Attenborough and Jane Goodall), over the years I have acquired a fascination for primate cryptids. So I was eager to attend a recent lecture at the Zoological Society London (ZSL) entitled "Cryptozoology: science or pseudoscience?".
Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature looking and behaving like a jovial, off-duty roadie dressed in grubby T shirt and ruby crocs, chaired the event in which Drs Michael Woodley, Charles Paxton and Darren Naish presented their crypto data.
Paxton reminded us that atmospheric electrical disturbances such as sprites, blue jets and elves were only identified in the 1980s and 1990s when they were photographed. Until then, anecdotal reports of flashes of light above the clouds were frequently ignored. Scientists used to dismiss accounts of meteorites as paranormal fantasy and poured scorn on eyewitness descriptions from lucky survivors of rogue waves – until satellite images in the 1990s confirmed their existence. The mountain gorilla wasn't believed to exist by Western science until two were shot dead in 1902, and the bonobo was not credited with being a unique species until 1930. In the past 20 years, 70 species of primate have been newly described, including a Vietnamese gibbon and the Bili ape: a large, sub-species of chimp from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2009, a Papua New Guinean crater yielded up a cat-sized species of woolly rat, among other previously undiscovered creatures.
In an age of satellites and robotic submersibles, it's easy to assume, with a "been there done that" attitude, that we know all there is to know about Earth. Clearly nature is far from being fully understood by science, and yet some sceptics persist in contemptuously sneering at almost everything outside of their immediate knowledge. With their high-systemised inability to tolerate newness, they stymie open scientific debate, bully original thinkers and drive away those with fascinating new data on unknown species.
I was sad to witness this and their non-reflective guffawing at ZSL. Paxton and Naish seemed particularly conscious of this spiked criticism and made a point of distancing themselves from misleading and bad science. Nothing wrong with that, but they were so ardent in this respect that the friend I was with mistakenly thought the panel were themselves anti-cryptozoology.
The three speakers focused their statistical analysis on sea monsters, Paxton saying that he prefers the term monster to cryptid. He also wanted to assure the audience that, "taxpayers have no fear, your money is not spent on crypto research, scientists do this in their spare time." Paxton's talk underscored the fact that anomalies should be actively pursued and science should be about wonderment.
But how should science deal with low-frequency phenomena that might well be real? One approach is to break witness reports down and analyse interesting properties. To illustrate, Paxon used his data of "initial reported distance" from sea monsters given by witnesses aboard boats. Significantly, initial sighting are usually reported close to the boat. Paxton wasn't sure why this might be. I would suggest that it is because witnesses do not know what they do not know – they have to see it close-up to be confident they are witnessing something unexpected. An unknown creature seen at a distance could be dismissed as a dolphin or a piece of wood. Initial sightings of terrestrial cryptids also tend to be at close proximity, and again the same factor may well apply.
Naish addressed the "prehistoric survivor paradigm". Some 65m years ago, during the late cretaceous, the coelacanth, the plesiosaur and many other species disappeared from the fossil record during a mass extinction. But in 1938 and again in 1999 two species of coelacanth were discovered. This Lazarus-like survival of the coelacanth gives confidence to those who suggest a long-necked surviving plesiosaur swims in our lochs and oceans. As a palaeontologist Naish was able to explain how the vertebrae of plesiosaurs could not move in the flexible, swan-like motion often described in reported sightings. But he believes this is a case of wrong classification rather than an indication that sea monsters do not exist. We were reminded of the new Indonesian species of ray and shark and the two recently identified (1991/2002) species of beaked whale, inhabiting a deep-sea niche: the deep sea and its inhabitants are barely understood.
During the Q&A an elderly sceptic quipped: "Some people say they've seen aliens and have even talked to them!" The panel trod an uneasy path as they attempted to accommodate these sorts of jibes while keeping on track.
The three speakers confirmed that their modelling indicates there are between 10 and 50 large species of marine animals yet to be described. They were also in agreement that marine sampling methods for cryptids must be established and remain constant.
For those readers left wanting more, the Weird Weekend is the biggest gathering of cryptozoologists in the world, held in Devon in August. Naish will again be speaking.
Carole Jahme
Friday 15 July 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/jul/15/here-be-monsters-cryptozoology
I'm not sure who or what is more monstrous: the smug sceptics or the scant cryptids.
Let me explain. Having interviewed Debbie Martyr (research conservationist with Flora and Fauna International) 12 years ago about her apparent sighting of the primate cryptid the orang pendek in Sumatra and more recently interviewing ape expert Ian Redmond on his research into sasquatch/big foot (supported by David Attenborough and Jane Goodall), over the years I have acquired a fascination for primate cryptids. So I was eager to attend a recent lecture at the Zoological Society London (ZSL) entitled "Cryptozoology: science or pseudoscience?".
Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature looking and behaving like a jovial, off-duty roadie dressed in grubby T shirt and ruby crocs, chaired the event in which Drs Michael Woodley, Charles Paxton and Darren Naish presented their crypto data.
