THE LAST BATCH OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE INDIAN EXPEDITION... FOR NOW

Shireng R Marak, a two-thumbed village elder,

who heard the mande-barung's cry and was chased into a cave by it.

A swarm of yellow butterflies near the jungle stream at Imangri


A simulacrum of a huge footprint in limestone near a stream some miles from Imangri,
not to be confused with the real thing.

A dead white-lipped tree viper we found in the jungle.

Jon fishing for a Tarantula in a hole in the wall outside our lodge.

MORE PICTURES FROM INDIA (Captions by Richard Freeman)

Pintu, one of our guides, who found a mysterious bone in Siju caves

Me in Siju cave, looking for bones

Chris, Adam and I outside of Siju Cave, where a village headman reported an encounter with a mande-barung



Chris and Dave on an old-fashioned jungle suspension bridge, minus Johnny Weissmuller

The beautiful Simsang River where the sankuni, a huge mystery snake, has been reported.

FIRST PICTURES FROM INDIA (Captions by Richard Freeman)

A few weeks prior to our arrival the jungle was filled with elephants passing through the area.

Each morning we heard the hoolock gibbons calling from deep in the forest.

This is a tourist lodge in the jungle at Nokrek. It is made to look like a traditional Garo house.

One night, or so our guide Rudy said, a tiger was prowling around it, attracted by the live chickens.

Sadly we didn't see hide nor hair of it!

We sampled a local wild fruit that the guides called 'tescun.'

It was quite delicious but also quite unlike anything I have tasted before.

Describing the flavour would be akin to trying to describe a new colour never seen before!

One of our first ports of call was Nokrek National Park.

There have been several recent mande-barung sightings here.

We set up several camera traps baited with fruit and left

them in the hope that the creature would be attracted.

We bought fresh produce from village markets; produce such as

fruit, rice, vegetables, eggs and live chickens, all of whom I named!
The food prepared by our guides in the jungle lodges
was far better than the fare we endured in Tura.

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

The Indian Expedition is back in the UK. Richard rang me a few moments ago.

Of course, the most important thing that I wanted to find out was how Chris Clark is. The answer is thankfully pretty good. He was treated in India, and managed to do most of the stuff that the other expedition members did.

The expedition appears to have been remarkably succesful. They have interviewed a number of mande burung eyewitnesses, photographed what appear to be footprints, and have obtained samples. One of these is a fragment of bone from a femur of what appears to be a bipedal creature, but until we have test results I would caution against getting one's hopes up.

They also have evidence for two other cryptozoological creatures. Richard gave me brief details, but he will be coming up here next week, and I will post further details then.

In the meantime it is just good to know that once again they have returned safe and sound.

NEWS FROM THE INDIAN EXPEDITION

I received an email from Richard Freeman this morning. The absence of earlier news from them is simple: 'Hi Jon, Sorry for the the delay, this is the first working computer I have come across since I got to India.'

You may remember that Chris Clark was unwell on the flight over, causing some concern here at base camp. Richard continues: 'Chris has had some chest pains whilst climbing up hills. He's going for a check-up today.' It goes without saying that he is in our thoughts and prayers.

As always seems to be the case, the team go in search of one unknown animal and find reports of several others:

'We have interviewed many witnesses including a shaman. As well as the mande burung we have uncovered reports of a huge (15-18m) crested serpent called the sankuni.'

The sankuni seems very similar if not identical to the naga, which Richard hunted in Thailand ten years ago: 'It is associated with rainfall and is blamed for landslides. One was supposedly shot in 1940 in a lake near the border with Bangaladesh. It had killed a number of people so a group of armed men hunted it. The shaman reported being chased by a huge, upright walking man-like beast and seeing a sankuni slithering out of a river cave.'

Back to the mande burung: 'Another man saw a severed, preserved hand in a village market' and they also 'found what may be the femur of a bipedal animal in a cave in Seju.'

And there is other news as well: 'We may have also found evidence of a gigantic muntjac even bigger than the giant muntjac, and a possible new sub-species or population of the red panda.'

And finally 'We put up camera traps and will be interviweing recent witnesses soon.'

It looks like a momentous expedition so far. Well done, lads (and get well soon, Chris).

PRESS RELEASE

On 31st of October the CFZ 2010 expedition leaves England. They will be exploring the Garo Hills in Northern India in search of the mande-burung or Indian yeti. The five-man team consists of team leader Adam Davies, Dr Chris Clark, Dave Archer, field naturalist Jonathan McGowan, and cryptozoologist Richard Freeman.

The creatures are described as being up to ten feet tall, with predominantly black hair. Most importantly, they are said to walk upright like a man. Walking apes have been reported in the area for many years. These descriptions sound almost identical to those reported in neighbouring Bhutan and Tibet. Witnesses report that the mande-burung, which translates as forest man, is most often seen in the area in November.

The Garo Hills are a heavily forested and poorly explored area in Meghalaya state in the cool northern highlands of India. The area is internationally renowned for its wildlife, which includes tigers, bears, elephants and Indian rhino and clouded leopards.

The Indian team will be led by Dipu Marek, a local expert who has been on the trail of the Indian yeti for a number of years and has found both its nests and 19-inch-long `footprints` on previous occasions. The expedition team has also arranged to interview eyewitnesses who have seen the Mande-Burung.

Camera traps will be set up in sighting areas in the hope of catching one of the creatures on film.

The Mande-Burung may be a surviving form of a giant ape known from its fossilised teeth and jaw bones, called Gigantopithecus blacki, which lived in the Pleistocene epoch around three hundred thousand years ago. This creature is of course extinct. However, much contemporary fauna such as the giant panda, the Asian tapir and the Asian elephant that lived alongside the monster ape, still survive today. It is thought by many that Gigantopithecus also survives in the impenetrable jungles and mountains of Asia. Its closest known relatives are the Orangutans of Sumatra and Borneo.

Last year the team, who investigate mystery animals all over the world, travelled to Sumatra in search of a small, bipedal ape known as the orang pendek. Dave Archer and local guide Sahar Didmus saw the creature and the group brought back hair that was later analysed by Dr Lars Thomas at the University of Copenhagen. The DNA proved to be similar to an orangutan's, an animal not found in that part of Sumatra.