(Original headline: Growing interest in Bigfoot )
excerpted from original news story:
...... Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman had announced that local scientists would carry out their own study to verify any Bigfoot evidence and compile data before inviting foreign groups wishing to explore the phenomena.
Worldwide interest in the Johor Bigfoot was sparked by a report in the New Straits Times on Dec 23 of three workers building a fishpond in Kampung Mawai, Kota Tinggi, who claimed to have seen a Bigfoot family of two adults and a child.
The report also carried a photograph by a Johor Malaysian Nature Society member of what was claimed to be Bigfoot’s footprints.
International Bigfoot websites such as the Bigfoot Research Organisation and Cryptomundo are running online discussions and advisories on the Johor Bigfoot.
Cryptomundo recently ran an interview with Bangkok- based travel correspondent and author Harold Stephens.
He claimed to have mounted the first Bigfoot expedition in the Endau-Rompin jungles in the 1970s.
In the interview, Stephens said he first entered Endau- Rompin on the invitation of a member of the Johor royalty for a fishing trip.
At a village on Sungai Endau, he heard talk of a hairy jungle giant and a prehistoric carving of an elephant on a mountain top. He searched libraries on Bigfoot sightings dating back three centuries in the country, before mounting his expedition with a team that included Orang Asli.
His group found giant footprints measuring 30cm in length and half that in width on a sandbar near a river.
He said a great deal of Press publicity came of his group’s discovery, including a cover story of Argosy magazine in 1971.
Relating the details of his expedition, Stephens said: "After reaching the 12th rapids beyond the tributary of the Kimchin River, we began exploring the riverbanks, looking for tracks.
"The banks were a maze of tracks: deer, pig, turtle, monitor lizard, elephant, tiger, leopard, rhino. Tiger tracks were the most frequent, some the size of a man’s hand."
It was then that he saw the enormous human-like footprints, which ex-combat photographer Kurt Rolfes shot.
Stephens said the creature that had made them had come down from the jungle and entered the water where the tracks disappeared.
