Search for the Yeti InfoGraphic

A small sampling of one of the greatest infographics ever

At OutsideOnline.com they have created one of the most fantastic visual timelines of the Himalayan Yeti's history. It is much too huge to show here at BLC, but after this second sample below you can go directly to this beautiful piece of art.The infographic is by Anne Rhodes and the research was done by Noah Aldonas.

The when you get to the infographic its is a vertical scrolling timeline breaking down the history of the Himalayas' most famous monster, from ancient legends to Russia's yeti museum.

It has a great punctuation at the end that provides all possible explanations of Yeti sightings--including the possibility of a real Yeti! 

What are the possible explanations for a Yeti--we like the middle one on the bottom row

Go to OutdoorOnline to see the infographic titled The Search For The Yeti

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 01 | Chief Big Foot and Finding Bigfoot Season 2 Premiers

Photo of Chief Big Foot taken on January 1st 1891, 2 days after the Wounded Knee massacre .

This photo had been taken on January 1, 1891, two days after the chief was killed by a horrific revengeful Seventh Cavalry gone berserk. Although far from the cryptozoological Bigfoot, Chief Big Foot got his namesake in a similar way; not from his actual feet, but from his tracks. Jut as Jerry Crew's 16 inch print discoveries led the media to describe our favorite cryptid as Bigfoot, Chief Big Foot was also known for his extra large snowshoe prints he left while pursuing deer. In other words, white people have been abusing the word Bigfoot 70 years earlier than we thought. It should be noted that only U.S. soldiers referred to the Chief as Big Foot, he was known by the Lakota as Spotted Elk (Unpan Glešká).

Spotted Elk (Chief Big Foot) The son of Lone Horn, he was cousin to Crazy Horse and half brother of Sitting Bull. He became chief upon his father's death in 1875.

Though skilled in war, he was known as a great man of peace, adept at settling quarrels between rival parties. Known for his political and diplomatic successes, he was often called upon to mediate disputes. Following their defeat during the War for the Black Hills, he encouraged his people to live in peace, and to adapt to the white men’s ways while retaining their native language and cultural traditions. He encouraged them to adapt to life on the reservation by developing sustainable agriculture and building schools, taking a peaceful attitude toward white settlers.

This makes all the more tragic the circumstances of his death. Sick with pneumonia, he was en route to the Pine Ridge Reservation, seeking shelter with Red Cloud's band. Apprehended, he became a victim of the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) in which nearly 300 men, women and children of his tribe lost their lives.

Cliff Barackman trying to be a "baby Bigfoot"

On a less somber note, on January 1st, 2012 the second season of Finding Bigfoot kicked off. Below is an excerpt from the full Finding Bigfoot press release.

Over the course of 10 hour-long episodes, Animal Planet’s FINDING BIGFOOT returns for a brand-new season on Sunday, January 1, 2012, at 10 PM (ET/PT) for further expeditions to investigate reports of the mysterious bigfoot. From small towns in the South to remote areas of the mountain West and dense forest of the Northeast and into Canada, four passionate, driven researchers and adventurers embark on one single-minded mission – to find this beast.

BFRO members Matt Moneymaker and James “Bobo” Fay, professional educator Cliff Barackman and skeptical biologist Ranae Holland engage in the ultimate quest in search of proof that Bigfoot really does exist – and that he or she is alive and abundant in North America. By examining photos and videos of the creature, speaking to local witnesses, using new technology and luring the mysterious beast with the team’s squatch calls, the group uncovers startling proof of the legendary and highly intelligent enigma that has eluded capture for centuries and fascinated man for just as long.

During the series premiere, called “Baby Bigfoot,” the quartet of investigators head to the Catskills in New York near Poughkeepsie to provide in-depth analysis of 15-year-old video footage from 1997 that indicates a juvenile or baby sasquatch could have been in the area at the time.

 Click the following link to read responses to the Baby Bigfoot episode.

Saks Fifth Avenue Denies Yeti Living on Roof

Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 1930.  Underhill Collection, Library of Congress, LOT 3788 (G)

YetiTracker.org is the promotional website for Saks Fifth Avenue holiday campaigns. Launched December of 2010, they publish content around the theme of an elusive Yeti that may be living on Saks New York rooftop making snowflakes for the New Yorkers below. Officially Saks Fifth Avenue denies any knowledge of a snowflake making Yeti living on it's roof. The video below shows otherwise.

They even have some impressive documentation.

(from Kemerovo Click to enlarge)

(A 1953 inter-office memo)

YetiTracker.org is a fun site to surf with great illustrations and you can even Save a Yeti by buying one from Saks. If you really love the Yeti, there is a site that does a lot of the loving for you! Check out one of our favorites I Love The Yeti!

 Save a Yeti by buying one from Saks. 

Smithsonian: Yes, We’re Actually Still Looking for the Yeti

Smithsonian picked this pic not us, we assume its a Mogwai-Yeti Hybrid

The Smithsonian is no stranger to the topic of Bigfoot. In fact, in 1988, due to a high volume of inquiries on the subject of, The Smithsonian developed a formal Bigfoot response letter. That's what a movie like Harry and the Hendersons (1987) can do to 142 year old scientific institution. (click the following link to read Smithsonian's Formal Bigfoot Response Letter) 

Earlier this year they blogged about the Giganthepiticus, and acknowledged it was the best candidate for the null-hypothesis as a Bigfoot ancestor. the Blog was titled Did Bigfoot Really Exist? How Gigantopithecus Became Extinct. the irony is Dr. Jeff Meldrum commented on the article, and his comment was more fascinating then the article.

