Unsolved Mysteries and Amazing Facts of Yeti – The Abominable Snowman

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The search to find the Yeti can be traced back to the time of Alexander the Great, who in 326 BC set out to conquer the Indus Valley. Having heard stories of the Yeti he demanded to see one for himself, but local people told him they were unable to present one because the creatures could not survive at that low an altitude.

The first scientist to investigate the Yeti was German Professor Ernst Schaefer. Allegedly, he was employed by the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler to search for the Yeti in 1938 in the hope that it would turn out to be the progenitor of the Aryan race. Schaefer reached the conclusion that the Yeti was in fact the Tibetan bear.

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.
An early record of reported footprints appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddell’s Among the Himalayas.

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.

In the 1950s the Nepali government cashed in on the increasingly popular Yeti myth by issuing Yeti-hunting licenses priced at £400 per Yeti. To date no-one has succeeded in capturing a specimen dead, or alive.

Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan is a national park officially dedicated to preserving the Yeti.
The name ‘Abominable Snowman’ was coined in 1921 by journalist Henry Newman who mis-translated the Tibetan label Metoh-Kangmi, “dirty men in the snow”.
Mystery primates are reported from every continent except Antarctica. They include the Sasquatch of North America, the Yowie in Australia, the Yeren of China, the Hibagon in Japan, the Orang Pendek in Sumatra, the Almasty of Russia, the Ferles Mor in Scotland, and the Mapinguari of Brazil.

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, the Himalayan 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, or Tibetan blue bear, U. a. pruinosus, which can walk both upright or on all fours.

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