Watched a show tonight called "Destination Truth" and in the particular episode I watched they were in search of the Orang Pendek which for those of you who are familiar is basically a small bigfoot.

While filming the crew liason's with a scientist that has been funded and placed there for a two year period by National Geographic to research the phenomenon. This is the same National Geographic that produced the horrible BF documentary which basically mocked the BF subject and its researchers by mentioning Janice Coy and interviewing Bob Heronius while showing a BF playing pinball.

There is no verifyable evidence for the Orang Pendek other than basically the same things that we have for BF in sightings etc.

So my question is, why does National Geographic take the Oran Pendek seriously and not BF?

Is it that they hold Sumatran sighting reports in higher esteem than American and Canadian reports?

I remember hearing on what I think was a National Geographic special a few years ago where they said something like "At least that has a chance of being real" when talking about Orang Pendek compared to bigfoot. I believe the logic is, as near as I can figure, there cannot be bigfoot in North America because North America has more "modern" scientists and people whereas primarily primitives live in Sumatra. They couldn't be saying that Sumatra has more wilderness. The density of the brush isn't a rational reason. The population density isn't a rational reason. The only thing I can come up with is that Bigfoot is in our backyard so that makes it impossible for the reason previously mentioned. Modern science simply couldn't have missed them in our backyard so it is impossible for them to exist. They don't have anything even comparable to the the PGF for Orang Pendek yet say that it is possible and BF isn't. It may be pointless trying to rationalize illogical preconceived ideas but it would be nice to understand the logic behind such strange conclusions.

One word. Tourism.

How does a hoaxed film add to the weight of evidence for bigfoot?


Not just being cheeky here, but trying to illustrate the mindset of the NG folks. In their eyes, the evidence is no stronger here than there.

Reasons to search there: evolutionary history of creatures potentially matching the description from Southeast Asia and yes, terrain far less explored by western scientists. Check the "new species" literature and count up the number of new vertebrates discovered in Southeast Asia compared to the Pacific Northwest over the last 50 years. No contest.

You might be right. In their mind, PGF might even be more evidence for how easy it is to fool people.


You would expect that based on the number of species alone. It is a tropical rain forest with much more time to evolve those complex relationships that tend to increase numbers of specialized species. It doesn't strike me as a very compelling reason why Sumatra should be more likely to contain an unknown hominoid. It is closer to ancestral apes so it doesn't require the trip over the land bridge. Still, I am left wondering why one is said to be possible and one is not.

It does seem to come down to number of western scientists that explored it. Apparently, there is some cutoff where it becomes impossible for a species to escape being cataloged.

Indeed. I'm willing to bet that that the decision to organize this expedition was also influenced by the possibility of describing new non-hominid species.

After the Georgia incident, I wouldn't be at all shocked if National Geographic was rather wary of doing any segments on bigfoot at this particular moment in time.



That's waving a torch around gasoline.

And you know this exactly how?



That has nothing to do with it. We are talking about two specific "phenomenons". Each with no verifyable scientific evidence to back them up. I agree with Bob in that the issue is a psychological one.

It lives in an area where other primates live. It is not an “out of place” creature. Scientific funding tends to get more approval the more exotic the location it is to take place in. Amateur investigation has been pretty nil so most of the available information hasn’t been secreted away from science. The local amateur’s that may be interested in it do not speak a world common language and information must go through people who can interpret, which tend to be educated individuals. The locals think it a rare but quite real animal, subscribing no supernatural qualities to it. Press can only go to those who know something about it and the majority of those are scientists.

So you missed that the intent was to convey how the folks at National Geographic likely view the PGF?


It's just fascinating how powerful that film is. For those of us who interpret it as fraudulent, there is absolutely no better evidence of bigfoot-like creatures from the Pacific Northwest than anywhere else in the world that such creatures are reported. For PGF believers, that film is, for some, the best evidence anywhere, and it lends tremendous weight to every other sighting and footprint from the PNW.

