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The Yeti

Being a bit of a Disney-phile, I went through the "museum"
which is part of the queue for the Expedition Everest ride.

It has many actual photos and books that seemed to be
in a separate case from the ones made especially
for the ride's backstory.

The ride is good, but yeti that you encounter is the star --
it is at least 25 feet tall, fully animatronic and in motion.
Extremely well done!

One of the best moments was when we were
about to emerge from the "museum" and get into
the ride car. The last exhibit is a Disney Yeti footprint
about 5 feet across. One teen girl in front of me asked
"What made that?" and then quickly added, "Wait -- I don't
want to know!" She was seriously terrified... :lol:

TVgeek
 
Footprints seen around Mt.Everest stoke Yeti mystery
By Gopal Sharma
Fri Nov 30, 8:54 AM ET

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A U.S.-based television channel investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman, the company said on Friday.

A team of nine producers from Destination Truth, armed with infrared cameras, spent a week in the icy Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of Manju river at a height of 2,850 meters (9,350 feet).

One of the three footprints discovered on Wednesday is about one foot long, or is of similar size and appearance as shown in sketches of the mystical ape-like creature believed to live in snowy caves, the TV company said.

"It is very very similar," Josh Gates, host of the weekly travel adventure television series, told Reuters in Kathmandu after returning from the mountain.

"I don't believe it to be (that of) a bear. It is something of a mystery for us," said Gates, 30, an archaeologist by training.

Tales by sherpa porters and guides about the wild and hairy creatures lurking in the Himalayas have seized the imagination of foreign mountain climbers going to Mount Everest since the 1920s.
Several teams have searched for it and some have even claimed to have discovered footprints.
But no one has actually seen the creature nor has it been scientifically established that the Yeti exists.

Gates said the footprints on lumps of sandy soil, which would be sent to experts in the United States for analysis, were "relatively fresh left some 24 hours before we found them."

"This print is so pristine, so good that I am very intrigued by this," Gates, flanked by his team members, said adding the findings would prompt more investigation into the Yeti.

Destination Truth chronicles some of the world's notorious crypto-zoological creatures and unexplained phenomena.

Some local sherpas believe that the Himalayas are abodes of strange creatures and consider the Yeti as a protector while others say it is a destroyer.

"There is a kind of mysterious creature that lives in the Himalayas," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of Nepal Mountaineering Association in Kathmandu, who hails from the Khumbhu region were Mount Everest is located.

SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNew ... 0620071130
 
Yeti 'photo-fit' shows 'potentially explosive' evidence

"A British artist has produced what she calls a "photo-fit" of the Yeti based on "potentially explosive" new evidence of the elusive creature's existence.

Wildlife painter Polyanna Pickering was shown what is believed to be a 100-year-old yeti scalp at a remote monastery in the Himalayas.


The sketch was produced with the
help of eyewitness accounts


At least one expert believe it could be the most important proof yet that the giant apelike beast is more than mere folklore.

Ms Pickering was gathering material for a new exhibition in the remote Bhutan region of the Himalayas when she made her chance discovery - with a little help from David Beckham.

She said: "I was told this was from a Migoi - their name for the yeti. All I know is, it was bigger than any human or ape scalp I have ever seen.

"It had tufts of reddish-black fur coming out of it and was mounted on a pole and seen as a holy relic."

The scalp was housed in a part of the monastery closed to visitors.

"The sole occupant was a caretaker monk who got very excited when he found out we were English and he was a huge David Beckham fan and then ushered us through to the back."

Photography is banned in all such monasteries but Ms Pickering, 65, was able to make a rough sketch of the scalp.

She also produced a full sketch of the creature, based on scores of eyewitness accounts by indigenous people.

"I was amazed when they told me of regular sightings, close encounters and even tales of people being carried off by the Migoi," she said.

"Their descriptions were so detailed, I ended up doing this 'photo-fit' with them all sitting round telling me to alter this or how that should look."

