YETI THE ABOMINABLE SNOW MAN

MYSTERY

Abominable Snowman or Yeti, legendary wild man of the Himalayas. Reports of sightings have come from Nepal (where the creature is known as Yeti) and from parts of China, Siberia, and other areas in Asia. Sightings have also been reported in North America, where the Abominable Snowman is called Bigfoot in the United States and Sasquatch in Canada. These creatures are said to be elusive; to be heavily built, apelike, hairy, and malodorous, with facial features resembling those of a human being; and to communicate by grunts, cries, or whistles.

YETI

The “wild man of the woods” is a familiar figure in folklore. References to such a figure include the Russian leshiy, Enkidu of the Gilgamesh Epic, Silenus and the satyrs in Greek mythology, and Grendel in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Contemporary reports of the Abominable Snowman, therefore, are regarded by some as little more than modern variations on an ancient mythological theme, and some sightings have indeed proved to be hoaxes. However, it has been argued that the widespread presence of these creatures in folklore indicates that they have actually existed since ancient times and may still inhabit remote regions of the earth. Some theorists propose that the sightings are of an unknown species of ape or of isolated surviving Neandertal specimens. Other theorists associate sightings of these creatures with the activity of extraterrestrial beings.Over the years, investigators have reviewed the local folklore of areas where sightings of the Abominable Snowman have been reported, collected casts of footprints, and devised schemes for the capture of the creature. The alleged physical evidence—footprints, body parts, and indistinct photographs—nevertheless remains ambiguous. In 1960 the renowned mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand undertook to investigate reports of the creature, including one made by the father of Tenzing Norgay, Hillary's Sherpa guide; Hillary found no evidence of it.

Skeptics doubt the existence of the Abominable Snowman and its counterparts because conclusive physical evidence has not been found. Also, because the sightings often occur in remote areas and from a considerable distance, the chances of mistaken identification are great. Skeptics interpret the Abominable Snowman sightings as a reflection of the modern fascination with the wild and the popular sense that a few pockets of wilderness remain in a world dominated by civilization.

Yeti

(Abominable SnowmanMigoi, Meh-teh et al.)

Grouping Cryptid

Sub grouping Hominid

Country Nepal, Bhutan,China, India, Mongolia, Russia

Region Himalayas

Habitat Mountains

The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid taller than an average human that is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal andTibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the 19th century.The scientific community generally regards the Yeti as a legend, given the lack of conclusive evidence,  but it remains one of the most famous creatures of cryptozoology. Analysis of samples associated with claimed yetis found a sequence of mitochondrial DNA that matched a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago.

EVIDENCE OF EXISTANCE

Purported Yeti scalp at Khumjung monastery

The "Abominable Snowman"The appellation "Abominable Snowman" was coined in 1921, the same year Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the joint Alpine Club and Royal Geographical Society "Everest Reconnaissance Expedition"which he chronicled in Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921.In the book, Howard-Bury includes an account of crossing the "Lhakpa-la" at 21,000 ft (6,400 m) where he found footprints that he believed "were probably caused by a large 'loping' grey wolf, which in the soft snow formed double tracks rather like a those of a bare-footed man". He adds that his Sherpa guides "at once volunteered that the tracks must be that of 'The Wild Man of the Snows', to which they gave the name 'metoh-kangmi'". "Metoh" translates as "man-bear" and "Kang-mi" translates as "snowman".Confusion exists between Howard-Bury's recitation of the term "metoh-kangmi"] and the term used in Bill Tilman's book Mount Everest, 1938 where Tilman had used the words "metch", which does not exist in the Tibetanlanguage and "kangmi" when relating the coining of the term "Abominable Snowman".[Further evidence of "metch" being a misnomer is provided by Tibetan language .

authority Professor David Snellgrove from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (ca. 1956), who dismissed the word "metch" as impossible, because the consonants "t-c-h" cannot be conjoined in the Tibetan language." Documentation suggests that the term "metch-kangmi" is derived from one source (from the year 1921).  It has been suggested that "metch" is simply a misspelling of "metoh".

