Bigfoot Encounters


Forest Man of Vietnam (Nguoi rung)
By Prof. Nguyen Dinh Khoa

"Forest-man - Mystery of the Century", that was Prof. Dao Van Tien's article written on Quan Doi Nhan Dan Newspaper, no. 10494 (dated 11-8-1990).

I would like to discuss a number of points and contribute some of my ideas.

The article gave some information on the Forest-man by 2 groups of Russian scientists when they explored the mountainous areas Ghit-xa (Republic of Pakistan) and Thien Son from 1979 to 1985. Some scientists said that they saw footprints on the beach, and others said they actually saw the Forest-man. In Thien Son, they could only gathered information from the locals, which led on to a practical conclusion that the percentage of Forest-man's male and female are 56.3% and 43.7%

Another source of information from China: local people in Ho Nam province caught a Forest-man, but it turned out to be just a short-tailed monkey. But there are still rumours of Forest-man in China.

At the end of the article, Prof. Dao Van Tien said - with the support from almost all scientists- that Forest-man discovered in Russia (and possibly in China) are only a type of ancient-man "Ne-an Dac Lan". Prof. Tien appealed for their protection before they face extinction.

The Forest-man subject that Prof. Tien has raised, caused a lot of attention because of its internationally wide spread rumours since the last half of 20th century. It started out in 1954 from a discovery of big footprints in the snow by a group of Himalayan mountain climbers. The locals of Sec pa considered them as I-e-tis' (Yeti) foot prints (local's word for Forest-man named by explorers) who were still scattered around the area. In the book titled 'Snowman to the locals people' written by Zoologist Charles Stonor (1958), gave some information on this matter.

This piece of information certainly had raised a strong interest in the scientist circle, lots of English, French, and Japanese, even the affiliated explorers had come to Himalayas with the hope to seize a Forest Man or at least to catch a glimpse and take a photo.

Following the Snowman was the Forest Man rumours at different stages with different names such as: Almasty; A-da-mi I-a-voi, Sasquatch Monlagnes Rocheuses) in North America, etc. All of these were investigated and could be concluded as follows:

The research for Forest Man in North America was put to a halt in l958 when the researcher Ivan Sanderson spent lots of his time travelling to many mountainous areas without success. In other areas, lots of photos and moulds of footprints were collected. One group of explorers (1960-61) was shown, by a Buddhist Monastery, a piece of scalp covered with hair and a desiccated hand, supposedly from an 'I-e-ti'. The explorers had taken photos and brought back a piece of 'hand'. The result of this exploration was summarised in a book titled 'On the freezing Summits' published in England in 1963, the book was translated into Russian in 1983.

Both authors E. Hillaret and D. Doik, refused to believe this because of the following reasons: The footprints were not convincing enough, as for the scalp and desiccated hand they could belong to any kind of hairy animal with claws that even at the age of 300 years, still not much different from a human's hand. Furthermore, there was an only rumour that people either had seen or heard but not any photo as a proof.

Even in Vietnam, there is also a rumour about the Forest Man. During the Vietnam war against the Americans, Department of Biology (University of Hanoi), twice received information on the Forest Man and was requested on investigation. The first time, it was reported from Na Meo (adjoining between Lao and Vietnam), but when the investigation took place, the party was told that workers in that particular area were working in shifts most of the time, and no one knew who reported the incident. The second time, from a location in Dac Lac, again a group of explorers was sent only to come back with a report that it was only a rumour. In the Environment and Resource 10 year Program, code 5202, there was a project on researching rare species, the first 5 year (1981-85) did report that they discovered a foot print from which they made a mould and they also gave a number of discussions on this discovery but to date, no more was heard.

Connected with this research in Vietnam, there was a book with an interesting title 'The Neanderthal still exists' published in 1974 written by a French scientist Bernard Heuvelmans, and a Russian Scientist Boris Porshnev. The book is 500 pages consists of 25 chapters and pictures of the Forest man's corpse preserved in a big block of ice which was displayed in a number of places in the U.S. like Wisconsin and Chicago.

This corpse belonged to Frank D. Hansen, who was born in Minnesota and was an American pilot during the Vietnam war, therefore, Heuvelmans theory was: the Forest man was killed in western region of Vietnam and found by Hansen, He saw the opportunity to make money, so brought back to the U.S. Still according to Heuvelmans, from the looks of this corpse, it could be one of the Neanderthal survivors.

However, Prof. M. Gloor, a specialist in Genetic Department in University of Geneva, believes that it was a very clever trick. As for myself, I do think there are a lot of doubts about the forest man (in general, not particularly the Hansen's case), and if it was a big monkey or an orang-utan theory, it could be accepted, but a Neanderthal! it is hard to believe.

Is it true about the Forest man? This question was discussed within the scientfic world, there were a number of source information but not truthful facts. However, science is a world of the unpredictable, out of 1000's of rumors, only needed one genuine fact would solve the whole mystery.

Source: Nhan Dan 39 (85) 23-9-1990 p.40;
From the files of Bobbie Short


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