posted on Feb, 19 2006 @ 05:43 AM
Originally posted by maldives01
www.bernama.com.my...
Seems to be a genuine Malaysian news site - although not sure if it's a Pravda type one though!
Bernama is a trustworthy source. It's a Malaysian newswire service something like our version of Reuters. This piece of news came up on several local
news channels and pretty much all the local newspapers. I tried looking for the articles in the website archives of most of the dailies they have been
taken off except for one:
The New Straits Times
The Johor National
Parks Corporation is willing to collaborate with anyone wanting to carry out a study to verify the existence of "Bigfoot" in Johor.
Its director, Hashim Yusoff, said today there was a need for a scientific study to determine once and for all if such a creature existed in Johor.
Without dismissing the claims of sightings of "Bigfoot", he said his staff had found no physical evidence of the presence of "Bigfoot" either in
the Endau-Rompin National Park or the Tanjung Piai National Park.
Sightings of hairy creatures said to be about three metres tall have trickled in over the years, especially from along the forest spine connecting
Endau Rompin, Kota Tinggi and Tanjung Piai.
In the latest sighting, a fish researcher from the Johor branch of the Malaysian Nature Society claimed he spotted "Bigfoot" footprints at a swamp
near Sungai Sedili in Kampung Mawai, Kota Tinggi.
Johor
is the southernmost state in Peninsular Malaysia, just north of Singapore. It is noted for it's
National Parks and Forest Reserves which protect it's virgin
rainforests and biodiversity. The park mentioned in the article, Endau-Rompin National Park is the second largest national park in the Peninsular,
encompassing covering 489 km² of tropical rainforests.
There's still plenty of species in those parks that scientists have yet to discover and identify, so it's quite possible that this "Bigfoot" is
another species of ape that's still to be discovered. I'm not sure about orangutans though, they're supposed to be in East Malaysia on the island
of Borneo. I have not heard of any orangutan sightings in the Peninsular as yet. But that's not to say that there definitely isn't any.
The jungles here are very thick and every year we have groups of people who go in for treks or for camping trips and inevitably someone will stray
from the group while following a butterfly or
something else and they'd just vanish after that. Some who vanish reappear weeks later with the
most fantastic tales. There are those who claim they heard a voice calling them and that's how they got separated. Others claim to have been
kidnapped by the
Orang Bunian which are the local version of elves or spirit folk. There
are even tales of those who appear years later yet they say it felt like they've only been gone for a couple of days. It's like there a time warp
when they enter the Orang Bunian communities.
Scary stuff. I think I may have seen a group of these Orang Bunian women dancing -- such lovely creatures they are. But then again I could've been
halucinating; that night I had a bit too much
tapai, a slightly alcoholic, sweetly flavoured rice pudding. That could've gotten to my head!