IMO, Orang Pandek is just a misidentified orangutan. Did anyone see the MonsterQuest on it? I mean one time a chopper pilot from 'nam saw one in a tree, but it probably was an orangutan and he was wacked out on drugs or something.

i think both creatures are awesome in their own way. thanks bill

Well being in the same neck of the Woods as our subject, i don't hear much at all if anything about it if i'm honest.. I have Friends who live in Indonesia who have never heard of it, yet they've heard of BF..

& i just want to say that if it is real, it isn't a " little BF " as from what i've read, it doesn't appear to actually have big Feet at all..

& i very much doubt if Tourism has anything to do with it being taken more seriously.. Tourism in this part of the World, & i mean Nature Tourism, doesn't really cater for what could be, it caters for what is...

& by that i mean Komodo Island, Sumatran Tiger Expeds, Orangutan Orphanages etc..

One of the reasons why it could be " allegedly " taken more seriously is that the fact that quite simply, there is only a very small % of the N Amercian Population that think BF could exist on a Continent where everyone & their Dog in the Press in the Western World seem to think that it isn't possible..

The " Unexplored ", " Raw ", " Wild " & " Undiscovered " Forests of SE Asia on the other hand...................

The Orangutan means person of the forest. Locals actually would not kill them as they considered them another type of person, albeit a lazy one. If a Pendek is found, it is likel to be a new (3rd) subspecies. Mawa is another word used by locals for the Orangutan, and is a related term to the Biff phenomena.
So, there are species already present that represent what purportedly may be found by way of legend.
Nothing outside of some eyewitness accounts support the idea of a North American Ape.
One has eyewtinesses + primate residents.
One has eyewitnesses.

Both have eyewitnesses and both have primates even though in one case he is the witness. It doesn't answer the question about why one is possible and one is not. It suggests why an ape would be more likely in Sumatra but frankly I find the assumption of an upright walking orangutan to be rather odd with florescences found to have lived so recently on a neighboring island.

The thinking, as I see it, goes like this.

Sumatra is the sixth largest island in the world, large parts of it are relatively empty, there is a lot of dense vegetation, apes already live there and sizeable parts have never been visited by humans, let alone explored. And many Sumatrans are convinced there's a rare ape which hasn't yet been classified. After all, the Clouded Leopard has only just been caught on a Borneo National Park's trailcam for the first time. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_te...oom/7561940.stm

North America, for all its forests, appears to have given up most of its secrets regarding large mammals. It's criss-crossed with roads, there are hikers, park rangers, hunters and the like all over it and although the stories of giant apes stumbling around the woods persist, the evidence and the statistical likelihood are not convincing.

If I were determined to find an unknown ape, I know where I'd go.

I think in a large part it boils down to the 'scoff test'. We're getting this information from the Western media, and in general, to Westerners, Sumatra is still an exotic jungle potentially full of mysteries and strange animals. North America is not.

So stories of an undiscovered primate in Sumatra simply don't trigger the smirk/scoff response the way Bigfoot does. This is further helped because Orang Pendek has not been exploited by tabloid journalism the way Sasquatch has, and the words themselves therefor carry different connotations.

Remember, those funding 'scientific' expeditions are not immune to the winds of public opinion.

robo,

I think those are excellent points.

The question would be, how much territory in the USA has never or not in the last 100 years or so, been visited by man? I suspect there is some territory. Likely a larger area of land than the island of Sumatra. Of course it would be scattered and not concentrated into one area, which is significant as far as a population of undiscovered primates goes.

I know growing up we had areas of our Ranch that we didn't get to for years at a time, it was just too rough and cattle didn't go into those areas.

I'm sorry, North America does not have primate residents? Are we not primates? Don't get confused.

Both have eyewitnesses + primate residents.


BINGO! I could not have said it better myself. We are dealing with a psychological phenomenon among the scientific community. They of course are not aware of this as most people are not aware of such things pertaining to them until they acknowledge that they have a problem and seek help for it.

Haha, I think it is pretty obvious (to you and nightscream) that I was refering to current indigenous primates.
Although Hobo + parallax error does explain a large portion of Biff away nicely. But that's another story.

