COUNTRY FILE · ASIA & THE MIDDLE EAST
Cryptids of Vietnam
What cryptids are in Vietnam? The best-known is Batutut (Người Rừng).
Vietnam’s great cryptid is the người rừng, the “forest people” – hairy, upright beings that highland communities of the Central Highlands and the Annamite (Trường Sơn) Range have long described, each under their own names. During the Vietnam War, soldiers on both sides swapped stories of “rock apes” in the mountains, and in 1974, as the war drew towards its end, the North Vietnamese government sent scientists into Gia Lai–Kon Tum and Đắk Lắk to investigate. In April 1982 a team found and cast a 29-centimetre footprint on Mom Ray mountain, and that same year the forest was set aside partly to protect the creatures; it is now Chư Mom Ray National Park.
Cryptids reported in Vietnam
The legends of Vietnam
The idea that something large could still hide in Vietnam’s mountains is not as far-fetched as it sounds. In 1992 scientists working in Vũ Quang, on the Annamite border with Laos, described the saola – a forest-dwelling bovine entirely unknown to science – and the same range soon yielded new species of muntjac deer. Few places on Earth have produced so many surprising large-mammal discoveries in living memory.
Vietnam’s waters have their own legends. Hạ Long Bay, whose name means “descending dragon”, was the scene of sea-serpent reports by French naval officers aboard the gunboat Avalanche in the late 1890s, and Hanoi’s Hoàn Kiếm Lake – the “Lake of the Returned Sword” – is tied to the story of a golden turtle that reclaimed King Lê Lợi’s magic sword. The lake’s real giant softshell turtle, revered as Cụ Rùa (“great-grandfather turtle”), died in January 2016 and was preserved for display.
Hotspots
Mountain forest in the former Kon Tum province, protected in 1982 partly because of the wildman footprints found there.
Upland forests where the 1974 government search for the forest people took place.
Annamite forest where the saola, one of the 20th century’s most startling zoological discoveries, was found in 1992.
UNESCO-listed bay of limestone islets, named for a descending dragon and the scene of French sea-serpent reports.
City-centre lake of the legendary sword-returning turtle; its last giant turtle died in 2016.
Sightings timeline
- 1960s–1970sThe ‘rock apes’ of the Vietnam War Batutut (Người Rừng)
US troops on long-range patrols near the Laos and Cambodia borders described upright, ape-like creatures and stone-throwing ‘rock apes’. The stories were later gathered by veteran Kregg P. J. Jorgenson.
Latest from Vietnam
No recent cryptid headlines from Vietnam. See all the latest cryptid news.