The yeti is part of the mystique of the snowy Himalayan Mountains. Said to live amidst the peaks and sporadically "seen" by explorers, the creature remains an enigma... but could something real be behind encounters?
- The Yeti, Metoh-Kangmi or Abominable Snowman: A brief history of the yeti
- The Legend of the Wild Man: Yeti-like creatures turn up in folklore far from the Himalayas
- The Yeti Sighting of 1986: It convinced quite a few scientists... for a time.
- Is There a Link Between Bear and Yeti DNA? Could yeti be a kind of bear?
- Could Blowing Snow Explain Some Sightings? Strange weather and pareidolia are a powerful mix
- The Ape from the Dawn of Time: Could this powerful prehistoric ape be the yeti?
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| Home of the yeti? (truthseeker08) |
The Yeti, Metoh-Kangmi or Abominable Snowman
Often described as standing taller than a man and weighing more than a professional wrestler, the yeti is said to be a big, bipedal ape-like creature ranging in color from white to black - in fact, it seems quite similar the American bigfoot or sasquatch.
Most reports of the creature come from the snowy Himalayan mountains, where strange markings left in the snow are said to be its tracks... though on occasion, people claim to have seen the beast with their own eyes.
The idea of an ape-like creature living on the slopes certainly has made people curious. In 326 B.C. Alexander the Great demanded the locals show him a yeti, but the locals were able to dissuade him by claiming it wouldn't survive the conditions below the snowline.
A common synonym for the yeti is the Abominable Snowman... but it turns out this was probably a translation mistake mixed with a bit of showmanship. Journalist Henry Newman spoke to the local Tibetans when covering the 1921 British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition - and they told him about a metoh-kangmi or man-bear snowman. Unfortunately this got translated as a "filthy snowman" which didn't sound like it would be interesting to a British audience... so Newman changed it to the "Abominable Snowman!"
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| Could bigfoot and yeti have a connection? (Jon Sailer) |
The Legend of the Wild Man
Ok, so it all sounds a bit far fetched, right? What lends a little bit of believability to the story is that more than one country has folklore about of some kind of human-like "wild man" - such as the sasquatch of America.
These tales usually involve some kind of large and hairy figure making a nuisance of itself by stealing livestock, taking animals from traps and fish from lines or, in some rare cases, attacking humans. Usually they end with the creature being tricked with drugged food or trapped... followed by being captured or killed by hunters. Naturally, the creature's downfall never seems to leave any hard evidence to support the tale!
The Yeti Sighting of 1986
Things changed for Yeti aficionados in 1986. Physicist Anthony Wooldridge reported sighting the creature on a solo trip through the Garhwal Himalayas of northern India, capturing both tracks and a distant image of the creature.
Lurking in the snow, the dark, hulking figure stood upright in a way that didn't look like the stance of an animal. Analysts declared the photograph genuine and high-profile researchers such as John Napier of the Smithsonian endorsed the image.
Unfortunately the researchers had missed one vital fact - though the photograph (and the intent of the photographer) was genuine, the subject was not. A subsequent expedition found the "yeti" in the same place and position - and in 1987 Wooldridge declared that what he had thought was a mystery creature had been a rock formation all along.
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| I wouldn't want to get too close... (sipa) |
Is There a Link Between Bear and Yeti DNA?
We may not have any real evidence for the existence of a yeti, but we do know of at least one large, furred predator found in the traditional home of the abominable snowman - the bear.
Researchers have found that some bears leave surprisingly humanoid-looking tracks as they walk. The gait of these bears puts their hindfoot partially over the print of their forefoot - the result is an overly-large but oddly human-like print, which may explain where yeti tracks come from!
It's also worth pointing out that the physical characteristics given to a yeti are not dissimilar to those of a bear - especially when you consider that bears can rear up on their hind legs. Some bears also look really strange when standing - for example, the sun bear looks more like a human in a costume than a real animal!
One theory put forwards to explain the yeti is that they could be the hybrid descendants of polar and brown bears. A geneticist claims to have found DNA matches between samples of "yeti" hair taken from all over the Himalayas and the jawbone of an ancient polar bear found in Norway.
We don't know what the behavior of such a hybrid might be, but they could potentially be more aggressive or given to bipedal movement that "normal" bears. We also know that polar and brown (grizzly) bears do occasionally breed in the wild!
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| Snowfields can trick the eye... (Wladislaw Sokolowskij) |
Could Blowing Snow Explain Some Sightings?
There's another possible source of yeti tracks hidden in the Himalayas - the weather!
Ok, that might need a little explaining. Snow isn't an incredibly stable surface (y'know, avalanches) and wind can create weird patterns and even movement in fresh falls. Snow sliding down from higher up the slopes could also create strange, unnatural-looking tracks or odd shapes moving in the distance.
So how weird can this get? I think the most bizarre examples out there are the "snow donuts" sometimes produced when snow falls onto a snowy slope in the right conditions and starts to roll. The moving lump picks up more snow as it goes, eventually producing a tire-like object and leaving a narrow track behind it!
I'll admit this one is far fetched, but it is worth considering how some incredibly unnatural looking things can be entirely natural in origin. Coupled with the human tendency towards pareidolia (seeing patterns where there are none) it might explain at least some "sightings" of the yeti.
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| Gigantopithecus may have looked like a huge orangutan... (Carel van Vugt) |
The Ape from the Dawn of Time
Here's yet another potential explanation for the yeti - that they are surviving examples of Gigantopithecus, a huge ape (and close relative of the orangutans) thought to have been extinct for 100,000 years.These primates would certainly cut an impressive figure - some estimates suggest they could reach a height of 10ft and weigh as much as 1100lb. A thick coat of reddish-brown fur covered most of their skin, which fits with at least some depictions of yeti. They also lived in the region that became southern China, putting them reasonably close to the Himalayan mountains.
There is a big problem with this theory though - if such a huge ape had survived extinction, we would have expected to see at least some spoor or remains. If they'd avoided contact by staying higher in the mountains than humans typically go, they would struggle to find enough food to maintain their large bodies.
If Gigantopithecus survives above the snowline, it has probably have changed a great deal from the original enormous beast. That said, finding a living Gigantopithecus would rock the scientific world as much as finding a yeti would!
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