Hi. New here. Have there been any developments at all involving http://www.lorencoleman.com/myakka.html. At the time, I considered these photos to be cryptozoological money shots, what with the characteristic "hoot pant," fingernails, and body hair of differing lengths prominent in both photos. Yet, as time goes on without word, I find myself doubting once again.

Anybody know?

For what its worth, I absolutely believe this is an orangutan...or however you spell it.....

Florida is a MAJOR transit route for all kinds of captured animals, either legitimate for zoos or pets or bootlegged..I think this orangutan got loose and is now naturalized in the area...Florida has an incredible array of exotic animals that have escaped in such a fashion, monkeys, reptiles, you name it.

I have seen detailed analysis done on the creature in the photos and they showed an orangutan pic next to it and it looks like an exact match.

Plus all the behavior that it exhibited was typical orangutan behavior.

Just my opinion...but that was the conclusion of the analysis done that I read somewhere..........an orangutan.

(Please forgive me if I slaughtered the spelling of it !!)

Sorry I disagree,I believe this is possibly one of the more convincing pics I've seen.take into account the eyeshine coloring the hair color,density of,and facial feature along with size,time and anonymity(sp.)of the photographer combined with the fact that orangs are an awfully expensive animal to just lose or have escape and not report says alot to the fact of this not being a fake but possibly the best single photo since the patterson film.

It does appear very much orang-like, and very much a living, non-constumed being. With a heavy heart I've noticed, however, that the human need to hoax, even if simply for the sake of hoaxing, can have amazingly deceptive results. Perhaps an orang was temporarily released by some individuals with access to that sort of thing and photographed amidst some palmettos in order to stage a Skunk Ape scene. I know an elderly (and therefore seemingly above reproach) woman was somehow involved...but who knows? As much as we'd like to believe the geriatric to be without sin, she could be just as much involved in the hypothetical deception as any other equally hypothetical conspirators. If I were a betting man, though, I'd place my meager earnings on the escaped/naturalized orang theory posited by msfit. In fact, I'd go on to wager that a great many hairy interloper sightings down in Florida might stem from exotic escapees, not necessarily a relative of Sasquatch.

Well, I thought it was intriguing too, but when a saw the study of the photos and a photo of and description of and orangutan there was no doubt for me. I absolutely believe it is a living creature and I think the lady who reported it is legit.

As far as an orangutan being outside the realm of possiblity to be allowed to escape without it being reported.....I have watched a documentary on the illegal trade of exotic animals (dead or alive) and Miami was THE SPOT for smuggled animals. Not too long ago their was a bunch of loosed exotic monkeys living in the trees along the freeway and throwing things at cars. Croc's are living in the ponds near the airport now, too. Not the native alligators. I could go on.

But what do I know? Maybe it IS a "skunk ape".....

OK here is the article I read....which goes into all the possiblities and then everyone can decide what they think.... cheers!!!!

http://www.lorencoleman.com/myakka.html

What a hoot. For someone who's never encountered one of these creatures (monkeys and orangs and crocs, oh my), a nighttime pas de deux would probably result in some interestingly distorted reports. Loren Coleman's last update on the Myakka pics, located at his webpage, centers around a Big Cat sighting (footprints, I believe.) He's connecting these two events in some way, probably reaching the same conclusion we've reached...that Florida is where the wild, escaped things are.

Here are some of my general thoughts after reading the Coleman page:

1. If it sounds like a horse, feels like a horse, and smells like a horse, it probably isn't a zebra. That think looks a lot like an orang to my untrained eye and not much like Patterson's bigfoot.

2. Could be an escaped orang. Maybe it was never reported because it was in the country illegally. Lots of exotic pets are.

3. Maybe skunk apes are a different type of ape than the PNW bigfoot. Don't recall ever seeing a good picture of a skunk ape and I can't say I'm as up on their differences as some. Some feel that what we call 'bigfoot' is actually as many as three different type of animal. Discussion about that could be an interesting thread (hint, hint).

good point bipto,I've also read that there may be more than one type of BF which would explain why there are three, four and five toed tracks.the reason I'm against the orang theory has a lot to do with the hair color,and general size relation to the shrubs in the back,orangs are usually tree dwellers and more squat ,especially when walking(possibly new hybrid species?)unfortunately theres not enough evidence to determine yet if its real or a hoax

I believe the lady saw what she thought she saw and I don't think the photo is a fake. But I don't believe what is in the photo is a Bigfoot / Skunkape. It sure looks like an orang to me as well. How did it get there? Your guess is as good as mine.

another good question woukld be if it is an escapee,as a zoo animal how does it survive,most domestics have to taught to live in the wild

You all make good points. I'd be open to it being something other than an orang. Just have to leave a question mark after it in my mind...

