[snark]Actually, there are no gorillas in SE Asia. The alleged battle became so infamous that it was called the “Battle of Dong Den.”. This particular incident supposedly happened in 1969, as the witness and his men slogged through an area particularly known for Viet Cong activity. Although there may be over 350,000 Western Lowland gorillas in the wild, there are less than 5000 Eastern gorillas and only 1000 mountain gorillas. Discover gorgeous lakes, quaint villages and unforgettable sights, capping it […] Erythrophleum fordii is native to China (Guangdong, Guangxi), Taiwan and Vietnam, although the Chinese subpopulations are largely reduced to trees left standing around living areas. They went about fanning out and doing a sweep of the base of the hill, but there was nothing to be found, no sign that there had ever been anyone there, but then the rocks started coming. The witness describes the location: I want to say hill, but it was really just a big dirt mound jutting up out of the ground and capped off by a crown of thick trees and brush. Many of us dream of standing face to face with a wild gorilla, even if it’s only on a short 2 day gorilla trek in Uganda, but few often realize there different types of gorillas that live in Africa’s central forests. There is also the fact that the strange creatures were seen probably just as often by the Viet Cong as they were by the Americans, and were well known by the local tribes, so can we chalk all of these reports up to both sides of the war spending all of their time in a drug fueled stupor? The mysterious intruders were described as being around 5 and a half feet tall, and all but one was light brown to reddish brown in color. After a few moments of staring at the soldiers, the creature was said to then let out a sound like the bark of a dog. Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) may be avoiding their neighbors, according to a new study that presents evidence of territoriality among gorilla groups in the Republic of Congo. The other soldier he had been with concurred with this, and explained that he had gotten the sense that it was sort of like an orangutan, which the others guffawed at. According to Kelley, the platoon at first immediately thought they were Viet Cong and “all hell broke loose.” The squad of men opened up with M-16s, M-79s, and grenade launchers, lighting up the forest in a vicious display of booming firepower and flying pieces of vegetation. In one account given by a veteran named Steve Canyon, a unit of Marines was out in the jungle of Hill 868 at night testing out a new muzzle flash and noise suppresser for their weapons. Life on the Planet Venus? Mysterious Universe is a property of 8th Kind Pty Ltd. Scientists Give Neural Networks AI Psychedelics – Did They Hallucinate Electric Sheep? There are currently eleven habituated groups of Mountain Gorilla found in this area that you can trek to. The Congo River Basin has plenty of green, lush jungles which facilitate the survival of the gorillas. To the men out these in the jungles, this was just one more struggle to add to those already in place with the forbidding terrain and the constant threat of attack from the elusive enemy. But there is little money for staff or operations, conservation society officials said. All flat, well formed molars, except the canines, which were longer and pointed. Maybe it was scared and didn’t know what to do, starting with scoping these human intruders out before resorting to trying to frighten them off with rocks and wood knocking before finally deciding to make a mad dash run for it. In one account given by a veteran named Steve Canyon, a unit of Marines was out in the jungle of Hill 868 at night testing out a new muzzle flash and noise suppressor for their weapons. I wonder to this day if the men were shooting just to scare the Rock Apes away or whether they were really just poor marksman! Indeed this seems to be common with reports of strangeness from war zones, and many such reported phenomena have become lost in the mists of time, buried beneath the violence and combat. Neither were the people killed in Korea or Vietnam, if you think there can't be a war without a formal declaration. Everything You Need to Know About Gorilla Trekking in Africa: Conservation, Packing & Best Countries Different Types of Gorillas. Unfortunately, in times of war there are more pressing issues at hand than tracking down mystery beasts, and as a result many of these reports were never really followed up on. Very large and long fingers. Laos and Cambodia were heavily involved in the war, which meant their civilians paid a large price too. China was a primary source of weaponry and equipment to the Viet Cong. One such account given by a Michael Kelley, of D Co 1st/502d Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division describes not one Rock Ape, but hundreds of them. The most well known, in-depth published accounts of these enigmatic creatures come from a book by a veteran named Kregg P. J. Jorgenson, called Very Crazy G.I. Maybe at Ho Chi Minh zoo but not in the wild. After all, the road to gorillas is long, windy and … Then there was this loud knocking sound, like someone going to town on a tree with a baseball bat, and all I could think was that I wanted him to shut that damn racket up before every enemy for miles came zoning in on us. Although they inhabit isolated, remote jungle areas, the Người rừng are reported to be rather bold and aggressive, especially the variety from Borneo, which will apparently attack humans without thinking twice about it. Golden monkey tracking can be done in Volcanoes National Park, so there is no need to visit another park, if time is an issue. Vaquita. The Marines fought back in a prolonged burst of firepower which lit up the night. There are three subspecies of gorilla: ... there are approximately 750 gorillas in captivity around the world and an estimated 100,000 lowland ... Soviet Union attacks Chinese policy toward Vietnam. In another rather spectacular report published in the New York Times letters on April 18, 2010, a man named Graeme Webster tells of a curious event that occurred at a strategic artillery summit on the western end of the DMZ called “The Rockpile.” One evening sometime in 1967, Marines from the Fourth Marine Regiment were assaulted by a large number of Rock Apes, which were said to inhabit the caves of the area. Shortly after, the Captain could hear screeching and screams of pain from both Marine and ape alike over the radio, as well as the frantic message “We’re going hand to hand!”