In the photo: Reconstruction of the appearance of the gigantopithecus. Perhaps the descendants of the giant still live in remote corners of the Earth.
In May 1976, six communal leaders from the Shenongiyya forest district of Hubei province were driving a jeep near Chung Shuya village. It was a warm moonlit night. Suddenly the headlights illuminated a "strange creature with reddish hair" that was crossing the road
The driver stopped the car, keeping the creature in the headlights. People got out of the car. However, the stranger apparently had no desire to make contact with the passengers of the jeep, and he immediately disappeared into the bushes on the side of the road. People did not try to pursue him, but the next morning they sent a telegram to Beijing, to the Academy of Sciences: they had no doubt that they had seen one of the legendary "hairy people" of China.
For centuries, Chinese folklore has kept chilling stories about huge, hairy, human-like creatures. The same stories tell that there are wild people only in one of the regions of China - Quinlin Bashan Shenongiyya. This is one of the most mysterious places in the world: giant pandas and other rare animals that are not found anywhere else are found here.
The first description of unusual humanoid creatures was made about two thousand years ago by the Chinese poet Qyu Yuan, who in his literary works often referred to the "mountain giants-man-eating". Centuries later, historian Li Yangshu described a group of hairy people who lived in the forests of Hubei Province. In the 19th century, the poet Yuan Mei also wrote more than once about the strange, “ape-like but non-monkey” creatures he saw in Shanxi Province. “He was about seven feet tall (2 m 10 cm - approx. Ed.), - writes Yuan Mei about one of the wild people, - the shoulders are wider than that of an adult man, an overhanging forehead, deep-seated eyes and a wide nose with slightly twisted nostrils.
The cheeks are sunken, ears, similar to human, but larger, huge round black eyes, a protruding lower jaw and slightly twisted lips. The front teeth are very large. The hair is dark brown, hanging down to the shoulders in irregular locks. The entire face and body, with the exception of the nose and ears, is covered with short matted hair. The arms hung below the knees, the fingers were long. Heavy hips and wide feet. The man (and it was just the man) had no tail."
And although ancient legends and chronicles indicate that wild people are reality, it is impossible to understand from them where these creatures came from and, most importantly, what they are. After all, numerous expeditions, which more than once over the past decades, went in search of these mysterious creatures, each time returned with nothing! Expeditions have produced numerous eyewitness accounts of wild people, but alas, wild hairy people were as elusive as the Loch Ness monster and yeti.
Seeing people, he disappeared into the forest.
Scientists from Beijing and Shanghai, as well as photographers from the Beijing studio of scientific and educational films, spent more than two years in the forests of Hubei, Shanxi and Si-chuan provinces, but they could not even capture, but even meet a wild man! Only once were they lucky enough to see a hairy humanoid creature scratching against a tree from afar. Noticing people, the creature disappeared into the forest.
Approaching the tree, the researchers found many strands of dark brown hair of various lengths on the trunk. All of them were located at a height of about one and a half meters. And although scientists have not been able to properly examine the wild man, this hair has become very valuable proof that he really exists. They were taken to Beijing, studied, after which the scientists made the following verdict: the hair differs in structure from the hair of bears - both black and brown, and most of all resembles the hair of primates.
Millions of years ago
In addition to hair, the expedition managed to find footprints and excrement, which also speaks in favor of the existence of wild people in China. As one report says, “The prints are from an elongated foot, wide at the toes and tapering towards the heel.
Fingerprints are oval, well apart from others. The tracks follow each other in a row, the distance between them is from 20 inches to a yard (from 50 to 91.44 cm - ed.).
A study of excreta containing pieces of undigested fruit peels and nut shells suggests that they belong to herbivorous primates.
According to the results of the expedition, Chinese scientists have put forward two theories in relation to these strange not: _ perceptible creatures. Proponents of one theory argue that wild people are a pattern of genetic regression to the early forms of the human race, resulting from random combinations of inherited genes.
According to another theory, these elusive creatures are direct descendants of gigantopithecus - a huge monkey, a distant human ancestor, who inhabited the Earth several million years ago. It is believed that these monkeys became extinct long ago. However, the giant panda - a species that lived side by side with gigantopithecus - still inhabits the same region. Many ancient plant species, such as the pigeon tree, Chinese tulip tree and meta-sequoia, have not disappeared from the face of the earth. Other rare birds and animals (for example, the so-called golden monkey) also live only in Quinlin-Bashan-Shenongiya. It is possible that prehistoric giant monkeys also survived here in small numbers as a species.
In China, by the way, babies with excessive body hair are still born from time to time.
Hubei province. It is here that researchers from time to time meet with wild people
for centuries, their parents killed them immediately after birth or left them in the forest to their fate. Similar cases still occur today. The Chinese government is trying to explain to its citizens that there is no mystery and no curse in the excessive hairiness of a child, and is trying to take the unfortunate babies under protection. However, this helps little.
Thus, another theory of the appearance of hairy people appeared: they, de, feeling rejected, organize their colonies in the forest and try not to be seen by people.
Be that as it may, the centuries-old mystery of China's wild man has not yet been solved.
Ekaterina GORDENKO
"Secrets of the XX century"