True enough, it doesn't look like your usual orangutan. It may be a distant cousin of the orangs we are used to seeing. Maybe it's a throwback from many years ago when the continents were joined? Maybe it's one of the last of its kind...no matter where it originated. If it is an escapee, it could be that it was newly captured from the wilds prior to its escape and still possessed all the skills necessary to survive. I think I have it narrowed down to a member of the ape family though.

If it was newly on the lam, that would explain its nocturnal visits to humans for food....and who said it could survive in the wild? It might be dead now. Illegal exotics are often poached straight out of the wild.....so it could be ok on its own...

I really don't think its bipedal, like the skunk ape is purported to be. The close up shots show it on all fours...I don't know...my intuition says its not an unknown animal- it looks familiar....and very monkey or ape like...now a bigfoot face is freaky and unfamiliar......and less monkeyish...at least if the Patterson film is for real.....

Wow you guys, I leave for a day and you guys just start posting away without me!!! I am way behind.
I am glad to see so many new posts though, I don't think I have ever seen so many!!!

My take on the Myakka Ape is that it is quite possibly an orangutan, but I am still open to the possibility it might not be. I checked the photos again MsFit and I don't see it on all fours in any of them. It looks to be standing on 2 legs and bent over in posture. But that doesn't mean it didn't run away on all fours. And even if it did, there are reports that have bigfoot creatures running at times on all fours too.
It does have the exact facial look of an oragutan. And like MsFit said, there are said to be many escaped illegal trade primates in the Florida area.

well guys,I had a friend of mine enhance and do dome research on the photo,the esapee theory looks better and better,note the teeth vs. a picture of a wild orang and they seem to be well cared for other note is its pretty clean fo a wild animal(that could also be a natural grooming thing)I dont have the ability or tech know how so does anyone else have a program they can use to really check the photo?

I think the consensus around these parts is as follows:
1.) It's probably not a man in a suit
2.) It's not a sasquatch, at least not from the Patterson mold
3.) It looks very much like an orang, and an orang running wild and free through Floridian thickets of palmettos isn't beyond the realm of possibility, considering the state's reputation for escaped, non-indigenous fauna.

In conclusion, the "why" and "how" of it all remain, and probably will remain, a mystery, but all the signs point to the "what" being an escaped orang.

If the above is to be believed, then some solace can be found in the fact that an out-of-place primate of sasquatchian size was encountered by unexpecting laypeople who took a clear pair of photographs in the limited time they had before the subject loped away. In other words, a repeat performance is possible someday...and that there's hope.

By the way, if you'd like a front row seat to the sort of prejudice even a non-commital stance on the sasquatch issue provokes from the average, ignorant shmoo...here's a link: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showth...ighlight=Myakka At this point in my life, I believed this particular message board to be frequented by triple-digit I.Q. holders, so, unprepared for the coming burn, I naively opened the forum to discussing the Myakka photos (I'm going by the handle of "Recently Digested," by the way.) Take careful note of the bullshit and insults through which I waded and the numerous times I was forced to recant the fact that I was (and remain to this day) a sasquatch agnostic, not a fervent believer, simply asking that the prospect be entertained only long enough to investigate. It still steams me to read it.

Wow. I couldn't even finish reading it. I thought you held your own well, especially with this statement:


Amen, brother! I always attempt to phrase my posts so that I don't say I 'believe in bigfoot' because I don't. I believe the evidence suggests strongly that the creature(s) exist. It simply isn't a matter of faith.

To my mind, those who will dismiss bigfoot as the lunatic ravings of marginal minds while ignoring the vast quantity of exiting evidence are no better, and indeed may be worse, than those that buy off on any bizarre theory just because they heard it on the radio or read it on the Internet. The guys over on Straight Dope are just as simple minded but in a different way. Some people can't afford to have their paradigm shifted...

Whewwww, flaming rhetoric here and highly insightful at that.....

Excellent points Repair and bipto and reassuring, too. You have stated quite eloquently how I feel and I appreciate your balanced views. We are obviously not a bunch of niave and uncredible people in here, but inquisitive and open to the facts and possiblities.....



Great statement that!!!!

I must hand it to you InRepair, you certainly held your own against those insomniac shut-ins over on that snooty, or should I say snotty, site. I picture the moderator over there to be about 5ft, 110 lbs soaking wet. I'll bet when he gets really mad he yells at his mom to get out of his bedroom before he removes his wrist braces so he can type faster. It was hilarious reading:

Now THAT is something I'd pay good money to see! And most of those posters could use a few sessions at AA (with the first "A" referring to something other than "Alcoholics"). Only on that site, they just come right out and use the profanity instead of alluding to it. I've come into contact with plenty of that type of people and they are the first ones to cry like a baby when something scares them or when they are sick or injured. Even if those folks really are in the high IQ category, it is still a supreme waste of oxygen to sustain them. Interaction with them could only result in a mild form of entertainment, at best.

