On the trail of the ape man
By STEVE WILSON
THIS Is the hairy Wildman of Laos that villagers in
south-east Asia believe killed and ate several locals before
and during the Vietnam War.
An Australian scientist who recently returned from Laos said
the local Mon people recognised this drawing as being one of
the region's Abominable Snowman-like creatures.
But Dr Helmut Loofs-Wissowa, a visiting fellow in the
faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National
University, said the villagers had not seen the creatures
since the early 1970s.
The area which the creatures were believed to inhabit was
close to what was the border of North and South VietnamÑan
area extensive defoliated during the Vietnam War, Dr
Loofs-Wissowa said.
He believes the creatures were either killed during the war
or forced into inaccessible mountainous regions of the
country. The 1.8m creature is said to be covered in short,
grey-red fur with a stubby nose.
The only parts of the body without fur are the knees, the
soles of the feet, the hands and the face. The Mon people
recognised artists' impressions of a wildman as their local
creature.
Dr Loofs-Wissowa is producing a documentary for Japanese
television, questioning people in South-East Asia on what
sort of apes they had in the area.
He showed pictures of gorillas, gibbons, orang-utans and
other apes before he showed the wildman impressions.
The drawings were sketched from photographs a Belgian
zoologist took of a large hairy ape man found in a block of
ice.
An American showman was exhibiting the body at country fairs
in the United States during the late 1~60s when the Belgian
zoologist photographed it.
The body of the iceman has since disappeared.
Dr Loofs-Wissowa said only the older villagers remembered
the hairy creatures, but they had horrific tales to tell of
the man-eaters.
"If there was one human being and one or more wildmen, then
the human being was in great trouble," he said.
"There are reports of the wildmen killing humans and taking
them back to their caves and eating them."
If people out-numbered the creatures, the wildmen would
normally run away.
Dr Loofs-Wissowa said there were reports of large, hairy
beings from Australian and US soldiers during the Vietnam
War.
He said he had spoken with an American and an Australian who
both served in Vietnam and believed they saw similar ape
men.
The American was working with some locals during the war
when he saw people who had been crushed to death. The locals
immediately recognised the injuries as being caused by the
creature. Dr Loofs-Wissowa, who is trained in anthropology
and archaeology, said many of his colleagues scorned his
beliefs. Homo ferus is the term Dr Loofs-Wissowa has given
the Wildman of Laos and he believes it is a form of
Neanderthal man, generally thought to have died out about
30,000 years ago.
He said it could be the "missing link" between ape and man
for which many scientists are looking. "It would shatter the
dogma that the homo sapiens is the only human being at
present," he said. Reports of ape men exist in many
countries from Russia to the US and Australia.
Dr Loofs-Wlssowa has heard reports of three different types
of ape men in South-East Asia including the Wildman of Laos.
There was also a 1.5m creature reported in southern Vietnam
and Cambodia and a massive 3m creature reported on the
Malaysian peninsula last year, he said. Sightings of similar
sized creatures, known as the Yet1 have been reported in
Nepal.
The Australian wildman, known as the Yowie, has been part of
Aboriginal mythology, but alleged sightings have continued
into this century.
National Party senator Bill O'Chee is one of at least 20
boys who in 1977 claim they saw a creature similar to
Chewbacca from Star Wars at Lamington National Park, Inland
from the Gold Coast.
Source: Sunday Herald Sun, March 17, 1996 p.31
|