Smithsonian takes up Bigfoot again, actually the Yeti, because that's the reference Bryan Sykes from Oxford University uses. Below is a decent piece on Bryan Sykes Bigfoot/Yeti DNA research, or as it is officially called, "Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project". If you really want to learn about the project we recomend a post we did earlier this week titled, "Everything You Didn't Know About the Bryan Sykes' Bigfoot DNA Research"

Yes, We’re Actually Still Looking for the Yeti

Posted By: Rose Eveleth 

Many scientists make their careers out of searching for the seemingly unfindable. The Higgs Boson, dark matter, the secret, hidden pieces of our universe. Other scientists search for things that probably aren’t real at all. Like yetis. Researchers are about to embark on a quest to determine once and for all whether or not Yetis exist.

That’s right, a Yeti hunt. It’s got a fancier name – the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project – but it’s a serious, scientific, Yeti hunt.

The project focuses on DNA analysis. They’re accepting submissions of samples from pretty much anyone who thinks they have evidence of a Yeti. People send the material in to them, where it’s tested for DNA. That DNA can tell them a whole lot about whether the mythical beast exists.

Now, there have in fact been DNA tests on supposed Yeti samples before. Every time they’ve come back as being human. But DNA techniques have gotten better, and the scientists are willing to give it one last go. Well, at least some of them. BBC Futures sums up the scientific atmosphere:

It is likely that the project is the biggest and most comprehensive attempt yet to probe suspected “remains”. “Nothing like this, on this level, has been done before,” says Richard Freeman from the Centre for Fortean Zoology in the UK. But therein lies the rub.  For people like Freeman who devote their lives to looking for these creatures, it is the biggest signal yet that after years out in the cold mainstream science is finally taking the seriously. But for some scientists, the whole venture is an embarrassing curiosity to be held at arm’s length.

One of the scientists involved in the project, Bryan Sykes, sees this as a catch all for those who claim science brushes them off. ““It’s one of the claims by cryptozoologists that science does not take them seriously. Well, this is their chance. We are calling for people to send us their evidence, and we will test it through DNA analysis,” he told the BBC.

This DNA evidence will certainly not be a nail in any sort of Yeti coffin. Even if they find no evidence whatsoever of the yeti, many will still believe. Last year, the Huffington Post reported that some scientists were “95 percent certain” that they had found evidence of the Yeti. Before that, bigfoot “researchers” asked people in California for money to test whether the creature left residue behind on a pickup truck.

Even the director of the International Cryptozoology Museum is skeptical of many of these claims. He told The Huffington Post:

“This does not seem to be any more than what you hear about from weekend excursions in North America that go out, discovering some hair of undetermined origin, calling it ‘Bigfoot hair,’ then locating some broken branches and piled trees, saying it was made by Bigfoot, and finding footprints that look like Sasquatch tracks. These are not ‘proof’ that would hold up, zoologically.”

But even for Sykes, the geneticist behind the project, this is all a bit far fetched. He’s not ruling out the possibility of a new species – we discover new species all the time, many of them quite large. But he acknowledges that there will need to be some evidence. The BBC says, “he is also keen to point out that he is not – nor intends to become – a cryptozoologist. ‘I don’t not want to become completely eccentric,’ he adds.”

SRC: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/08/yes-were-actually-still-looking-for-the-yeti/

Untimely Yeti Footprints found in Siberia

Siberian Yeti foot print (© Photo: «Vesti.Ru»)

We use the word "untimely" because usually Yeti news in the Shoria region falls in late September and early October. This timing usually funnels right into the tourism season starting with Yeti Day on November 11th. Of course this does not dis-qualify the great research (read our Kemerovo news coverage) being done in the region, we are only asserting that the Yeti is not usually on the minds of the population and media until Yeti Day begins to approach.

Below is an article from the Voice of Russia. 

Do yetis exist after all?

Maria Domnitskaya

Jun 19, 2012 18:31 Moscow Time

Fresh footprints of a yeti have recently been found in the region of Gornaya Shoria in Siberia. This picturesque mountainous area is sometimes dubbed a “Siberian Switzerland”.

A group of Italian scientists plans to visit Gornaya Shoria to look for more evidence that yetis really exist.

This is not the first time that footprints which are believed to belong to these mysterious creatures have been discovered in this region. Some local residents claim that they have seen yetis with their own eyes. As a rule, yetis’ footprints are found in the vicinity of the Azasskaya Cave and the Karatag Mountain.

Yetis’ footprints are bigger than those of humans – they can reach 45 cms in length. That’s why yetis are also called “Bigfoot”.

Gornaya Shoria has already become to be associated with claims of evidence that yetis exist. Every year, the tourist season in the local mountains opens with a celebration of ‘Yeti Day’, when tourists can find yeti souvenirs all over Shoria.

Local hunters call Bigfoot “the spirit of the taiga”.

In October 2011, a delegation of US, Canadian, Swedish, Estonian and Russian scientists explored the Azasskaya Cave. They didn’t find a yeti, but discovered a large footprint and small samples of hair inside it.

The hairs were up to 8 cms long, curly, gray along the whole length except at the root which was black.

The hair samples were taken to St. Petersburg and thoroughly examined at a local zoological institute. It turned out that they were identical to which was thought to be yetis’ hairs found earlier in California in the US, as well as outside St. Petersburg and in the Ural Mountains in Russia.

One of the members of the expedition, a member of St. Petersburg and New York academies, Valentin Sapunov says:

“These hairs are very similar to the other hairs which were found in 4 different parts of the world and are believed to be yeti hairs. The results from the tests conducted by the scientists indicate that these hair samples are very likely to belong to creatures of one and the same species. A scientific mistake would be highly unlikely.”