The use of "Abominable Snowman" began when Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta, writing under the pen name "Kim",

 interviewed the porters of the "Everest Reconnaissance expedition" on their return to Darjeeling.Newman mistranslated the word "metoh" as "filthy", substituting the term "abominable", perhaps out of artistic license.As author Bill Tilman recounts, "[Newman] wrote long after in a letter to The Times: The whole story seemed such a joyous creation I sent it to one or two newspapers'".History.

Pre-19th centuryAccording to H. Siiger, the Yeti was a part of the pre-Buddhist beliefs of several Himalayan people. He was told that the Lepcha people worshipped a "Glacier Being" as a God of the Hunt. He also reported that followers of the Bön religion once believed the blood of the "mi rgod" or "wild man" had use in certain mystical ceremonies. The being was depicted as an apelike creature who carries a large stone as a weapon and makes a whistling swoosh sound.[28]

19th century[edit]In 1832, James Prinsep's Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgson's account of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan.An early record of reported footprints appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddell's Among the Himalayas.[29] Waddell reported his guide's description of a large apelike creature that left the prints, which Waddell thought were made by a bear. Waddell heard stories of bipedal, apelike creatures but wrote that "none, however, of the many Tibetans I have interrogated on this subject could ever give me an authentic case. On the most superficial investigation it always resolved into something that somebody heard tell of."[30]

Yeti caught on

camera trap

20th centuryThe frequency of reports increased during the early 20th century, when Westerners began making determined attempts to scale the many mountains in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks.In 1925, N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, writes that he saw a creature at about 15,000 ft (4,600 m) near Zemu Glacier. Tombazi later wrote that he observed the creature from about 200 to 300 yd (180 to 270 m), for about a minute. "Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes." About two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended the mountain and saw the creature's prints, described as "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide... The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped."

Western interest in the Yeti peaked dramatically in the 1950s. While attempting to scale Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took photographs of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft) above sea level. These photos have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Some argue they are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints are those of a mundane creature that have been distorted by the melting snow.[33]

Peter Byrne reported finding a yeti footprint in 1948, in northern Sikkim, India near the Zemu Glacier, while on holiday from a Royal Air Force assignment in India.[34]

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest. Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more skeptical about its existence.[35]

During the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition of 1954,[36] the mountaineering leader John Angelo Jackson made the first trek from Everest to Kanchenjunga in the course of which he photographed symbolic paintings of the Yeti at Tengboche gompa.[37]

 Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most of which were identifiable. However, there were many large footprints which could not be identified. These flattened footprint-like indentations were attributed to erosion and subsequent widening of the original footprint by wind and particles.

Dr. Biswamoy Biswas examining the Pangboche Yeti scalp during the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition of 1954

Foot print of a yeti from Himalaya

Rene Dahinden’s incredible picture of one of the Blue Creek Mountain prints of August 1967. It is regarded as the “best photo” in existence of a Bigfoot. left, a 13 inch model, which also turned up along with the 15 inch model above, at Blue Creek Mountain. It is noticeable for the groove in the ball of the foot. Wallace’s brother must have been helping him again with another pair of feet. Photo at right is called The Dahinden Print.

This is plaster cast of a footprint

 

World's Greatest Hoaxes.21st centuryIn 2004, Henry Gee, editor of the journal Nature, mentioned the Yeti as an example of a legend deserving further study, writing, "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth ... Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."The Yeti is said to have been spotted in the remote Mae Charim area of the Luang Prabang Range range, between the Thai Highlands and Sainyabuli Province, Laos.In early December 2007, American television presenter Joshua Gates and his team (Destination Truth) reported finding a series of footprints in the Everest region of Nepal resembling descriptions of Yeti.Each of the footprints measured 33 cm (13 in) in length with five toes that measured a total of 25 cm (9.8 in) across. Casts were made of the prints for further research. The footprints were examined by Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, who believed them to be too morphologically accurate to be fake or man made, before changing his mind after making further investigations. Later in 2009, Gates made another investigation during which he discovered hair samples. A forensic analyst concluded that the hair contained an unknown DNA sequence.On 25 July 2008, the BBC reported that hairs collected in the remote Garo Hills area of North-East India by Dipu Marak had been analyzed at Oxford Brookes University in the UK by primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells. These initial tests were inconclusive, and ape conservation expert Ian Redmond told the BBC that there was similarity between the cuticle pattern of these hairs and specimens collected by Edmund Hillary during Himalayan expeditions in the 1950s and donated to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and announced planned DNA analysis. This analysis has since revealed that the hair came from the Himalayan Goral.

