"Ape-like animal" spotted in central China.
WUHAN, June 30 (Xinhua)
An investigation is underway after apparent sightings of a mysterious "ape-like" animal in Shennongjia Nature Reserve in
central China's Hubei Province Sunday afternoon.
The animal was reported to have been seen by six people, including a reporter from the local broadcasting station. The grayish "mythical ape-like animal", suspected by locals to be a "Bigfoot", was reported as 1.65-meters tall with shoulder-length black hair. The witnesses have reported the sighting to the local government and an investigation is in full swing.
Shang Zhengmin, the reporter, was on the way back to Songbai Town from an interview in Muyu town with five local people. When the vehicle they were in took a left turn along the mountain road, four people in the vehicle saw an ape-like animal moving fast on the road. By the time the vehicle finished the turn, the animal had disappeared. The passengers got out of the vehicle and found several 30
centimeter-long footprints and newly broken branches in the jungle near the road.
On the road where the animal was spotted, they claimed to have discovered a three-meter-long patch of foul smelling urine-like liquid.
Hundreds of local people have reported "Bigfoot" sightings over the past decades in the Shennongjia area. China has organized several high-profile searches for the unidentified animal through the 1980s and 1990s, but no hard evidence has been found.
Source: XINHUA NEWS AGENCY BULLETIN 30/06/2003