However, only genetic testing can prove or disprove that yetis are related to the Homo Sapiens. An attempt made by Russian scientists to examine the DNA of yetis’ hair samples found near St. Petersburg and in the Urals was unsuccessful due to lack of appropriate equipment. But when US scientists announced that the results of their testing apparently proved that the DNA of the yeti’s hair from California was in no way different to that of the Homo Sapiens, very few people actually believed them.

At present, Russian scientists are trying to extract DNA from the hair samples believed to be those of a yeti, which were found in the Azasskaya Cave.

In the meantime, a well-known genetic Professor Bryan Sykes from Oxford University is concluding his own tests. Using equipment of the latest generation, Professor Sykes is trying to prove that yetis really exist. As a sample, he uses what is believed to be yeti remains, which are held at the Museum of Zoology in the Swiss city of Lausanne.

Professor Sykes has posted a request on the museum website, which asks everyone, who may possess what they believe to be yeti remains, to send them to Professor Sykes for testing.

He promises to announce the results of the testing in December.

British Journalist continues to bring us Yeti news from Russia

Illustration of a Shurale, a creature of similar description to the Yeti

"From 1960 to 1980, evidence grew up there of large red-haired ape-men, sometimes in family groups, being encountered by the locals." -- Edward Crabtree of The Kazan Herald

Based in Russia, The Kazan Herald is Tatarstan’s first and only English-language newspaper. Founded in May 2010, the newspaper is a trusted source of objective coverage and quality analysis of news, business, arts, opinion, sports, and tourism in Kazan and Tatarstan.

Fortunately for us, they have a British journalist, Edward Crabtree, who lives in Kazan and is very interested in the Yeti legends and relic hominid research.

You may remember Crabtree from his previous posts earlier this year, Shurale — A Tatar Yeti? and Russian Snowman (Yeti) Riddle Continues.

In his third article for The Kazan Herald he describes a story, translated for the first time, of a group of red-haired ape-men visiting a village in western Russia for over two decades

Why I’ll Keep Watching the Woods

By Edward Crabtree28 May 2012

Since I first waded into the controversy surrounding the presence (or absence), of unclassified man-like apes within the Russian Federation, some promising new leads have emerged in the field.

Algorithm, a Moscow Publishing house, have recently released a collection of writings by the late Soviet yeti hunter Boris Porshnyev (for more on him, see “The Russian Snowman Riddle Continues”). Entitled “The Enigma of the Snowmen: Contemporary Questions of Relict Hominids,” it is something of a weighty tome – all of it of course in Russian. My guess is that it contains much information which is likely to remain untranslated for Westerners for some time to come.

What I have been able to get translated, however, is a news story in a weekly magazine devoted to the mysterious (N.L.O – Unbelievable Legendary Evidence, March 12 no.5).The headline is “The Yeti of Malaya Vishyeva.” This eerie piece focuses on Novgorod Oblast in North-western Russia. Malaya Vishyeva is a sparsely populated village which is to this day hard to access being surrounded by marshland and dense forest. From1960 to 1980, evidence grew up there of large red-haired ape-men, sometimes in family groups, being encountered by the locals. Then in 2003 some footprints were found there. This spurred on the snowman advocate and St Petersburg academic Valentin Sapunov to do a field study of this region (his articles on the subject can be viewed here). There he came across apparent teeth marks in trees which were too far above ground level to be made by known animals.

The article relates of how there had been a tradition of “white eyed wonders” supposedly dwelling in the forests of that area, as told by the Finno-Ugric tribes that lived in the region up to the 6th Century. Indeed, whilst the concept “snyeshni chyelovek,” or snowman, first originated in a Russian newspaper in 1908, Russian folk culture has long been choc-a-bloc with wood goblin myths, from the Vors of the Komi people to the Pitsen of the Bashkirs. Our local equivalent in Tatarstan is “Shurale,” the semi-malevolent forest ghost who emerges in the twilight hours of spring and summer. The fact that he has been immortalised by a poem by Gabdulla Tukay and ballet can make us forget that he is often a frightening figure in Tatar stories. So, is the modern yeti just a reframing of an age-old bogeyman?

To answer this question we have to go far back in time. The first written report of an Asian wild-man was made in 1430. It is in the memoirs of a German nobleman who had no previous knowledge of the relevant folklore and, obviously, lived long before the yeti was the mass media icon that it now is. Hans Schiltenberger, travelling through Mongolia, was captured by the Mongols of the Golden Horde. From them he learnt of wild men who lived in the mountains and who “had nothing in common with ordinary human beings.” So perhaps, after all, these forest demons conceal an embellished memory of an anthropological fact.

There is, nevertheless, a legion of naysayers who will not admit of any stories or eyewitness claims as being of any value as evidence. “Find me a body of one of these monkey-men,” they say. “Then I’ll take you seriously.” A handy riposte to this can be found in this April’s issue of the Russian paranormal magazine, “Twentieth Century Secrets” in an article entitled “Is the Yeti From Another Dimension?” Those not quite ready to invoke fairyland to explain away the missing bodies can gain succour from the history of the classification of the Giant Panda. The West first learnt of this legendary creature’s existence in 1869, but the first Westerner to see a live one did so in 1906. It was not until 1936 that Ruth Harkness first took the first live panda back to the West. So, from a Western point of view, there was over a 70-year hiatus before the discovery of this large animal and its eventual capture. Bigfoot and Yeti research, on the other hand, has only been in existence for less than sixty years.

In the meantime, while a full-scale body may not have been produced, there has indeed been some other flesh-and-blood evidence which, whilst less sensational, cannot be lightly brushed aside. In 2009, the American television adventurer Joshua Gates returned from Nepal and Bhutan with some hairs from a suspected Yeti. These were duly forensically probed by a respected DNA testing laboratory called Diagnostics Inc. in Texas. The results? The hairs showed up as belonging to an “unknown sequence” which was close to human, but not human as we know it….

At this point the sceptics sit back and recite a list of Scooby-Doo style frauds and set ups as long as a yeti’s arm. These do indeed muddy the waters. Only last December we were greeted by the too-good-to-be true news from the Ingushetia Republic in the Russian Federation: a live snowman had been captured! The television interviews which followed seemed to be tongue-in-cheek and it did not take long for most to become aware that this was a money raising stunt. Perhaps the fact that any money made was to go towards a local orphanage mitigated things a bit, but this sort of superciliousness is not that uncommon and confines yeti news to the tabloid press.

It is at this point that I am reminded of a quotation from Arthur C. Clarke, the British science fiction writer. Clarke was a connoisseur of the unexplained, but also a scientist. Speaking on the Loch Ness Monster, that legendary creature from my own country, he said: “On Tuesdays and Thursdays I believe in the Loch Ness Monster.” He was hedging his bets then, but, as any gambler can tell you, two out of seven is not such bad odds.

SRC: KazanHerald.com

Kemerovo's Association with the Yeti Continues: Meet the Coal Miners Mascot

Competition-winning illustration of Shorya coal miners mascot 

"The scientific community has no trust in such studies and has not even bothered to take a look at the materials collected."  -- Igor Burtsev 

"According to Burtsev, Shorya, which is a part of the Altai coalmining system is where the snowman reproduces..." -- Voice of Russia

You can read about the Kemerovo region's association with the yeti in our previous Kemerovo Posts. We also have a few post on Igor Burtsev.

While we have speculated that the association to Yeti is due to an effort to increase tourism in the Kemerovo region, Igor Burtsev's is convinced the area is rich in evidence and continues his 40-year research. Burtsev even believes he has a good indication where the Yeti reproduce.

The article below begins with the mascot story and then continues with a few gems from Igor Burtsev. 

The Shorya coal pit in the Kemerovo region, which the locals say has the largest number of "Yeti"-the strange species known as“Big Foot” now has its own mascot, in the shape of a blue-eyed smiling yeti with a miner’s helmet on his head and a miner’s pick on his shoulders. A sketch depicting the image of a  snowman won the open  competition titled "Yeti Talisman". The entry of a 19-year old student, Roman Zhilian was chosen as the best among the more than 600  entries in  the  online contest. 

The imaginary creature, which has evoked heated debates and hypotheses in the world has variously been known as “Bigfoot, Snowman, Forest-Dweller and many more”. It is more correct to talk about a snowman who lives alongside us, says Igor Burtsev, Director of the Moscow International Center for the study of the snowman. 

"They live in squalid conditions, live like animals, don’t use work instruments, don’t wear clothes or use fire, and don’t compete with people. But they have sufficient intellect and rely on the paranormal ability They live in a different orbit, not in the other world, but nocturnal. They avoid contact with people and live in inaccessible places."

The scientific study of the yeti is still unrecognized in the world, but people of different professions are studying them on a voluntary basis, said Igor Burtsev.

"I have been studying the so-called snowman for  over 40 years now and  I have gathered enough material about their existence within that period of time. Enthusiasts have been studying the snowman for more than 50 years, but the scientific community has no trust in such studies and has not even bothered   to take a look at the materials collected.  There had been great scientists who spent a great deal of energy and time studying the snowman phenomenon. They included the French zoologist, Evelmans, founder of the crypto zoology, which in1968 studied the corpse of a creature found in the U.S. together with another zoologist, Ivan Sanderson. They concluded that it was the corpse of a Neanderthal who died from a gunshot. But the corpse disappeared as soon as the information was published in the press. The frozen corpse of a  real snowman, 2.60 meters tall was displayed in France in 1997. It also disappeared mysteriously after the news appeared in the press."

The Yeti is a tourist brand of the Shorya mines since February 2009, when the local hunters saw in the taiga a human like creature covered in furs, for the first  time. According to Burtsev, Shorya, which is a part of the Altai coalmining system is where the  snowman reproduces.. Every two years, the  Day of  the snowman is marked, there is  a yeti museum and  souvenirs showing their pictures can be  bought everywhere. An International Scientific  and Applied Conference, devoted to ther problems of the snowman was held in Kuzbass last October. After exchanging information, experts from the U.S. Canada, China, Mongolia, Sweden, Spain and  other countries visited the Azassky cave  in the clay field, where fresh footprints of the bigfoot can be found.
Source: Voice of Russia.

Russian Snowman (Yeti) Riddle Continues

Screen capture of a 3 second video of a Siberian Yeti

“Anything is possible. I recommend you to come and search.” -- Russian President, Vladimir Putin, when asked if there were any Yeti's in Russia

Based in Russia, The Kazan Herald is Tatarstan’s first and only English-language newspaper. Founded in May 2010, the newspaper is a trusted source of objective coverage and quality analysis of news, business, arts, opinion, sports, and tourism in Kazan and Tatarstan. 

Fortunately for us, they have a British journalist, Edward Crabtree, who lives in Kazan and is very interested in the Yeti legends and relic hominid research.

Click the following link to read his post on "Shurale — A Tatar Yeti?"

In the article below Crabtree lists different reactions from Russian celebrities on the topic of the Yeti.

Russian Snowman Riddle Continues

By Edward Crabtree, 9 March 2012

The hiker who inadvertently took the three second long shot wishes to remain anonymous. This video footage (see below), first shown on a Russian television documentary three years ago, appears to show an upright, hairy man-like ape lurking in the woodlands of Siberia. Yeti hunters across the world, long weary of hoaxes, have found it credible. Thus we have another addition to the enduring legend of the Russian snowman, the “snyeshny chelovek.”

This phenomenon has already been dubbed the “Kuzbass Bigfoot” after another name for Kemerovo Oblast in Siberia, where sightings have been frequent. In the Southern part of the region, Gornaya Shorya, there have been 15 testimonies, no less, about the presence of an unusual ape-like beast there, complete with claims that it is making off with their livestock.

The American magazine Outdoor Life was being inundated with so many tales of this kind about the Siberian taiga that, when they secured a written interview with Mr. Putin on 19 May 2011, they asked: “Are there any yetis or wood-goblins there?” Mr Putin’s response was as cryptic as it was diplomatic: “Anything is possible. I recommend you to come and search.”

Another Russian celebrity seems to have taken up Putin’s gauntlet. The half-Tatar boxing champion Nikolai Valuyev flew to the Kemerovo region last summer to search himself. “Proof that the yeti exists appeared before the Russian revolution,” he intriguingly told The Independent last year on 17 September .

Nor is this focus on Russia as a home for unknown hominids a new one. Back in 1983, following a field trip to Mongolia, Dr. Myra Shackley, a British lecturer in Archaeological Science, devoted a book–entitled “Wildmen: Yeti, Sasquatch and Neanderthal Enigma”–to detailed reports of such creatures from Mongolia, the Pamirs, the Caucasus, and Siberia. Her conclusion: “there appears to be a prima facie case for the existence of a yeti type primate…in Western Siberia….Many of the sightings reported by reindeer herders and fishermen appear to be authentic, but there is undoubtedly a gloss of folktale.”

But does this only apply to Siberia? In The Kazan Herald on February 3rd, I proposed that the “Shurale” figure of Tatar and Bashkir mythology might be a distorted folk-memory of real interactions with relict hominids. Let us look at how Shurale is depicted–as a hairy, man-like forest dweller. His name is said to refer to his trademark deep laugh; bigfoot and yeti encounters also involve the creature making a howling or shrieking noise. Shurale has a horn on the top of his head; the yeti’s is thought to be cone-shaped. Shurale lives in birds’ nests; once again, Sasquatch investigators have stumbled across “nests” of twigs, which they ascribe to the Sasquatch’s activity.

Lastly, the stories of Shurale involve him poaching farm animals, and such is the case with the modern yeti, as the people of Gornaya Shoria can testify. It is also to be admitted that Shurale has the power of speech and a predilection for tickling people to death. Consider, however, the local snow-leopard–the Ak Bars. Is this not a catalogued, familiar animal? Stylized Tatar folk-art, however, shows it in some cases even having wings.

Established science does not completely jeer at the idea of the existence of the yeti–the iconic British naturalist David Attenborough made waves in 2009 when he said, live on a television talk show, that yeti footprints found 19,000 feet up were, by dint of this very fact, not likely to be the work of tricksters. Nevertheless, harder evidence is demanded. Why, ask the skeptics, in this interconnected and increasingly globalized era, are credible sightings not more frequent? Professor Valentin Sapunov, the St Petersburg based author of “The Secrets of the Snowmen: Between Man and Beast,” has a ready answer: we do not see them so often because they don’t wish to be seen!

I am not qualified to say as to whether the contemporary flora and fauna of Tatarstan is of the kind where a snowman, yeti or Shurale could be hiding and thriving. What is needed is for some educated Tatar speakers to go out into the more remote villages and see what stories there are from both past and present. While they are about it, they should take a video camera with them. You never know…! Snowman? Snowjoke!

Shurale — A Tatar Yeti?

"When the sun rose the villagers were awoken by the ghastly cries of a hairy human-like creature that had become glued to the back of one of the horses." Ines Cerro/KH.

"In 1958 the Soviet government saw fit to fund a 'snowman commission' to seek out the basis for Wildman’s reports which from the Pamir Mountains."-- Edward Crabtree

Based in Russia, The Kazan Herald is Tatarstan’s first and only English-language newspaper. Founded in May 2010, the newspaper is a trusted source of objective coverage and quality analysis of news, business, arts, opinion, sports, and tourism in Kazan and Tatarstan. 

Fortunately for us, they have a British journalist, Edward Crabtree, who lives in Kazan and is very interested in the Yeti legends and relic hominid research.

Below is a an article written by him discussing the the legend of the Shurale

Shurale — A Tatar Yeti?

By Edward Crabtree 22 January 2012

Does Shurale, mythical creature of Tatar folklore, have something to tell us about the Russian Yeti?

The world’s media has recently zoomed in on the Kemerovo region in Siberia. There, American and Russian investigators have joined forces to find the “snyeshni chyelovyek,” the snowman, or Russia’s very own Bigfoot, which is said to stalk the area. Dogged by the inevitable hoaxes and cultural confusions, many nevertheless hope that this search begins a new period of East-West cooperation in finally trying to crack this ongoing enigma.

Russia’s involvement in the snowman problem has not always been the risible issue on the fringes that it has since become. In 1958 the Soviet government saw fit to fund a “snowman commission” to seek out the basis for Wildman’s reports which from the Pamir Mountains. This was headed by Professor B.F. Porshnev and his hypothesis was that the Russian yeti was a relic of the Neanderthal, the much sought after missing link, bridging apes and humankind. Eight years later, this idea appeared to be strengthened when another yeti-expert, Doctor Jeanne Marie Kofman, addressed the Russian Geographical Society in Moscow and unveiled an identikit picture of what the snowman would look like as based on many eyewitness statements. A member of the audience then came forward to say how much this resembled the latest artist’s impression of a Neanderthal man, based on fossilized remains.

In Tibet the yeti is a quasi-mythological deity which is an inclusive part of the local Buddhist cosmology. For the Native Americans the “sasquatch” is a similar legendary creature to which magical powers are ascribed. If, indeed, there were a Neanderthal-related hominid existing on the outskirts of human society, then would not one expect the folklores of the world to tell of this? With this in mind, it is time to take a fresh look at the “shurale” of Bashkir and Tatar folklore.

Surale (Tatar: Шүрәле), seated at the right in this sculputre in central Kazan, is a Tatar and Bashkir mythical creature who according to legend lives in the forests, luring his victims and tickling them to death. Tatar poet Ğabdulla Tuqay wrote an epic poem based on the legend. Maxim Edwards/KH.

Sabirzyan Badtretdin, writing in the “Tatar Exclusive Web Gazette,” recently recounted a local tale that has been passed down from grandfathers to the current generation. According to legend, horses had been going missing from the village during the night and were discovered the following morning in an exhausted condition. As this could not be allowed to continue, the village elders were consulted as to what to do next. Their advice? To cover the horses’ saddles in tar and then to release them. Sure enough, when the sun rose the villagers were awoken by the ghastly cries of a hairy human-like creature that had become glued to the back of one of the horses. This was promptly slain and, it was, of course, recognized as being Shurale.

This macabre little account could easily be dismissed as merely a fireside tale, but it does find an echo in a better-documented story. In January 2002 the Russian Journal “Ural Stalker” carried a report by the biologist Nikolai Avdeev. This told of a Wildman who had appeared in the vicinity of Ibramigova village in the southern Urals and which had been blamed for the killing of domestic animals. This too was eventually captured and killed and was personified as shurale by the local Bashkirs. However, in this case, officials from outside the area had a chance to inspect the body. They described it as being covered in black hair, having red eyes, a pronounced brow and no forehead – and being reminiscent more of Bigfoot than of the nimble fingered horn headed Shurale.

This would not be the first time that a folk tale was found to have some grounding in fact. Vietnamese forest dwellers had long told stories of a large antelope creature which lived nearby, but this was not given credence by zoologists. After the discovery of some horns, an expedition was mounted which resulted in the discovery of the saola, a rare mammal known as the ‘Asian Unicorn’, which was only accepted by the mainstream science as late as 1992.

For the time being, in spite of the flippant attitudes towards it by many, there is an international race afoot to capture the ever elusive yeti. Just maybe, Tatarstan may hold one of the missing jigsaw pieces to this intriguing mystery.

BBC Radio 4: Full Results of Pangboche Yeti Finger Test

The Yeti' finger, pictured that was displayed at London's Royal College of Surgeons

UPDATE: Click to read the results of the Pangboche Yeti Finger

The Pangboche finger, as you can guess, is part of the Pangboche hand. The hand was one of two artifacts, (the other was a scalp) that were stolen from a Buddhist monastery in Pangboche, Nepal. We have covered multiple stories regarding the Pangboche artifacts in the past.

Loren Coleman, Cryptomundo contributor, is responsible for confirming many of the stories surrounding the Tom Slick expedition that discovered the Pamboche artifacts. 

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman rediscovered this story while writing Tom Slick's biography in the 1980s. Coleman confirmed details of the incidents with written materials in the Slick archives, interviews with Byrne, and correspondence with Stewart. -- Wikipedia contributors, "Pangboche Hand," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pangboche_Hand&oldid=451541253(accessed December 27, 2011).

You can read some recent news regarding BBC 4's announcement of the Finger DNA at Cryptomundo by Loren Coleman and an excerpt from the Daily News Article. Below is a reprint from the BBC 4 radio show titled "Yeti's Finger"

Pangboche Hand and Skull Cap.

High up a remote Himalayan Mountain in Nepal is a Buddhist monastery. The monks say there is no doubt yeti's roam the high forest, they see and hear them and they sometimes even attack people. The tantalising prospect of being the first to prove that this mythical ape like creature actually exists has been the goal many explorers - but the beast has always evaded capture. Then the discovery of a supposed yeti's hand kept in the monastery set off a remarkable chain of events that drew in a mountain explorer, an American oil tycoon, a Hollywood film star and a high tech lab for forensic science in Scotland. But is it a yeti? 

Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to be the first. Tom Slick, an American oil tycoon, had the money and the desire to try to prove that yetis really do exist. He used his vast wealth to mount expeditions, sending off climber and explorer Peter Byrne into the most remote areas of the Himalayas to follow any leads he came across, and one seemed worth investigating further - a hand of a "yeti" in Pangboche monastery in Nepal. Byrne did a deal with the monks and replaced one finger of the hand with a human finger and arranged to have the yeti finger smuggled back to London. 

How the finger actually reached London is a most bizarre tale that involved Hollywood film star James Stewart concealing it in his wife's lingerie case. And then the trail went cold. Slick died, Byrne went onto other things and the finger was lost to the world until it was found by chance in a forgotten collection of curiosities in the Royal College of Surgeons in London. New scientific techniques are now applied to see if the yeti's finger really is what it claims to be - or if not - what on earth has a finger like that? 

Presenter: Matthew Hill
Producer: Mary Colwell
Editor: Julian Hector 

You can catch Loren's Take at Cryptomundo
Read the history of The Pangboche Finger at Daily Mail
Listen to The results at BBC 4

More Pictures from the Kemerovo Siberian Yeti Conference

Igor Burtsev (center standing) at the kick-off press conference. The 7ft. tall boxing champ Nikolai "beast from the east" Valuev is sitting on the panel (far right.)

As promised here are more pictures from the Kemerovo Yeti Conference provided by Ron Morehead. Morehead is best known for his audio recordings of Sasquatch vocalization, known as The Sierra Sounds. The Sierra Sounds Volume #1 "Bigfoot Recordings" is self-described as a selection of audio clips captured by Morehead, that reveal very clear Bigfoot vocalizations captured on a crisp night at a remote wilderness camp.

Ron Morehead was specifically tapped by Igor Burtsev, director of the International Centre of Hominology in Tashtagol and head of the 'Yeti institute' at Kemerovo State University, to join the expedition. Along with Igor Burtsev and Ron Moreheead, attendees included scientist from 7 different countries gathering in Kemerovo region 3,000 miles – and four time zones – east of Moscow.

The conference took place earlier this month (October, 2011)and produced several headlines that included the words "95% Certainty and Indisputable Proof" of the existence of Yeti.

Below are pictures from the expedition including a picture of the "nest" that was reported as one of the indisputable proofs.

Interesting ten foot tree branch formations on the way to the Kemerovo cave.

A closer look of the tree branch formations suggest these braches became intertwined early on and continued to become woven by nature.

Directly out side the Kemerovo cave

Inside the cave looking out.

Dr. Jeff Meldrum taking a closer look at the Yeti nest, reported as evidence from the expedition.

A cropped version of the above photo with the brightness adjusted for easier viewing (click to enlarge)

This is the size of the crew that was on the expedition taking a lunch break.

95% Certainty and Indisputable Proof?

At Cryptomundo Loren Coleman is quick to tone down the rhetoric coming from the Seberian Yeti Expedition.

"...while “evidence” might have been collected, there was not “indisputable proof” gained.

No DNA analysis has been conducted. No results have been confirmed or published.

One footprint, allegedly.

One clump of moss said to be a bed, supposedly.

Sorry, such a rush to make a sensational media splash is not even good hominology among my Russian colleagues."

--Loren Coleman

You can read below where Mr. Coleman tells the Huffington Post, "These are not 'proof' that would hold up, zoologically,"

Scientists '95 Percent' Certain They've Found Elusive Siberian Yeti
Lee Speigel | First Posted: 10/10/11 07:34 PM ET Updated: 10/11/11 12:56 PM ET

Has it finally happened? Did scientists find real evidence of the existence of a hairy bipedal creature known as the Siberian Snowman or Siberian Yeti?

Researchers are claiming they are 95 percent sure that the fabled Russian version of the Abominable Snowman or Bigfoot lives in the Kemerovo region of Siberia.

Last week, a group of international scientists met in Moscow and then set out to the remote mountainous area in search of the elusive creature

It didn't take very long for them to issue a statement on the official Kemerovo website stating they had found "footprints, a probable den and various markers that Yetis mark their territory with."

An English translation (from translate.google.com) of the original Russian news report added that the conference researchers "collected irrefutable evidence of the existence of the Yeti in Mountainous Shoria" (the southern part of Kemerovo).

They concluded that the artifacts gave them 95-percent proof of the existence of Yeti in the Kemerovo region, the press release stated.

Some possible Yeti hair samples reportedly found in the region by Russian scientist Anatoly Fokin will be studied in a laboratory to determine their origin.

"This does not seem to be any more than what you hear about from weekend excursions in North America that go out, discovering some hair of undetermined origin, calling it 'Bigfoot hair,' then locating some broken branches and piled trees, saying it was made by Bigfoot, and finding footprints that look like Sasquatch tracks," said Loren Coleman, director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

"These are not 'proof' that would hold up, zoologically," Coleman told The Huffington Post.

It's not the first time this year that alleged Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) "evidence" has come under scrutiny.

Back in June, creature researchers in California held a press conference soliciting help to get a DNA test that might determine if Bigfoot left physical impressions on the windows of a pickup truck in the Sierra National Forest.

So far, the jury is still out on that case.

Skeptics point out that the area of Siberia that's allegedly home to the local Yeti legend helps promote tourism. In fact, opening day of the ski season there is known as Day of the Yeti -- an attempt to sell many Yeti-related souvenirs and bring in more skiers to the region.

While scientific researchers continue hunting for signs of a Yeti lair in Kemerovo, let's hope they don't discover a cave that contains a set of recently purchased touristy Yeti beverage mugs.
SRC: Huffington Post

Yeti Evidence Found During Kemerovo Expedition in Siberia

Click to read our entire coverage of the Siberian Yeti.

Although the title of the article below is a little sensational, the evidence found was "...footprints, his supposed bed, and various markers with which the yeti marks his territory," the statement said. The collected "artifacts" will be analysed in a special laboratory, it said.

You can read the whole article below from PhysOrg.com

Siberian region 'confirms Yeti exists'

A Russian region in Siberia on Monday confidently proclaimed that its mountains are home to yetis after finding "indisputable proof" of the existence of the hairy beasts in an expedition.

The local administration of the Kemerovo region in the south of Siberia said in a statement on its website that footprints and possibly even hair samples belonging to the yeti were found on the research trip to its remote mountains.

"During the expedition to the Azasskaya cave, conference participants gathered indisputable proof that the Shoria mountains are inhabited by the 'Snow Man'," the Kemerovo region administration said in a press-release.

The expedition was organised after Kemerovo's governor invited researchers from the United States, Canada, and several other countries to share their research and stories of encounters with the creature at a conference.

"They found his footprints, his supposed bed, and various markers with which the yeti marks his territory," the statement said. The collected "artifacts" will be analysed in a special laboratory, it said.

Yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, are hairy ape-like creatures of popular myth, that are generally held to inhabit the Himalayas.

But some believe Russia also holds a population of yetis, which it calls Snow Men, in remote areas of Siberia.

Kemerovo region's Shoria is a sparsely populated territory in Western Siberia that has historically been a territory of coal and metal mining.

The region, the administrative center of Kuznetsk coal basin, has pursued the elusive Yeti for several years as it tries to develop tourism into its mostly industrial economy.

Considering the latest findings, the region may "create a special research center to study the Yeti" in the regional university and "create a journal" dedicated to the science of the Yeti, the administration's statement said.
SRC: PhysoOrg.com

Pangboche Monastery Awaiting Yeti Hand

The Times of India has an article regarding the Pangboche Yeti Skull and Hand from the perspective of the Monastery. This is also somewhat of an update to our previous post, Yeti Hand Replica Delivered to Nepal.

'Yeti' lends helping hand to Nepal monastery again
KATHMANDU: It sounds like an implausible April Fool stunt but after almost a decade, a centuries-old Buddhist monastery struggling in the foot region of Mt Everest is now going to get a fresh lease of life, thanks to the yeti.

The Pangboche monastery, built around a rock in Khumbu in northern Nepal, called the gateway to the world's highest peak, survived for centuries on donations given by foreign trekkers and mountaineers who visited the over 600-year-old edifice lured by tales of it possessing the skull and a hand of the yeti, the legendary beast who inspired an expedition by Sir Edmund Hillary himself and was the subject of a book by another Everest hero, Reinhold Messner.

"I saw the skull and the hand in the late 1980s after I returned from New Zealand," says Ang Rita Sherpa, senior programme manager at The Mountain Institute that last year helped restore the crumbling down monastery with financial assistance from the US Ambassador's Fund. "Both were stolen in the early 1990s. After the monastery lost its main source of tourist attraction, it fell into hardship, barely able to sustain itself."

Now however, things are gong to change. Later this month, Hillary's fellow country man Mike Allsop, an "adventurer", guide and Everest summiter, will return to the forlorn monastery with a unique gift: a replica of the stolen hand and skull made by Weta Workshop, the five-time Oscar winning company that makes special effect props for the entertainment industry.

Allsop visited the monastery in 2007, the same year he conquered Mt Everest, and developed a special rapport with one of its venerable lamas. Moved by the plight of the monks on having lost their bread-earning artifacts, he decided to gift them a replica till his campaign – Return the hand – manages to trace the originals.

Were they really the hand and skull of the yeti? Many of the lamas and locals believe so. In 1950, explorer Peter Byrne and Hollywood actor James Stewart – he of such notable films as The Philadelphia Story, Rear Window, Rope and The man who knew too much -- visited the monastery and managed to take out one of the fingers. However, when they submitted it for tests, they proved inconclusive.

"We have heard of Allsop's plans though we are not in touch with him," Sherpa said. "While I would not comment on the authenticity of the originals, I am glad the monastery will have a source of income once more."

EXTERNAL LINKS
'Yeti' lends helping hand to Nepal monastery again

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Yeti Hand Replica Delivered to Nepal
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Brewers Ad Campaign: I Believe. Yeti

Disclaimer: Bigfoot Lunch Club does not endorse drinking before legal age.

Faithful fans you know we love Bigfoot art and nothing could be better than when its on the side of a giant truck.



This is the brainchild of Cultivator Advertising and Design. They are promoting 3 different beers for their client, Great Divide Brewing Company. These giant trucks are meant to publicize the craft brewer’s Yeti Imperial Stout, Oak Aged Yeti, Espresso Oak Aged Yeti and Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti. This message is on trucks that belong to third-party distributors in Colorado, California and North Carolina.




If you need further proof that Beer and and Bigfoot is a great pairing look at this Sasquatch circle of friends enjoying beers as recently as this week at a popular microbrew pub called McMenamins outside of Portland, Oregon. (We are very proud of this run-on sentence)

Left to Right: Craig Flipy, Cliff Barackman, Thom Powell, Guy Edwards

EXTERNAL LINKS
Beer trucks as an art form
Great Divide Brewing Co
Cultivator Advertising and Design
McMenamins Sunnyside

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New Search for Lost Yeti Artifacts of Nepal

Kiwi adventurer leads Yeti hunt
NEIL REID - Sunday News

New Zealand (Sunday News) — A KIWI adventurer is leading an international Yeti hunt.

Mike Allsop, who conquered Mt Everest three years ago, is searching for the skull and skeletal hand of what was said to be a mythical "Abominable Snowman".

The controversial artefacts were stolen from a monastery in the tiny Nepalese village of Pangboche, in the 1990s.

"I am hoping that the person who has them wants to give them back," Allsop told Sunday News. "I hope they will have an alert set up on their computer for whenever the artefacts are mentioned on the internet.

"I am offering... to go and reclaim them. I will go anywhere in the world in person, free of charge, no questions asked and I will also buy them a beer."

Weta Workshops has created life-sized replicas of the skull and hand to help searchers find the real things.

Allsop, 41, is an Air New Zealand pilot and was introduced to Weta boss Sir Richard Taylor by Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe.

Allsop will hand-deliver the replicas to the monastery when he and 17 Air NZ co-workers travel to Pangboche in April.

The original Pangboche hand and skull came to international prominence in the 1950s.

Texan adventurer and oil magnate Tom Slick photographed the items during one of his early missions to find the Yeti in 1957.

Two years later, one of Slick's team returned to the Pangboche monastery.

He reportedly drank Scotch with a monk until the local passed out, before stealing bone fragments from the hand. He then supposedly replaced the bones with those from a human hand, before rewrapping the Pangboche hand to disguise his theft.

The stolen fragments were allegedly smuggled back to America by a Hollywood star.

Then in 1999, the skull and what remained of the skeletal hand were stolen from the monastery.

Allsop, who scaled Mt Everest in 2007, was intrigued when he learned of the artefacts and determined to reclaim them for the monastery.

"These were very treasured artefacts," he said. "There was a huge outrage when they were stolen.

"The monks initially wouldn't show them to anyone, then slowly they showed them... unfortunately they showed them to one person too many."

Check out the Nepalese Yeti on the AKA Bigfoot World Map (below). Click on the icon to read about the Nepalese Yeti.


View AKA Bigfoot World Map in a larger map

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External Links
SRC: Stuffz Sunday News