I’m looking forward to watching the first episode of the “Beast Hunter” this Friday on the National Geographic channel. The show, “Man Ape of Sumatra,” takes us to the remote jungles of Indonesia searching of evidence of the little man of the forest or Orang Pendek, as this creature is known to the local Sumatran people. The big question is, will Pat Spain have anything new to present seasoned cyrptozoologist viewers?
Orang Utan sculpture
There’s no question in my mind that Indonesia is highly capable of hiding a creature like Orang Pendek. Frequently, you hear Bigfoot researchers talk about the dense wilderness of the Pacific Northwest being the perfect habit for a creature to survive unseen, but there are a number of other remote locations that aren’t mentioned often. The jungles of Sumatra and Indonesia can easily match, if not out perform, such statements about certain locations being the perfect habitat for cryptids.
Several years back I was involved with a project with the purpose of training researchers on how to interact with a family of macaques that lived around a research station deep in the jungle of Borneo. Seeing where this research center was located and understanding the number of primates that inhabit such a place, including the large Orang Utan, it is easy to imagine that we may have missed something like the Orang Pendek.
Traveling around to any of the numerous islands of Indonesia you get the sense that there are many mysteries yet to be discovered. No matter what, I’m sure after watching a Nat Geo-style show, I’ll be eager to travel back to Indonesia and do some Orang Pendek research of my own.
Michael Esordi of Believe It Tour feeds a monkey in Indonesia