Bigfoot(yeti) caught on camera

Pictures from 1967when roger Patterson went on a trip to get photos and a video

of the BigfootThis is said to be the Bigfoot

On 20 October 2008 a team of seven Japanese adventurers photographed footprints which could allegedly have been made by a Yeti. The team's leader, Yoshiteru Takahashi claims to have observed a Yeti on a 2003 expedition and is determined to capture the creature on film.A group of Chinese scientists and explorers in 2010 proposed to renew searches in Shennongjia province, which was the site of expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.At a 2011 conference in Russia, participating scientists and enthusiasts declared having "95% evidence" of the Yeti's existence. However, this claim was disputed later; American anthropologist and anatomist Jeffrey Meldrum, who was present during the Russian expedition, claimed the "evidence" found was simply an attempt by local officials to drum up publicity.A yeti was reportedly captured in Russia in December 2011.  A hunter reported having seen a bear like creature, trying to kill one of his sheep, but after he fired his gun, the creature ran into a forest on 2 legs. Border patrol soldiers then captured a hairy 2-legged female creature that ate meat and vegetation. The creature allegedly was more similar to a gorilla than a bear, but its arms were shorter than the legs (in contrast to a gorilla). It was about 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) tall. This was later revealed as a hoax, or possibly a publicity stunt for charity.

This photo is claimed to be of an yeti

Misidentification of Himalayan wildlife has been proposed as an explanation for some Yeti sightings, including the Chu-Teh, a Langur monkey living at lower altitudes, the Tibetan blue bear, theHimalayan brown bear or Dzu-Teh, also known as the Himalayan red bear.Some have also suggested the Yeti could actually be a human hermit.A well publicised expedition to Bhutan reported that a hair sample had been obtained which by DNA analysis by Professor Bryan Sykes could not be matched to any known animal.Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a Brown bear (Ursus arctos) and an Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus).In 1986, South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner claimed to have a face-to-face encounter with a Yeti. He wrote a book, My Quest for the Yeti, and claims to have killed one. According to Messner, the Yeti is actually the endangered Himalayan brown bear, Ursus arctos isabellinus, which can walk both upright or on all fours.The 1983 Barun Valley discoveries prompted three years of research on the 'tree bear' possibility by Taylor, Fleming, John Craighead and Tirtha Shrestha. From that research the conclusion was that the Asiatic Black Bear, when about two years old, spends much time in trees to avoid attack by larger male bears on the ground ('ground bears'). During this tree period that may last two years, young bears train their inner claw outward, allowing an opposable grip. The imprint in the snow of a hind paw coming over the front paw that appears to have a hallux, especially when the bear is going slightly uphill so the hind paw print extends the overprint backward makes a hominoid-appearing track, both in that it is elongated like a human foot but with a “thumb” and in that a four-footed animal’s gait now appears bipedal. This “yeti discovery”, in the words of National Geographic Magazine editor Bill Garrett, “[by] on-site research sweeps away much of the ‘smoke and mirrors’ and gives us a believable yeti”.

