Bigfoot is different. Legends and real stories about Bigfoot

The Yeti is the well-known Bigfoot, living in mountains and forests. On the one hand, this mythological creature, whose secret thousands of scientists around the world are trying to unravel. On the other hand, this a real man, which, due to its disgusting appearance, hides away from human eyes.

Today, a new theory has emerged that may prove that Sasquatch lives in the Himalayas (the mountains of Asia). This is evidenced by strange marks on the snow cover. Scientists suggest that the Yeti lives below the Himalayan snow line. To find irrefutable evidence, dozens of expeditions were assembled to the mountains of China, Nepal and Russia, but no one was able to prove the existence of the famous “monster”.

Features

Yeti are easy to spot and recognize. If you suddenly travel around the East, keep this reminder for yourself.

"Bigfoot reaches almost 2 meters in height, and his weight varies from 90 to 200 kilograms. Presumably, everything depends on the habitat (and, accordingly, on nutrition). He is a muscular, big guy who has thick hair all over his body. Coat color can be either dark gray or brown. In fact, it is only. general portrait the famous Yeti, because in different countries it is represented differently."

History of the Bigfoot

Yeti is a character in ancient legends and folklore. The Himalayas welcome its guests with old stories, where the key figure is the formidable and dangerous Snowman. As a rule, such legends are needed not to scare travelers, but to warn against wild animals that can easily harm and even kill. The legends about the famous creature are so old that even Alexander the Great, after conquering the Indus Valley, demanded from local residents proof of the existence of the Yeti, but they only said that Bigfoot lives at high altitudes.

What evidence is there

More from late XIX centuries, scientists have assembled expeditions to find evidence of the existence of the Yeti. For example, in 1960, Sir Edmund Hillary visited Everest and discovered the scalp of an unknown beast. Several years later, research confirmed that it was not a scalp, but a warm helmet made from a Himalayan goat, which, after a long stay in the cold, could appear to be part of the head of Bigfoot.

Other evidence:

Russian expedition

In 2011, a conference was held, attended by biologists and researchers from all over Russia. This event was organized with the support of the government of the Russian Federation. During the conference, an expedition was assembled that was supposed to study all the data about Bigfoot and collect irrefutable evidence of his existence.

A few months later, a group of scientists announced that they had found White hair in a cave that belongs to Yeti. However, the scientist Bindernagel proved that all the facts were compromised. This is evidenced by the work of Jeff Meldrum, an Idaho professor of anatomy and anthropology. The scientist said that the twisted tree branches, photographs and collected materials were crafts, and the Russian expedition was needed only to attract the attention of tourists from all over the world.

DNA samples

In 2013, geneticist Brian Sykes, who teaches at Oxford, announced to the whole world that he had research materials that included teeth, hair and skin. The study examined more than 57 samples and carefully compared them to the genomes of every animal in the world. The results were not long in coming: most of the material belonged to already known living creatures, such as a horse, a cow, a bear. Even the teeth of a polar-brown bear hybrid that lived more than 100,000 years ago were discovered.

In 2017, another series of studies was carried out, which proved that all the materials belonged to Himalayan and Tibetan bears, as well as a dog.

Proponents of the theory

Despite the fact that there is still no evidence of the existence of the Yeti, entire communities dedicated to Bigfoot have been organized around the world. Their representatives believe that the mysterious creature is simply impossible to catch. This proves that the Yeti is an intelligent, cunning and educated creature that is carefully hidden from human eyes. The absence of irrefutable facts does not mean that such creatures do not exist. According to the theory of adherents, Bigfoot prefers a reclusive lifestyle.

Neanderthal mystery

Researcher Myra Shackley, in her book about Sasquatch, described the experiences of two tourists. In 1942, two travelers were in the Himalayas, where they saw black spots moving hundreds of meters from their camp. Thanks to the fact that tourists were located on the ridge, they could clearly distinguish the height, color and habits of unknown creatures.

“The height of the “black spots” reached almost two meters. Their heads were not oval, but square. It was difficult to determine the presence of ears from the silhouette, so perhaps they were not there, or they were too close to the skull. The broad shoulders were covered with a reddish color -brown hair that hung down. Despite the fact that the head was covered with hair, the face and chest were completely naked, which is why flesh-colored skin was visible. The two creatures emitted a loud cry that scattered throughout the mountain range."

Scientists are still debating whether these sightings were real or just the imagination of inexperienced tourists. Mountaineer Reinhold Messner concluded that big bears and their tracks were often mistaken for Yetis. He wrote about this in his book "My Quest for the Yeti: Confronting the Deepest Secret of the Himalayas."

Does Bigfoot really exist?

