Page 88 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

68 Mysterious Creatures

terious giants of the mountain—in Dagestan, proclamation, after much debate in December
“kaptar”; in Azerbaijan, “mesheadam”; in 1998 the members of the Chinese scientific
Georgia, “tkys-katsi”; while the Chechens, community had decreed once and for all that
Ingushes, Kabardins, and Balkars call it the the creatures do not exist.
“almasti”—each startled eyewitness seems to However, in spite of the official pronounce-
describe the same strange beast. ment from the Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese call the snowman “yeren,” that neither the Yeti nor the yeren exist,
and in 1977, 1980, and 1982, expeditions anthropologist Zhou Guoxing reminded his
searching for the manbeast set out to track colleagues that unidentifiable hair specimens
down their quarry in the Shennongjia Forest and 16-inch casts of footprints had been found
Park in western Hubei province. In September during scientific expeditions to the Shen-
1993, a group of Chinese engineers claimed to nongjia region. In his opinion, even if 95 per-
have seen three yeren walking on trails in the cent of the reports on the existence of the wild
Shennongjia Forest Park. man are not credible, it remains necessary for
scientists to study the remaining five percent.
In October 1994, the Chinese government
established the Committee for the Search of In April 2001, British scientists on the trail
Strange and Rare Creatures, including among of the Yeti announced the best evidence yet for
its members specialists in vertebrate paleontol- the existence of the mysterious creature of the
ogy and palaeanthropology. A loose consensus Himalayas—a sample of hair that proved
among interested members from the Chinese impossible to classify genetically. Dr. Rob
Academy of Sciences maintains that the yeren McCall, a zoologist, removed strands of the
are some species of unknown primates. The Yeti hair from the hollow of a tree and brought
largest cast of an alleged wildman footprint is them back to Britain to be analyzed. Dr. Bryan
16 inches long, encouraging estimates that the Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the
yeren itself would stand more than seven feet Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine, one
tall and weigh as much as 660 pounds. The sci- of the world’s leading authorities on DNA
entific committee has also studied and exam- analysis, stated that they could not identify the
ined eight hair specimens said to have come DNA that they had discovered in the hair and
from yeren ranging through China and Tibet. that they had never before encountered DNA
The analyses of the hairs, varying in color from that they couldn’t recognize.
the black collected in Yunnan province and
M Delving Deeper
the white collected in Tibet to the reddish
Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. Unexplained Mysteries of
brown from Hubei, indicate a nonhuman
the 20th Century. Chicago: Contemporary Books,
source, but no known animal.
1989.
In April 1995, a yeren expedition of 30 Dash, Mike. Borderlands. New York: Dell Books, 2000.
members led by Professor Yuan Zhengxin set
Henderson, Mark. “‘Yeti’s hair’ Defies DNA Analy-
out for the Hubei mountains. Although the
sis.” The Times, April 2, 2001. [Online] http://
enthusiastic Professor Zhengxin expressed con-
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-108351,00.html.
fidence that the well-equipped group would
Heuvelmans, Bernard. On the Track of Unknown Ani-
capture a yeren within three years, by July most
mals. New York: Hill and Wang, 1958.
of the expedition members had returned to Bei-
Sanderson, Ivan T. Abominable Snowmen: Legend
jing with little more than some possible hair
Come to Life. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1961.
samples to show for their three-month safari.
In January 1999, Feng Zuoguian, a zoolo-
gist for the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
announced through the state-run China Daily Creatures of the Night
newspaper that China was officially proclaim-
ing its firm opposition to any outsiders who here is no known culture on this plan-
attempted to organize expeditions to capture et that has not at one time or another
the Yeti or the yeren. According to the official T cowered in fear because of the savage

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