Please stick around here for a while, we can use your insight into these questions that plague us.

You'll notice that the VERY FIRST response I got was sarcastic ridicule, something to the effect of "Which picture am I looking at? The guy wearing the suit or the..." This was an attempt at "humor," of course, sans the actual humor.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, The Straight Dope is a newspaper column under the healm of "Cecil Adams," the self-proclaimed "Most Intellegent Man in the World." It's a fairly interesting column, answering all sorts of "why are manhole covers round?" sort of questions. He doesn't actually have much of a hand in the workings of that BBS, but his slavish underlings do, and as you can see, they've strayed from the tongue-in-cheek arrogance of "Cecil" (probably a pen-name for Ed Zotti, his "editor") and advanced to full-bore, non-ironic arrogance. As I mentioned (and for which I was chastised), the more a member posts and has posted in the past, the more likely that member is to ostracize, all in the name of not suffering ignorance (while actually peddling it.) Call me oversensitive...but I never went back after that nonsense. I tried for a little while under a new handle, but found the cliquish behavior too much.

For me, personally, there has always been a fine line between having an open mind and opening it so wide that your brains fall out. I don't accept the manipulative parlor tricks of psychics such as Uri Geller, John Edwards, and Sylvia Browne (if you can predict the future, do it in a controlled environment in front of cameras and objective scientists and demonstrate once and without question your ability) and the idea of ghosts is simply too nebulous and the encounters associated with the phenomena too open to misinterpretation for me to accept...but with sasquatch? Well...an unknown bipedal primate residing in our most impenetrably montane environments (read: where humans rarely, if ever go)...that's really not that hard to accept as being within the realm of possibility. My paradigm can handle it.

Oh..and RB? I'm an insomniac, too. :wink:

WOW guys, I am constantly being teased for my "big" words and intellectual abstractism at work, but you all are putting me to shame!!!! My IQ is considered "high", but I am still very spacey and silly so most folks think I'm an airhead....."high" IQ means nothing in the real world I have found......those uptight folks at that website can take theirs and shove 'em........life is too short.

One things for sure. Some of the posters on that site don't have near as much intelligence as they give themselves credit for.



It's obvious this jerk's never been to Florida! If he had, he'd have instantly recognized those plants to be palmettos, not immature palm trees. And they do grow in clusters like that. Doofus! :roll:

Oops! Sorry about that chief! No offense intended, I assure you. The last thing I want to do is to torque someone that has a vocabulary about 50 times larger than mine (even bigger if you don't count: golly, geez, wow, yeah, bummer and huh?) For future reference, I wear a size 11 shoe and my mouth is size 17, my boots are iron and my tongue is a magnet, and oh yeah, I've already had all my teeth punched out so it fits quite easily! Can we start over?

Hi InRepair! Welcome! Wow, golly geez, those dudes on that other site are a real bummer, huh?

ROTFLMAO!!!

RB, you've got to stop! You're killing me!!!

What fishbone said RB

Pshaw, RB. I was merely tossing in a little self deprecating humor in order to diffuse a (in my mind) serious and somewhat depressing (to me) discussion. I was in no way offended.

If I remember correctly, it didn't take long for someone to speak up and correct the above statement...not that it changed anything in the mind of the armchair botanist anyway.

I Wish the "armchair Botanist" could look out my front window,theres a nice gathering of those unnatural trees there.and just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you also have any good social skills.

Yes its true once again Jim is beating a dead horse(live ones fight back )this seemed the appropriate place to put this as wed.night I will be ranging down the back roads to put the night vision to the use I intended it for.back roads because with out filling out 20 forms in triplicate I can't get permission to hike through the trails.I plan on starting around 9 or 10 p.m and going till about 6 a.m.or so.Mostly wondering if anyone has any thoughts/ideas on how to better proceed(and not get arrested) as I drive around in the dark stopping every few miles and scanning the treeline for a few minutes.I decided on this plan based on how many sigthings have occured from folks just driving around and seeing something>i did take one idea from another thread and also invested in an advantix camera and some plan old field binoculars.any suggesstions are welcome.

INSECT REPELLANT!!! Don't forget to take some!

