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The Almas

stuneville said:
oldrover said:
..Skeptisism, doesn't equal disbelief so much as an attempt to employ critical thinking, and in this case for me that leads to the conclusion that the Almas doesn’t make any sense, in terms of a hominid or in terms of a great ape, all of which are confined to the tropics....
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Known great apes may be, but hominids aren't. Some of them have got as far as the moon.

Incidentally, when did hominids stop being part of the primate genus? Or is that just for the purposes of your argument?
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its an ad hominid argument.
 
The story about the almasty's hair has magical overtones, it is strongly reminiscent of fairy lore around the world. Similarly, G. Panchenko reported that he had come to the sheepfold where he would see a humanoid figure because an alma had reportedly tied a mare's mane. He observed that its mane had indeed been crudely knotted. An other common feature of fairy lore.
 
oldrover said:
..I don't quite understand the question about the hominids being primates though, can you show me where I looks like I'm saying that.
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You didn't - apologies if it seems that's what I was implying. I was wondering aloud if and when hominids ceased to be counted as higher primates for taxonomical purposes, as if both great apes and hominids are treated as part of a spectrum rather than distinct then the hominid vs ape identification discussion becomes less crucial to the overall debate regarding the actual existence of the Almasty (and other man-beasts.)

Analis said:
... G. Panchenko reported that he had come to the sheepfold where he would see a humanoid figure because an alma had reportedly tied a mare's mane. He observed that its mane had indeed been crudely knotted. An other common feature of fairy lore.
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Indeed, and there was a featurette on horse mane-braiding in the March 2010 FT (259, the one with Robin Hood on the front) wherein it mentioned the Bigfoot connection.
 
You didn't - apologies if it seems that's what I was implying. I was wondering aloud if and when hominids ceased to be counted as higher primates for taxonomical purposes, as if both great apes and hominids are treated as part of a spectrum rather than distinct then the hominid vs ape identification discussion becomes less crucial to the overall debate regarding the actual existence of the Almasty (and other man-beasts.)
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Actually I'll apologise, as re-reading my response it's really unclear. Hominids are classed as higher primates.
 
The chupacabra seems to be a catchall creature blamed for any odd aimal kills. Its description veries from a spiky backed beat to a hairless dog like beast and includes huge bat-like animals and kangaroo like things. I don't think it isa real specis but a milange of things. The spiky backed animal may refere to a new world porcupine.

As for the almasty i think it never used fire or advanced tools because it is adapted to a harsh mountain enviroment much like a bear is. It dosn't need fire. It's lack of tool use may be why it is marginalized now. I have thought long and hard about all this. I can't see a logical explanation other than the almasty being a real animal.
 
New world porcupines are vegetarians, are slow-moving, and don't live in Puerto Rico, where the spiky flying chupacabras reports originated.

The term "chupacabras" of course means "goat sucker," and originally was the shorthand term for "whatever critter is sucking the blood out of those goats." This being the case, and since the Puerto Rican reports were vague in the extreme, it came to be applied any time livestock were molested. The Texas blue dogs appear to have been labeled "chubacabra" on no grounds whatsoever; they aren't associated with mysterious livestock kills and don't resemble Central American and Carribean descriptions.

I am curious to know what Spanish-language field guides call the group of nightjars known as "goatsuckers."
 
Jon Downes has made a more detailed study of the chupacabra than any one else in the uk. He thinks that the Puerto Rico sightings refer to either an unkown species of new world porcupine or ones inported from South America. He has seen damage to plantains that look exactly like porcupine damage. Most of the Puerto Rican killings f small livestock he examined had been killed by mongooses, also imported.
Recently in Texas he has been investingating claims that the term 'chupacabra' was in use in the Hispanic community for far longer than any one thought and had been used to describe there hairless blue dogs.
 
He has seen damage to plantains that look exactly like porcupine damage. Most of the Puerto Rican killings f small livestock he examined had been killed by mongooses, also imported.
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Never been interested in the chupacabras, but that really is quite interesting.
 
Chupacabra never did much for me either but i think Jon might be onto something there.
 
Heavyweight Boxer hunts for "Russian Yeti"

To be fair I don't think I would like to meet either of them on a dark night....

