There’s nothing wrong with eyewitness accounts per se, but anyone can come up with a story of an unusual encounter and (as Chymo pointed out) anyone can draw a picture of a mythical beast, since the media have spread the Bigfoot story far and wide.

Such items shouldn’t motivate belief in anyone with an appropriately skeptical approach to new information. However, they might motivate further investigation, such as traveling to Malaysia, interviewing the person who reported having the encounter, and asking for other evidence.

Put quite simply, there’s no evidence this is not something drawn to please the reporter or researcher. Therefore, because it’s veracity is uncertain, it cannot be anything but a red herring.

If the people in the area have not been influenced by western media reports of bigfoot, the drawing becomes more valuable as a sociological artifact as well as evidence. But the people in the area aren’t untouched or uninfluenced by western culture; they have tvs, radio, DVDs, etc. I’ve been there!

It’s worthless. A scientist looks at this and laughs at it.

And Loren, *I accept the existance of undiscoverd hominids*. I’m no knee-jerk skeptic. But we can’t be buying into every crazy story that comes down the pike.

To not give credit to the importance of art, native sculptures, encounter sketches, folkloric imagery, and eyewitness drawings is to exclude - sociologically, zoologically, and psychologically - major pieces of the puzzle.

Only an open mind will allow all the various elements of evidence in, some of which may become critical later in solving the mystery.

I think what the posts by Linda are trying to convey is the fact that anyone could make this drawing. Malaysia is not isolated from cultural memes, the people there are not cut off from western imagery of Bigfoot and the like, so this drawing is not valuable even as a sociological artifact.

It is not that it lacks credibility, it is that it does nothing to advance the research.