Page 86 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

66 Mysterious Creatures

ered with long brown hair or fur and reeking dismissed his report until several scholars dis-
of skunk.” The seven witnesses observed the covered the journals of Major Lawrence Wad-
Skunk Ape “in a slough covered with bald dell, who, during his 1887 expedition, reported
cypress trees.” Rowland added that “…it loped having found humanlike tracks in the snow.
along like a big monkey or gorilla, then it dis- The First Everest Expedition was launched
appeared into the woods.”
in 1921, led by Colonel C. K. Howard-Bury.
In February 2001, the Sarasota Sheriff’s The climbing party of six British men and 26
Department received an anonymous letter native porters was crawling slowly up the
containing some photographs of an apelike north face of Everest, near the Lhakpa La Pass,
creature that had been taken by a woman who when Howard-Bury spotted tracks in the
feared that an orangutan was running loose in morning snow. Most of them were easily recog-
the area of Myakka State Park and might nizable as those of rabbits or foxes, but one set
harm members of her family. Cryptozoologist of indentations was peculiar, appearing as if a
Loren Coleman, who examined the pictures man walking barefoot had made them. A Sher-
along with animal welfare specialist David pa guide identified the tracks as belonging to
Barkasy, said that they appeared to be good the Yeti or the “mehteh kangmi,” the man-
graphic evidence for the unknown anthropoid beast of the mountains who lived in the snow.
known as the Florida Skunk Ape. According
to Coleman, “The photographs clearly show a Later, when Howard-Bury telegraphed his
large, upright dark orangutan-like animal reports to Calcutta, he mentioned the inci-
among the palmettos, showing eye-shine and dent briefly. Unfortunately, the telegraphic
typical anthropoid behavior of fright due to facilities were very primitive and the words
the woman’s flash camera.” “mehteh kangmi” were garbled into “metch
kangmi.” The expedition’s assistants in Cal-
M Delving Deeper cutta were confused by the term and asked a
Coleman, Loren. Mysterious America. Boston: Faber Calcutta newspaper columnist to translate the
& Faber, 1985. term. The columnist told them that “metch”
———. “Top Cryptozoolgical Stories of the Year was a term of extreme disgust, so it might be
2001.” The Anomalist, January 4, 2001. [Online] translated as the “horrible snowman” or the
http://www.anomalist.com/features/topcz2001. html. “abominable snowman.”
Otto, Steve. “Absolute Kinda Irrefutable Proof of
A reporter for one of England’s most sensa-
Skunk Ape.” Tampa Tribune, February 13, 2001.
tional newspapers was in the office when the
[Online] http://news.tbo.com/news/MGACIN7J
telegram was translated. He raced for the
3JC.html.
cable office in Calcutta, wiring his paper that
Sanderson, Ivan T. Abominable Snowmen: Legend the First Everest Expedition had encountered
Come to Life. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1961. a frightening creature known as the “abom-
inable snowman.” Thus the hairy wild men of
Yeti the Himalayas were named in error and the
Tales of hairy monsters existing in the Asian term has persisted to this day. When Howard-
wilderness can be found in the writings of sev- Bury and his unsuccessful mountain climbers
eral venerable Chinese scholars who linked admitted defeat on Mt. Everest, they returned
these creatures to the “time of the dragon,” to civilization and discovered that newspaper
the presumed genesis of Asian civilization. reporters were eager for more information
Despite an occasional report by a European about the abominable snowmen.
visitor to the region, the apelike creatures did In the 1930s scientists studied the reports
not receive any sort of widespread notoriety of explorer Frank Smythe’s discovery of Yeti
until the beginning of the twentieth century. tracks in the snow at 14,000 feet. The foot-
During an expedition into the Himalayas prints measured 13 inches in length and were
in 1906, botanist H. J. Elwes was astonished to five inches wide. Famed mountaineer Eric E.
glimpse a hairy figure racing across a field of Shipton claimed that he saw similar tracks on
snow below him. The scientific establishment his expedition to Everest in 1936.

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