Jonathan Downes, director of the Centre of Fortean Zoology, which studies mystery animals, said: "If this is true it is the most important zoological discovery in 70 years."

He added: "This is potentially explosive. If this scalp is authentic and has bone still attached, it will probably be the single most important zoological find since the discovery of the coelacanth."

Mr Downes said the discovery was unique because the scalp still had a portion of bone attached to it.

He said: "Other yeti scalps have been found before but this is the only one with bone attached. The others turned out to be man-made.

"Quite a lot of the Buddhist monks dress up as Yetis as part of their religious ceremonies and explorers mistook religious costume as Yeti scalps."

Experts believe if it does exist the Yeti is a likely descendant of a giant ape which lived in India and China about half a million years ago.

Ms Pickering's sketches form part of her new Land of the Thunder Dragon exhibition, the name the Bhutanese people give to their region.

She is transforming her gallery in the Derbyshire village of Oaker into a Himalayan temple for the opening of the exhibition, which opens on Monday June 9."

Source: http://tinyurl.com/65kp84
 
I'm not sure if this has already been mentioned earlier in the thread but I love Brian Blessed's theory about Yeti. He thinks the locals were actually seeing European mountaineers with their big bushy beards and wild hair who had become lost and a little crazed jabbering in a language they don't understand - I can see where he's coming from - If I saw Brian Blessed all wild eyed and dressed in tattered clothing coming towards me I'd probably run a mile!
 
I´m not that impressed by that British artists. So she has a sketch of a scalp, and a sketch of a yeti which doesn´t look that detailed. As she mentioned herself, the other scalps turned out to be fakes, the fact there is a bone there doesn´t make me that confident this isn´t. She couldn´t have taken a small DNA sample from it?
 
Japanese decorator goes to Himalayas in search of the elusive yeti
A Japanese decorator will set off from Tokyo on Saturday on an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the elusive yeti.
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Last Updated: 7:08PM BST 15 Aug 2008

Yoshiteru Takahashi, 65, claims to have seen a group of three yetis on his last visit to Nepal, in 2003, but maintains that the light quality during the evening sightings was too poor for him to take photographs.

This time - his fifth such mission - his seven-strong team is equipped with state-of-the-art motion-sensitive photographic equipment and they plan to position it along a ridge at an altitude of 4,800 metres in a range of mountains some 200 km from Kathmandu.

"The ones that I saw were small, around 85 cm tall, but it was getting dark and it was difficult to see them properly," said Mr Takahashi.

"I don't know what they are, but they appear to be some sort of hybrid of chimp or orangutang without a tail."

Mr Takahashi and his team plan to stay at their base camp for six weeks to catch a glimpse of a creature, which he described as "shy".

He traces his obsession with a creature that many believe is mythical to his first visit to the Himlayas, in 1971.

"I have climbed the Dhaulagiri (White Mountain) massif four times, and every time, I saw footprints of the yeti," he said.

"In 1971, one of my expedition members saw one of these creatures.

"It looked like a gorilla," he said. "It was only 15 metres away from him and watching for about 40 seconds," he said.

"It was about 150 cm tall and stood on its hind legs, like a man. Its head was covered with long, thick hair and he was certain it was not a bear or a monkey."

In another visit to the region in 1994, Takahashi discovered what he describes as a "bolt-hole," a natural cave that stretched back 5 metres into a rock face at 5,000 metres above sea level.

"Animals had definitely visited the cave and there were more of the footprints in the snow around the mouth of the cavern," he said.

Unfortunately, his camera failed and he couldn't record his find.

"The footprints that I saw were similar to the one photographed by British explorers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward in 1951," Takahashi said.

Found in the Gauri Shankar pocket, those prints were fresh when the mountaineers chanced upon them. The trail continued for nearly 2 km until it finally disappeared on hard ice.

"The ones I found were smaller and thinner, more like a human foot, with an arch between the heel and the toes," Takahashi said.

"There are no animals that leave that sort of track."

