Yeti Hair DNA News from Across the World

Russian Yeti Photographed From: Lenta.ru:

Yeti news from Russia usually upticks this time of year, culminating to its highest peak towards Western Siberia's Yeti Day celebrated on November 11th.

Two days ago in an post titled, "Russia Announces DNA Test Results of Kemerovo "Yeti Hair"" we announced the Yeti fur DNA findings. Now the rest of the media world has caught up and some have added their own take on the situation, or have interviewed others to include additional opinions. Below is the most often quoted piece from the press release and the best excerpts from around the world including skeptical opinions from Igor Burtsev and Dr. Jeff Meldrum.

From the Press Release“We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human,” said Professor Valentin Sapunov, a prominent Russian cryptozoologist of the Russian State Hydrometeorological Institute.

The hair is not believed to have belonged to any animal known from the region and the Siberian Times reports analysis carried out in both Russia and the United States 'agreed the hair came from a human-like creature which is not a Homo sapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey’.

60-70 % SureValentin Sapunov, a professor at the State Hydrometeorological University in St. Petersburg, told The Moscow Times that DNA analysis and examination under an electron microscope had led him to be "60-70 percent" certain that the hairs belonged to a yeti-like creature. --Moscow Times

Igor Burtsev: I Doubt itThe “Yeti hair” was allegedly found in Siberia’s Azasskaya Cave by Dr Igor Birtsev, Russia’s leading advocate of the existence of the abominable snowman.
But is it all an elaborate hoax? That’s the suggestion the Siberian Times is making this morning after Dr Birtsev strangely played down the findings.

“I doubt that they have indeed managed to carry out a DNA test on Azasskaya Cave hair, and doubt that they found how close the Yeti is to humans by its DNA,” he was quoted as saying. --Herald Sun

Meldrum: Evidence Unreliable“There was no expedition. The conference participants were accompanied by the press on a field trip to a cave site. It is my opinion that the 'evidence' found in the cave was unreliable," said Jeff Meldrum, a biologist at Idaho State University and cryptozoologist, told The Russian Times. --7 news

Multiple Sightings in the PastThere have been a number of ‘sightings in the region over the years, with one Siberian fisherman, Vitaly Vershinin, claiming: “We shouted to them – do you need help?”
In 2004, the yeti is said to have been spotted in the remote Mae Charim area of the Luang Prabang Range range, between the Thai highlands and Sainyabuli Province, Laos.

In December 2011, a hunter reported having seen a bear like creature, trying to kill one of his sheep, but after he fired his gun, the creature ran into a forest on 2 legs.

At a 2011 conference in Russia, participating scientists and enthusiasts declared 95% evidence of the Yeti’s existence.

You can read our post earlier this month about the Yeti hair mentioned in the's article. We also have a huge collection of posts regarding Yeti's in the Kemerovo region.

Can Bigfoot Keep Feral Dog's as Pets? Baboons Do.

Hamadryas baboon outside of Ta'if, Saudi Arabia with "pet"

In the documentary, "Animals Like Us." there is a 3 minute clip (see video below) that suggests that Hamadryas baboons kidnap puppies and integrate them into their troops as pets. These loyal pets, risking their lives, then protect the baboon troop from other feral dogs in the area. It has been speculated by multiple Bigfoot field researchers that Bigfoot follow coyotes packs. Could it be the other way around? Could those packs be following and protecting Bigfoot? 

Before we get it from both sides, the skeptics who would correctly say this is quite an extrapolation and the paranormal Bigfooters that may think we can't glean anything from flesh and blood primates, let's admit that Bigfoot is all speculation. There is so much that we don't know, so we have a policy at BLC, that nothing is off the table. With that said, we even went the extra mile to see if this baboon behavior was actually real or due to some creative editing. Besides, if true, at the very least this is interesting primate behavior. There are worse ways to put Bigfoot and baboons together.

First watch the video below. We should warn you, the first minute of the baboon kidnapping the puppy is quite disturbing. At least, it was hard for us to watch it. If you can get past the first minute, the rest of the clip has a happy ending where baboon and dog seem to have a symbiotic relationship.  

Is this video legit? Is this real behavior known to primatologist in the region and elsewhere? Hal Herzog, a Professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University, asks this same question in a DEC 2010 article titled, "Do Wild Baboons Kidnap Puppies for Pets?" Herzog does not completely dispute the behavior, but tries hard to determine the scientific authenticity of the documentary.

