By Tim Binnall
An Argentine doctor has come forward with a remarkable story wherein one of his patients claimed to have encountered the country's version of Bigfoot, known as the Ucumar, and actually shot the legendary creature. Sharing the compelling account with a local media outlet, Dr. Juan Carlos Giménez indicated that he was preparing to perform an electrocardiogram on a man who had a particularly hairy chest. As he attempted to find a way to attach the electrodes, he jokingly likened the patient to a yeti and then mused, "no, better, the Ucumar. That is ours." To Giménez's profound surprise, the man replied "you know, doctor, I know that critter."
Intrigued by the patient's curious claim, Giménez asked him what the creature was like. The man responded, "it is like us, doctor, but small, hairy, clumsy in his walk, moving on both feet, [and] emits guttural sounds." The patient continued by noting that the Ucumar could easily climb trees, where it is particularly agile and able to escape from people who encounter it. Now riveted by what he was hearing, Giménez inquired about when the patient saw the creature. The man recounted how, when he was younger, his older cousin invited him on a hunt for the elusive beast, which he had blamed for decimating a friend's crops.
The duo and some dogs went into the Argentine mountains in search of the mysterious bipedal creature, the patient recalled, and initially had no luck in locating it. However, after exploring for a long time, the animals began growing agitated and, set loose by their owner, approached a cedar tree. Perched in a branch was what the patient likened to "a monkey or a medium bear with some white dark circles" (depicted below). The man's cousin subsequently shot the creature, and it plummeted to the ground. "The dogs pounced" on the downed Ucumar, the patient said, leaving only "pieces of something hairy with limbs" by the time the two men arrived at the spot. Looking back on the conversation, the doctor marveled that "I was very impressed by the story and, almost shaking."