Search for the north American ape

Humboldt Beacon
Posted: 09/08/2010 01:37:27 PM PDT

By Jason Valenti

In August, the Humboldt Beacon carried the article, “Validating Bigfoot” which described the work of researchers connected with the Falcon Project who plan to carry out research in Humboldt County. This is the first in a 4-part series.

In 2007 there was an incident that took place in the scientific community that created interest of considerable proportion. Most people didn't really notice what had happened, but Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum had struck the anvil of science so hard that the shock waves of his published paper entitled “Evidence for the Existence of North American Apes” will continue to be felt for years to come.

Scattered across the United States at that time were a handful of men who would feel that shock wave, and eventually unite under the same purpose: to find out exactly what the creature is that is mentioned in Dr. Meldrum's paper, and to capture it on film.

What is a hominoid?

Hominoids are what have, up to now, been collectively labeled as Pre-Humans, (post- Miocene Apes). These are the tailless short armed apes that we've all seen in the fossil record, from the Australopithecines to the Genus Homo.

It simply means the family of apes (according to classification) that resemble humans in their ability to walk on two legs instead of four. Outside of that distinction, Hominoids seem to share most of the same characteristics in the family of Hominidea with other apes.

In modern times, when some of the first foot prints were discovered around logging sites, the term “Bigfoot” was given to the individuals responsible for the tracks, because they had very large feet.

Almost every Native American and First Nation Tribe has a name to describe these creatures. The most popular of these names is Sasquatch. For the purpose of eliminating the confusion of so many different names for this being, we will refer to them here as Hominoids.

When did hominoids live?

From the recovery of fossils over the last several decades, scientists have been able to establish that there were several different species that existed from the latter part of the Miocene Era, up until approximately 12,000 years ago.

Since we now know that Hominoid creatures did exist in the past, the relevant question today is, “Do they still exist in modern times?”

What would have made them go extinct, given their superior adaptations of being equipped to live and thrive in the most hostile conditions in almost every ecological niche?

There seems to be enough evidence to show that extinction is not an accurate explanation; rather, the forests and jungles of the world have become their main habitat and escape from our presence as civilization has continued to press further and further into their living spaces.

Many people are surprised when they learn that approximately 45 percent of the arable land in world has never been foot-surveyed. That is a staggering statistic, when you realize how much land mass of our planet has not been inhabited (or even visited) by humans. It would certainly explain why most of the eyewitness reports of hominoids take place on the edges of forests and jungles of the world.

http://www.humboldtbeacon.com/ci_16023406