Valuev leads search for 'Russian Yeti'

Fri Sep 09 12:40PM
Former world heavyweight champion Nikolai Valuev is to lead a hunt for a mysterious creature known as the 'Russian Yeti'.
The 38-year-old fighter - who lost his WBA title to David Haye in 2009 - is currently on a career break as he recovers from bone and joint problems.

But his health issues won't stop him from leading a two-day mission to Siberia to hunt down the animal also known as the Kuzbass Bigfoot, a strange, humanoid creature thought to live in or around the Shoriya Mountains.

The beast has been spotted dozens of times in the Kuzbass region of southern Siberia and has become something of a tourist attraction in the local area, with hotels and restaurants naming themselves after it. The mystery creature even has its own Twitter account, presumably set up by some bright spark at the local tourist board.

Valuev - who is, ironically, famous for his inhumanly large frame - has become so intrigued by the stories of the eight-foot, hair-covered monster that he is determined to find it.

"I would like to see firsthand what is going on," said the boxer, who has had all manner of injections and vaccinations ahead of his expedition to the remote region. "I'll draw my own conclusions once I've been there."

The first known traces of the Russian Yeti date back to 2005, when hunters found and photographed giant footprints in the snow.

Since then, the local council has been inundated with messages from hunters and hill walkers claiming to have spotted the beast.

And no doubt those imagined sightings will only increase when the 7ft, 23-stone Valuev is in the area.

Yet some remain sceptical of the boxer's chances of successly witnessing the creature. As one local put it, "Valuev might be about the same size as our Yeti, but I don't think it is going to come and see him because of that."
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Source Yahoo sport

Mr P
 
Two days...its the same old problem, there needs to be a properly founded expedition that can stay out in the field for months, but good luck to them.
 
Yes that was also what initialy caught my eye. Two days might not be enough to even spot known wildlife.
 
You're right, 2 days isn't enough for any kind of expedition.
Maybe it's just a publicity stunt or something to film for TV.
 
I feel it to be a pity that out of such material as comes to light about mysterious hairy bipeds in the former Soviet Union; a good deal of it has -- as with this item -- a farcical or mocking slant to it. To be regretted IMO, because there would seem possibly a good deal going on on this scene, in various parts of the ex-USSR: would venture to suggest, as much chance of there being something solidly real there, as with North America's Bigfoot -- perhaps more so.

It would seem likely that a decent amount of material in English on the subject, comes out of the ex-USSR -- a matter of bestirring oneself to hunt it down!
 
Scientists set off to find the abominable snowman

Radio wxcerpt at link.

Scientists set off to find the abominable snowman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15167866
4 October 2011 Last updated at 12:27 GMT Help

A team of Russian and American scientists will set off on an expedition this week to try to solve the mystery of the Abominable Snowman.

It follows a rise in Yeti sightings in the Kemerovo region, 3,000 miles (4828km) east of Moscow.

Jonathan Downes, the director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, which is dedicated to the study of unknown animals, talked about the mystical creature on Radio 5 live Breakfast.

To hear other 5 live highlights, please visit the Best Bits page.

Breakfast broadcasts weekdays 0600 to 0900 on Radio 5 live.
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In Siberia it would be the more man-like almasty rather than the true yeti but i'm a well known pedant!
 
I may have got this wrong; but I have the impression that, as well as the almasty, there have long been reports from various parts of Siberia, of sightings of giant bipeds (height well over two metres) corresponding quite well to the commonly-accepted Yeti / Bigfoot image.
 
That's what I heard too.

AM I'm still going through the info on JREF but annoying intrusion of new job keeps getting in the way.
 
oldrover said:
That's what I heard too.

AM I'm still going through the info on JREF but annoying intrusion of new job keeps getting in the way.
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Naughty, browsing from work! ;)
 
oldrover said:
AM I'm still going through the info on JREF but annoying intrusion of new job keeps getting in the way.
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Lots of crypto-interesting stuff on JREF, notwithstanding the basically "debunking" nature of the venue -- unfortunately, clogged up with lots of sheer rubbish as well.
 
amyasleigh said:
I may have got this wrong; but I have the impression that, as well as the almasty, there have long been reports from various parts of Siberia, of sightings of giant bipeds (height well over two metres) corresponding quite well to the commonly-accepted Yeti / Bigfoot image.
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No, that was just Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson on his regular visits home.
 
