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Part six

The Abominable Snowman

What is the Abominable Snowman?

The Abominable Snowman is the famous wild man of the Himalayas. But is it simply a legend or is it real? Scientists have done extensive research on the Abominable Snowman, but they still cannot prove that it really exists. Could it be the descendant of a prehistoric creature, or is it just a myth?

Similar creatures have been seen hundreds of times in the United States, Canada and Australia as well as Asia. The Abominable Snowman has different names around the world.

Here is a description of the Abominable Snowman:

It is about 2/5 metres tall.

It looks like a big, primitive man with a lot of reddish-brown hair.

It walks on two feet.

It’s facial features are half human and half ape.

It has a strong smell.

It usually lives in high mountains or in big forests.

The Yeti

Zoologists first heard about the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, in 1832, when the English explorer B. H. Hodgson wrote about his experiences in Nepal. He said that one day in the mountains his Sherpas had seen a strange creature with long, dark hair all over its body. They thought it was a demon and ran away in terror. The Sherpas believe that the Yeti exists and that it carries humans away.

About fifty years later, a British doctor who worked with the Indian Army Medical Corps found giant footprints at an altitude of 5,000 metres in the Himalayas. ‘They must be the footprints of a Yeti!’ his guide told him.

In 1921 a British expedition led by Colonel C. K. Howard-Bury was attempting to climb Mt Everest. When the members of the expedition reached 5,200 metres, they saw a group of dark creatures in the mountains above them. They continued climbing and discovered huge footprints. The Sherpas immediately said that they were the footprints of the Yeti or Metokangmi. The Tibetan word Metokangmi means ‘disgusting snowman’, but a journalist used the term ‘Abominable Snowman’ in a newspaper article, and the term remained. After this the legend was born, and people everywhere wanted to know more.

Eric Shipton, a well-known mountain climber, photographed some Yeti footprints while on an expedition in Nepal in 1951. The photographs showed a strange footprint that was 33 centimetres long.

In 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt Everest, found giant footprints on his way to the top. ‘We discovered many tracks on the Ripimu Glacier at 18,000 and 19,000 feet and our Sherpas were quite convinced that they belonged to the Yeti,’ he reported. Hillary returned to Everest on several occasions to look for the Yeti, but without success. In 1960 he brought back two skins and a scalp from Nepal, which he said was from the top half of the skull of a Yeti. But scientists said that the skins and the scalp belonged to a mountain goat which lives in the area.

Scientists and explorers began to show a serious interest in the mystery of the Abominable Snowman. In 1958 the Soviet Academy of Sciences sent a group of scientists to different parts of Asia where Yetis had been seen. After some time they concluded that some kind of primitive creature lives in the high mountains of Asia.

The Wildman

The Chinese call the Abominable Snowman the Wildman. In 1977 China’s Committee for Research on Strange and Rare Creatures sent a group of scientists on a year-long expedition to discover the mystery of the Wildman. The scientists found some reddish hairs that they said belonged to it. The hairs were studied under an electronic microscope. According to one report, half of the samples of hair were found to be different from human hair, and they did not correspond to any animal living in China.

The Chinese scientists concluded that the Wildman exists, but not all scientists agree. Some believe that the Wildman is a descendant of a great ape known as Gigantopithecus, which lived in southern China 500,000 years ago.

Bigfoot

In North America the legend of Bigfoot or Sasquatch continues to interest many people. People say they have seen these creatures on hundreds of different occasions.

Centuries ago, Native Americans painted images of the Sasquatch on their totem poles and masks. It seems they knew of the existence of this creature.

In 1893 the famous American President Theodore Roosevelt wrote about Bigfoot in his book The Wilderness Hunter. He reported that two hunters had seen the creature and described it as having ‘a great body with a strong wild beast odour.’

In 1958 a builder was working on a new home near Bluff Creek in northern California. Suddenly he saw a strange hairy creature standing in front of him. The creature did not want to hurt him. It was only very curious and followed him around. After some time the builder gave the creature a big piece of chocolate and it finally left.

At Bluff Creek in 1967 Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, two mountain rangers, were riding in the forest. Suddenly they saw a large creature that looked like a Bigfoot. Roger Patterson was able to film the hairy creature, and his film became famous all over the world. He also took photographs of the creature’s huge footprints, which measured about 30 centimetres.

Scientists and other experts have studied Patterson’s film and some say it is a fake. But others disagree. Professor Grover Krantz, an anthropologist from Washington State University, believes the Bigfoot exists and thinks the film is authentic.

In 1982 Forest Ranger Paul Freeman, who worked in Washington state’s Umatilla National Forest, saw a 2/6 metre creature and was able to photograph its footprints. Scientists who studied the footprints said that they did not belong to a bear or to another animal. Therefore, it is possible that they belonged to an unknown creature - a Bigfoot.

The Yowie

In Australia the Bigfoot is called the Yowie. It is very similar to the Bigfoot, with a height of around 2/5 metres and thick black or brown hair all over its body. According to legends told by the early Aboriginal people, the Yowie can be found in South-eastern, Central and Northern Australia.

The first written reports of the Yowie go back to the 1800s, when a story about the creature appeared in an Australian newspaper. It described how several people had seen a large, ape-like animal taller than a man.

In 1971 a Royal Australian Air Force helicopter landed on top of the remote Sentinel Mountain with a team of explorers. Much to their surprise, they discovered fresh footprints in the earth. They were much larger than human footprints, in a place where no human could possibly be present.

In May 1981 three young people saw two Yowies in the hills of New South Wales. They were about 1/5 metres tall, walked on two feet, and their body was covered with long brown hair.

Australian scientists confirmed that about 10,000 years ago primitive humans lived in the Kow Swamp area north of Melbourne, and perhaps some survived. Could the Yowie be one of them?

A Mystery Explained?

Today a special branch of science studies animals that have not yet been discovered. It is called cryptozoology (from the Greek word ‘kryptos’ meaning ‘hidden’).

Cryptozoologists collect reports from people who have seen the unknown animal, create a picture of it, and then try to find it in nature.

In the past, cryptozoologists have discovered strange animals that no one believed existed, such as the pygmy hippopotamus and the giant panda.

And what about the Komodo dragon, which is 3/6 metres long, or the Chacoan peccary, a pig-like creature that scientists thought had died 2 million years ago? These animals were discovered in the twentieth century.

Will the Abominable Snowman belong to this group of animals one day? Will we ever know what is hiding in the mountains?