Sherpas guiding a
Japanese Everest Expedition are woken by a Yeti peering
into their tent .
. .
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Ever since European travelers began to explore
Tibet they have reported
legends of the huge ape-like creatures the locals called Metoh-kangmi, which
translates roughly as filthy or abominable snowman. Stories about strange
hairy man-like beasts reached Europe as early as the 15th century, but it was
not until the 19th century that the subject began to arouse interest in the
West.
In 1832,
a report from the U.K.
representative in
Nepal (B.H. Hodson)
described a hirsute creature who reportedly had attacked his servants. The
natives called the beast 'rakshas', which means 'demon'.
This appears to be the first report of the Snowman made by a Westerner.
More than half a century later, in 1889,
Major Lawrence Austine Waddell
of the
Indian Army Medical Corps, while exploring the
Himalayas, came across huge footprints in the snow at 17,000
feet; his bearers told him that these were the tracks of a Yeti, a ferocious
creature which was quite likely to attack humans and carry them off for food,
and that the best way to escape it was to run down the mountain, for this beast
had such long hair it would fall over its eyes and blind it when in their
pursuit going downhill.
Then, in 1913, reports surfaced that a group of Chinese hunters had
wounded and captured a hairy man-like creature, that the locals soon
named the "snowman". This creature was supposedly kept captive
in
Patang at
Sinkiang Province until it died five months later. It was
described as having a black monkey-like face and a body covered with
silvery yellow hair several inches long; it's hands and feet were
man-like and the creature was incredibly strong. It grunted and made
guttural noises, but mostly made loud whistling sounds. Incredibly, no
photographs were ever reported taken or produced from this incident.
A year later in 1914,
J. R. P. Gent, a British forestry officer stationed in
Sikkim, wrote of discovering footprints of what must have been a huge and
amazing creature.
Again,
in 1921, an expedition led by
Col. C. K. Howard-Bury (later Sir) climbing the North face
of
Mount Everest reported seeing a group of large creatures moving in
the snow at the
Laptha-La pass. Two years later another Mount Everest
climbing expedition, this time led by Major Alan Cameron, observed a
line of huge and dark creatures moving along a cliff face high above the
snowline. Pictures of the creatures' tracks were taken two days later,
when the expedition reached the area where they were seen.
In 1925 a Greek
photographer and member of the
Royal Geographical Society named
N. A. Tombazi glimpsed a creature he later described as "exactly like a
human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull
some dwarf rhododendron bushes." Tombazi, who was at about 15,000
feet up in the mountains on the
Zemu glacier, later reached the spot where he sighted the
creature, only to also find some intriguing tracks in the snow.
In Search Of... The Abominable Snowman (part 1 of 3)
Stray discoveries of extraordinary tracks, glimpses of unidentifiable
man-beasts and reports of bizarre attacks by alleged Yetis slowly increased
in the second quarter of the 20th century, but most Westerners believed that
the Snowman's true habitat was the realm of fantasy.
Then in November 1951, an
impressive report was made by British mountaineers and Everest explorers
Eric Shipton
and
Michael Ward (First
Everest Reconnaissance Expedition), who crossed the Menlung
Himalayan glacier and photographed
giant footprints at about 20,000 feet above sea level. The prints measured thirteen by eighteen inches,
and were described as
having three small toes and a huge big toe that seemed to be almost circular.
At the time the two climbers insisted
that the tracks looked like were made by a two-legged creature, and
certainly not a wolf or bear. However, tracks
left in snow tend to enlarge when exposed to direct sunlight, and this may
well explain many of the accounts of Snowman tracks, since smaller
tracks of native animals tend to spread under warmth. Ward and Shipton
could also have been influenced by their
Sherpa mountain guides, who
immediately identified the tracks as Yeti footprints.
Abominable Snowman hunts became the rage during the 1950s and 1960s, but
fell off when nothing turned up.
Although occasional reports
of tracks found and sightings made continued to trickle in throughout
the following years, they remained inconclusive. So, the mystery
surrounding the existence of this creature still persists.
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