So many Yeti threads! Well, this one's in the right region...

Yetis 'do exist'
Yetis do exist and live in the Siberian mountains, according to a region that has found "indisputable proof" of the existence of the hairy beasts in an expedition, it has been claimed.
2:23PM BST 10 Oct 2011

The Russian coal-mining region of Kemerovo said in a statement on its website that footprints and possibly even hair samples belonging to the yeti were found on the research trip to its remote mountains.
"During the expedition to the Azasskaya cave, conference participants gathered indisputable proof that the Shoria mountains are inhabited by the 'Snow Man'," the Kemerovo region administration said.

The expedition was organised after Kemerovo's governor invited researchers from the United States, Canada, and several other countries to share their research and stories of encounters with the creature at a conference.

"They found his footprints, his supposed bed, and various markers with which the yeti marks his territory," the statement said. The collected "artifacts" will be analysed in a special laboratory, it said.

Yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, are hairy ape-like creatures of popular myth, that are generally held to inhabit the Himalayas.
But some believe Russia also holds a population of yetis, which it calls Snow Men, in remote areas of Siberia.

Kemerovo region's Shoria is a sparsely populated territory in Western Siberia that has historically been a territory of coal and metal mining.
The region, the administrative centre of Kuznetsk coal basin, has pursued the elusive Yeti for several years as it tries to develop tourism into its mostly industrial economy.

Considering the latest findings, the region may "create a special research center to study the Yeti" in the regional university and "create a journal" dedicated to the science of the Yeti, the administration's statement said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... exist.html
 
This thread, and the quite-recently-started one “Scientists set off to find the abominable snowman”, would seem closely to parallel each other, concerning current investigations in the Kemerovo region of southern Siberia.

Assorted material is featuring at present on the Net, from several American and British newspapers, re these doings. If my Internet skills were greater, I’d post links – but they’re not, so I won’t perpetrate likely damp squibs. A kind-of follow-on from rynner2’s above-given material: said follow-on, in the past day or so, from another British newspaper, not a favourite of some on this board – but here, the “organ” seems to me, in basically “harmless” mode. I quote henceforth:

“The researchers themselves were less keen than the officials to claim that the Yeti is definitely real. They stressed that the hair sample should be analysed for DNA – a process now underway – before any claims were made... Despite this, Dr. Igor Burtsev, leader of the international event... claimed it would not be long before people everywhere would appreciate the Yeti’s existence.

‘We are close to finally finding the Abominable Snowman,’ he said.

He claims around 30 Yetis live in the Kemerovo region, adding that they are Neanderthal men who have survived to this day.

It is clear that since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago there have been increased ‘sightings’ of Yeti, and it is claimed that more than a dozen villagers and hunters in this vast mountainous region close to the town of Tashtagol have given written accounts of either seeing the beasts themselves or finding their tracks.

There are also reports of the Yeti – claimed to be around 7ft-tall – stealing livestock from remote farms.”

Going off at a tangent – it’s decades since I read Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” – but I’m sure I remember Tashtagol being mentioned therein (though not in a cryptozoological context).
 
Two days does not constitute an expedition. Aparently Pat Spain of Beast Hunter only spent half a day at Gunung Tujuh according to our guide and he got a bleeding series!
 
New evidence for yeti in russia

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3933034/Bigfoot-Weve-found-the-best-evidence-Yeti.html

BIGFOOT hunters are hailing the strongest evidence so far to show that the legendary Yeti really does exist.

Experts discovered strangely twisted trees in a remote part of Russia, suggesting a creature building nests in the same way as orangutans and gorillas.

The trees had been twisted together by force to form an arch in the Kemerovo region, an area known for frequent sightings of the "Wildman".

Bigfoot experts from Russia, Canada, the US and Sweden met to swap notes at a conference in Moscow before mounting an expedition to Siberia.

Biologist John Bindernagel, 69, said: "We didn't feel like the trees we saw in Siberia had been done by a man or another mammal.

