California “Chimp” With Club: Is It Bigfoot?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 25th, 2006
Do Bigfoot ever carry clubs? And I am not talking about the new Nike Sasquatch golf driver. Or the club-carrying Johor Hominid, illustrated here.
The creature above is a variety of the Malaysian Bigfoot, perhaps a typical True Giant with a club, shown in this Harry Trumbore drawing from The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, 2006.
But what about classic Bigfoot encounters? Have hand-held "clubs" been reported?
A breaking new sighting from California (details in a minute) has me sorting through my Bigfoot-with-club file.
The accounts of "Bushman" with clubs from the Nahanni River Valley of Northwest Territories, Canada, are not infrequent - see pages 52-53, in my field guide.
There are old reports from the West. In the 1860s, in northern Nevada, a large party saw something, which we would call a Bigfoot today, carrying a rabbit and a club. While the hunters pursued it, their bloodhounds refused to chase. The tables were turned on January 14, 1902, when several young skaters in Chesterfield, Idaho, were chased by an 8-ft hairy creature with a club. The creature gave forth with loud yells.
In the Bigfoot history from the East, too, you can find hints of clubs. In January, 1894, near Dover, New Jersey, eyewitnesses Bertha Heatig, Lizzie Guscott, Katie Griffin, Mike Dean, Bill Dean, William Mullen and others sighted a bearded 6-ft tall "Wildman" with a club, in the nearby woods. But this might have only been a hermit.
What about a modern report from the West?
How would someone report such an event today? How about as a "chimpanzee" with a club?
A chimpanzee in Africa displays its aggressive attack display, which in chimps is often carried out with physical contact, and is not merely a bluff. Sometimes they do use clubs? But are there wild chimpanzees in California?
Cryptozoologist Chad Arment passes along this intriguing breaking news item:
Club-wielding chimp disappears after sighting
Star staff
July 24, 2006
Authorities have not been able to locate a chimpanzee seen with a club in its hand in the backyard of a Thousand Oaks home Monday morning.
At 9:30 a.m., a resident in the 1500 block of Via Bajada saw a chimpanzee with some type of club, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said. By the time California Department of Fish and Game workers arrived, the animal had disappeared.
Officials suspect that it belongs to a neighbor, and the Department of Fish and Game was searching for people who have permits to own such animals, the Sheriff’s Department said.
Source: Ventura County Star, California, Tuesday, July 25, 2006.
Chad Arment is to be thanked for sending along this news. Cryptozoologist Arment is the author of a new 2006 book, Cryptozoology And the Investigation of Lesser-known Mystery Animals published on June 30th (critique later after a review copy is received) and a 2004 book, Cryptozoology: Science and Speculation.
- Similar Phenomena:
Interesting. We often see here the “escaped exotic” explanation for cryptids like eastern puma or out of place alligators, but this is a new one for me.
Identification as a chimpanzee (whether correct or not), would seem to indicate something smaller than the stereotypical Bigfoot though.
Chimps are extremely dangerous. In Bakersfield, 40 miles north of Thousand Oaks, a couple chimpanzees escaped from an actor chimp ”retirement home” a couple years ago and totally mutilated one of the visitors.
What’s going on with Thousand Oaks?
About 2 years ago there was a tiger spotted in the hills in the area. They finally caught it. It made the national news including CNN and Fox.
Can you imagine hiking and unexpectantly encountering a tiger or a disgruntled club wielding chimp?
I am with Jeremy on the size difference between chimps and the general BF range.
If it were a BF type sighting I’d expect maybe a ‘gorilla’ with club as some have described a BF seen from a distance.
Interesting though we will see.
Psychologically speaking, encounters with aggressive hairy animals assuming an upright stance generally cause humans to not give the best height estimates.
Nevertheless, fully extended chimpanzee maies can be nearly as large as your shorter Sasquatch.
Who knows what this was? Will more sightings occur? Will a feral ape be captured?
