BIGFOOT

By: Shyan Chapman 04-07-2002

One day in 1930, Swiss geologist Dr. Francois de Loys was leading an expedition in the rainforest near the Brazilian-Columbian border when two ape-like creatures walked out of the bush, upright on two legs, in front of them.

Startled, they moved towards the party in a threatening manner, which caused the men to shoot them. The female was killed while the male fled into the bush. Officially there are no apes in South America, which is why this creature had no rational explanation.

Not only did it walk upright on two legs like a human, but it had no tail. It stood about 5 feet tall (1.5 meters) and was too heavy to carry with them, so they propped it sitting on a crate, placing a pole under it's chin to photograph it. Sadly, most of the photos were lost when the geologists' boat capsized but this one terrific picture did survive.

When they got back to London, it rattled the scientific world. One French zoologist was convinced it was a species of unknown ape, the first ever found in South America. Others thought it was closer to the known Spider Monkey in spite of the much larger and muscular body and the fact it had fewer teeth than that species. Some rivals even argued that it must have indeed had a tail and de Loys had purposely hidden it to take the photo. Today this incident is all but forgotten in Crypto-zoologist circles.

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