Congo unidentified "apes"

[mikka]

I?ve learned, through a confidential source, that at least one unit of the US Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) has had a remarkable recent encounter with unknown apes in Africa. And a video was taken. We are seeking additional confirmation and other eyewitnesses. Have any hints of this story come your way?

Due to the sensitive nature of this former US Navy SEAL?s intelligence-gathering work, at this time we cannot reveal his identity. Hopefully our posting this initial information will develop other sources and confirmations from current and former SEAL members involved, and from interested researchers with hints of the story.

What the former SEAL relates is that he was involved in covert operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1997 and 2002. According to his account, his team observed a group of thirteen "chimpanzee-like" creatures between 4.5 to 5 feet tall, uniformly gray all over their bodies, with rows of seemingly porcupine-like quills running the length of their backs.

The unidentified apes walked bipedally and were observed by the SEAL team in the act of killing another animal. When the creatures became excited or agitated, the quills or spines stood erect from their bodies.

According to this informant, the US Navy SEAL team took three minutes of video footage of these creatures, but this tape apparently has been classified, due to their mission. This SEAL member still has his mission maps and is able to pinpoint the area of the encounter with this large group of bipedal apes.

The involvement of a US Navy SEAL team would indicate that their activity employed water as a means of transportation, and/or they were working in an area involving a lake, river, or swamp.

What could these strangely-haired unknown apes be? Their description, overtly, sounds like similar hairy short upright creatures (with bizarre spiked hair) known to inhabit areas near certain bodies of water and from specific islands. Various regional names (chupacabras, kappa) hide the fact they all resemble each other in their number of digits, spiked hair, aggressiveness, and aquatic habits. But let?s just look to Africa alone, today.

Weird rumblings have been heard from the Congo for decades. In Ivan T. Sanderson?s Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, there is mention of animal collector Charles Cordier finding the small tracks of what the locals called the kakundakari in the Congo in 1961.

I have previously written about an African hominoid that matches the Congolese reports of the Navy SEAL, those of the Madagascar natives? kalanoro, a short, three-toed, bipedal, water-dwelling, mean, scruffy-hair hominoid.

All the tribes of island of Madagascar, located off the east coast of Africa, know of the Kalanoro, according to folklorist Raymond Decary, who researched the common themes connecting the stories of the Kalanoro back in the 1950s. In 1889, a capture of a Kalanoro was reported to the Royal Geographical Society. In 1924, Chase Salmon Osborn described his sighting of two Kalanoro mating.

The Father of Cryptozoology also took an interest in them. These ?legends may be fantastic," wrote Belgium cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans in 1955, but "they are found all over Madagascar, and it would be odd if they were utterly without foundation," especially given the fact that "some areas of Madagascar are still almost unexplored, such as the Ambongo reserve and the lonely Isalo mountains, and there are still some 3 or 4 million hectares of virgin forest??

The aggressive nature of the Kalanoro comes through in a few accounts, and mirrors the behavior in the SEAL?s account. The Kalanoro are also known to abduct children, and search Madagascar?s villages for food.

How recent are the encounters with these hairy, three-toed Kalanoro with their hooked fingers and aggressive habits? Professor Joe Hobbs of the University of Missouri-Columbia?s Department of Geography, studied them, while he was with the local tribes in the Ankarana Special Reserve, Madagascar, during the late 1990s. On May 15, 2000, when Hobbs wrote his report, he talked of how the people of the village of Ambalakedi consider Andoboara Cave ?sacred because on three separate occasions, most recently just two years ago, grief-stricken parents whose children had wandered into the forest had recovered them alive here" after food was left out for the Kalanoro in exchange for their children?s return.

If the US Navy SEAL report is correct, there may be something quite similar to the Kalanoro living in the Congo area too.

And if the Congo SEAL encounter was so very extraordinary, others may have talked about, it in passing. Since this "unknown hominoid" piece of the mission does not involve national security, but may extend cryptozoological knowledge, it is time to learn more, release the video footage, and analyze what was seen.

Story from Loren's Cryptozoo News

[spacemonkey_acid]

i would love to see that footage!

[folcrom]

Hi All

Just got back from LSL.

If these Congo apes are the same ones also known as the Congolese supergorilla or the Bili Apes, then they are a real and living species.

They have been genetically identified via the mtDNA. They are a known sub-species of Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodites). However, they are also different is many ways. For one, they are quite somewhat larger, up to 50% by some accounts. So although they are a known ape, they are a "giant" version, much in the same way as some african tribes are well above average human size. They also have a large siggital crest running along their skulls, in a simlar fashion to the Gorilla. This led some anthropologists to speculate that they were a hybrid species. Their hair to tends to grey to a larger extent than in the normal chimp and their behaivior is different. The males build ground nests like a gorilla, whilst the females (smaller) nest in trees like a chimp. They have also been reported pack hunting lions. Something ordinary chimps dont do. So although their species has been identified, they are somewhat different in many ways. Some anthropologists have described these as "cultural" differences.

Folcrom

[Maffu]

On a similar note after hearing about all the new species discoveries in Indonesia i did a search for newly discovered species.

Here is an article from 2005 describing the findings of a new species of medium size monkey in Tanzania.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... onkey.html

A quote of significance from this article:

"If two or three years ago someone discovered a new species of monkey in an African country, Tanzania would be near the bottom of the list for guessing which country it's most likely to be in," he said.

Jones, the Udzungwa Mountains National Park-based research biologist, added: "In a way, finding a monkey in Tanzania, to me, makes it more likely that other species might turn up, for example in the Congo Basin. And it really highlights the fact that there is still so much to learn in the 21st century."

So if new monkeys are being found in a well researched countries, then even Biologists specialising in Africa are open minded enough to wonder what is in Congo. Definatly interesting stuff.[/b]

[Maffu]

I cant seem to edit my above post, so here is another article related to discovering new Primates.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... imate.html

Some more relevant quotes from the above article:

Since 1980, 38 species of monkeys have been discovered worldwide

"It has little to do with experience," van Roosmalen said. "I just keep going out into the field and looking for things. Any place I go I find new species." During his quest to find the home of the second smallest monkey, for example, he embarked on seven months of surveys, and discovered eight new species along the way.

[folcrom]

Here's the link to an article about the "Billi" apes on primates.com

http://www.primates.com/misc/mystery-ape.html

If I can find the artcle that describes their MtDNA again, I'll post that as well.

Cheers

Folcrom.