Paxton reminded us that atmospheric electrical disturbances such as sprites, blue jets and elves were only identified in the 1980s and 1990s when they were photographed. Until then, anecdotal reports of flashes of light above the clouds were frequently ignored. Scientists used to dismiss accounts of meteorites as paranormal fantasy and poured scorn on eyewitness descriptions from lucky survivors of rogue waves – until satellite images in the 1990s confirmed their existence. The mountain gorilla wasn't believed to exist by Western science until two were shot dead in 1902, and the bonobo was not credited with being a unique species until 1930. In the past 20 years, 70 species of primate have been newly described, including a Vietnamese gibbon and the Bili ape: a large, sub-species of chimp from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2009, a Papua New Guinean crater yielded up a cat-sized species of woolly rat, among other previously undiscovered creatures.
In an age of satellites and robotic submersibles, it's easy to assume, with a "been there done that" attitude, that we know all there is to know about Earth. Clearly nature is far from being fully understood by science, and yet some sceptics persist in contemptuously sneering at almost everything outside of their immediate knowledge. With their high-systemised inability to tolerate newness, they stymie open scientific debate, bully original thinkers and drive away those with fascinating new data on unknown species.
I was sad to witness this and their non-reflective guffawing at ZSL. Paxton and Naish seemed particularly conscious of this spiked criticism and made a point of distancing themselves from misleading and bad science. Nothing wrong with that, but they were so ardent in this respect that the friend I was with mistakenly thought the panel were themselves anti-cryptozoology.
The three speakers focused their statistical analysis on sea monsters, Paxton saying that he prefers the term monster to cryptid. He also wanted to assure the audience that, "taxpayers have no fear, your money is not spent on crypto research, scientists do this in their spare time." Paxton's talk underscored the fact that anomalies should be actively pursued and science should be about wonderment.
But how should science deal with low-frequency phenomena that might well be real? One approach is to break witness reports down and analyse interesting properties. To illustrate, Paxon used his data of "initial reported distance" from sea monsters given by witnesses aboard boats. Significantly, initial sighting are usually reported close to the boat. Paxton wasn't sure why this might be. I would suggest that it is because witnesses do not know what they do not know – they have to see it close-up to be confident they are witnessing something unexpected. An unknown creature seen at a distance could be dismissed as a dolphin or a piece of wood. Initial sightings of terrestrial cryptids also tend to be at close proximity, and again the same factor may well apply.
Naish addressed the "prehistoric survivor paradigm". Some 65m years ago, during the late cretaceous, the coelacanth, the plesiosaur and many other species disappeared from the fossil record during a mass extinction. But in 1938 and again in 1999 two species of coelacanth were discovered. This Lazarus-like survival of the coelacanth gives confidence to those who suggest a long-necked surviving plesiosaur swims in our lochs and oceans. As a palaeontologist Naish was able to explain how the vertebrae of plesiosaurs could not move in the flexible, swan-like motion often described in reported sightings. But he believes this is a case of wrong classification rather than an indication that sea monsters do not exist. We were reminded of the new Indonesian species of ray and shark and the two recently identified (1991/2002) species of beaked whale, inhabiting a deep-sea niche: the deep sea and its inhabitants are barely understood.
During the Q&A an elderly sceptic quipped: "Some people say they've seen aliens and have even talked to them!" The panel trod an uneasy path as they attempted to accommodate these sorts of jibes while keeping on track.
The three speakers confirmed that their modelling indicates there are between 10 and 50 large species of marine animals yet to be described. They were also in agreement that marine sampling methods for cryptids must be established and remain constant.
For those readers left wanting more, the Weird Weekend is the biggest gathering of cryptozoologists in the world, held in Devon in August. Naish will again be speaking.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Bigfoot and chupacabra double feature
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/08/bigfoot-and-chupacabra-found-c.html
Bigfoot and chupacabra double feature
Wednesday August 13, 2008
posted by Rod Drehe
Woo, it's a great week for cryptozoologists. Not only has a south Texas sheriff's deputy filmed the dreaded chupacabra with his dashboard cam, but a couple of likely suspects in Georgia (Boss Hogg's Georgia, not Saakashvili's) claim to have found a Bigfoot body. You can see the alleged Bigfoot photos here (handsome devil, he is). They say they're having it independently analyzed, and will present the results at a Friday press conference in California. If these boys really are onto something, they'd do well to hire a press agent, because this goofball press release doesn't do much for their credibility. Still, we might know on Friday.
Belief in Bigfoot is not altogether crazy, though skepticism is of course in order. From Michael Shermer in Scientific American:
The reason cryptids merit our attention is that enough successful discoveries have been made by scientists based on local anecdotes and folklore that we cannot dismiss all claims a priori. The most famous examples include the gorilla in 1847 (and the mountain gorilla in 1902), the giant panda in 1869, the okapi (a short-necked relative of the giraffe) in 1901, the Komodo dragon in 1912, the bonobo (or pygmy chimpanzee) in 1929, the megamouth shark in 1976 and the giant gecko in 1984. Cryptozoologists are especially proud of the catch in 1938 of a coelacanth, an archaic-looking species of fish that had been thought to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous.
