Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

Yeti of the Himaaya Mountains

Deep in the Himalyas lives a mythical creature know around the world as the Yeti. The word Yeti translated from Tibetan means “animal of the rocks,” and for centuries that is where sightings of the Yeti have taken place, among the rocky outcroppings of the mountains of Tibet and Nepal.

The first reliable account of the Yeti was reported by a photographer who was working with a British Geological expedition in 1925, N.A. Tombazi. Though the creature was over one-thousand feet away, he was able to describe the animal in detail.

“Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright…It showed up dark against the snow and, as far as I could make out wore no clothes.”

There was no photographical evidence captured, but Tombazi did find footprints that resembled human prints with five toes and an instep perfectly clear. As more sightings of the Yeti came to his attention over the passing years, Tombazi wondered more and more if he had in fact seen the creature himself.

In 1951, Eric Shipton and Michael Ward captured photos of what some would call the best physical evidence to support the existence of the Yeti to date. They were able to photograph tracks that were thirteen inches wide and eighteen inches long, and the scientists who viewed these photos could produce no known creature that could have possibly left those tracks. The skeptics felt that these surely were the tracks of a red bear or languar monkey. However, the tracks are undoubtedly that of a biped, and the animals held up as alternative possibilities usually walk on all four feet.

Professor Frederic Wood Jones was given the task in 1954 of examining, scientifically, specimens that had been gathered from a Yeti scalp found in the Pangboche monastery. The hairs were examined on a microscopic level and compared to nimals indigenous to the region, such as bears. Jones did prove that the hairs were most likely not taken from the scalp, but from the shoulder of an animal. He was unable to identify the animal, but felt certain that that they were not from a bear or ape.

2009 Bigfoot Sighting

There have been sightings in this new century as well. In 2008, Yoshiteru Takahashi photographed potential Yeti footprints and claims to have seen the Yeti itself. As recently as August 29, 2009 Piotr Kowlaski claimed to have filmed what he believes may have been a Yeti. The Nautilus Foundation is currently reviewing the tape.

So why is it in this era of technology and science that we still do not have irrefutable proof of the existence, or nonexistence, of creatures such as the Yeti? Henry Gee, who is the editor of the journal “Nature” believes that creatures such as the Yeti deserve further study. “The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth.” Science is discovering the truth of things once believed to be beyond fantastical, so it may only be a matter of time before the truth of the “Abominable Snowman” is revealed.

© 2009, Captain Ahab. All rights reserved.