Searching for the Forest Man of Vietnam

Early in the Vietnam / American war, American Air Force troops were sent to guard a signals intelligence (SIGINT) base, a remote listening post north of Đà Nẵng. Late at night or perhaps the early morning hours, strange sounds started to emerge out of the forest. …branching cracking, leaves rustling, sounds of grunting or heavy breathing. What is it? …Vietnamese troops? …an animal? …what?

Out of the forest, something whizzes past the soldier’s ear. Suddenly, they are under attack. …but not with guns. What is it? A rock comes flying by. There is a yell for someone to identify themselves, only met with another incoming rock. They aim their gun, but see nothing, only slight shadows can be seen under the moonlight. As suddenly as the attack starts, it stops, …nothing. Soldiers are on high alert now. They spend the rest of your watch carefully looking around for whatever was attacking, but there is nothing. In the morning, they investigate the area. …nothing unusual. This goes on for months. What is going on?

There are countless unexplained encounters by American G.I.’s, during the Vietnamese (American) war. American soldiers called them Rock Apes, named for their rock-throwing behavior. They are depicted as ape-like humanoids with muscular builds, long limbs and protruding hips. Their brown to reddish brown hair, upright walking posture and solitary behavior contribute to a mysterious and intimidating appearance. The creatures left an eerie impression on soldiers who encountered them in the dead of night, and their vocalizations ranged from cries and barks to heavy howls, sparking debate on their communication abilities.

This is not another “Bigfoot story”

This is a video which does a great job of explaining the mystery.

The story of the Vietnamese forest man is unique because there are so many diverse encounters by many people living in the region over hundreds of years. There are French reports of these creatures going back to 1820 and many accounts reported by U.S. soldiers during the war. When you add these anecdotal accounts to the archaeological history of the region as well as the countless folk stories, there are so many reasons to believe there is more to the story than science currently understands.

These creatures go by several different names, the Vietnamese call them Người rừng (forest man), some call them Batutut. I have seen many reports of these creatures on cryptid websites, but these English accounts don’t really capture the story. To get that, you need to add the Vietnamese accounts to introduce the folk elements. Some Vietnamese say there are actually two different Người rừng (the Ja rai people of Kon Tum even say there are three different). The first type of Người rừng is about a meter tall (around 3 feet) with huge razor sharp claws that capture their victims during the day, and late at night they eat their victim’s kidneys and liver. The second is of a creature about 1.8 meters tall (5-6 feet) with brown to brownish-reddish hair who walks upright with stiff joints who cannot chase someone running in a arched or zig zagged pattern.

Archaeological Evidence of Vietnamese Orangutans

Vietnamese still tell the story of this creature, which coincidentally happens to be the same translated words as orangutan in the native Malay language. The word orangutan is derived from the Malay words orang, meaning "person", and hutan, meaning "forest". Sometimes, Vietnamese people living in remote villages often refer to the forest man as đười ươi which is the Vietnamese word for orangutan.

The only official record of the genus Pongo (orangutan) existing are in Malaysia and Indonesia, but there is precedent for brand new species being discovered. As late as 2017, a new species of orangutan was discovered, the Tapanuli orangutan. The orangutan is the only great ape to survive in Asia and no great apes are known to have been discovered in the Americas, …unless you count humans or zoos.

There is a rich archaeological history of the central highland region of Vietnam. There is fossil evidence of a great ape living in the region just prior to humans. The central highlands were the home of the orangutan during the Pleistocene. This genus of great ape extended from the islands of Indonesia and Malaysia in the south, up to central China in the north and as far east as Pakistan. Some estimates state that these creatures survived in mainland Asia into the Holocene era (starting 11,700 years ago).

Most of the archaeological evidence of ancient apes in Vietnam is only teeth and small jawbone fragments. There are no leg or hip fossils, which I suspect might be where we see a difference between the mainland Asian species and the Malaysian and Indonesian species. Here is a link to the full paper about the current archaeological evidence for orangutans in Vietnam. The paper goes into detail about the fossils discovered.

If you look at the way living orangutans walk upright, it really isn’t the way humans walk with bended knees, but is really more of a shuffling with stiff legs back and forth. This is just as the Vietnamese describe the locomotion of Người rừng. The knees of orangutans move the leg upward and then the weight is shifted by rocking the body forward. This is more of a human toddler type of walking than that of an adult human.