Below is an excerpt from Hal Herzog's investigation

I got a break when the ever-curious David Hinton decided this was worth chasing down. David soon discovered that the YouTube clip was from a British nature series called Animals Like Us. Then we stumbled on the Facebook page of the Saudi Arabian American Baboon Research Association. I contacted them immediately. They were, indeed, familiar with the Ta'if baboon troop, but they knew of no documented evidence that the baboons kept dogs as pets. The researchers had seen baboons kidnap kittens, but they have not studied these relationships systematically -- a future project, they promised.

But the big break came when we decided to try to trace the baboon-dog connection through the dogs. The dogs at the trash dump appeared to be a type of natural breed called Canaan dogs.

Natural breeds, sometimes referred to as "pariah dogs," are found in many parts of the world, often on the outskirts of human settlements. They tend to be mid-sized animals with short hair and pointy ears (here). Often tan or brownish, they resemble Australian dingos in size and shape. They are called "natural breeds" because the dogs pick their own mates and are not subjected to the arbitrary aesthetic rules of human overlords.

Within a couple of hours, David and I had independently contacted a microbiologist and Canaan dog expert named Duncan Schroeter. Duncan became interested in Caanan dogs while he was engaged in a research project in Saudi Arabia and had adopted several of them as pets. (See here) In an email, he told me he knew about the baboons at Ta'if and had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Saudi wildlife officials to investigate their curious relationships with dogs. He also mentioned that baboons and dogs easily intermingle at a different site in the Asir region of Saudi Arabia.

The Big Question

Then Duncan raised the big question. He wrote, "Are these baboons and dogs merely tolerating each other in areas where both can find food or are they truly living together with the dogs staying with the baboons when they move away? It is easy and more sensational to put any interpretation on commercial "documentaries."

Three days ago (10-29-2012) BLC reached out to Hal Herzog for any updates and this was his reply.

I recently found out who the scientific advisor to the French film crew was. I wrote him to ask about new developments but have not heard back. If I find out anything of interest I will write a blog post on it.
--Hal Herzog

Happy Halloween: Sasquatch as a 1970's Subgenre of Horror

Clockwise starting top-left: Big Foot, The Legend of Boggy Creek,
Sasquatch: the Legend of Bigfoot, and Shriek of the Mutilated 

Just in time for Halloween, the folks at the website, Not Coming to a Theater Near You, have been reviewing the Sasquatch Cinema from the 70's every Friday this month of October 2012. These reviews of  "Sasquatch Cinema" are a part of a larger annual installment, going on it's 9th year, called 31 Days of Horror. What they call Sasquatch Cinema, we call Sasquatchploitation.  Surprisingly they review one movie, Shriek of the Mutilated, that is completely off our radar and  not on our Top 51 Sasquatchploitation Movies List. The reviews are by David Carter and really excellent reading if you enjoy film in general. Below you can read an excerpt from the four reviews so far this month.

Big Foot

[John] Carradine anchors the film as Jasper Hawkes, a Southern traveling salesman who has made his way west with his associate Elmer (John Mitchum, Robert’s older brother). Radiator trouble leaves the pair stranded on the roadside for a time, but they make a hasty retreat after Elmer finds a massive footprint on the banks of a creek. High above them, the beautiful Joi is having engine troubles of her own and is forced to parachute to safety when her Cessna loses power. Joi lands on a heavily wooded mountainside, and she barely has time to get her bearings before she’s grabbed by a pair of large, hairy arms.

Meanwhile, a curiously well-mannered and clean-cut biker gang cleans out a small general store’s supply of beer and junk food. A pair of young lovers, Rick and his girlfriend Chris, break away from the group to have some alone time and stumble upon a giant, ape-like creature buried in a shallow grave, but surprisingly don’t seem very concerned about it and have a picnic nearby. Rick leaves to make some tune-ups to his bike when he’s attacked and knocked unconscious by a creature similar to the one in the grave. Upon waking, he finds Chris gone and he rushes back to town to report the incident. Due to his outsider status, he finds few willing to listen to his tale, despite the fact that they all agree they’ve heard of similar attacks by large monsters recently. Jasper listens to Rick, however, and he believes the monster the young man saw to be the legendary Bigfoot. Jasper and Elmer offer to help Rick find Chris, knowing that the capture of a such a monster will make them both millionaires.  Read More...

