Europeans learned about this small upright creature, which is now actively sought by cryptozoologists from the first Dutch colonists who settled in Sumatra. The locals call him orangpendek, which means “short forest man”. The first written message describing the mysterious creature was left by a certain representative of the authorities who visited the area of the Barisan mountain range near the town of Lobuk-Salasik. He managed to observe the orangpendeka from a distance of only a few meters.
The official wrote that he noticed “a very large creature with strongly bent legs, which ran like a man, and almost crossed the path along which I was moving; his body was covered with thick hair, but it was not an orangutan; his face did not resemble the face of an ordinary person; it silently and threateningly looked towards the people, and then slowly ran away; the workers rushed with much greater speed to run in the opposite direction."
Among the Dutch scientists who were the first to study this creature, it is worth mentioning Dr. Edward Jacobson, who published his material on a humanoid creature in Sumatra in 1917 in the journal De Tropishe Natur, published on the island of Java. In his research, he also mentioned several curious facts collected before him by L. K. Westenek, who held the post of governor of the island for some time. E. Jacobson not only managed to collect a few more eyewitness testimonies who met the orangpendek, but also personally find and fix traces of this creature. They were very similar to humans, but smaller and wider. The footprints of the great apes differed from those of the orangpendek by their wide-set and very large thumb.
In 1918, Van Herwarden, a forest buster, became interested in the ape-like creature. In the swampy forests in the area of the Banhoe-Asin River, Herwarden was able to find two chains of tracks on the bank of the stream. The prints closely resembled human footprints, but were much smaller. Since the Kubu people lived in this area, the Dutchman decided that they could see the orangpendek, after which he decided to question them in more detail.
Three local kubu said that they actually saw a gugu in the area, as they called an orangpendeka. According to eyewitnesses, it was a bipedal humanoid creature, covered with short dark hair, about 150 cm in height and black long hair on its head. It turned out that one hunter even recently happened to find a dead Gugu: he tried to drag the body to the village, but the corpse had already strongly decomposed, and this undertaking failed. Apparently, during this attempt, cadaveric poison got into the hunter's wound, since he died soon after. By the way, if in the mountains of Nepal the corpse of a yeti can persist for a very long time, then in Sumatra, due to the heat and high humidity, the remains of even a large animal can be destroyed by insects and fungal formations literally overnight. So the chances of researchers finding the body of an orangpendek are practically nil. But it is quite possible to meet him alive.
And such luck fell to the lot of Van Herwarden! In 1923, in a forest near the Paulo Rimau River, where a mysterious stranger was often seen, a forester, while hunting wild boars, decided to observe the local inhabitants from hiding. For about two hours, nothing interesting happened around, but then Herwarden's attention was attracted by a faint movement in the foliage of a small tree. He decided to see who was hiding among the branches: he went up to a tree, walked around it and saw a shaggy dark creature above.
With excitement, Van Herwarden caught his breath, he felt that he was as close to his goal as never before, because an orangpendek was sitting on a tree. The forester shook the tree, but the creature only clung tighter to the branch. Then Herwarden climbed up the trunk towards him. Noticing that someone was approaching him, the creature became agitated, moved on a branch and bent down. Wang saw two eyes watching him intently.
A description of what Herwarden saw is given in the book by Ivan T. Sanderson. Here are its fragments: “The body of this creature was covered with hair. The color of the coat on the chest was slightly lighter than on the back. The very dark hair on her head fell below her collarbones and almost reached her waist. The coat was very thick and matted. The lower part of the face appeared to be more elongated than that of a human. The brown face had almost no vegetation, and the forehead seemed high. The creature's eyebrows were the same color as the hair, and very thick. The gaze is intent, the eyes are very dark, mobile and similar to human ones. The nose is wide, with very large nostrils, but not roughly delineated."
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“When the mouth twitched nervously, the fangs were clearly visible. They seemed to me to be very large, in any case, they were more developed than in humans. For some time, literally for an instant, I had the opportunity to examine his ear, and it turned out to be exactly like a human. The outer surfaces of the hands were slightly hairy. When the animal stood up to its full height, its arms hung slightly below the knees. Therefore, we can assume that they were long, but the legs were short. This creature was female and was about 5 feet [about 152 cm] tall."
Herwarden tried to move closer to the creature, with all his appearance expressing the best intentions, but it continued to be nervous. Then the Dutchman took the gun and took aim. Apparently, the creature perceived this as a direct threat to its life and immediately made plaintive sounds like "hu-hu". It is curious that from afar the same sound sounded in response.
Van began to climb the tree, and when it almost reached the goal, the creature moved sideways along the branch, it bent down, and from about three meters, the female orangpendeka jumped down and ran. Herwarden quickly descended, grabbed the gun, took aim, but, seeing the flowing hair, lowered the barrel. The forester had a feeling that by pulling the trigger, he would become a real killer.
Hervarden's story about the unique meeting and his detailed description of the mysterious creature were received ambiguously in the scientific world, one might even say with some bewilderment. One of the scientists said that if the witness is not lying, then he saw only the most ordinary orangutan. After all sorts of attacks and almost accusations of lies, Van Herwarden undoubtedly regretted something - either that he did not shoot, or his desire to tell the world about an amazing meeting.