It isn’t much of a leap to say that if these creatures lived in Vietnam at one time, that some of these creatures may have survived and possibly live in Vietnam to this day, deep in the unexplored forests.

Ancient mythical accounts of the forest man

There is a type of creature in mythology called Cynocephalus, the ancient dog-headed men. These creatures have been written about by Marco Polo, in his accounts of East Asia, and Greek physician Ctesias, when he is describing tribal people of India. Described as savage beings with the heads of dogs, they lived in caves in mountainous regions. The History of the Northern Dynasties from the years 386 to 618 also mentions a "dog kingdom.” Some believe these creatures are baboons from North Africa, but what could explain these creatures in Asia? Is it possible that these tales could be describing a different species of forest men in Asia?

Historical Evidence

The central highlands have been mostly uninhabited by humans for nearly the entire human history of the region. Before the Vietnamese expanded their country to include Champa and a portion of the Khmer empire, the interior central highland region was controlled by the naval trading kingdom of Champa and was mostly unexplored. They used an Indian based Sanskrit writing in their earlier texts. Initially, they practiced Hinduism and had a trading network that extended from Taiwan in the north to the Philippines in the east to the Malay trading empire in the south. They became an interesting combination of Islamic, Indian and Chinese cultures, much like we see today in Malaysia.

The first European encounters with the forest men were the French explorers, just prior to French colonialism, with encounters continuing into the early 20th century. Several French expeditions had run ins with the forest man and some of these creatures were even reported to be captured. Unfortunately, none of these specimens were preserved, but we still have the written accounts.

The next series of encounters were during the American (Vietnam) war. I classify these encounters into two groups, the Monkey Mountain (Sơn Trà) encounters and the encounters of the central highlands. Other than a few tribal Cham villages, there were very few expeditions into the central highlands region by humans until the war. The war introduced constant patrols and defoliation, which flushed out creatures from the forests that came into contact with humans for the first time in recorded history.

With the archeological history and preserved habitat of the region, this area seems to be a prime candidate to find a missing species of great ape. When you add that to the legends and historical accounts, this story is the most plausible “Bigfoot story” out there.

Battle of Monkey Mountain

Early reports about Rock Apes originate from U.S. soldiers at the Sơn Trà Mountain, Đà Nẵng around 1962. Air Force was sent to build a signals intelligence (SIGINT) base on the mountain to intercept North Vietnamese HF and VHF communications. Almost immediately, there were reports of apes approaching the base and throwing rocks at the guards. There were several injuries and this series of attacks became known as the Battle of Monkey Mountain.

The red circle is the SIGINT base and the red square is the Linh ứng pagoda slightly above the coast. You can see by the green color of this satellite map of the region how wild it still is to this day.

The first thing you notice when you get to Sơn Trà Mountain, (Monkey Mountain) is there are monkeys everywhere. I have visited this area a couple times to visit the Linh ứng pagoda. It is an amazing view of Đà Nẵng bay and a quick day trip north of the city. You will first find monkeys travelling along the road to the pagoda. Below are a few pictures I took from my first trip. These monkeys are called by Vietnamese, khỉ vàng (yellow monkey) and are scientifically known as rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), the rhesus monkey. This genus of monkey is the most widespread primate genus, ranging from Japan to India. This macaque is incredibly smart and will steal anything around that they think contains food.

Here is a monkey after it stole my drink.

Monkey Run Ins

My first run in with macaques was in Ubud, Bali when I saw a monkey rip open a girl’s backpack in about a second and take a smaller bag from inside and scurry into the forest. Fortunately, I had my phone in my hand and was able to capture a quick, blurry shot of the incident. Later that day, I got a little too close to a baby monkey and this massive matriarch became very aggressive and attacked me. That thing must have grown to a meter long when she went into attack position and started coming at me. I was sure I was going to get attacked by that rabid mother and prepared to defend myself. Fortunately enough, she backed down as I backed away and we both retreated without injury.

My second encounter was at Monkey Mountain during my second trip to Linh ứng pagoda. A tourist took a liking to my two year old son and had given him some snacks he was carrying around. A little while later, we found ourselves in an area with several rhesus monkeys around. My son liked looking at the monkeys and one of them spotted the snack. This beast became massive, quite larger than my son, and lunged at him. I returned the posture making myself as large as possible and yelling loudly, when my son dropped the snack and we all slowly backed away. The monkey emerged victorious with its lunch and we survived the day, unscathed.