If it is Cali odds are that it is a escaped pet. But on the other hand wouldn’t it be fasinating to have a living population of chimps in North America.
Regardless of native legend Sasquatche dose not spring from the ground fully grown. This could be a youngster. Some folks think if it ain’t eight feet tall it ain’t Bigfoot.
As intriguing as animals are, some people are not able to understand the responsibilities that come with owning one. The Department of Fish and Game is checking people with permits. What about the various morons who don’t have a permit, or the training or requisite experience that is called upon in owning such an animal? I, myself, would have to say that this looks like a case for Animal Control, not one for a team of cryptozoologists. My heart goes out to this poor creature, left or having escaped into the wild and great unknown, with unfamiliar territory and animals to deal with. I sincerely hope it is recovered and dealt with in the most compassionate and humane means possible.
Baby BF? Maybe, maybe not. But the ‘New York Baby Bigfoot’ video, available for the past few months on the BFRO website, is a possible visual example of youngster BF ‘on the loose’ close by areas of human activity. And there are many other similar reported/documented examples of young BF scattered across the plethora of websites which deal in such things.
The baby-with-the-club is a no-brainer, since mommy and daddy BF spend a good bit of time tree-banging in the woods throughout their lives, apparently as a form of communication. Monkey see, monkey do?
Ok, so I suppose you guys have me on the baby BF angle. I guess I just didn’t think of that because with most wild animals the young stay VERY well hidden when the parents aren’t right there with them (think of whitetail fawns).
Also the purported tendency for folks to over-estimate the height of a creature when frightened, combined with the popular notion of chimps as the lovable little scamps we see in “Bed Time for Bonzo” or of young chimps in diapers held like toddlers (as opposed to the “lion killers” of the Bili Forest), made me automatically envision something quite a bit shorter.
Another who learns something today.
However, I seem to recall a chimp did escape the 1960s’ “Dr DoLittle ‘ - Rex Harrison not Eddie Murphy set. So who knows? has a group of chimps been hiding in Ca all these years?
At this point anything is possible like I said we will see.
In days when circus trains etc. roamed about, it was not uncommon for an animal to escape. sometimes they went unreported because the location of the escape could be anywhere over a large area. If it was reported, the report may have never reached the proper location .so anything is possible. if a couple of chimps escaped they could have bred and still have decendents on the loose. there are many areas that are still remote enough for a creatures like this to go unnoticed. Chimps were much more common, even as pets, not so long ago. And they are very intelligent and the use of tools is well documented.
The person who reported this sighting may have said a chimp to avoid the ridicule that comes with saying you saw Bigfoot…
Chimps could be pretty dangerous.
I am not very familiar with California geography so I pulled up Ventura in Google Earth with the bigfoot sightings overlay. Looks pretty unlikely habitat and seemingly no other sighting anywhere close.
Regarding reports from the 1800’s and 1900’s concerning the fantastic.
It’s wise to take these reports with a large grain of salt. Newspapers, media, etc. at that time weren’t known for their attention to the truth.
Why would a newspaper hoax a story? Simple, a sensational story sells papers and at that time newspapers were battling fiercely for a foothold, and low-down tactics weren’t above them.
Not saying these reports were false, it’s just impossible to tell.
One Eyed Cat
Has anyone done a chimp head count at the Neverland Ranch lately?
I’m sure its nowhere near this sighting, but ever there was a place a chimp needed to escape…
Maybe CHEETAH’s been drinking Jane’s perfume again!
true that most animal babies hide, but if you watch video of baby gorillas and chimps they tend to mimic the adult’s social behaviors, sometimes they get so wrapped up in the “play acting” they have no clue that something or someone has caught them in the act. If baby bf, then mom and/or dad might have been quite close. I wonder how aggressive a momma bf gets?
Any chance that Chad Arment could track down or ask the Ventura County Sheriff’s Dept. to contact the the person(s) who reported the incident and question them further on their report. Very intersting. My guess is escaped exotic, but who knows!