KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -

Malaysia plans to send two teams of scientists to scour its southern rainforests and track down a huge ape said to have been spotted there, a government official said on Friday.

"Bigfoot" fever has dominated Malaysian newspaper headlines for several weeks now, with several dramatic sightings of a hairy, gorilla-like creature reported in the thick forest in the southern state of Johor.

One local man said he saw a 10-foot (three metre) tall ape standing on two legs beside a river, according to one report.

"Yes, the state government has decided to send teams of scientists to try and track it," said a state official who declined to be named. But he gave no further details.

The country is home to the orang-utan, a large red-haired ape that can grow the size of a small man, but they are not found in peninsular Malaysia -- although monkeys and gibbons are common.

National news agency Bernama has said the Johor state government intends to set up two expedition teams, one to explore the forests and a second to try and study the animal itself.

"We hope the expedition will be able to prove its existence," the agency quoted Chief Minister Abdul Ghani Othman as saying.

Bigfoot sightings across the world have featured mysterious and reclusive animals such as the north American sasquatch or the Himalayan yeti, whose existence has never been proved, but the Malaysian sightings are worth investigating, an environmentalist said.

"The national park is as big as Singapore island," said Vicent Chow, who works in the area and has often lobbied the state government to investigate past sightings. "It's quite possible there is something there."

The Endau-Rompin national park, where the sightings were reported, sprawls over an area of about 49,000 hectares (490 square km).

"Natives who live in the jungle have seen it for generations and their legends call it the 'snaggle-toothed ghost'," said Chow. "Now we need forays by scientists to find it."

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticl...&archived=False

Cool hope they find something.

neat bigfoot knows no boundaries.

wonder if'll they'll find anything...

lets hope they find somin!

even though i do think they should send in more than 2 teams of scientist.. I would send the military in on a full out search and try to kill one... that would make more sense to me.

I hppe they find something noteworthy.

i would think killing one would be far less advantageous then capturing one

you could learn so much more from observing if it were alive

well i guess tranqulizing one would be the best thing to do

dont get me wrong im no tree hugging animal rights activist

i just would like to learn as much as possible

slice him open after he dies

hell, hopefully they find a bunch of them

then id have no problem killing a couple young ones to check out thier innards

It's odd how Bigfoot is reported all over the world; In fact it lends a lot of credibility to bigfoot. I doubt that the people making these sightings are even familiar with the American cases, so they really can't be making it up.

sorry to step off topic

but that sounds like reasoning for alien sighting and abduction reports

(alot of which i believe)

As far as I'm concerned it only lends credibility to alien sightings and abductions in remote areas with little or no access to Western media. The similarities in sightings within America are resultant from people wanting to jump on the bandwagon.

i agreed....

Nice.