All of this is to say… this monkey seems to grow tremendously when they get into attack posture. Here is an interesting article about what a menace these monkeys can be. The official Wikipedia height of these monkeys tops out at 53cm (20+ inches), but I believe they are taking these measurements from their typical sitting position as they do not stand upright. However, when their legs are fully extended and they are coming at you on all fours, they reach their full length of what I estimate to be a full meter without counting the tail length. …maybe a little larger when the panic kicks in.

What happened on Monkey Mountain?

This region was right next to a major inland route for hundreds of years prior to the French and had become developed as the major port city of the region under the French. Đà Nẵng was the first city that the French conquered with their Spanish allies in 1858. From here, the French went south to take Saigon, where they branched out to take all of Southern Vietnam, taking the entire country several years later.

Monkey Mountain is divided from other rural forest areas by the Hải Vân Pass which was already a well used land route. This road to Huế had many French guard towers along with many homes and businesses along the way. I doubt that the area of Monkey Mountain, which was cut off from other remote foraging sites, would have been enough to support a large great ape population for those hundreds of years without being spotted.

After checking out the radar station area and going to the Linh ứng pagoda and having a few run ins with the monkeys, I believe rhesus monkeys are the likely candidate for the first type of forest man in the first series of encounters by American G.I.’s. They have very sharp fingers which can shred a backpack in about a second and appear to grow to a meter when they are in attack position. When a person first encounters a lone male, they appear massive and are highly aggressive, …almost a different creature. They are very smart and very territorial. It would make sense that a group of soldiers moving into a rhesus monkey’s territory would face some opposition from lone males looking to defend their territory.

There are soldier’s reports that these monkeys occasionally threw rocks. This base was far away from the DMZ, so I don’t think there were many enemy troops in the area, but in this dense forest, I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear there were a couple spies tossing around some rocks to check out the defenses of the outposts in the region.

It would be very reasonable for some Air Force guards who were not experienced in a Vietnamese forest, to see a very large male in the dark and assume he was much scarier than he would be during daylight hours. By the time the marines came a few years later in 1965, the soldiers may have heard the Vietnamese folk stories reinforcing the stories spreading among the American soldiers.

That doesn’t mean that all forest men stories are these rhesus monkeys. It is very unlikely that experienced Vietnamese locals would mistake the common monkey, which they see often, with Người rừng. There are several other possibilities of animals the soldiers encountered.

Tigers in Vietnam

Many times, forest men attacks were often written off as interested tigers, checking out the soldiers movements. Who could blame an officer for assuming this? The Indochina tiger has deep cultural ties with the culture and was a menacing opponent on patrols. Often Vietnamese soldiers may refer to this creature as another Vietnamese brother fighting for independence.

I bring up tigers because I think they are analogous to forest men sightings. Like the forest men, they are solitary and reside deep in the forest. Also, when tiger sightings go up, so do forest men sightings. There are not many local villagers who claim to have seen tigers in the last 50 years, but forest men sightings are still relatively abundant for those willing to take the time to listen.

There are two words for tiger in Vietnamese, Hổ and Cọp. As we sometimes see with Vietnamese, this is partially due to the word origins, with Hổ coming from the Chinese word for tiger (貫) and Cọp likely originating from a local word. Sometimes, tigers are referred to by nicknames Ông Ba Mươi (Grandfather thirty, some say because often it would attack villages on the 30th night of the lunar calendar when it was the darkest) or Chúa sơn lâm (Lord of the forest, because folklore says if you say his actual name, he will come for you).

There are temples dedicated to the tiger god. These come from the Chinese influence of the culture. It is customary on the 30th day of the lunar month to give an offering to the god. Typically, the offering is several pieces of rice paper with various Chinese words and pictures. These offerings are burnt and an offering of raw meat and a raw egg offered before a tiger statue with some salt, uncooked rice and rice wine sprinkled upon the tiger’s head. A small prayer is offered with incense and the usual bowing to the god as the offering is accepted. Originally, this was probably to appease the tiger god so he would not attack the village that month.

