The Sherpas, the people who live on the slopes of the towering Himalaya Mountains, tell of a strange creature that roams this snow-covered region.
The creature, called the Yeti, is described as large and apelike, its body covered with black or brownish-red hair. Stories have been told of the Yeti piercing the stillness with its odd cries. It is said to have killed yaks and even attacked people.
These tales were regarded as mere legend by most Europeans. But then explorers reported seeing the footprints of a very large creature in the region, a creature that walked upright on its hind legs.
In 1937, the first photographs were taken of these footprints, and many more have been taken since then. The prints were set deeply in the snow, as if made by a very heavy creature. They measured 14 inches long and 7 inches across!
Is there really such a creature as the Yeti, or “Abominable Snowman”? Some scientists claim that the footprints of the Yeti are really those of the Tibetan blue bear, which has still never been seen by a European.
Others say they are really the footprints of the snow leopard, or a large gibbon, or some unknown species of ape, or even a large bird. But others claim the prints cannot be those of a bear or ape and were made by a species still unknown to science.
One European scientist reported seeing a black, apelike creature on a mountain slope. This creature left tracks very much like those seen in photographs of the Yeti’s prints. Another explorer observed a hairy creature 6 feet tall with long arms.
The body of a Yeti has never been found, nor has its skin or bones. Until the actual discovery of a Yeti, dead or alive, who can say what may lurk on the bleak slopes of’ the world’s highest mountains!
