Much of what we think we know about the yeti, also called the abominable snowman, is wrong. For one, the yeti does not have white fur. He would be better described as being a man-bear rather than a snowman. The yeti are also small in stature and look nothing like the man-monsters portrayed in the movies and in cartoons.
When we strip away what we have been told about the yeti and read early firsthand reports about the creature, it is easy to see that there just might be a yeti primate roaming wild among the snow-topped mountains of the Himalayas.
Unidentifiable Tracks
Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand climber, was on an expedition in the Himalayas in 1954 when he and other members of his team spotted “certain unidentifiable tracks.” When he made inquiries as to what the tracks belonged to, he was told by his Sherpa porters that they were the footprints of the yeti.
Sir Edmund, not wanting to make a positive identification, merely said, “My own attitude to the yeti is: since there are tracks, some strange animal exists, but what it is I do not know.”
The expedition explored eleven previously unclimbed peaks, all of them over 20,000 feet. To say that there might have been some previously unfound creature living in such remote areas is plausible, but whether it was the yeti who made those prints or not will never be known for certain.
By 1960, Sir Edmund publicly announced that he did not believe in the yeti after he and his party were allowed to examine a yeti scalp loaned to them by villagers in Nepal. [SOURCES 1, 2]
The Search Was On
After the word got out about Yeti tracks, adventurers from all over the world became excited about the possibility of finding the yeti. The tracks made the creature more real in the imaginations of educated men that many began to make plans to either capture a live yeti or capture it on camera.
An Australian-American expedition arrived in Nepal in 1958 with the hope that they could make a film record of the yeti in its natural environment. Financed by Tom Slick, a Texas oil millionaire, the group explained that they had “no desire to capture, shoot or injure the Yeti in any way.”
The 1958 group failed, but in 1959, Godwin Spani, an Italian journalist, was in the Himalayas when he claimed to have captured a photograph of a yeti. According to him, “I came out of my camp and observed a monkey about 6 ft. tall, covered in hair except for its face, which very much resembled a man.”
Instead of publishing the photograph for the public, he sent it to the Italian Government. [SOURCES 3, 4]
Give Yeti His Nicotine Fix
Carroll, the head of a U.S. expedition in search of the yeti in 1959, got creative with his plan to capture a living yeti. Carroll firmly believed that the yeti was an anthropoid ape.
Since there was nothing remotely magical or mythical about the yeti, as far as he was concerned, he planned to capture it like one would any other sort of animal.
First, he prepared nicotine-filled syringes for the air gun and planned to tranquilize the yeti on sight. He also had a special net made that allowed fresh fruits to be sewn onto it. These fruits, he was certain, would attract the ape-like creature and allow him to bring it back to the U.S. alive and unharmed.
As we all know, the expedition was unsuccessful. [SOURCE 5]
A Primate
Don Whillans, a British mountaineer, saw the yeti for the first time through a telescope one night in 1970. It was a full moon and there was enough light for him to see the outline of a figure at an elevation of 12,500 feet.
According to his account, “All of a sudden it went right across the hillside for half a mile. Its movements seemed ape-like, moving on all fours and going sideways just like a monkey.”
Whillans spotted the yeti a second time and even tracked its footprints. He was convinced that the creature was not a type of human, but a simple primate that had yet to be discovered. [SOURCE 6]
Teenage Girl Attacked
There was yet another yeti sighting in 1972 when two members of a Japanese climbing expedition saw a small figure in the distance high above them.
After that sighting, there was a two-year yeti drought until a 19-year-old yak herder was knocked out by a yeti.
According to the report she gave the Himalayan officials in Kaumbu, she was watching over her yaks as they were grazing. Suddenly a yeti knocked her out. When she regained her senses she saw the yeti “kill five of her yaks by twisting their horns.”