Although discoveries of previously unrecorded species of bugs and bacteria are routinely published in the annals of biology, these instances are startling because of their recency, size, and similarity to cryptid cousins Bigfoot, Nessie, et al. They also have in common--a body! In order to name a new species, one must have a type specimen--a holotype--from which a detailed description can be made, photographs taken, models cast and a professional scientific analysis prepared.
If such cryptids still survived in the hinterlands of North America and Asia, surely by now one would have turned up. So far all we have are the accounts. Anecdotes are a good place to begin an investigation--which by themselves cannot verify a new species. In fact, in the words of social scientist Frank J. Sulloway of the University of California at Berkeley--words that should be elevated to a maxim: "Anecdotes do not make a science. Ten anecdotes are no better than one, and a hundred anecdotes are no better than ten."
Scientific American also profiled a Bigfoot researcher (not the good ol' boys who claim to have rustled up a Sasquatch carcass).
When I was a kid growing up in the country, I used to scare myself silly reading Bigfoot books. No kidding, I still get chills thinking about it (commercials for the 1972 B-movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek" rocked my first-grade world; a mere description of this scene made me afraid to go to the bathroom after sundown; you can imagine how that worked out). I hope this Bigfoot is real, so we can find them all and kill 'em daid before they git us.
Bigfoot and chupacabra double feature
Wednesday August 13, 2008
posted by Rod Drehe
Woo, it's a great week for cryptozoologists. Not only has a south Texas sheriff's deputy filmed the dreaded chupacabra with his dashboard cam, but a couple of likely suspects in Georgia (Boss Hogg's Georgia, not Saakashvili's) claim to have found a Bigfoot body. You can see the alleged Bigfoot photos here (handsome devil, he is). They say they're having it independently analyzed, and will present the results at a Friday press conference in California. If these boys really are onto something, they'd do well to hire a press agent, because this goofball press release doesn't do much for their credibility. Still, we might know on Friday.
Belief in Bigfoot is not altogether crazy, though skepticism is of course in order. From Michael Shermer in Scientific American:
The reason cryptids merit our attention is that enough successful discoveries have been made by scientists based on local anecdotes and folklore that we cannot dismiss all claims a priori. The most famous examples include the gorilla in 1847 (and the mountain gorilla in 1902), the giant panda in 1869, the okapi (a short-necked relative of the giraffe) in 1901, the Komodo dragon in 1912, the bonobo (or pygmy chimpanzee) in 1929, the megamouth shark in 1976 and the giant gecko in 1984. Cryptozoologists are especially proud of the catch in 1938 of a coelacanth, an archaic-looking species of fish that had been thought to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous.
Although discoveries of previously unrecorded species of bugs and bacteria are routinely published in the annals of biology, these instances are startling because of their recency, size, and similarity to cryptid cousins Bigfoot, Nessie, et al. They also have in common--a body! In order to name a new species, one must have a type specimen--a holotype--from which a detailed description can be made, photographs taken, models cast and a professional scientific analysis prepared.
If such cryptids still survived in the hinterlands of North America and Asia, surely by now one would have turned up. So far all we have are the accounts. Anecdotes are a good place to begin an investigation--which by themselves cannot verify a new species. In fact, in the words of social scientist Frank J. Sulloway of the University of California at Berkeley--words that should be elevated to a maxim: "Anecdotes do not make a science. Ten anecdotes are no better than one, and a hundred anecdotes are no better than ten."
Scientific American also profiled a Bigfoot researcher (not the good ol' boys who claim to have rustled up a Sasquatch carcass).
When I was a kid growing up in the country, I used to scare myself silly reading Bigfoot books. No kidding, I still get chills thinking about it (commercials for the 1972 B-movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek" rocked my first-grade world; a mere description of this scene made me afraid to go to the bathroom after sundown; you can imagine how that worked out). I hope this Bigfoot is real, so we can find them all and kill 'em daid before they git us.
DELUXE SASQUATCH COSTUME
http://thehorrordome.com/HDSHOPPINGPROPS/SasquatchLARGE.htm
DELUXE SASQUATCH COSTUME - NT009
Long thought of as folk lore, the Sasquatch Creature is now known to exist. The pictures shown here prove Sasquatch is no myth. Just how long he has lived is unclear. Some claim he's been around for centuries, while scientists state he's no older than 50. No matter his age, the destructive force of Big Foot is clear. The last time he roamed these parts he left the mountainous area and wiped out many villages. Naturally, all residents in the area expressed concern about the latest sighting.
Costume comes complete with a Deluxe Over Sized Mask with helmet that allows the user to gain an extra 12 inches in height by looking out of the neck. The costume also comes with Hand/Arm Extenders, Sasquatch Feet, Muscle suit padding and Sasquatch Costume with attached latex chest piece.
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