Chewbacca or the Missing link?

Chewbacca or the Missing link?

by Liv Published on May 16th, 2007, 5:06 pm Rift: X

Here's today's mystery of the day. It might just be my mother-in-law, or photographic fakery, but if I stumbled upon one of these on my vacation, I'd run like hell.

One day in 1930, Swiss geologist Dr. Francois de Loys was leading an expedition in the rain forest near
the Brazilian-Colombian border when two ape-like creatures walked out of the bush, upright on two legs,
in front of them. Startled, they moved towards the party in a threatening manner which caused the men
to shoot them. The female was killed while the male fled into the bush. Officially there are no apes in
South America, which is why this creature had no rational explanation. Not only did it walk upright on
two legs like a human, but it had no tail. It stood about 5 feet tall (1.5 metres) and was too heavy to carry
with them, so they propped it sitting on a crate, placing a pole under it's chin to photograph it. Sadly,
most of the photos were lost when the geologists' boat capsized but this one terrific picture did survive.
When they got back to London, it rattled the scientific world.
One French zoologist was convinced it was a species of unknown ape, the first ever found in South
America. Others thought it was closer to the known Spider Monkey in spite of the much larger and
muscular body and the fact it had fewer teeth than that species. Some rivals even argued that it must
have indeed had a tail and de Loys had purposely hidden it to take the photo.
Today this incident is all but forgotten in cryptozoologist circles.

[A Person]

Here's today's mystery of the day. It might just be my mother-in-law, or photographic fakery, but if I stumbled upon one of these on my vacation, I'd run like hell.

That rather depends on the scale of the picture doesn't it?

The picture indeed looks remarkably like an Ateles spider monkey which are indigenous to the area. If you mentally adjust the scale and look at a picture of a live Ateles monkey I think you'll agree they are rather cute.

While I am reluctant to accuse Dr. Francois de Loys of lying about the height of the monkey and it's tail it's a far more reasonable explanation.

[A Person]

This is a photo of a juvenile White Bellied Spider Monkey


You'll note the characteristic and distinctive white facial markings on the forehead and on the cheeks - also present on the deLoys photo.

Not quite as exiting as a Sasquatch but a lot more likely.

[RebelSnake]

That rather depends on the scale of the picture doesn't it?

It would have been a lot more convincing if someone had been standing next to it in the picture.