The tiger is of high importance within Vietnamese culture. The White Tiger, or Bach Hổ, is one of the four holy beasts associated with the West and autumn. This majestic creature, with its white fur and fierce countenance, symbolizes courage, protection, and strength. The White Tiger is connected to the element of metal and is revered as a guardian against evil spirits. In Vietnamese culture, it is often depicted as a guardian of the western borders, keeping threats at bay.

Tigers are among the 12 zodiac animals and considered the king of all animals. People born in the Year of the Tiger are believed to possess strong qualities, particularly in leadership, deriving from the tiger's symbolic strength. Those born under this sign are known for their confidence and ambitious nature, making them well-suited for roles requiring self-discipline such as pilots, musicians, and office managers. However, tiger-born individuals may exhibit negative traits, including difficulty working with others due to their self-perceived superiority.

Tigers in Vietnam before the Vietnamese (American) war

Starting in 1830 and throughout much of the 19th century, the Vietnamese emperor would often have cage matches between tigers and elephants with around 20 tigers at a time. I won’t go into any details as they are way too gruesome, but if you want to look up Hổ Quyền in Google, you can get more information.

Tigers were already threatened before the Vietnamese (American) war. Prior to the war, a friend of mine mentioned there were still tigers reported to be living in Vũng Tàu as late as the 1950’s as I heard in the story of the last tiger at the shrine of Núi Lớn. Tiger populations have dropped rapidly from 1900 until the 1970’s where they seem to have stabilized and are even inching upward now.

I borrowed this chart from this site

The American soldier vs. the Tiger

When the Americans came to Vietnam, they entered the tiger habitat. Up until that point they were left alone for all of recorded history. This drove the tiger out of its solitary lifestyle and into direct conflict with the soldiers. It is not too hard to imagine that some of the forest men accounts could be as a result of this silent stalker in the forest, creeping around, with only a slight hint of movement in the distance, or deafening silence to give away its presence. I am sure a few reports could have come about from this creature.

This is an account of a typical soldier encounter with a tiger.

On December 22nd, 1968, a man-eating tiger ambushed a six-man recon team from the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion during a patrol near Quang Tri, Vietnam. The team was waiting for extraction near Fire Support Base Alpine when the tiger attacked silently in the darkness. PFC Roy Regan bravely intervened, causing the tiger to release its prey and retreat to a bomb crater where the Marines shot and killed it. The injured Marine was airlifted for medical treatment, and the nine-foot tiger was taken to the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion headquarters. This incident occurred in an area where a Marine had been killed by a man-eating tiger a month earlier, despite efforts to hunt down the dangerous animals.

Usually, tigers are solitary, but during the war, they were forced into conflict with the U.S. military. Sometimes, these tigers would get a taste for human flesh and start hunting soldiers. This would mean a squad may have been sent to take the tiger out.

I typed in the phrase “tiger Vietnam war” into a search engine and came up with the following results. When I scrolled down, there were many more. There must have been a couple dozen images of soldiers with tiger “trophies”. This was a common scene among the U.S. soldiers as they entered into the forests of the central highlands, which were once only the domain of this apex predator.

Current tiger situation

With the combination of tigers already on the decline globally, plus U.S. soldiers actively hunting these killers and the complete environmental collapse due to defoliants dropped all over the central highlands region as well as tiger habitats in Laos and Cambodia, the tiger population dropped too almost nothing. Recent estimates indicate only 0-5 tigers still exist in Vietnam. The last tiger seen in Vietnam was on December 21, 1999, from a camera trap. It is unclear whether this tiger lived in Vietnam or was just visiting from the protected forests of bordering countries, Laos or Cambodia. Some believe the Indochinese tiger is already extinct.

I don’t believe this creature has been driven into complete extinction and believe it will someday come back into the wild forests. Currently, every known Vietnamese tiger can only be found in zoos. In Hồ Chí Minh city, there are some very sad tigers at the Saigon Zoo and a much happier and healthier selection of tigers in VinPearl Safari in Phú Quốc. In VinPearl Safari, I seem to recall over a dozen tigers, and maybe even a couple dozen. Unfortunately, these tigers will likely not be reintroduced to the wild as poaching these tigers is still a big business.