Possible explanations

This fieldwork in Nepal’s Barun Valley led directly to initiating in 1984 Makalu-Barun National Park that protected over half a million acres in 1991, and across the border with China theQomolangma national nature preserve in the Tibet Autonomous Region that protected over six million acres. In the words of Honorary President of the American Alpine Club, Robert H. Bates, this yeti discovery "has apparently solved the mystery of the yeti, or at least part of it, and in so doing added to the world’s great wildlife preserves"[such that the shy animal that lives in trees (and not the high snows), and mysteries and myths of the Himalayas that it represents, can continue within a protected area nearly the size of Switzerland.In 2003, Japanese researcher and mountaineer Dr. Makoto Nebuka published the results of his twelve-year linguistic study, postulating that the word "Yeti" is a corruption of the word "meti", a regional dialect term for a "bear". Nebuka claims that ethnic Tibetans fear and worship the bear as a supernatural being.[70] Nebuka's claims were subject to almost immediate criticism, and he was accused of linguistic carelessness. Dr. Raj Kumar Pandey, who has researched both Yetis and mountain languages, said "it is not enough to blame tales of the mysterious beast of the Himalayas on words that rhyme but mean different things."Some speculate these reported creatures could be present-day specimens of the extinct giant ape Gigantopithecus.However, the Yeti is generally described as bipedal, and most scientists believe Gigantopithecus to have been quadrupedal, and so massive that, unless it evolved specifically as a bipedal ape (like Oreopithecus and the hominids), walking upright would have been even more difficult for the now extinct primate than it is for its extant quadrupedal relative, the orangutan.

“I think this bear, which nobody has seen alive, may still be there and may have quite a lot of polar bear in it. It may be some sort of hybrid and if its behaviour is different from normal bears, which is what eyewitnesses report, then I think that may well be the source of the mystery and the source of the legend. ”

In 2013 a call was put out by scientists from the universities of Oxford and Lausanne for people claiming to have samples from these sorts of creatures. A mitochondrial DNA analysis of the 12S RNA gene was undertaken on samples of hair from an unidentified animal from Ladakh in northern India on the west of the Himalayas, and one from Bhutan. These samples were compared with those in GenBank, the international repository of gene sequences, and matched a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago. The result suggests that, barring hoaxes of planted samples or contamination, bears in these regions may have been taken to be yeti.Professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Cambridge Bill Amos doubted the samples were of polar bears in the Himalayas, but was "90% convinced that there is a bear in these regions that has been mistaken for a yeti". Professor Brian Sykes whose team carried out the analysis of the samples at Oxford university has his own theory. He believes that the samples may have come from a hybrid species of bear produced from a mating between a brown bear and a polar bear. Sykes told the BBC:

In popular culture

Artist Stanisław Szukalski's works all involve the Yeti; this involved painting, sculpture, and 2 books full of his artistic works: Inner Portraits (1980) and A Trough Full of Pearls / Behold! The Protong (1982). Szukalski also developed a philosophy known as Zermatism in which the Yeti play a central role, along with the Sons of Yeti ("Yetinsyny"), the half-breed offspring of Yetis and humans.Significant film appearances include The Snow Creature (1954), Half Human (1955), The Abominable Snowman (1957), One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975), Yeti – il gigante del 20. secolo (1977), Snowbeast (1977), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Yeti: A Love Story (2006), Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!(2007), The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon, (2008) Yetiko Khojima (Yeti; in search of Yeti, 2010). Rage of the Yeti (2011), Hotel Transylvania (2012) and Monsters University (2013). It will probably be in the upcoming 2015 film, Hotel Transylvania 2.The Yeti plays significant roles in some television shows, including the annual American Christmas broadcast special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, various Looney Tunes cartoons, Hugo the Abominable Snowman is a Yeti, the Lost Tapes episode "Yeti," "The Abominable Snowmen" (a six-part serial from 1967 in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who), The Secret Saturdays, Ugly Americans, and the TV film Abominable Christmas.In literature the Yeti has appeared prominently in many works, including Tintin in Tibet  by Hergé, in The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena by R. L. Stine and a gamebook in the Choose Your Own Adventure series.