"Twisted trees like this have also been observed in North America and they could fit with the theory that Bigfoot makes nests.

"The nests we have looked at are built around trees twisted together into an arch shape."

The ape-like Bigfoot is usually said to live in forests of North America and Russia, but sightings have been reported in France.

A similar creature called the Yeti is said to live in the Himalayas.

Dr Bindernagel called on mainstream scientists to study the evidence, but said they were put off by "jokes and taboos".

He said: "I'm nearly 70 so time is running out for me."
 
Sightings in France ?? Other than the business mentioned in the "Indian Yeti Expedition" thread, of the bod's supposed (highly dubious) second-hand account of semi-domesticated not-really-wild-men in the French Alps, very many decades ago -- has anyone else heard anything?
 
Only the medevil wildman or woodwose. There are reports of almasty in eastern Russia but it is the closest they get. I think in times past almasty may have lived in parts of eastenr Europe and Scandinavia and have given rise to the legends of trolls.
 
I think there are parts of Asia and Siberia that are so remote that the creature could easily live unnoticed.
 
AM have PM’ed you.

This is a tourist draw made up to promote the area, but I still hope it works for their sake. Despite the fact that I’m convinced this is a hoax I think it’s a very important area to keep an eye on. As someone who thinks that it’s all a cultural phenomena I believe we can learn a lot about the whole man beast field from it. Especially as I think that it’s reasonably easy to rule out anything behind the claims right from the start.

As to why I think this is a blatantly manufactured event; firstly there seems to be more scientific detachment at a faith healing session, Dr Burtsev who seems to be running the show said

the Yeti — also known as Bigfoot and Sasquatch — is the missing link between Neanderthal man and modern human beings.
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http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fe ... -Yeti.html

So that’s the missing link between homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens neandertalis, the missing link between two subspecies close enough to interbreed and produce viable offspring and whose DNA we still carry in us. It’s like suggesting that a hypothetical ten inch hairy digit belongs between your fore and index finger. God knows this seems absurd to us but it seems that in Russia this suggestion sells.

After that Dr or not whatever he is doing it’s clear Burstev isn’t operating as a scientist. Of course that’s fine unless he’s trying to give his investigation an impression opf scientific process or scrutiny. Which of course he is, as that’s what the statement that ‘scientists’ are 95% convinced by the evidence they’ve been presented with was supposed to do. The truth according to Dr Meldrum one of the delegates at the event, as reported by Sharon Hill on doubtfulnews, is that that figure was arrived at and included in a pre prepared declaration drafted by an English professor from St Petersburg which was circulated among the delegates after a field trip where what he considered to be dubious evidence was produced. Meldrum refused to sign and now you can read Burtsev having a go at him in the comments section.

For a proper understanding of concerns Meldrum developed over the course of his visit, and to really put the claims into perspective there’s description of an address he subsequently gave at another conference over on doubtfulnews (http://doubtfulnews.wordpress.com/ go to American Bigfoot scientists and researchers felt hoodwinked by Russian Yeti event). It really is well worth a read, and puts the case into a new perspective.

Along with the Neandertal tag, another thing that smells to me and something that site highlights is the different spins put on it in its own country and abroad, by examining Russian sources. It seems the western press coverage is being quite selective in what it’s telling us. As with the Almasty, the Russian researchers seem to be selling one product at home i.e. inter-dimensional, weapon using, highly intelligent and capable of speech, typified by this;

He said: "We need to think about how to integrate the Yeti into society. Should they be treated as normal citizens? Should they be treated like animals? No, because they are more intelligent. There's a lot to think about here."
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http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fe ... -Yeti.html


Whereas overseas (or America to give it its proper name) as Bigfoot’s long lost cousin.

I’m not trying to make any comment on how valid either point is just that both are being reported at the same time according to the cultural preferences of their respective audiences. There’s nothing consistent here.

As I said I think this is a good chance to study how a myth can develop, to do that though I think we have to have a good idea what started it, what it was when it started and how it changes over time, we’ll see anyway.

By the way there are photos of the thing here;
http://www.10kanal.ru/news/13254.html
 
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