There are also tigers in Vietnam being kept in small illegal pig-pins for the purpose of traditional medicine. Oftentimes, tigers are smuggled into the country as cubs by way of Laos and raised to maturity before they are converted into medicine. This practice is highly illegal and the government does its best to stop it, but with such a high profit incentive, it is hard to stop everyone. Many are trying to change the culture with a series of educational campaigns. Until this practice of making medicine from tigers becomes unprofitable, zoos might be the best home for these majestic animals.

American Soldier accounts of the Central Highland Forest Man

There is a second type of forest man I want to zero in on. This is the type that American soldiers often reported seeing when they were on patrol in the central highlands when they would talk about a large bipedal human sized ape with red hair.

From an excerpt in K.K. Jorgensen’s book Strange but True Stories of the Vietnam War about the 101st Airborne Division:

“The purported cryptid wasn’t taller than 5 feet and it walked upright. It stopped, looked at them as though scrutinizing each and one of the soldiers.
“What the hell is that?”, one of the soldiers recalls muttering.
“It’s a rock ape”, said another.
“No, it ain’t”, a third man said.
“I’ve seen rock apes, and that sure as hell isn’t a rock ape!”
The warriors didn’t take their eyes off the creature.
“It’s an orangutan, isn’t it?”, asked the first soldier again.
“Well, if it is, then he can’t read a map. There are no orangutans in Vietnam.”

Obviously, there is already some disagreement between the soldiers as some know the account of the rock apes of Monkey Mountain and know this type is different.

This is the Central Highlands region which most forest men reports originate from.

Discovery Channel gets in on the action

The favorite of cryptid websites everywhere, Discovery channel had to get in on the action and send a couple of their “investigators” into the forest to see if they could find in a couple days, what some people have been searching decades for.

Vietnamese Scientific Expeditions and Government Protection

This is by far the most difficult part of the article to write as it was so difficult to fact check. It should be read with a bit of skepticism. Particularly difficult were, the unreliable English cryptid websites along with the account of Trần Hồng Việt along with the subsequent protection order from Võ Nguyên Giáp. Occasionally, I found cryptid websites would reference each other with incorrect data.

In 1970, Associate Professor (some accounts say Doctor) Trần Hồng Việt former director of the center for research on hidden animals, from the Hanoi University of Education made plaster casts of Người rừng measuring 28cm long and 12cm wide during an expedition as part of 5.202 Environmental Protection Program, to the top of Ngoc Linh Mountain, in Gia Lai, Kon Tum. But soon after, his car broke in a severe storm and Mr. Việt was forced to leave with only photographs of the footprint plaster casts. I could not find any record of the center for research of hidden animals with Hanoi University of Education.

It should be noted that my own feet measure nearly those same dimensions of the plaster casts at 26.5cm long by 11cm wide, which would spread a bit in the mud, so I don’t find this to be compelling evidence.

In 1974 Senior General Hoàng Minh Thảo organized an expedition to try to capture or kill one of these creatures, but the expedition didn’t find anything.

In 1981, evidently, Trần Hồng Việt was able to persuade Võ Nguyên Giáp Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers, to sign Decision No. 65-HDBT which states in Article 1, Point b: "It is forbidden to hunt birds, animals, and wild animals; in particular, hunting tall orangutans (suspected to be ‘Forest Men’) that can exist in the forest is prohibited". The original Vietnamese decision is below along with an translated image from Google translate. I include photos of the protection documents sited on the cryptid websites, but I could not verify them on government websites and they do not contain the official government seal. I tried to provide references where I could and give a partial list of websites at the bottom if you want to check out some details for yourself.

Original Document:

Google Translation of Document:

There is an additional Vietnamese account, which is a bit more reliable. Dr. Võ Quý, Vietnam’s premier Zoologist and Ornithologist participated in some television investigations of these creatures. He has expressed deep interest in doing more research on these creatures and often participated in television expeditions when the funding was available. It was purported to have taken plaster casts of a forest man footprints, which are described as wider than a human foot and too big for an ape. I could verify that he did participate in television investigations, but I could not verify that he ever took plaster casts of footprints. I suspect this story is confused with Associate Professor Trần Hồng Việt’s story and has been repeated incorrectly on the various English cryptid websites.

Hunting these mysterious creatures with camera traps

There are ongoing scientific efforts to find out what this creature is today. Greg McCann has been camera trapping the forests of Cambodia, next to the area with the most reports of forest men to try to get to the bottom of this mystery.

