TRUE GIANTS: Is Gigantopithecus Still Alive? Paperback – November 29, 2010

This is not a book about Bigfoot. Granted, Bigfoot is pretty big and could technically be considered a giant. And it does get a few mentions in the book. However, the main creatures this book is concerned with are far bigger creatures, around 3 to 6 metres tall.The authors suggest that the giants of legend could be based on real life creatures that roamed the earth. Even more incredibly, giants may still be around today as is indicated by various eyewitness reports of truly massive man-beasts.One of the most focused on giants in the book are the orang dalam- hairy giants from the jungles of Malaysia that have been sighted by large numbers of eyewitnesses. The book also discusses giant reports from other parts of the world including Europe, the Himalayas, the Americas, Africa and Oceania. True Giants are reported to often dwell in sheltered caves and to avoid humans whenever possible (understandable considering humans' often less than hospitable attitudes towards that which is different).The authors identify Bigfoot as Paranthropus and the True Giants as Gigantopithecus. I'm uncertain of the Paranthropus as Bigfoot notion (Paranthropus would have to grow bigger and move from Africa to North America, but that could perhaps work). And as for the True Giants, while I agree that Gigantopithecus might explain a fair portion of them, especially when we consider reports of giants with gorilla-like faces, there is one thing to note. The authors point out that at least some True Giants do things like making clothing and building tools and may in ancient times have done things like herding animals and even taken up smithing. The authors seem to interpret this as the giants imitating humans. Granted, similar things have been seen in chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans living near human settlements and learning to use human tools so could the same be said for Gigantopithecus? Perhaps, though what is reported from True Giants seems to go beyond merely learning to use some basic equipment humans made. Also, the authors note that some of the sounds heard from True Giants could perhaps be a simple form of language.I can't help wondering if we are actually dealing with more than one sort of being hear, both creatures that could be Gigantopithecus and creatures that could be something more like ourselves (incidentally, something like this was suggested by Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy who spoke both of gorilla-like or Bigfoot-like giants that he interpreted as Gigantopithecus and more human-like giants that he interpreted as gigantic descendants of Homo erectus).Acknowledging the question of how in the world any upright walking bipeds could get so huge, the authors suggest honeycomb bone structures. Admittedly, such bone structure is currently unknown among mammals but I wouldn't rule it out entirely.Also, one of my personal favourite parts of the book is one of the appendixes that shows a discussion on giant skulls from the Aleutian Islands, by deceased biologist Ivan T. Sanderson. Sanderson presented the rather novel notion that the 6 metre giants in question were an aquatic human species, kinda like the speculative aquatic/semi-aquatic proto-humans of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis but a giant sized version. After all, being aquatic would allow all that mass to be supported in water. Of course, True Giant sightings show giants that have no trouble living on land, but still Sanderson's speculative aquatic giants should perhaps not be completely discounted.Overall, the premise of the book is admittedly an incredible one. Yet reality can sometimes be rather incredible. In any case, its a fascinating read regardless and offers much food for thought.

It is regrettable to watch Loren Coleman--who has, in the past, collaborated on some quite good cryptozoological efforts--degenerate into a let's-sell-whatever-for-a-quick-buck sort of practitioner.The arguments presented in this work are, in a word, unconvincing. The key scientific thesis that permeates the work is the assumption (by no means proven) that Gigantopithecus was an extinct human being when it seems ultra-clear to responsible modern researchers that his affinity to Pongo pygmaeus was much, much more probable. (Critically, modern primatologists are in a terrific rush to place Pongo on _yonder_ branch of the hominin tree while relegating Pan and Gorilla to _our_ branch.) Even the geography of Gigantopithecus's fossil distribution speaks to this: both animals clearly originated in the humid subtropical biomes of eastern and southeastern Asia.When you take a gander at, say, Krantz's "Big Footprints" or--for that matter--the unknown hominid material in something as inchoately archaic as Heuvelmans's "Sur La Piste des Betes Ignorees"--you perceive that hard-boiled scientists have conducted careful research, leaving no stone unturned. In contrast, Hall and Coleman have done little more here than present a smattering of myths and he-said-she-saids and ultra-generalized stories of vague recollections of traditions. And their grab-bag of paleocultural features (creature X wears no clothing, does not speak, and does not control fire, but is comfortable dancing around in circles while beating drums--drums _manufactured_ with considerable [= Homo sapiens] artifice) strikes the careful thinker as beyond preposterous.Now, just about every Neolithic people that survives to this day is found to have a euhemerized culture hero. Is it any surprise at all that said heroes take the form of giant humans? Even the Midrash impute a height of one hundred feet plus to--of all people--Moses. Now, you could argue about the hirsuteness, but it seems reasonable that perceptible throwbacks might appear just a bit more animalistic than do their modern derivatives. And I won't even condescend to consider utter nonsense about, say, Napi of the Blackfoot and their Athapascan fellows or Glooskap of the Abenaki, Micmac, and affine northeastern peoples. Etiologic Glooskap myths (by way of example) do not prove that tremendous giants civilized the peoples of northeastern North America any more than they prove that persons could navigate from Eurasia to the Americas in the stone canoe that also figures prominently in the Glooskap cycle.Next, we have essentially zero hard evidence of any kind. A vague footprint found here or there is, frankly, unconvincing. One is reminded of Australian "researcher" Rex Gilroy and his diehard insistence that every weathered rock that could conceivably have practicably been wielded by a fifteen-foot hominid as some sort of je-ne-sais-precisement-quoi eolith was, in fact, so wielded. Plus, there are umpteen conceivable explanations for a vague rectangular impression with what can conceivably be interpreted (most liberally, at that) as the print of a toe here or a toe there--said impressions being more remarkable for their asymmetry than for any semblance of regularity that would point to a bilaterally symmetric biped. (Take a look at Texas's Paluxy tracks and the detailed analysis thereof by way of comparison.)Thirdly, a good deal of Hall and Coleman's "evidence" takes the form of medieval woodcuts of supposed battles of legendary hyper-kings with culture heroes. What else should a euhemerized leader battle but a giant man? Perhaps he should battle a Megacastor or an overgrown Pachyrukhos? Further, the pictures of some fellow engaged in a none-too-violent battle with a wodewose (which can clearly be connected most tightly to the pagan "Green Man" tradition, the origin of which is readily explainable without resorting to so much as a fossilized stapes) do nothing to advance Hall and Coleman's "argument."Finally, the supposed ties to classic literature ("Beowulf" comes to the fore) are an exceedingly poor choice of "evidence." Just because Grendel is vaguely humanoid, it does not follow that giant hominids were roaming the Scandinavian woods fifteen hundred years ago. After all, Beowulf--in addition to Grendel and his mother--also battled a dragon: do we conclude thence that the early Scandinavians encountered real dragons (as opposed to, say woolly rhinoceros bones ruminated over with a hefty dose of imagination)?Hall and Coleman have done a workmanlike job of assembling all the relevant historical "evidence" for the erstwhile reality of giant hominids. Unfortunately, it just doesn't qualify as evidence. Pass on this one--other than for purely historical interest, viz., to gawk at the woodcuts and remark at their quaintness.

