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Is the Vietnam Rock Ape a myth, a hard fact, or somewhere in between? Decide for yourself… Alfonso Villareal, nicknamed “Pancho,” served in…

HomeTechnologyVietnam Rock Apes: Myth, Fact and Everything In-BetweenTechnologyVietnam Rock Apes: Myth, Fact and Everything In-BetweenMichael Trent · January 25, 2018Updated January 25, 2021 · 7 min readSaveShare:Michael TrentDefense Systems AnalystMichael Trent covers military aircraft, weapons systems, and defense technology with an emphasis on cost, maintenance, and real-world performance. He focuses less on specifications and more on how systems hold up once they are deployed, maintained, and operated at scale.Table of Contents Is the Vietnam Rock Ape a myth, a hard fact, or somewhere in between? Decide for yourself… Alfonso Villareal, nicknamed “Pancho,” served in the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marines in the Vietnam War. Like anyone else who was sent over, Alfonso went through hell and back fighting in the humid jungles of Southeast Asia. He believed the only encounters he would have would be the communist Vietnamese counter-insurgency. But as time passed…he saw more than what meets the eye.You Might Also Like50 Best Military Aircraft of All Time, Ranked50 Most Powerful Tanks Ever Built, RankedWatch on Military MachineAll videos →WW2 GEAR — 98% FAIL #worldwar2 One night while his platoon was resting, all of them began to observe an object the size of a small medical ball rolling at them. The medical ball kept moving until it was pressed up on the end of a rifle. One of Alfonso’s platoon members tapped the object. The “thing” unfolded, and started to scream and holler, waving its arms all over and running away. “It was a baby rock ape,” Villarreal said. Monkey Mountain SIGINT facility in Vietnam Vietnam Rock Apes History The Vietnam Rock Apes and their existence are presented as an exaggerated case of mistaken identity – or so we assume. They are classified under the category of cryptids, which are specimens whose existence have not been verified by the greater scientific community at large. Mistaken repeatedly for the yeti, Bigfoot or even an orangutan, to this day it hasn’t been determined whether or not the mythical beast sighted by young men who served as soldiers in the Vietnam war was fact or fiction. In Vietnamese folklore, these apes are seen as akin to the Batutut (also “Ujit,” or “Người rừng,” which loosely translates as, “jungle people.”) The Batutut is believed to have resided in the Vu Quang nature reserve and the broader wilderness in Vietnam and Laos. By what is documented, they are covered with hair except in the knees, the soles of the feet, the hands, and the face. Often rummaging for food like from fruits and leaves to langers and even flying foxes, the Batutut is a stocky traveler that has a daunting build that can only be visualized. According to the first-hand accounts of what was seen, the Rock Apes, (who got their name from throwing rocks…go figure) were described in behavior or appearance as a “ape-like humanoid”. Not exactly half-man, half-beast, but as close as genetically possible to that. Lathered in some hue of brown hair with the exception of a few areas, they were reportedly very muscular, with their frame completed by long limbs and protruding hips. This was complimented with dark eyes, a cucumber-shaped head, 4-to-5-inch fangs and a tail attached to their backside. Multiple sources dispute the average height of the creature. Some say they were about six feet, but nothing to this day has been confirmed. That didn’t stop their presence in the dead of night from replicating “ghostly images” in the eyes of soldiers who witnessed them in the flesh. Some footprints collected over the decades assert the Vietnam Rock Ape to be bigger than a human being, but smaller than the composition of an actual, regular ape. Communicating with them would’ve been impossible as eyewitness reports stated that they delivered a wide range of vocalizations, the range varying from the minimum of eerie cries and barks to the maximum of heavy jowls and beyond. This is according to certain opinions; others juxtapose that claim with the counterclaim that the rock apes didn’t communicate much at all. All these attributes to some degree aggregate to enough evidence to assume that the Vietnam rock apes could’ve just one of numerous associated animals.Best Pentagon CritiqueDereliction of Duty by H.R. McMaster$16 on AmazonMcMaster's doctoral dissertation turned book examines how the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to challenge the Johnson administration's flawed Vietnam strategy. A devastating critique of what happens when military leaders prioritize career survival over honest counsel.View on Amazon → Red shanked Douc monkey in Vietnam From the get-go, a comparison to the orangutan is made because Vietnam Rock Apes had ginger hair from head to toe. However, for thousands of years now orangutans were extinct in Vietnam. Additional doppelgangers to the Vietnam Rock Ape brought up include the white-cheeked gibbon and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey. The white-cheeked gibbon lives in tight-knit circles like the Rock Ape...