Why would an ape not be far more likeley in Sumatra? Orangutans already live there? The Pendek is surmised to be another Orangutan, yet no record allows for an 800 pound Ape in North America. How does it survive summers? They simarly built Meganthropus could not due to body shape. Things got too hot and he did not have enough surface area to release heat.

Sumatra, which already has Orangutans might have another one.
as opposed to
North America, with no record and no indigenous residents.

It seems one might also start looking for Lions in New Zealand?

I am curious as to why you find the Florensis discovery at odds with another Orangutan? As Orangutans shuffle on their hands, having hands as opposed to feet, it can be described as walking. It does not mean the Pendek would be a master of bipedalism, but capable of it.

Just wanted to show you something that i posted on another thread the other day WmRoy, it's not the US but it's Canada..

For Example :

British Columbia, Canada.

Total Land Mass : 944,735 km2

Population : 4,428,389

Vancouver, British Columbia

Total Land Mass : 114.67 km2

Population of VA Metropolis : 2,524,113

So that’s over half the Population of the whole of BC in an area that is a TINY % of the size of it’s total Land Area, don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to work out there’s not that many people there in what I’d call perfect Habitat for that Animal.

A little simple stat like that, on BC which is as i say prime habitat for that Animal, makes for an easy argument for me when people say to me “ Well why hasn’t one been discovered ?? Why hasn’t more people seen them ?? Why haven’t more pictures been taken ?? etc etc etc..

Especially when you’re talking about a Population of an Animal of, in my opinion, around about 1,500 Animals, or less, in BC.

I am familiar with some of the descriptions of Orang Pendek. It is described as a very short hairy BIPEDAL ape(including all hominids) and pretty much matches the description of floresiensis. My point was that assuming Orang pendek to be an "ape" (non hominid) and not the same creature as floresiensis strikes me as very odd. There are stories on the island of Flores that describe a very short bipedal, HAIRY ape that they called ogopogo. They were said to live on the side of a volcano which is also what they say about Orang Pendek. About 300 years ago, a baby was said to have been stolen from a village on Flores and the locals burned out the cave they lived in. They said that was the last they saw of them. Considering the recent age of the floresiensis fossils, the stories should probably carry more weight than just myths. That doesn't mean that they didn't have false stories about them mating with the locals. I really shouldn't have to have said that but it was in response to what someone else said about my statement that the local stories should have some credibility.

I should add that I find the theory of "devolving" erectus because of being on an island to be highly dubious. I also find the evidence of technology possessed by floresiensis to be equally dubious and pretty much discount that probability. Modern humans have been on the island and we simply wouldn't allow little "primitive" hominids armed with spears to share our island. It makes much more sense that it was/is not at all technological and is the same creature as orang pendek if orang pendek exists. It certainly should match the description of them minus the prints with the opposable large toe. Those prints are probably orangutans or created by local tour guides.(JMO) Both are likely just descended from a "primitive" form more like possibly some habilis or georgicus that had long diverged from the human lineage and they didn't have to change that much.

Since in my mind, an ape related to orangutans doesn't make any sense as the more probable relative, then using orangutans living there as evidence also doesn't make sense. It would make more sense to compare it to the range of hominids. I have a problem with the logic of the statement saying one is POSSIBLE and the other is not. I never gave an opinion on what I thought was more likely. It then makes more sense to consider the range of all hominids rather than just orangutans Hominids crossed over into America. Hominids occupied most all of Asia and the old world. In fact, floresiensis does add weight to orang pendek being in Sumatra since it likely was on Flores. I don't however give the guy who made the statement about bigfoot being impossible credit for having the sense to even get the likely relationship between floresiensis and orang pendek. I feel the need to include the statement that just because there is not fossil evidence of a large cold adapted hominid, that doesn't mean that it is impossible for them to have existed. There is also no biological reason for them to not have evolved. If bigfoot exists, that is what it logically is. (IMO)

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Orang-pendek
HaHa.....HaHaHa
Lions in New Zealand. I like that. Or snakes in New Zealand huh?