I've had a long term interest in crypto-zoology in general and Bigfoot/Yeren/Yeti/et. al. specifically for many decades. Loren Coleman has been writing in this field for even longer as well as maintaining the excellent cryptomundo.com website. So he (along with Mark Hall) is very qualified to write about OTHER "giant" man-apes that have been seen and tracked around the world.Herein lies the difference that distinguishes this book from other crypto and Bigfoot works: True Giants is NOT about Bigfoot, it is about more elusive giant primates that are even larger (specifically taller) than the alleged Bigfoot. True giants are claimed to be 9 to 18 feet tall! With tracks that are also proportionately larger than Bigfoot tracks.The thesis of this book is that these giants may have existed up to modern times AND may be a more reasonable presumed descendant of Gigantopithecus than Bigfoot is.Are the authors correct? I recommend buying and reading this book and deciding for yourselves. There really is no other work that surveys the stories of True Giants with the comprehensiveness of Coleman and Hall. And few works in this field are written with this balance of open-mindedness and reasonable skepticism.I would give it 5 stars, but I really wanted more images, specifically of the four-toed tracks that seem to be a key marker for True Giants versus Bigfoot. I would also like to know what ancestry the authors would attribute to Bigfoot if Gigantopithecus is to presumed to be a True Giant as I had previously thought of Gigantopithecus as the best candidate for Bigfoot's ancestor.Overall, I recommend this for crypto followers as the subject matter is unique and the thesis thought-provoking.

"True Giants" is a term coined by the authors to differentiate between the Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch/Orang Pendek et al -style cryptozoological hominids, and the much larger hairy hominids that they believe are surviving Gigantopitheci. According to conventional science Gigantopithecus was an almost 10' (3 metres) tall bamboo-eating vegetarian ape that lived in Asia and India alongside our ancestors Homo Erectus, and died out about 300,000 years ago.It's the authors' belief that the folk tales of indigenous peoples regarding hairy giants are often dismissed as mere stories when in fact they all paint a similar picture of red-eyed hairy giants having lived, and possibly still living, among them.The folk tales and occasional sightings reported by word of mouth are the main bulk of the authors' evidence of existing Giantopithecus, supported by occasional photographs of tracks. These folk-tales and stories are a great read and while one can see how some of their striking similarities can be interpreted as a consensus, it's also easy to spot differences so it's difficult to ever know how much of the tale is pure story-telling or embellishment and how much is race memory or hand-me-down fact. Likewise, as we know from other monster and UFO sightings, eye-witness accounts can range from the broadly accurate to the hugely mistaken.Some other anecdotal evidence does sound interesting and I found it frustrating that it wasn't always referenced - for example, the authors note that early European settlers in America had to fight off an attack by True Giants using the first recorded use of firearms against them. I would have liked to read more but there was no reference to follow up.So in all an very interesting read, full of possibilities and as always if you keep an open mind, always exciting to think we could be living along side a giant species that was long thought extinct. But also ultimately disappointing because the evidence is, as so often is the case, anecdotal and the much needed photographs and film are still eluding us, allowing critics to put some of the authors' assertions into the realm of pure belief.That said, it took three months of intensive filming and camera-trap setting to finally prove, in 2010, indigenous people's insistent tales of tigers living at altitudes of 13,450 feet high in the Himalayas. Perhaps if cryptozoological studies were awarded that level of time and financing, something concrete to support the folk tales may eventually emerge.

The ONLY reason I didn't give this book a 1 rating is that it is well written. Other than that, it talks about all these occupancies of gigantopithecus and excludes all the oddities that surround the experience. It paints these giants as big apes and nothing to do with being advanced beyond our comprehension. By excluding such things as their apparent ability to go invisible and being telepathic, they research with true blinders on and do nothing for our understanding of Sasquatch. I would have to call it abhorrent!

Great book. I like the overview of giants throughout history in different cultures, locations and times. Well written and and flows nicely. Lots of interesting information.

Very interesting book and very informative!