Good luck Jim, I hope you see something. :wink:

Use DEET! It goes right into the blood stream
aaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Well it is now 2:30a.m. and i have returned(yeah like I'm MacArthur or something noyhing really new to report saw noting found nothing but in my defense it was really dark.I originally planned on staying out the entire night but didn't.what brought me back early you ask?the most important piece of gear I could have taken as I drone through three counties(Sarasta,Manatee and Desoto)at an average speed of 30 mph fotr the past six 1/2 hours stopping every 15 to 20 minutes to wait,look and listen before continueing on.I know MsFit and Arky enjoyed my (whacky)observations from my last outing so I have a few more to post.1.some witty person put two red bicycle reflectors 7ft. up on a tree 4 inches apart on a fireroad about 12 miles sw of Arcadia,not once but several times aparrently just waiting there for someone with a night vision scope to come along.2.the most important piece of equipment I could have taken, camcorder?no had that.binoculars?check .plaster ?check.insect repellant?check.night vision?check.can you say U-M-B-R-E-L-L-A?cause that is what I needed most.(miserable rain I'm soaked)3.the chorus of frogs blends together so well out there that it sounds like one frog is following you for miles.4.i did see a BF.(if BF means Big Frog,that sucker must have been a foot long )I do have one post especially for fishy,you'll know which one.and one serious one that I started thinking about when it happened to me around 11:30 which I'll make a new post for.It also goes along with some of what I noticed you guys were discussing earlier today.

oh one other thing for those of you who decide to try music to lure BF,do not use Van Halen 5150,it apparently doesn't work.

Yeah...that music thing again. I'm still of the mind that a Florida Skunk Ape would probably groove better to the Outlaws, "Green Grass and High Tides Forever". :wink:

[edit] One other thing. You might want to pick up a couple of those emergency ponchos that they carry in the sporting goods section of WalMart and KMart. They only run about a buck a piece and they don't take up much room at all. I usually stick one in my back pocket if I'm going to be roaming around the woods and there might be a chance of rain. They've come in handy more than once, I can testify to that!

Bwahhhhahaahahhaha!!!

One question, Jim....how long did you watch those first ones before you realized what they were???

not long,probably dangerous now that I think about it but at the time I just reacted and grabbed the camcorder and started running towards it,maybe not dangerous as far as BF are concerned but for the very large gators,snakes and other assorted wildlife (lions and tigers and bears,oh my! )in hindsight if I had actually thought about what I was doing I still would have ran just away and not towards(poking fun at myself this much cannot be healthy )

Well I gotta respect a guy that would actually run towards what he thinks is a bigfoot watching him...with a camera no less! 8)

remind me to tell you about the hatchet incident some time after that nothing will scare me!!!

I actually did that to myself one time. I was using "bright eyes" trail markers (thumbtacks with an extremely reflective backing) and just being cute, I stuck two of them in about the same position you described Jim, then promptly forgot about doing it.

A couple of weeks later, before daylight, I was heading out to where I was going to hunt, climbing stand strapped to my back, bow in one hand, flashlight in the other. I shined the light on those two reflectors and just about went into cardiac arrest before I realized what they were.

Cute trick to play on yourself. :roll:

rolflmao (hope your happy it took 2 minutes to type that during my fits of laughter)

ROTFLMBO @ U Fishy!

ROTFLMBO @ U too Fishy.....

Well, one thing's for sure. I didn't need any coffee to keep me awake after that!

I'm off thursday again so weather permitting I'll be out again on wed,night.(I'll try not to let nature call again near any gators )

isn't Florida wonderful! Course I guess its just as bad in Louisianna they have gators and swamps too. Watch the wading around out there - all kinds of little nasties can get you including parasites and the invisibles - amoebas etc... Joy. Have you ever been down Turner Loop Road in the Glades? Little pig trail road..... bordered by Gators on either side.

I want to get the FL group together to go into Shark Valley one night. This is swamp / prarie and Gators. Some of the gators in here are 8-9 foot so its like Jurassic Park. You do not need a permit to go in after dark. There is a very tall "observation tower" there which would be perfect base camp for what I want to do there. It's 15 miles round trip on foot. Very flat, very dark, with the 60' or more tower overlooking the prairie.

We have been in there before scouting it out during the day. Deer are easy to spot grazing.

http://www.nps.gov/ever/visit/tramroad.htm
http://www.nps.gov/ever/eco/gatrhole.htm

FYI Jim.... Up around the North end of Arcadia there is a rehab place for BEARS.....
KODIAK and various other LARGE bears. I have been told that these
OCCASIONALLY get out (according to neighbors). So, watch out there around arcadia.
If you think you have seen a large bear, huge bear, you probably did.


I don't know why they would put those bears down here in FL. But then out behind where my mom lives they have a rehab place for big cats so go figure.........

Talk to the locals out there...

great,and I was just woried about the prisoners at the state facility by the peace river campground. why would you build a campground a few miles from a prison? as far as the OP let me know where and when and I'd be more than willing to go.

Update on Myakka (kind of.)I've been corresponding with a lady who's father has run across tracks while hiking in the State Park.(Oddly enough both Panther and those of what appeared to be a small child ).I actually know the area in which this happened but cannot get to it due to flooding of the area.I was wondering if anyone had any Ideas on how to proceed on this ?(short of buying an air boat or canoe)This happened supposedly last Nov.so some amount of time has passed.would it even be worth the effort ? Help?