Well, optimism springs eternal. As those who have read about the drawings, the photographs, and more, you have realized my early efforts to learn more were frustrated, but we all pushed on. From wishing Vincent Chow well, going to write the foreword to his projected book, to growing skepticism, it has been quite a journey. Hoping against hope, members of the hominology community wanted the purported but unseen photographs of the Johor Hominid to be a valid form of evidence. There appears now to have been an obvious reason for why those promoting the hidden pictures did not wish to have the "photographs" more closely examined (and I am not talking about Vincent Chow and Sean Ang, but the "Guardians"). It seems the photographs are a thinly diguised hoax.

Please remember…the hoax is about the photographs…not about the sightings, not about some footprints, not about the 1970s’ reports and tracks found, not about the lore from the area…in general, the photographs have little to do with the overall “Malaysian Bigfoot” melodrama, although “they” had become the story. The Malaysian Orang Dalam story is unsolved.

But here’s the story on the hoax part of this. Cryptomundo reader Lorenzo Rossi, founder of the Italian website Criptozoo.com, has posted the apparent source of the Johor Hominid photos, which I have learned was first discovered by Cryptomundo reader Jean-Luc Drevillon, a French hominologist. As I don’t read Italian or French, I can only surmise that the photos were found in either a book or a magazine.

Lorenzo posted the photos to his online forum this morning. Many Cryptomundo readers are posting this url in the comments section of my previous post regarding the photos. That is how I was alerted to this situation.

Presently, the Johor Hominid website is "down for maintenance." Is this because of the revelation of the photos, or merely a coincidence? I’m sure we will see shortly.

(Thanks to Craig Woolheater for posting this for me while I dealt with an individual hardware routing problem at my end, now solved.)

Here’s the face drawn by Vincent Chow from the photograph. Below is the photograph posted by Lorenzo Rossi. Lorenzo apparently drew a red box in, marking the sections of the photo that were used to make the following sketches posted on the Johor Hominid site.

Above is the hand drawn by Vincent Chow from the photograph. Below is the sketch drawn by Cryptomundo reader Paul Goodall to tie Vincent’s two sketches together.

Click image for full-size version

Below is the sketch of the eyes made by Sean Ang, followed by the photo released by Vincent Chow of the eyes. Below that is the photo posted by Lorenzo Rossi. A French cryptozoologist, Jean-Luc Drevillon drew a red box in, marking the section of the photo that was posted on the Johor Hominid site.

For a complete rundown on all the August 4th breaking news on the “Johor Hominid” hoax discovery, please also see:

Johor Pix Hoax: More

More Johor Fallout: Peter Loh Reacts.