YETI FROM THE MOVIE THE MUMMY 3

The Abominable Snowman is a superhero character in the Marvel Comics publications and the Snowman is a similar character in DC Comics.American heavy metal band High On Fire included their song "The Yeti" on their second album Surrounded by Thieves. Rock band Clutch have a track entitled "The Yeti" on their third album The Elephant Riders. A psychedelic trance collaboration called The Mystery of the Yeti, featuring many prominent names of the genre, was released on two albums between the years 1996...1999.Walt Disney World's attraction Expedition Everest is themed around the folklore of the Yeti and features a 25-foot-tall audio-animatronic Yeti which appears during the ride.[80] At Disneyland, a similar ride named the Matterhorn Bobsleds features three audio-animatronic Abominable Snowmen.Several video games feature yeti-like creatures as opponents in icy or mountainous levels. The video game Urban Yeti! features a yeti as the main character who undergoes a quest to find a mate in a human city. In Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, the frozen tundras of planet Grelbin are home to Yeti-like creatures (officially Y.E.T.I.) that attack Ratchet in his search for Moonstones. InSpyro: Year of the Dragon, one of the playable characters is a club-wielding yet eloquently-spoken yeti named Bentley. In Dangerous Hunts 2, the last enemy faced is a Yeti. The final mystery enemy from Carnivores: Ice Age is a yeti. In the Pokémon series, the Pokémon Abomasnow is loosely based on on a Yeti.

Is the mystery solved?STORY HIGHLIGHTS•Geneticist: Mystery samples from the Himalayas match an ancient polar bear jawbone•Professor is looking for evidence of unknown species that may be linked to humans•He invited people around the world to send in samples of mystery creatures for analysis•Tales of the mysterious Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, have fascinated generations(CNN) -- For centuries, tales of the Yeti, an elusive but terrifying creature said to roam the inhospitable Himalayan Mountains, have enthralled curious minds.Now, research by a leading UK geneticist may have unlocked the truth about the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, after hair samples from two mystery animals proved to be a genetic match to an ancient polar bear.Artist creates faces from DNA left in publicThe findings, to be explained in "Bigfoot Files," a documentary series on Britain's Channel 4 TV network, are the work of Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at Oxford University.He put out a worldwide call last year for people to submit hair or other tissue from "cryptids," or previously undescribed species, and collected more than 30 samples for analysis.Sykes' research focused on two samples in particular, both from the Himalayas but found about 800 miles apart, one in the Ladakh region and the other in Bhutan.

A footprint of Yeti, discovered near Mount Everest in 1951.

Lost 'Doctor Who' episodes recovered in NigeriaTo his surprise, testing found a 100% match with a polar bear jawbone from Svalbard, the northernmost part of Norway, that dates back between 40,000 and 120,000 years, according to a news release from Channel 4.What Sykes called an "exciting and completely unexpected result" casts new light on the Yeti legend, although it may not satisfy the legions of "Bigfootologists" around the world."There's more work to be done on interpreting the results. I don't think it means there are ancient polar bears wandering around the Himalayas," Sykes said.Scientists map DNA of prehistoric animal"But we can speculate on what the possible explanation might be. It could mean there is a subspecies of brown bear in the High Himalayas descended from the bear that was the ancestor of the polar bear. Or it could mean there has been more recent hybridization between the brown bear and the descendant of the ancient polar bear."Sykes' DNA testing forms part of the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project, which is also looking for genetic evidence of other mysterious creatures -- including the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, in the Pacific Northwest and the Almasty in Russia -- to study their possible links to humans.

Those who submitted samples to the project last year were asked to give a description of the material and details of where and when it was found, as well as their own opinion of its likely species type and the reasons for that view.Watson: 'DNA was my only gold rush'The analysis, which involves sophisticated DNA testing and comparison of the findings with a database of other animals' genomes, doesn't come cheap, costing about $2,000 for each hair sample.But it may finally allow scientists to pin down whether all those Yeti or Bigfoot "sightings" over the years -- often captured in blurred photos or shaky video footage -- are based on fact, mistaken identity or elaborate hoaxes.Chinese researchers to relaunch 'Bigfoot' search" 'Bigfootologists' and other enthusiasts seem to think that they've been rejected by science," Sykes is quoted as saying. "Now I think that's a complete distortion of what science is about. Science doesn't accept or reject anything. All it does is examine the evidence, and that is what I'm doing."Sykes has submitted the DNA results for publication in a peer-reviewed science journal and is also due to publish a book based on his research next year.

yeti

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