I apologize. I was misinformed. I was under the impression that the majority of the eyewitness accounts were that of a bipedal primate not resembling an Orangutan. Just like your "Yowie".

orang pendek
Bipedal West Sumatran primate whose existence is yet to be scientifically confirmed. There have been a number of sightings of recognizably distinct individuals made by an international team since March 1995, and plaster casts taken of footprints. Orang pendek is at least 1.2 m/4 ft tall with short buff to black hair. Its footprints are unlike any other primates.

I wasn't aware that the footprints were unusual, are there photos anywhere?

I have to agree with you, Bob. We need to realize that fossil finds are going to be extremely rare, and so the actual numbers of species of hominoids that ever existed, and/or that possibly exist, is going to be much higher than we realize. Forcing H. floresiensis to fit into the H. erectus mold is stupid and simply doesn't work. Better to just say it is a previously undiscovered species and leave it at that. Also I think variation within species is ample explanation for variations between the skulls of H. floresiensis, habilis, georgicus or whatever else might have been but didn't get discovered yet. Heck, even habiline skulls vary a great deal, as do australopithecines. Even between sexes there is bound to be quite a lot of variation in the skulls alone. The size is consistent, even though admittedly size can change relatively very quickly in evolutionary time scales.

We do have the Laetoli footprints to compare to, and the Laetoli track I believe is considered to be australopithecine. It is created by a very little set of feet.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/ancientman/02_laetoli.html

The animal has allegedly been seen and documented for at least one hundred years by forest tribes, local villagers, Dutch colonists, and Western scientists and travelers. Consensus among witnesses is that the animal is a ground-dwelling, bipedal primate that is covered in short fur and stands between 80 centimetres (31 in) and 150 centimetres (59 in) tall.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]


I copied and pasted this from the Web because the article mentions that western scientists have observed the Pandek.
I think that may be one reason why there has been funding provided for expeditions.

Also, I don't remember where I read it. There was a women scientist in the last year or so who claimed to having observed
one for at least several seconds walking upright through a field and had an unobstructive view from the waist up.

The one on the right was determined by Dr. Meldrum to be a bear. I forgot about that but just watched the show. The one on the left is the one that didn't strike me as very likely belonging to Orang Pendek but who knows?

Mosterquest on Orang Pendek
Click to view attachment

Dr. Meldrum seemed to be quite open to the idea of them being floresiensis. That would mean that it is a fairly closely related hominid if true and you would probably expect a more human foot as was reported on some older sitings.


I think I meant ebu gogo earlier and not ogo pogo by the way. Maybe ogo pogo is a lake monster but I'm not sure now.

Yes I think Ogopogo is a version of the Loch Ness monster somewhere in Canada. I have seen the print on the left as well and I seem to remember Dr. Meldrum ruling it out as a print that at least he in his opinion would be credible and relate to the Orang Pendek.

Yup, Ogopogo is (purported to be) a lake monster in Lake Okanagan near Kelowna, British Columbia.

Hi I would like to ask if anyone has any links to websites, blogs, etc about ongoing expeditions / current up to date info about investigations going on now in sumatra? On the National Geographic show Is It Real?, Dr. Peter Tse and his group had set up a bunch of cameras, and at the end of the show, they said they were keeping them up. This was shot I think in 2006, does anyone know if that is still going on and if new snapshots can be found online?

I am trying to gather information about what expeditions / investigations are going on currently. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

On a different note, I would like to explain a theory of mine about Orang Pendek that I have come up with through my research. Fauna and Flora International is a very large conservation group that does a lot of work in Sumatra, including rainforest preservation and work to save the sumatran tiger. Debbie Martyr works for them. My theory is that even if debbie martyr and/or Fauna and flora international found evidence of orang pendek(definitive picture, video, remains, etc), they would keep it a secret.

