Chunshuya, between Fangxian county and Shennongjia, China

In 1976, six cadres from the Shennongjia forestry region in Hubei province were driving at night down the highway near the village of Chunshuya, between Fangxian county and Shennongjia. On the way, they encountered a "strange tailless creature with reddish fur." Fortunately, it stood still long enough for five of the people to get out of the car and look at it from a distance of only a few feet, while the driver kept his headlights trained on it. The observers were certain that it was not a bear or any other creature with which they were familiar. They reported the incident in a telegram to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Peking.

Over the years, Academy officials had received many similar reports from the same region of Hubei province. So when they heard about this incident, they decided to thoroughly investigate the matter. A scientific expedition consisting of more than 100 members proceeded to Hubei province. They collected physical evidence, in the form of hair, footprints, and feces, and recorded sightings by the local inhabitants. Subsequent research has added to these results.

Altogether, more than a thousand footprints have been found in Hubei province, some more than 19 inches long. Over 100 hairs have been collected, the longest measuring 21 inches. Some of the hairs were supplied by persons who claimed to have seen wildmen; others were taken from trees against which wildmen were said to have rubbed. Frank E. Poirier, an anthropologist at Ohio State University, reported: "The hair was studied by the Hubei Provincial Medical College and the Institute."

Pang, who stood face to face with the creature, at a distance of five feet for about an hour, said: "He was about seven feet tall, with shoulders wider than a man's, a sloping forehead, deep-set eyes and a bulbous nose with slightly upturned nostrils. He had sunken cheeks, ears like a man's but bigger, and round eyes, also bigger than a man's. His jaw jutted out and he had protruding lips. His front teeth were as broad as a horse's. His eyes were black. His hair was dark brown, more than afoot long and hung loosely over his shoulders. His whole face, except for the nose and ears, was covered with short hairs. His arms hung down to below his knees. He had big hands with fingers about six inches long and thumbs only slightly separated from the fingers. He didn't have a tail and the hair on his body was short. He had thick thighs, shorter than the lower part of his leg. He walked upright with his legs apart. His feet were each about 12 inches long and half that broad — broader in front and narrow behind."

Anthropologist Zhou Guoxing has suggested that the wildman of Hubei province might be a relict population of Gigantopithecus, a large apelike hominid that inhabited southern China during the Middle Pleistocene. Zhou noted that in the forests of Hubei province some types of trees from the Tertiary have survived, as have the panda and other mammals from the Middle Pleistocene.

Source: Cremo, Michael A. & Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology, 1996, Los Angeles, USA: Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing.