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Posted: 07-04-2010 07:47 Post subject:

I think it's a civet cat.

Posted: 07-04-2010 18:28 Post subject:

Posted: 08-04-2010 12:03 Post subject:

Well, they don't call it the Abominable SnowCivet.[/quote]

But I wish they would.

Posted: 11-04-2010 22:10 Post subject:

Posted: 11-04-2010 22:32 Post subject:

Bernard Heuvalmans offers a good explanation for that, saying that the scalp is very old and was created for ceremonial purposes based on a real animal, and that over the years its become accepted or put forward as being genuine.

Posted: 12-05-2010 12:49 Post subject:

Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner claimed in his 2000 book My Search for The Yeti that the creature was nothing more than a brown bear. This is curious as on previous occasions he had claimed to have seen the yeti and described it as a primate-type animal.

I once interviewed the actor Brian Blessed, a renowned explorer and mountaineer himself, for a long defunct and not very good magazine called Quest. Blessed, who is a friend of Messner, said that he had told him of his encounter with a yeti. Blessed said that Messner had walked around some rocks and come ‘face to face’ with the creature. He said it was not a bear, was 7 feet tall, man-like and stood erect.

There are other occasions when Messner’s descriptions sound precious little like a bear. Julian Champkin of the Daily Mail 16th August 1997 wrote that Messner has… “encountered the yeti; and not once, but four times, once close enough to touch it. More importantly, he claims to have photographs of the creature, including a mother yeti tending her child, and a yeti skeleton”.
Needless to say none of his pictures have been forthcoming. Messner goes on… "I searched for a week, 12 hours a day, in an area with no trees," he says. "I didn't expect to find one so soon. First, we saw a mother with her child. I could only take a photograph from the back. The child had bright red fur, the older animal's fur was black. She was over two metres tall, with dark hair, just like the legend. When they saw us they disappeared."

Two days later, he claimed to have come across and filmed a sleeping yeti. The film is just as noticeable as the photos by its absence.

In an article relating to the BBC’s Natural World documentary on the yeti, Messner describes seeing one from a range of 30 metres in Southern Tibet. The article says Messner is sure it is some kind of primate. He describes it in the article thus… “It was bigger than me, quite hairy and strong, dark brown-black hair falling over his eyes. He stood on two legs and immediately I thought he corresponds to the descriptions I heard from Sherpas and Tibetans.”

So why did Messner write a book trying to explain away the yeti as a bear when this transparently was not the creature he claimed to have seen? Was it because of fear of ridicule? And what became of the photos and film? Was Messner trying to take the focus away from these or make them seem less important by saying the yeti was just a bear? Could this be because the film and photos did not exist?

Sherpas become angry when westerners say that the yeti is just a bear, and quite rightly. The animal they pick repeatedly as looking most like the yeti is the gorilla, but walking on two legs rather than four. The yeti has a flat, ape-like face. The yeti walks almost constantly on two legs. The yeti can manipulate things with its hands and hence must have opposable thumbs. It is said to sometimes hurl large rocks. Bears have none of the above features. The yeti is clearly some kind of primate, most likely a great ape.

Until he delivers the goods, I’m inclined to dismiss Messner’s claims.

Posted: 29-04-2011 12:25 Post subject:

'Yeti hand' replica to be returned to Nepal monastery
By Joanna Jolly, BBC News, Kathmandu

A pilot from New Zealand is in Nepal to return a replica of what some believe is the hand of a yeti to a remote monastery in the Everest region.
Mike Allsop will fly from Kathmandu to the Everest region on Friday to take the models to Pangboche Monastery, which sits at 4,000m (13,123ft).
The originals were stolen from the monastery in the 1990s.

They first came to light in the 1950s when an expedition to find the mythical yeti came upon the monastery.
Mr Allsop will also take with him a replica of a yeti skull-cap, which was also stolen in the 1990s.
"I will take these replicas back to the monks so they can replace the ones that were stolen," Mr Allsop told the BBC.

Peter Byrne, the leader of the 1950s expedition to find the abominable snowman, said that while the skull was probably made of goat or antelope skin, the hand did not match the skeleton of a human or a primate.

Experts who examined the 'yeti hand' could not conclusively prove what it was Mr Byrne managed to take one of the bones from the hand out of Nepal to his friend, the Hollywood actor James Stewart, who was on holiday at the time with his wife in Calcutta.
James Stewart's wife then placed the bone in her lingerie box and smuggled it into England where it was examined by a professor at Oxford University who said he could not conclusively say what kind of bone it was.

In the 1990s, an American television channel ran a documentary about the hand and skull. Shortly after, both were stolen from the monastery.

Mr Allsop said that he decided to make replicas of the hand and skull after trekking in the Everest region.
He approached the head of the New Zealand firm Weta Workshop, who were responsible for crafting the special effects and props for the Lord of the Rings films.
They agreed to make the replicas for free from photographs.

Mr Allsop has not yet told the monks in the monastery that he is returning with replicas of the hand and the skull.
He hopes that they will now be able to attract more trekkers to Pangboche, who will pay a small fee to see the artefacts.
"I want to help the monastery have an income again - I want to help them out," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13228780

Posted: 03-05-2011 11:33 Post subject:

Link to an article according to the author containing a photo of the Chemo bear in captivity.

http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/380/Nation/14309

Posted: 03-05-2011 21:23 Post subject:

Thats Paddington, that is.

Can you imagine the price such a hansome bear skin would bring at market?

Posted: 06-02-2012 17:40 Post subject:

Take a look at this item:
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/grant-uk.htm

The reason I bring it up is I was watching that BBC Alba news clip show again and it had another Fortean bit, from 1984. It was about a Scottish yeti enthusiast named Bill Grant, and in the footage he was preparing for a trip to the Himalayas for a try at tracking down an actual yeti.

I did a search to see how he got on, and there are a few mentions of him but nobody knows what happened to him, or if he ever succeeded (one assumes not). Anyone remember this guy? Did a yeti spirit him away?

Posted: 22-05-2012 22:10 Post subject:

Posted: 22-05-2012 23:06 Post subject:

Well, I wonder what they'll find.

Posted: 23-05-2012 08:32 Post subject:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2148112/Oxford-University-project-starts-hunt-Yeti-using-DNA-samples-world.html

Blimey - even the Daily Wail have got hold of this one!

Posted: 23-05-2012 09:49 Post subject:

So there is an Archive of alleged material.

Collected by Helvumans, no other?

This in itself is fastinating.

Posted: 23-05-2012 10:13 Post subject: