The Yeti, a bipedal hominid, is said to inhabit the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal and Tibet and has been a part of local legend for centuries. Western interest peaked in the 1920s and 1950s due to expeditions and alleged evidence, but sightings may be misidentifications or speculation.
Like the Bigfoot of North America, the Yeti, or “Abominable Snowman,” is a bipedal hominid that is said to exist and is being studied in Cryptozoology. The Yeti is said to inhabit the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal and Tibet, where it has long been a part of local legend for the natives of the area. In the late 19th century, Yeti stories first made their way to the Western world. In 1919, the term “Abominable Snowman” was coined after the Royal Geographical Society’s Everest Reconnaissance Expedition returned to Britain with stories of “The Wild Man of the Snows,” as told to them by their Sherpa guides.
The early 20th century saw an increase in Yeti sightings by Westerners who had begun making expeditions to the Himalayas. In the 1920s, interest in the elusive creature peaked, particularly due to the 1950 “Snowman Expedition” organized by the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, which produced rendering photographs of native-painted Yetis and photographs of footprints made by an unidentifiable animal. The newspaper article that same year about an alleged Yeti hair specimen also attracted interest. The hair samples were sent to Professor Frederic Wood Jones for analysis and he determined they came from an unidentifiable animal. Another sample analysis, this time performed on an alleged Yeti stool sample in 1954, revealed that the droppings contained an unknown parasite, indicative of an unknown host animal.
In 1959, the Yeti made Hollywood headlines when actor James Stewart allegedly smuggled in the remains of what was said to be the hand of a Yeti originally enshrined in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal. The remains, which became known as the “hand of Pangboche,” were later analyzed and concluded to be of Neanderthal origin. In 1960, one of the first explorers to climb Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, went on an expedition to the Himalayas with the express purpose of collecting evidence of the existence of the Yeti. Hillary returned with an alleged Yeti scalp, which was also kept in a Buddhist monastery as the Hand of Pangboche. From the analysis, it was determined that the scalp was from an indigenous goat-like antelope of the Himalayas, and subsequently donated to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Yeti sightings have been attributed to instances of misidentification with known animals living in the Himalayas, such as the Tibetan blue bear, Langur monkey, Himalayan red bear, and the endangered Himalayan brown bear, which can walk upright. Others speculate that the Yeti may be a surviving Gigantopithecus, or even a human hermit.
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