The rock apes in Nam used to throw rocks at us, thats why we were very careful with grenades, they would through them back!
When I heard the stories of the *Jungle People*, I showed Bounpheng the Patterson-Gimlin film. His exact response was, "Looks like same thing but ours not fat." He also said that often when his group was camping in mountainous regions, their sleep would be interrupted by rocks being thrown into their campsite.
There are also accounts of groups of them being mistaken for VC at night and drawing fire
...he quickly said that we saw Rock Apes all the time. Sometimes they would throw rocks at us. He described them as being brown in color and between four and five feet tall.
Was visiting with a neighbor the other day... he shared several encounters with an animal he called 'the ape'. Not gorillas or chimps or spider monkeys, these were slightly larger than a man, covered with a long black hair, and were reportedly very intelligent. When provoked, they attacked both the VC as well as our GI's, and they were apparently reasonably plentiful in country.
My neighbor was telling me the apes would occasionally sneak into camp and hideout in the latrine, actually killed a GI there, and then the squad went out and killed the ape - just buried it - no real curiousity about what it was - too busy trying to survive.
Next night the camp was attacked by rocks from the treeline which the guys assumed to have been a learned behavior - when the airstrip was being put in the GI's threw rocks to clear the Apes out the treeline. Of course we now know that rock throwing is an established behavior - but the whole story and how it came up was fascinating.
The Navy SEALs made regular contact with the Rock Apes in VN. We didnt bother them and they didnt bother us. If one was wounded by a mine the others hauled him away, no one left behind, that got our respect.
He stated that out of all the things that scared him in Vietnam, these "Rock Apes" were at the very top. He stated that from what he remembers, these apes were not overly large; about the size of a small adult. What he could not get over was how SMART and STRONG these animals were.
My uncle stated that throughout his tour, some soldiers had shot some of these animals; sometimes killing them and sometimes wounding them. He stated that a couple of times soldiers did this on purpose, but a couple of times it occurred by accident. My uncle stated that when a shooting occured purposefully, the animals' family/companions were able to remember exactly which solider killed or wounded an animal and would attack that exact solider at night in his sleeping bag. He stated that a couple of soldiers were ripped to pieces and a couple of soldiers were able to fend off the attacks, but were wounded badly. My uncle emphasized that the attacks only occurred, when the shooting was done intentionally. With that being said, my uncle firmly believes these animals were capable of at least 3 things, which involve fairly high cognitive abilities - the ability to remember another primate, the ability to plan, and the ability to determine intent. Finally, my uncle stated that he never got a REALLY good look at one of these things because they were for the most part very nocturnal.
...and, gathered up some physical evidence...