Unfortunately, the results of the work of many honest orangpendek researchers have been largely discredited by various fakes, which local sensationists passed off as the mysterious ape man. In 1932, a real sensation was the report that an orangpendek girl was killed by hunters and her body fell into the hands of scientists. Alas, the cub was made from a killed young monkey: the tail was removed, the hair on the whole body except the head was shaved off, pieces of wood were tucked under the skin of the nose to make it look “human”. The deception was exposed, and the credibility of any reports about the orangpendek was severely undermined.
Has orangpendek survived to this day? Experts give a positive answer to this question. The dense virgin forests of Sumatra have helped this creature survive, and cryptozoologists have every chance of finding it. English cryptozoologist and journalist Debbie Martyr managed to see the orangpendek several years ago during an expedition to one of the remote areas of Sumatra. This is how she describes her encounter with this creature: “It quietly walked along the clearing right in front of my nose. Only 30 meters away! Not that I didn’t expect to see him, but so close!.. It passed by the trees, the grass reached his waist. The creature was so graceful, strong, strong-built, just like a giant monkey who came to our world from ancient legends to banish all prejudices and dispel our doubts. We can say with confidence:I saw a real orangpendek."
Debbie was so impressed by the meeting with the forest dweller that from that moment she literally settled in Sumatra. She still walks through the villages, looking for eyewitnesses who saw the strange owner of the forest, and writes down their stories. Local artist Park Jang from the town of Sanjay Pino, according to many eyewitnesses, including Debbie, created a portrait of an orangpendek. According to Martyr, the portrait was a success; in it she recognizes a creature that, having appeared for a moment, changed her plans.
To get information about the orangpendek, Martyr even managed to establish contact with the orang-ubu tribe living in the forest and avoiding contact with civilization. Her hopes that the tribe's hunters saw a mysterious animal were justified. The warriors of the tribe talked about an upright creature with hair all over its body and directly called it a forest man. Alas, the warriors could not show Debbie and her small team the elusive orangpendek. “We're trying,” says Martyr, “to find at least animal droppings from which DNA can be extracted for analysis.” So far, this has not been done.
Unfortunately, scientists are rarely presented with cases such as in 1927, when an orangpendek appears to have fallen into a tiger trap. Then his hair and blood remained on the trap, but it was not yet possible to extract DNA from them in those years.
Jeremy Holden, a naturalist and professional photographer, also saw the mysterious creature. “I saw an orangpendek in 1994,” he says. - He walked five meters away from me, but then I didn’t get the photo, so now we are still looking for an animal to film. But this is a difficult task: the jungle is too dense, and it is difficult to photograph, sometimes you cannot see anything at twenty meters. In addition, there are other problems - rain, poor lighting, mold, high humidity. However, Jeremy does not lose hope of filming the orangpendek. The researcher uses a special infrared flash, which he connects to an ordinary camera. If someone enters the trail, the flash will fire and the camera will start working.
David Chivers, one of the leading zoologists, is closely following the search for the orangpende in Sumatra. He believes that in Southeast Asia, especially in Sumatra, forests are dense and inaccessible, so it is only natural that there may be species of monkeys that are not yet known to science. Chivers managed to see and study the traces of the orangpendek. “These footprints,” says the scientist, “are an amazing and organic mixture of human and ape. On the one hand, the foot retained its grasping function, on the other, it became straighter and flatter, which allowed this creature to walk on two legs. " The zoologist is in constant contact with Debbie Martyr and closely follows her research. He believes that sooner or later it will be possible to obtain evidence of the real existence of the orangpendek. “When I read Debbie's reports,” Chivers says, “I got goosebumps. It's just incredible! What surprised me the most was the frequency of the appearance of the strange creature."
Publications and popular science films about this hominoid aroused great interest in the world. All new researchers are joining in his searches. Several years ago, the island was visited by scientists from the UK - Andrew Sanderson, Adam Davis and Keith Tauli. They spent three weeks in the Sumatran jungle looking for the orangpendek. Of course, it would be insane luck if in such a short time they managed to meet the legendary creature, but they nevertheless returned to their homeland happy - and not empty-handed. In the jungle, they managed to find the trail of the orangpendek and make a cast from it, which aroused great interest in scientific circles in London. Next to the trail, they found a clump of wool, its analysis showed that it belongs to a creature unknown to science.
In 2005, a cryptozoologist Dr. Chris Clark visited Sumatra. Of course, he met on the island with his compatriot Debbie Martyr, who told him that the latest reports of meetings with the orangpendek came from the Gunung Tuju area. There is a deep canyon with steep slopes next to the lake; According to Martyr, this is an ideal place for a monkey-man to hide, because it is possible to descend into the canyon only with the help of mountaineering equipment.
Hiring guides, Clark and Martyr headed to the lake area. They set up camp and went in search. They were lucky: at the very first foray into the jungle, the researchers managed to find well-preserved five-toed tracks that most likely belonged to the Orangpendek. Nearby were broken stems of paura - this plant, said the guides, feeds on the forest man. A careful examination of the site made it possible to find a piece of dark gray wool on the tree trunk, which was immediately taken for analysis.
When the explorers reached the canyon, one of the guides shouted: "Oo-oo-oo-oo-urrr!" So shouted, according to his assurances, it was the orangpendek. To the amazement of the scientists, from the bottom of the canyon overgrown with a dense forest, they heard an answering cry: "Oo-oo-oo-oo-urrr!" Unfortunately, there was no way to go down to the bottom of the canyon, but Martyr and Clark were satisfied with the results of the sortie. Even if this time they did not manage to see the orangpendek, they heard his voice, which means that sooner or later a meeting with him will happen!
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