Think about it, if someone got a perfect picture of orang pendek, a perfectly clear picture that is undeniably a picture of a new species of bipedal ape, if that picture was released to the world the amount of the people that would descend upon sumatra and more specifically the Kerinci Seblat National Park would only be comparable to san francisco during the gold rush. This would undermine FFI's attempt to save the rainforest because tons of tourists, poachers, and hunters would go to sumatra to try to capture, kill and/or see the orang pendek. Therefore, it is best kept a secret.

Keep in mind that Fauna and Flora International is a VERY large, VERY well funded non-profit. Follow the money and you'll find the answer.

Despite the rejections of denialists, the discovery of Flores Man may be a factor in NGs higher acceptance of Orang Pendek.

Perhaps the Sumantrian climate has something to do with it. Perhaps because there is already one know large primate in there already . If Bigfoot showed up in Africa near Gorilla populations would that not seem credible? The fact that most potential Sasquatch in North America would have to deal with the harsh winters and lets face it Primates don't fare well in very hostile climates.

First of all...welcome jhubb1...Your theory of keeping it a secret is well founded....here in Northern Australia in the tropics..a similar attitude exists in regard to the Yowie/Hairy Man...The most common response is 'we keep it to ourselves', don't want all these scientists walking through our bush etc.......also..in my travels collecting stories. I spoke to a guy out in the middle of nowhere, in the Gulf Country who has a big cattle station, and he says that he has found small human skeletons and skulls that can fit in the palm of your hand...He was calling them Flores Man....as the crow flies, he's not that far away from Papua New Guinea....cheers

I'm not doing so bad up here.

In fact, I kinda' like it.

I thought it was understiood that I was referring to primates without technology. It's 17F outside right now and I'm sitting in my robe with some cozy heat coming up from the radiators and a little electric heater at my feet. I suspect you're in a similar condition. Last I checked we humans are the only folks toasting ourselves with artifical heat generating devices. This is not to say that animals are not capable of warming themselves on man made heat generating sources, some do. It is entirely another thing to expect that what is essentially an upright gorilla could exist in frigid conditions withut the use of tools and technology such as fire. None of which hase ever been connected to Bigfoot.

Now those small human skeletons would be worth some serious study, who knows how many larger=sized neighboring fossils might be laying about,
maybe even a few living and breathing ones?! Cool story Rod

*BUMP*

Still looking for more information...anyone out there??

'jhubb1': I just finished reading 'Sasquatch True-Life Encounters With Legendary Ape-Men', by Rupert Matthews, published 2008 by Arcturus Publishing Limited. He more or less summarizes the generally available information on Deborah Martyr and her Orang Pendek research up to around 2005, when the NGS placed their game-cams in the Mount Tenici Region of Sumatra. Google seems not to have any more up to date information, either.

So it strikes me that your best bet for up to date info would be to directly contact Loren Coleman at his Cryptomundo website, where he indicates he has been in direct contact with Martyr for over 20 years. He might be able to provide you with additional insight.
Dudlow

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/debbie-martyr/

With all due respect to previous posters (who had some superb "takes" on this matter), I would suggest you follow the money.

National Geographic is an organization that thrives no less on money than does General Motors; they just sell a different product.

Orang Pendek lives in a very exotic location, very far away. Exotic and far away are what National Geographic sells. Home is never exotic. To the people of Sumatra, the mountains are home and the maple sugaring industry in Vermont is wildly exotic. To the people of the US (with their TVs, Internet connections and all that), orang pendek is a potentially undiscovered primate that science should approach. Bigfoot is a hillbilly myth that once fought Steve Austin.

In the PC US, the people of Indonesia are honest, honorable people who suffer at the hands of conglomerate American enterprise. To the Indonesians, we are probably all living in mansions with butlers, spring water comes out of our faucets, and we grow to an average height of seven feet.

I'm not kidding.

When I taught ESL in Boston, we had 92 people from Japan in our summer program, all of whom were making their very first trip to the States. In conversation class, we were instructed to teach the word "surprised" and then asked the following question (aided with a bilingual interpreter):

"You are here for the first time. Before coming, you read books and magazines about the US, spoke to friends, relatives, coworkers and others who had traveled here. You watched Japanese TV and surfed the Internet so you could learn as much as you could about this country...What surprised you?"

