Myths & Monsters

Musings on Yeti and His Kin 

When I started reading up on the Yeti and it’s American cousin, Bigfoot, in preparation for this article, I wasn’t surprised to find loads of information on the Internet. Predictably, there were long lists of documented sightings, and vigorous arguments from the naysayers. Some of the sightings are familiar, such as the 1951 discovery of footprints by Eric Shipton. Shipton and his partner Michael Ward led the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition that year. They were in Yeti country. Very specific accounts of the creature have been common there for generations. At about 18,000 feet they found footprints 18 inches long and 13 inches wide. Shipton took photographs and the team followed the tracks for a mile before losing the trail. 

The debunkers are quick to point out—practically in unison—that melting snow can make a footprint seem to grow as it melts from the inside out. Well, no kidding. But in Shipton’s account he goes out of his way to describe the prints as clear and crisp, not blurred and soft as melting prints would be. Plus, Shipton wasn’t alone up on Everest that day. The past forty-odd years have given his companions ample time to discredit his account if he were fibbing. But the thing that boggles my mind is this: If the prints were human and simply expanded by melting snow, who the heck was walking around two-thirds of the way up Mt. Everest barefoot in the snow for at least a mile? 

Much of the information on the Web is like the Shipton example. On one hand are enthusiasts earnestly arguing for the validity of well-known sightings, and on the other are skeptics gleefully poking holes in the evidence. But the tales that really caught my attention were the first person accounts from regular people who could relate their stories with the relative anonymity afforded by the Internet. 

Unlike some of the celebrated accounts, these witnesses were not out in the woods hoping to meet Sasquatch. They didn’t have cameras ready and they didn’t rush to sell the story to the tabloids. Most of the accounts come from hunters or fishermen who were in remote, thickly wooded, locales. Many say they didn’t notify local authorities for fear of sounding like a kook. Their stories are plaintive and simple.  

One couple was fishing near the Everglades. They heard something big in the sawgrass and looked up expecting an alligator. Instead, they were horrified to see something tall and hairy wading through the swamp a few yards away. When they finally gathered the nerve to tell someone about the experience, they found out they aren’t the only ones to have seen a Skunk Ape, the backwoods Florida vernacular for whatever it is that quietly inhabits the area.  

Of all the theories about Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti, one in particular sounds plausible. Some experts think the creature may be a primate long-presumed extinct. This species is named gigantopithecus. It was an orangutan relative--very large--and was kind enough to leave a few fossils in Asia. Giganto was a contemporary of homo erectus, had a big brain, and probably walked upright. In large measure, giganto conforms to what we think we know about the Yeti. 

So, could giganto possibly have survived up through modern times? Maybe. Remember that everyone considered the coelacanth extinct until fishermen caught one in the 1930s. The Yeti obviously prefers a remote habitat away from human contact. Given its size, it likely has few natural predators. It may be somewhat nomadic and is at least partly nocturnal. Most sightings last only a few seconds until the creature disappears into the trees.