These are two excerpts from an interview with Mongabay where Greg McCann is talking about what he is doing to document rare fauna in the forests of Cambodia. Although he needs to hide discovering certain animals in photos, to protect them from poachers, if we read between the lines, McCann seems very optimistic, leading me to believe there is the possibility of a population of tigers and maybe even forest men still existing in the wild.

Mongabay: I know you can’t tell us if you have photos of certain sensitive species, such as tigers or Javan rhinos, the latter which has been officially deemed extinct in mainland Southeast Asia. But how hopeful are you that you might record these?

Greg McCann: I am hopeful. Locals say there are still some rhinos left. They say the Javan rhino’s dung is worth its weight in gold and can cure any disease—now that’s a reason to have them alive instead of hunted out! As far as tigers go, the habitat is there and there is certainly a substantial prey base of deer and pigs. Locals are unsure of the tiger’s status, but they claim to have seen a large leopard chasing a pig fairly recently.

Virachey still holds some surprises, among them the tek-tek, or Annamite Mountain Yeti! Locals are adamant that this cryptic species, which goes by the name of Orang Pendak in Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia, haunts the remote sacred peaks that separate Cambodia and Laos. Both U.S. servicemen and Viet Cong soldiers claim to have seen and fired on them during the war. The creature goes by the name of batutut in Vietnam (oddly, it goes by the same name in Borneo), briau in Laos, and tua yeua in Thailand. We’d love to have a tek-tek show up in one of our cameras!

Also, supposedly there is a Siamese Crocodile pool on the upper reaches of the O Lai Lai River. The only confirmed breeding population of Siamese crocs is in the Cardamom Mountains in the southwestern part of the country. Confirmation of a viable population in Virachey would be a big deal.

Mongabay: Do you think this is a program that other wildlife groups or eco-tourism companies could replicate?

Greg McCann: Absolutely. In fact, that’s what we’re hoping for. One extra incentive could be to allow ecotourists to download some of the images onto their own personal devices. Again, if we obtained images of Critically Endangered species such as tigers or rhinos, then we wouldn’t offer those, but ecotourists can share the others with friends and family.

Conclusion

The exploration into the mysterious forest men, reveals a tapestry of accounts from various sources. From American soldiers in the Central Highlands describing encounters with a bipedal human-sized ape with red hair, to Vietnamese tribal narratives distinguishing between different types of Người rừng, the mystery deepens.

I tried to quickly highlight the compelling facts concerning this creature. The intertwining of mythology, scientific expeditions, and government protection efforts adds layers to the mystery. Modern evidence remains dubious and we are left without a smoking gun.

The intersection of archaeology, local beliefs, and contemporary investigations in neighboring regions like Cambodia adds complexity to the quest. As the exploration continues, the lines between myth and reality blur, leaving us with a compelling yet elusive mystery. With sightings dating back as far as 200 years ago by the French and as recently as only a few years ago by local villagers, I suspect someday our suspect may emerge and introduce a new great ape to the world.

Online resources I referred to while I was writing my article

https://heritagevietnamairlines.com/en/worshipping-the-tiger-god/

https://readatmidnight.com/2020/09/24/tigers-in-viet-lore-and-upcoming-novellas/

https://vietnamtimes.org.vn/its-the-eye-and-year-of-the-tiger-39412.html

https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Batutut

https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguoi_Rung - be careful when reading this translated because some of the words do not properly translate into English and some information appears to be false

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/pongo

https://militarymachine.com/vietnam-rock-apes/

https://exemplore.com/cryptids/Wartime-Mystery-The-Rock-Apes-of-Vietnam

https://www.quora.com/Were-Vietnamese-rock-apes-ever-real

https://www.reddit.com/r/VietNam/comments/yz3fhk/i_find_this_rather_interesting_first_picture_the/?rdt=56580

This YouTube video starts with ancient historical Vietnamese accounts and spends the second half talking about Associate Professor Trần Hồng Việt and the law passed by Võ Nguyên Giáp along with a couple other additional professors making scientific expeditions to the central highlands. I include it because it has dozens, perhaps hundreds of great comments from Vietnamese inhabitants who have had encounters with Người rừng. You can easily translate the transcript and comments by right clicking the text and hit the “translate to English” option and read for yourself.