The Legend of Boggy Creek

Boggy Creek’s narrator informs us that his first encounter with the Fouke Monster was an indirect one. “I was seven years old when I first heard him scream. It scared me then; it scares me now,” he muses, impressing that the creature is both authentic and something to be feared. The film reiterates this idea of authenticity subtly in the scenes immediately following, which introduce the small town of Fouke, Arkansas. The rural southern charm of the town is emphasized in such a manner as to imply that the residents of Fouke would be incapable of deception and are knowledgeable enough about the local fauna to be able to correctly identify an animal or, conversely, know when they came across an unknown animal.

Authenticity established, the remainder of Boggy Creek consists of case studies and reenactments of recent encounters with the Fouke Monster, who was peculiarly very active in the early seventies. The stories range from somewhat benign sightings of the creature at a distance to harrowing encounters where the lives of the witnesses were in danger. Certain details about the creature emerge over the course of the film: it is nocturnal, aggressive, and carnivorous. It is important to note that the latter two aspects differ greatly from the general consensus that Bigfoot is a gentle beast concerned primarily with avoiding detection. The Fouke Monster seemingly intentionally draws attention to itself in many instances, most notably in the film’s dramatic climax where he terrorizes a family over the course of several nights. Read More...

Shriek of the Mutilated 

Shriek of the Mutiliated is the story of a trip to investigate Yeti sightings by Professor Ernst Prell and his graduate students, Tom, Lynn, Keith, and Keith’s girlfriend, Karen. The Yeti is Prell’s pet project – actually, obsession – and rumors that a previous expedition ended in disaster frightens the students. At the expedition site upstate, the students are introduced to Prell’s collaborator, Dr. Werner, and his imposing Native American manservant, the mute Laughing Crow. Werner gives Prell the welcome news that he has seen and heard the creature in the area recently, and the team begins their hunt early the next morning. Tragedy strikes the group almost immediately as Tom is attacked by a hulking monster with shaggy white hair. The remaining team learns of his fate much later, after a day of searching only finds Tom’s partially eaten leg.

Prell’s obsession with the Yeti determines that the expedition must continue, despite vociferous protests from Karen. The others agree to continue on, and Lynn is the next to fall victim to the Yeti. The surviving group is now faced with the harrowing possibility that they too will die and decide to undertake a drastic, previously unthinkable tactic in a last ditch effort to capture the creature. The group attempts to lure the Yeti into a trap using Lynn’s corpse as bait. This too fails; the Yeti escapes, the group is scattered, and Keith is knocked unconscious. Karen is attacked by the Yeti after returning to the safety of the lodge, but dies of fright before the beast can kill her. Read More...

Sasquatch: the Legend of Bigfoot

Sasquatch draws its influence from the Bigfoot films that preceded it, most notably 1976’s The Legend of Bigfoot. In addition to the likely intentional mimicry of the title, Sasquatch takes that film’s main focus – real life wildlife expert and Bigfoot hunter Ivan Marx – and essentially replicates him for its main character, Chuck Evans. Those who have seen Legend will be familiar with Marx’s frequent poetic musings about nature, ecology, and his mysterious prey, and Sasquatch’s Evans provides similar commentary during the film’s mostly uneventful trek to the fictional Peckatoe River Valley in western Canada. The similarities between the two films’ narration is intentional, as is Sasquatch’s appropriation of Legend’s overall structure and the documentary format. To the unfamiliar, Sasquatch would appear equally as authentic as Legend or any other Bigfoot documentary film—a technique that would greatly enhance the impact of the film’s conclusion.

While Evans and crew are making the journey to their ultimate destination, the film borrows a trick from The Legend of Boggy Creek and includes reenactments of famous Bigfoot encounters to satisfy the film’s horror quota. The first of these is the “Ape Canyon incident” from 1924, which took place near Mt. St. Helens in Washington State. Four miners claimed to have been attacked by a group of ape-men/”mountain-devils”/Sasquatch who battered the outside of their cabin and pelted them with rocks and logs for an entire night. Per one of the experiencers, Fred Peck, claims the men shot at the creatures – killing at least one – but no bodies were found the next day. Peck attributes this to his belief that the creatures were extra-dimensional beings—a not uncommon belief in Bigfoot lore. Sasquatch doesn’t address this aspect, but instead treats the incident as wholly terrestrial and factual in a well-executed scene that manages to generate a good deal of terror. Read More...