He says the creature is known locally as the "migou" or "bongamanche," meaning "man of the forest," and local people regularly bump into the species on their travels in the region.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2565641/Japanese-decorator-goes-to-Himalayas-in-search-of-the-elusive-yeti.html
 
rynner said:
Japanese decorator goes to Himalayas in search of the elusive yeti
A Japanese decorator will set off from Tokyo on Saturday on an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the elusive yeti.
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Last Updated: 7:08PM BST 15 Aug 2008

"I don't know what they are, but they appear to be some sort of hybrid of chimp or orangutang without a tail."
Click to expand...

Orangs and chimps have tails? ;)
 
rynner said:
...He says the creature is known locally as the "migou" or "bongamanche," meaning "man of the forest,"...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Fortean lexi-link - that's exactly what orangutan means (and yetis are often described as being more orang-like than anything else.) Interestingly in the report it's spelled orangutang, which means "man in debt".
sidhegyrl said:
..Orangs and chimps have tails? ;)
Click to expand...
I think he probably meant like chimps and orangs (and men in debt), it too doesn't have a tail.
 
'Oriental yeti' discovered in China
A creature dubbed the 'oriental yeti' is being examined by scientists after emerging from ancient woodlands in remote central China.
Published: 10:34PM BST 05 Apr 2010

The hairless beast was trapped by hunters in Sichuan province after locals reported spotting what they thought was a bear.

Hunter Lu Chin explained: "It looks a bit like a bear but it doesn't have any fur and it has a tail like a kangaroo."

"It also does not sound like a bear - it has a voice more like a cat and it is calling all the time - perhaps it is looking for the rest of its kind or maybe it's the last one?

"There are local legends of a bear that used to be a man and some people think that's what we caught," he added.

Local animal experts now plan to ship the mystery beast to scientists in Beijing who will perform DNA tests on the beast.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... China.html

Different photo here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/s ... 088318.ece
 
Looks like a mangy dog, nothing like a Yeti. Bit of a desperate story at first glance.
 
gncxx said:
Looks like a mangy dog, nothing like a Yeti.
Click to expand...
Nothing like a dog, with that tail!

But it's nice to know we have an expert on what a yeti looks like! ;)
 
Palm Civet, Large Spotted? Cant tell in that condition, poor bugger really needs some goats milk.
 
I think it's a civet cat.
Maligned, abused, and beleageured, the civet cat has an unknown future on many fronts.
Click to expand...
Poor little bugger. They are routinely abused in China. :cry:
 
rynner2 said:
gncxx said:
Looks like a mangy dog, nothing like a Yeti.
Click to expand...
Nothing like a dog, with that tail!

But it's nice to know we have an expert on what a yeti looks like! ;)
Click to expand...

Well, they don't call it the Abominable SnowCivet.
 
Well, they don't call it the Abominable SnowCivet.[/quote]

But I wish they would.
 
Anonymous said:
That scalp was a good counter argument. Many of the arguments seem to be about how these people "live in harmony with nature" and have accepted the yeti as a part of the fauna for hundreds of years. So if they can screw up like that, it doesn't lend much credibility to the rest of their stories.
Click to expand...
I don't see how you could mistake an antelope for a Yeti while scalping it... Seems like an intentional hoax to me.
 
Bernard Heuvalmans offers a good explanation for that, saying that the scalp is very old and was created for ceremonial purposes based on a real animal, and that over the years its become accepted or put forward as being genuine.
 
Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner claimed in his 2000 book My Search for The Yeti that the creature was nothing more than a brown bear. This is curious as on previous occasions he had claimed to have seen the yeti and described it as a primate-type animal.

I once interviewed the actor Brian Blessed, a renowned explorer and mountaineer himself, for a long defunct and not very good magazine called Quest. Blessed, who is a friend of Messner, said that he had told him of his encounter with a yeti. Blessed said that Messner had walked around some rocks and come ‘face to face’ with the creature. He said it was not a bear, was 7 feet tall, man-like and stood erect.