. Are they an ape, a form of surviving human ancestor, or something else entirely? For a few moments, Kelley and the platoon Sgt. There are no gorillas in Kibale, but the chimpanzee colonies here have been habituated over a period of two years, so they are used to humans passing through. It is so critically endangered, in fact, that is was long thought to be extinct until its rediscovery in 1989, although even now there are thought to be fewer that 250 of the animals left. In Vietnam, national parks are ... Albino animals: squirrels, gorillas, hedgehogs and more Alligator. In another report from Army Reporter, 27 Apr. They were able to see the teeth. The formal struggle between the Viet Minh and the French started in December 1946. The second population lives deep in Bwindi. During the days when troops toiled and fought in clouds of mosquito clouded jungle, dodging enemy bullets and hiking relentlessly through the humid, oppressive heat, there would be numerous reports from soldiers of strange creatures prowling through the forests that were neither human nor ape, and would come to be known as “Rock Apes.” Accounts of encountering these creatures seem to have been commonplace throughout the Vietnam War, from both sides of the conflict. The account describes the ordeal of a 6 man unit from the 101st Airborne Division, who were taking a break after a relentless hike through unforgiving mountainous jungle terrain carrying heavy packs. Get the MegaPack collection now for this great price. Half of the rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo in which these gorillas live has been destroyed the past 50 years. Gorillas are mainly herbivorous (vegetarian) and spend almost half of the day feeding on stems, bamboo shoots, and a variety of fruits, supplemented with bark and invertebrates. I was 10-12 years old in the mid-1960's during the Vietnam War and could not for the life of me figure out why the Viet Cong gorillas (guerillas) would shoot at American soldiers. If the creature had it’s legs, the estimated height was around 8 ft tall…there was no sign of the lower half of the body. Jorgenson’s book Very Crazy, G.I. Rwanda is a much smaller country than Uganda, so lends itself better to a short trip in combination with a safari or beach stay elsewhere in East Africa.. Gorillas are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forest of central Sub-Saharan Africa. Further lessening their worth as a possible culprit is that snub-nosed monkeys are diurnal, active in the day, whereas the Người rừng is always reported as a decidedly nocturnal animal, and additionally the snub-nosed monkeys are arboreal whereas the Rock Apes are mostly reported as foraging about the ground. There are a wide variety of theories that have been proposed over the years, with the most commonly being that what was seen was the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, or Dollman’s Snub-nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus), Vietnam’s largest native primate species and also highly endangered. According to Kregg P. J. Jorgenson’s book Very Crazy G.I.- Strange but True Stories of the Vietnam War, in 1974 the North Vietnamese party secretariat ordered a scientific expedition to find definitive, solid evidence of the Rock Apes. Various peoples of the jungle choked interiors of Vietnam, Laos, and northern Borneo, in particular within the Vu Quang Nature Reserve, have a rich tradition of stories of a bipedal, hairy apelike creature known by various names, such as the Batutut, Ujit, or Người rừng, also written as Nguoi Rung, or “jungle people.” These “jungle people” are said to be around 1.8 m (6 ft) tall, stout and very muscular, with protruding stomachs and covered in hair ranging from brown to black in color, except for the knees, the soles of the feet, the hands, and the face, which remain bare. The groups are called the Mubare, Habinyanja, Rushegura and Nkuringo and range in size from 10 to 20 individuals, each with one or two silverbacks. Are they an ape, a form of surviving human ancestor, or something else entirely? Mountain gorillas are an important and endangered species, but there are many other key animals – and plants – in the forests where they live, creating an interdependent ecosystem. There are only two populations of mountain gorillas left in the world. Or is there a chance that there is indeed some new species of ape lurking about in these remote, isolated jungles, hiding among all of the other large mammal discoveries here in recent years? He says of the tense situation: Someone or something up there was hurling these rocks down on us with a lot of power, one of them damn near took my head off. I couldn’t make out any real details, but I could sort of make out that it did not seem to be of normal proportions. For one, the park is only two hours from Kigali. I was 10-12 years old in the mid-1960's during the Vietnam War and could not for the life of me figure out why the Viet Cong gorillas (guerillas) would shoot at American soldiers. There are four habituated gorilla groups in Bwindi and none tend to be found near to the park entrance. All was crawling with bugs. 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