The young woman described the yeti as being 4 to 5 feet tall. It had brown hair above the waist and black hair below it. She said that it alternated between walking on two legs and all four limbs, like a primate. [SOURCES 7, 8]
People With Large Deformed Feet
There were many reports of yeti footprints from the 1950s to the 1970s, including one report in 1974 of two side-by-side sets of yeti tracks. Discovered by Polish mountaineers, the one set of prints was smaller than the other set. It was assumed that this was proof of a yeti couple.
By 1976, John Blashford-Snell, a British explorer, had his own theory about the yeti tracks. The ex-army major said he had seen large footprints on Mount Everest. When he returned to a nearby village and asked about the tracks, he was told that they had been made by a holy man.
The holy man apparently had a “hereditary deformity of the feet with very big toes” that stuck out awkwardly. Other people of the area also had this deformity and were the ones who were making the odd snow tracks. [SOURCES 9, 10]
The Russian Yeti
Could the yeti be found in other countries? Yes, according to many cryptozoologists, and sometimes these other yeti are mentioned in the newspapers.
One of the more fascinating yeti sightings comes out of the mountains of eastern Siberia, with a climate similar to that of the Himalayan mountains. According to the people of Yakutsk in 1976, their yeti is over 9 feet tall and wears reindeer skins. It also runs fast and hunts with fashioned weapons.
The local people called the creature “Tshutshunaa” meaning outcast, and it more closely resembles a human rather than the primate appearance of the Himilayan yeti. [SOURCE 11]
Interviews With Sherpas
Sherpas were interviewed by a Melbourne film crew back in 1979 for a documentary about Nepal. Three of them claimed they had encounters with the yeti in the recent past.
While they each had interesting stories to tell, one said that he was forced to fight off a yeti with an icepick. The yeti had been after his yaks and the Sherpa, reliant on his herd, had no other choice but to protect his animals.
Those who had seen the yeti were interviewed separately and the crew felt that there was no way these men, each from a different area, could have planned out their yeti tales. The men described the yeti as being about 4 feet in height, with light hair on top and darker hair below. The yeti’s head was pointed on the top and it had long arms, like a primate.
The film crew did not doubt the men’s strong belief in the yeti. The producer said, “They are quite frightened of them and cannot be encouraged to go out and look for them.” [SOURCE 12]
Yeti’s Descent Into Woowoo
Andrzej Zawada, the leader of a Polish climbing expedition in 1980, was well aware of the yeti lore before climbing Mount Everest. In fact, he had endured friendly jokes about the yeti and had pushed them aside as hogwash.
Imagine his dismay when some of the people on his expedition contacted him to report strange footprints. Not wanting to believe it, he sent the team’s doctor to check out the tracks and settle the issue.
Unfortunately, the doctor reported back on the radio telephone that, “Yes, really they are.”
It is easy to understand why this discovery made Zawada uncomfortable. People were making some outrageous claims about the superpowers of the yeti.
For example, as Zaman Mohammad Khan was watching over a sheep farm in 1987, he claimed that he heard a strange voice in the night “calling names of people.” It was attributed to the yeti.
Again, numerous reports were coming in that villagers were hearing odd noises and nocturnal screams that frightened them. Nothing could be proved, but the sudden noises were all blamed on the creatures on the mountains. [SOURCES 13, 14]
UFO Phenomena
A group of Ukrainian researchers first spotted a yeti in 1987 at the Gissar Range near the Afghanistan border. Then, in 1988, they came within 35 meters of another yeti in the Pamir Mountains.
There were no reports of any fantastical powers, voices, or strange lights in the sky, but the team treated the sightings with the objective interest of educated professionals.
Sadly enough, the yeti have been somehow linked with UFO sightings, such as in Arthur C. Clarke’s book, “Mysterious World.” Some authors have gone as far as to claim that the yeti are supernatural creatures or that they are psychic beings.
All of these claims take away the scientific value of the possibility of an undiscovered primate living in the mountains of the Himalayas. [SOURCES 15, 16, 17]