There are other occasions when Messner’s descriptions sound precious little like a bear. Julian Champkin of the Daily Mail 16th August 1997 wrote that Messner has… “encountered the yeti; and not once, but four times, once close enough to touch it. More importantly, he claims to have photographs of the creature, including a mother yeti tending her child, and a yeti skeleton”.
Needless to say none of his pictures have been forthcoming. Messner goes on… "I searched for a week, 12 hours a day, in an area with no trees," he says. "I didn't expect to find one so soon. First, we saw a mother with her child. I could only take a photograph from the back. The child had bright red fur, the older animal's fur was black. She was over two metres tall, with dark hair, just like the legend. When they saw us they disappeared."

Two days later, he claimed to have come across and filmed a sleeping yeti. The film is just as noticeable as the photos by its absence.

In an article relating to the BBC’s Natural World documentary on the yeti, Messner describes seeing one from a range of 30 metres in Southern Tibet. The article says Messner is sure it is some kind of primate. He describes it in the article thus… “It was bigger than me, quite hairy and strong, dark brown-black hair falling over his eyes. He stood on two legs and immediately I thought he corresponds to the descriptions I heard from Sherpas and Tibetans.”

So why did Messner write a book trying to explain away the yeti as a bear when this transparently was not the creature he claimed to have seen? Was it because of fear of ridicule? And what became of the photos and film? Was Messner trying to take the focus away from these or make them seem less important by saying the yeti was just a bear? Could this be because the film and photos did not exist?

Sherpas become angry when westerners say that the yeti is just a bear, and quite rightly. The animal they pick repeatedly as looking most like the yeti is the gorilla, but walking on two legs rather than four. The yeti has a flat, ape-like face. The yeti walks almost constantly on two legs. The yeti can manipulate things with its hands and hence must have opposable thumbs. It is said to sometimes hurl large rocks. Bears have none of the above features. The yeti is clearly some kind of primate, most likely a great ape.

Until he delivers the goods, I’m inclined to dismiss Messner’s claims.
 
'Yeti hand' replica to be returned to Nepal monastery
By Joanna Jolly, BBC News, Kathmandu

A pilot from New Zealand is in Nepal to return a replica of what some believe is the hand of a yeti to a remote monastery in the Everest region.
Mike Allsop will fly from Kathmandu to the Everest region on Friday to take the models to Pangboche Monastery, which sits at 4,000m (13,123ft).
The originals were stolen from the monastery in the 1990s.

They first came to light in the 1950s when an expedition to find the mythical yeti came upon the monastery.
Mr Allsop will also take with him a replica of a yeti skull-cap, which was also stolen in the 1990s.
"I will take these replicas back to the monks so they can replace the ones that were stolen," Mr Allsop told the BBC.

Peter Byrne, the leader of the 1950s expedition to find the abominable snowman, said that while the skull was probably made of goat or antelope skin, the hand did not match the skeleton of a human or a primate.

Experts who examined the 'yeti hand' could not conclusively prove what it was Mr Byrne managed to take one of the bones from the hand out of Nepal to his friend, the Hollywood actor James Stewart, who was on holiday at the time with his wife in Calcutta.
James Stewart's wife then placed the bone in her lingerie box and smuggled it into England where it was examined by a professor at Oxford University who said he could not conclusively say what kind of bone it was.

In the 1990s, an American television channel ran a documentary about the hand and skull. Shortly after, both were stolen from the monastery.

Mr Allsop said that he decided to make replicas of the hand and skull after trekking in the Everest region.
He approached the head of the New Zealand firm Weta Workshop, who were responsible for crafting the special effects and props for the Lord of the Rings films.
They agreed to make the replicas for free from photographs.

Mr Allsop has not yet told the monks in the monastery that he is returning with replicas of the hand and the skull.
He hopes that they will now be able to attract more trekkers to Pangboche, who will pay a small fee to see the artefacts.
"I want to help the monastery have an income again - I want to help them out," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13228780
 
Thats Paddington, that is.

