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10 minutes with Vincent Chow
Report from The New Straits Times dated Saturday 4 March 2006 :-
10 minutes with Vincent Chow: Driven by close encounter with creature
March 4:
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The Bigfoot story has its fair share of sceptics and believers. But Vincent Chow, a biodiversity researcher and Bigfoot enthusiast, is one person who is steadfast in his belief that the creature does exist. He speaks to R. SITTAMPARAM.
Q: What is your response to being dubbed by the Bigfoot Research Organisation (BFRO) as the man who successfully lobbied the Johor Government to take Bigfoot sightings in the State seriously and speak openly about them?
A: It is a one-sided view. This opening for Bigfoot research in Johor is due to the fact that we have a very responsive Menteri Besar who sees beyond the Bigfoot phenomena in safeguarding and promoting Johor’s rich biodiversity. Given his academic background Abdul Ghani Othman could see the potential of the Bigfoot phenomena which is part of Johor’s unique fauna, in putting the State on the world map.
Q: Do you personally believe that the Johor Bigfoot exists?
A: Yes, based on my personal experience as a young boy when I have seen enough Bigfoot footprints and had a frightening close encounter with the creature.
It was during an evening hunting trip with my father and his friends at the edge of the jungle near my hometown in Kluang, when I was 13 years’ old. We suddenly saw the trees shaking as if something big was passing through the area. An old and experienced hunter I knew as Panjang told me it was not any common mammal like the elephant.
The following day on checking the area where the movement was seen we found evidence like broken twigs and branches that showed something big had passed through. Since then I have always been curious.
I have followed my father who was also fascinated by the Bigfoot to check out several sightings in the early 60s in Air Hitam, Machap, Simpang Renggam and Kulai and saw giant footprints. The older generation in these towns can remember these sightings.
Q: Can you clear the air on the confusion over the Mawas and Bigfoot?
A: I think the confusion was caused due to the adoption of the name Mawas for the Bigfoot by early settlers from Indonesia, where the orang utan is called Mawas. So when the settlers, especially at Kota Tinggi, saw the Bigfoot they thought it was some type of orang utan and even named their village Kampung Mawas which later came to be known as Kampung Mawai.
Q: What is your answer to the cynics who say that the Bigfoot story is pure fiction and that the Bigfoot was actually an orang utan?
A: Again it is due to the confusion caused by the name, Mawas. Village people who have sighted Bigfoot refer to it as Mawas but the description they give does not fit that of the orang utan.
Yesterday I talked to an old man at Kampung Mawai where many of the recent Bigfoot sightings have occurred. He told me that he saw a hairy creature of about two metres tall, catching fish at a swamp just like a human being. It was upright all the time.
The old man said he was about 40m away and could see the orange coloured hair, upturned nose and slight hunch of the creature which I believe to be a juvenile Bigfoot.
This cannot be an orang utan which are tree dwellers and walk on all fours. Their footprints would also not be so big and deep.
Q: What do you feel about the wide foreign interest in the Johor Bigfoot?
A: It will benefit Johor but we have to screen foreign groups who arrive here to look for the Bigfoot to see where their interest lies. We should not entertain those with doubtful reasons especially those who come to take scientific evidence back to their countries to claim as their own finding. That kind of ownership must go to Malaysia.
The foreign media who arrived here so far including the British Broadcasting Corporation, have only made short documentaries based on interviews with eye witnesses and the creature’s footprints in secondary jungles.
However a blanket ban would not be conducive for the State’s eco-tourism.
Q: Based on the evidence so far, can the Johor Bigfoot be found soon?
A: A full-scale scientific expedition with scientists equipped with state-of-the-art equipment will have a good chance of capturing its sounds or visuals but they have to be very stealthy as from what we know of the creature, it is intelligent enough to evade humans.
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