Barmanu (Barmanou or Barmanu) is a two-legged anthropoid cryptid, presumably living in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Considered the Pakistani equivalent of Bigfoot.
The word "barmanu" is translated from Sanskrit as "man from the forest", is used in several Pakistani languages, including Khovar, Shina, Hindko and Kashmiri, literally means "wild people" in northern Pakistan. In addition to the name "barmanu", there are other local names.
Presumably the habitat of Barmanu covers the mountain ranges of Chitral and Karakorum, between the Pamirs and the Himalayas. Which puts the barmana as a link in one chain between two other more famous cryptids: almasts in Central Asia and yeti in the Himalayas.
The creature is featured in the folklore of northern Pakistan, but depending on where the story is told, the barmanu is described as a monkey or as a wild man with a reputation for kidnapping women with whom he tries to mate. It is also stated that the barmanu can wear animal skins, throwing them over the back and head. Until recently, the barman was aware of the existence only from the words of the shepherds living in the mountains.
In this photo, you can see a furry, ape-like creature chasing mountain goats. The picture is believed to have been taken in 1994 in Pakistan. We could not find any additional information on the photo.
The first searches for a bipedal humanoid in Pakistan were carried out by the famous Spanish (originally from Catalonia, but later lived in France) zoologist and cryptozoologist Jordi Magraner from 1987 to 1990. Magraner wrote an article about the Pakistani cryptid "Les Hominidés reliques d'Asia Centrale" ("Relic Hominids of Central Asia").
Jordi Magraner, 35, planned to return to France in September 2002. But after the events of September 11th in New York, the world changed, and Magraner was unable to return home - his throat was cut on Friday, August 2, 2002 in Pakistan.
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Jordi Magraner followed the trail of the mysterious cryptid in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, using strictly scientific methods in interviewing witnesses. This adventure was inspired by the books of Bernard Heuvelmans, a Franco-Belgian zoologist and writer, one of the founders of the science of cryptozoology.
The search results for Magraner were intriguing and reassuring. For example, from 1992 to May 1994, while hiking in the Shishi Kuh Valley, Chitral, his expedition found footprints allegedly left by a barman. Jordi Magraner, Dr. Anne Mallasseand, and other members of the expedition, all Europeans, also reported that they twice heard the unusual guttural sounds that the primitive vocal apparatus of a primate could make.
Drawings to the barman from eyewitnesses
Zoologists found witnesses who claimed to have seen some foul-smelling animal making similar sounds. Expedition leaders said that when they were asked to choose between different depictions of the legendary primates, they most often chose images of the Minnesota ice man to describe the creature they saw.
According to police, Magraner was found dead in a house he rented in a village near the city of Bumburat in northern Pakistan. A friend found the body and notified the police and the Spaniard's family. A 12-year-old servant named Wazir Ali Shah was also found dead with his throat cut. Another domestic worker, a 20-year-old Afghan refugee named Azif Ali, disappeared without a trace.
Most likely, the zoologist became a victim of the international war against terrorists, and one of the Pakistanis mistook him for a spy of the Western world. According to the police, in recent years, threats against the Spanish researcher have become more frequent, since local Muslim residents accused him of preaching Christianity. Also, according to a police source, the zoologist was involved in some mysterious affairs: sophisticated communication equipment was found in his house, in rooms where no one was allowed to enter.
The zoologist was fond of horses and pedigree dogs, and the newspapers of that time wrote that fighting dogs guarded his house at night, but on the night of the murder they were all drugged. Pakistani media claimed that Magraner had "suspicious connections", which is why he may have made himself many enemies, one of whom killed the Spaniard.
People said that Magraner often slipped on his horses across the border into Afghanistan. He spoke the Kalash and Pashto languages fluently, traveled a lot and, according to the stories of local residents, just before his death, he returned from a month-long trip "to some unknown place." Unfortunately, after the tragic death, almost all the data about the barman that Magraner had been collecting for years was irretrievably lost.
By a strange coincidence, the same bloody war that killed Magraner and almost destroyed his life's work helped to find new confirmation of the existence of the barman. In 2011, an American soldier serving in Afghanistan, observing the area with night vision goggles, noticed someone who he said most resembled a "big ape."
Researcher BG Martin compiled a report on the incident for the BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization), an American organization engaged in the search for Bigfoot.
What: Witnessed something he couldn't explain.
Who: Army Sergeant (26) - served two terms - one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
Where: Bargi Matal County, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan - 6,000 meters above sea level - looking northwest.
Why: The Night Watch is to protect the outpost from a possible Taliban attack.
I met a witness during my expedition to Kentucky in 2013, and he told me about what happened while he was serving in Afghanistan in 2011.
What the sergeant saw, he saw through an army night vision device. The object was located at a distance of 500 - 600 meters and was observed for 10 - 15 minutes. During this time, the sergeant managed to wake up the other five soldiers from his squad so that they also looked at the object through the device. None of them, however, was able to come up with a reasonable explanation for what they saw. The only version that didn’t sound completely crazy was that "a gorilla escaped from the zoo."
The object they observed was climbing the rocky side of the mountain at a much faster pace than it should have given the uneven ground and crumbling rocks. “He looked like a big monkey. Very large and wide at the shoulders."
Rhesus monkeys are found in this region, but the maximum size of a male rhesus monkey does not exceed 80 cm, and the weight ranges from 6 to 15 kg, in addition, they have tails. It is characteristic that these monkeys sleep at night and are active only in the daytime, and usually move in flocks of 20 to 200 individuals.
The locals often use blankets instead of outerwear, however, if you examine the thermal pattern, it is clear that no clothing was worn on site. His entire body showed one shade of white. If you look at a person in clothing through a thermal imager, you will see that parts of the body covered by clothing look darker than exposed areas of skin or hair.
The sergeant stated that if there was even a small probability that the unknown object was a human, he would certainly have ordered to open fire and shoot him with an M-14 EBR machine gun.
Bargi Matal is a hamlet in Nuristan province located in the northeastern part of the country, in a secluded valley surrounded by the Hindu Kush mountains. Local people live a simple life, they raise livestock, mainly goats, grow wheat, barley, millet, peas, as well as grapes and other fruits.
Usually, when people mention Afghanistan, people think of wars and deserts, not its wilderness and unexplored mountains. The Kashmir musk deer, an extremely rare species of deer called vampire deer, was recently sighted for the first time since 1948 in northeastern Afghanistan. All these years, the inaccessible Hindu Kush mountains reliably hid it from human eyes.
Various species of wild animals, well adapted to local conditions, live throughout the mountains. Three species of wild goats, black and brown bears, a snow leopard, a varied avifauna, trout (trout) is found in abundance in many streams.
Solitude and abundant food - all this gives reason to confidently assert that the Hindu Kush mountains are the ideal habitat for the legendary Bigfoot, or, as the locals call him, Barmanu.