Can you imagine the price such a hansome bear skin would bring at market?
 
Take a look at this item:
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/grant-uk.htm

The reason I bring it up is I was watching that BBC Alba news clip show again and it had another Fortean bit, from 1984. It was about a Scottish yeti enthusiast named Bill Grant, and in the footage he was preparing for a trip to the Himalayas for a try at tracking down an actual yeti.

I did a search to see how he got on, and there are a few mentions of him but nobody knows what happened to him, or if he ever succeeded (one assumes not). Anyone remember this guy? Did a yeti spirit him away?
 
DNA to shed light on yeti claims
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18160673

Believers in the yeti suggest it could represent a survival of creatures such as the huge ape Gigantopithecus

Related Stories

Experts solve Yeti finger mystery
'Yeti hand' is returned to Nepal

A UK-Swiss team will use DNA testing to investigate the origins of remains claimed to be from yeti and bigfoot.

The project will examine hair, bone and other material from a collection amassed by a Swiss biologist - and will invite submissions from elsewhere.

Many cultures relate legends of hairy, humanoid creatures that lurk in the wilds, rarely seen.

But material claimed to be from such creatures have never been subjected to modern scientific techniques.

"It's an area that any serious academic ventures into with a deal of trepidation... It's full of eccentric and downright misleading reports," said Prof Bryan Sykes, from Oxford University.

The researchers will apply a systematic approach and employ the latest advances in genetic testing, aiming to publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

"There have been DNA tests done on alleged yetis and other such things but since then the testing techniques, particularly on hair, have improved a lot due to advances in forensic science," the Oxford geneticist told Reuters news agency.

Modern testing could get valid results from a fragment of a shaft of hair, added Prof Sykes, who is leading the project with Michel Sartori, director of the Lausanne Museum of Zoology.

'Eyewitness reports'
A 1951 expedition to Mount Everest famously returned with photographs of giant footprints in the snow, fuelling speculation about giant Himalayan creatures, unknown to science.

Since then, many eye-witness reports of such creatures have emerged from remote regions of the world.

These humanoid beasties are variously known as the "yeti" or "migoi" in the Himalayas, "bigfoot" or "sasquatch" in North America, "almasty" in the Caucasus mountains and "orang pendek" in Sumatra, but there are many others.

Tests up to now have usually concluded that alleged yeti remains were in fact human. But, said Prof Sykes, "there has been no systematic review of this material."

The project will focus on an archive of remains held at the Lausanne museum that was assembled by Bernard Heuvelmans, a Swiss biologist who investigated reported yeti sightings from 1950 up to his death in 2001.

Other institutions and individuals will also be asked to send in details of any possible yeti material.

Aside from the yeti question, Prof Sykes said he hoped the project would add to the growing body of knowledge on the interaction between different human species in the past.

"In the last two years it has become clear that there was considerable interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals ... about 2% to 4% of the DNA of each individual European is Neanderthal," he said.

Those who are favourable to the idea of as-yet undescribed creatures say the yeti and orang pendek could represent survivals of Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis (the Indonesian "Hobbit") or Gigantopithecus - a giant ape that once inhabited the forests of East Asia. The idea has even spawned the term "cryptozoology" to describe the search for such beasts.

Others are highly sceptical of such tales, and consider the subject unworthy of serious scientific investigation.

Asked about the project's chances of success, Prof Sykes said: "The answer is, of course, I don't know," adding, "it's unlikely, but on the other hand if we don't examine it we won't know."
Click to expand...
 
So there is an Archive of alleged material.

Collected by Helvumans, no other?

This in itself is fastinating.
 
Sergeant_Pluck said:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2148112/Oxford-University-project-starts-hunt-Yeti-using-DNA-samples-world.html

Blimey - even the Daily Wail have got hold of this one!
Click to expand...

BNP Say:

Flood of immigrant Yetis will swamp Yeovil.
 
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