Every single Japanese person said: "We haven't seen anybody shot yet!" Almost to the very word. 100% response!

In Japan, the US is the OK Corral. The only thing they talk about is our murder rate.

People judge the planet according to the media. In the US, we look at Indonesia as an exotic, faraway land with mysterious animals. Our own backyard has nothing but dogs and hillbilly myths.

Orang pendek will get the research funds because it is far away, in an exotic country where there "are no hillbillies who watch Steve Austin re-runs and The Dukes of Hazzard."

There's your answer.

Hi

You have got to be kidding ??

Peace
Tim

Thank you Dudlow, I will take your advice

Tim:

Unless your last post was intended for someone else, no, I am not kidding.

Or perhaps you think that a senator, congressman or someone who lives on votes, or an organization that depends on funding is going to take seriously something that is commonly regarded as a joke?

Are you kidding, Tim?

People, perhaps like you or I (or Jane Goodall) who think this field of study should be taken seriously are in a very small minority in this country. Read the posts on this site addressing the abuse we take when we discuss our interest in BF to most people. Bigfoot is a laughingstock to the vast majority of Americans.

Ask Jeff Meldrum if he isn't laughed at by most of his colleagues, exactly like Grover Krantz was. There was a video clip of him discussing this on CNN.

You sell History and Discovery Channel documentaries with bigfoot.

When you run The Smithsonian or National Geographic, you don't fund bigfoot research, or you lose massive funding.

The following are quotes from this thread alone:

Post 4
Post 7
Post 9
Post 17

No, Tim. I'm not kidding.

Hi

I don't see were your going with the line of posting but by all means go for it if you like,

I will say in my opinion your way of subject and pretty much out of line calling things like you are . . .

Peace
Tim

Actually, the people in Indonesia do not look at Americans this way.
In reality, most of the people there view it like we do here, with the exeption of the village population. The general feeling in the cities is "what?"

(As per p. 183 in the book referred to in my previous reply #38 above, for what it's worth...) Sumatra also had its own embarassing hoax concerning Orang Pendek back in 1932 when the Deli Courant newspaper offered a big reward for anyone who brought in the body of a Pendek. Sure enough, a body was presented, sent to the Buitenzorg Zological Museum for study (in Holland?), and was summarily dismissed as a fully grown langur monkey that:

"had been shot, then had its fur trimmed to match the usual description of an Orang Pendek's hair. The nose had been stretched with a piece of wood, the teeth filed to shape and the cheekbones carefully fractured to alter their shape."

Apparently this killed all official interest in the cryptid until 1989 when Deborah Martyr first went to Sumatra. She had her first actual sighting in 1999.
Dudlow

What! no rubber inserts in 1932?

Hi. I think that Orang Pendek has received more attention because it was shortly seen by biologists in a natural reserve in Indonesia (Borneo, Sumatra, I don't remember very well). (And I sincerely doubt that local people buy Orang Pendek costumes in local indonesian stores to play pranks on biologists )

But in USA not everyone seems bigfoot with a more scientific point of view. Many people tells simply "it was a bear", "it is a prankster in a costume" , "someone is making footprints with a wooden foot". And later a prankster appears telling "I was bigfoot on the Patterson film, Bigfoot speaks english, my wife played Bigfoot in a homemade film".

But I'm sure many people is doing research in the woods, trying to find evidence of the Big Hairy one!!

Does anyone have any new information about these ongoing trail cam operations that National geographic is supposedly doing?

Really now? Oh look this little guys disagree with you! Japan's Snow monkeys

Try again...

The Patterson film so far has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be either a hoax or authentic it is still a hotly debated issue. Some go for hoax while others keep finding stuff in that film that say can only belong to a yet to be scientifically identified creature.


Point is you cannot argue with absolute certainty either way about that film...