In 1986, tourist Anthony Woodridge visited the Himalayas, where he also discovered the Yeti. According to him, the creature stood only 150 meters from the traveler, while Bigfoot did not make any sounds or move. Anthony Woodridge spent a long time tracking the unnaturally huge footprints, which later led him to the creature. Finally, the tourist took two photographs, which he presented to the researchers upon his return. Scientists studied the pictures for a long time and carefully, and then came to the conclusion that they are genuine and not a fake.

John Napira - anatomist, anthropologist, director of the Smithsonian Institution, biologist who studies primates. He also studied Woodridge's photographs and said that the tourist was too experienced to confuse the image of the Yeti with a large Tibetan bear. However, more recently, the photographs were re-examined, and then a team of researchers came to the conclusion that Anthony Woodridge took a photograph of the darkened side of the rock, which stood upright. Despite the indignation of true believers, the photographs were recognized, although real, but not proving the existence of Bigfoot.

A humanoid creature believed to be found in high mountain or forest regions of the Earth.

There is an opinion that this is a relict hominid, that is, a mammal belonging to the order of primates and the genus of humans, preserved to this day from the time of human ancestors. Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus designated it Homo troglodytes (cave man).
According to hypotheses, “Bigfoot people” differ from humans in having a denser build, a pointed skull shape, and a more long arms, short neck and massive lower jaw, relatively short hips. They have hair all over their body that is black, red or gray. The faces are dark, and the hair on the head is longer than on the body. The mustache and beard are very sparse and short. Have a strong bad smell. They move on their feet and climb trees well.

It is assumed that mountain populations " snow people"They live in caves, and the forest ones build nests on tree branches.
Height ranges from 1 to 2.5 meters; in most cases 1.5-2 meters; encounters with the largest individuals were reported in the mountains of Central Asia (Yeti) and in North America(Sasquatch). In Sumatra, Kalimantan and Africa, in most cases the height did not exceed 1.5 meters.

Anthropologist Chernitsky, having collected numerous drawings, photographs and descriptions of the “Bigfoot”, compiled his approximate description: “The Yeti is a large, upright animal, overgrown with thick hair, height from 140 centimeters to 2 meters, weighing from 35-40 to 80-100 kilograms "He has long arms reaching to the knees, and shorter legs than those of humans. Outwardly, he resembles the ape-man Gigantopithecus, widespread on Earth 500 thousand years ago."

There are suggestions that the observed relict hominids belong to several different species, at least three.

People first started talking about “Bigfoot” in the early 1950s. At that time, articles appeared in many magazines about numerous encounters of climbers with a mysterious creature - the yeti in the distant Himalayan mountains. Then they began to meet him in the mountains of the former Soviet Union.
In 1954, the English newspaper Daily Mail organized the first expedition to search for Bigfoot. The search was conducted in the Himalayas.

The expedition did not achieve its goal - the participants were not able to see the Bigfoot. But as a result of the work, materials were collected to resolve the issue of its existence. In particular, scalps and mummified hands of a creature resembling a human were discovered in the monasteries of Pangboche and Khimjung. Prominent anatomists - Teizo Ogawa in Japan, J. Agodzino in the USA, E. Danilova and L. Astanin in the USSR, who examined photographs of the remains, came to a unanimous conclusion: they belong to a creature that most closely resembles a Neanderthal, one of the ancestors modern man.

At the end of the 1950s, a Commission was created at the USSR Academy of Sciences to study the issue of “Bigfoot.” It included famous scientists - geologist, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergei Obruchev, primatologist and anthropologist Mikhail Nesturkh, botanist Konstantin Stanyukovich, physicist and mountaineer, Nobel laureate Academician Igor Tamm. The most active members of the commission were doctor Zhanna Kofman and professor Boris Porshnev. The working hypothesis that guided the commission: “Bigfoot” is a representative of the extinct branch of Neanderthals who has survived to this day.

Description

Testimonies about encounters with “Bigfoot” most often feature creatures that differ from modern humans in having a denser physique, pointed skull shape, longer arms, short neck length and massive lower jaw, relatively short hips, with thick hair all over. body - black, red, white or gray. Persons dark color. The hair on the head is longer than on the body. The mustache and beard are very sparse and short. They climb trees well. It has been suggested that mountain populations of Bigfoot people live in caves, while forest populations build nests on tree branches. Carl Linnaeus designated it as Homo troglodytes(cave man). Very fast. He can overtake a horse, and on two legs, and in the water - a motor boat. Omnivore, but prefers plant foods, loves apples. Eyewitnesses described encounters with specimens of varying heights, from average human height to 3 m or more.

Ideas about Bigfoot and its various local analogues are very interesting from the point of view of ethnography. The image of a huge scary person may reflect innate fears of darkness, the unknown, relationships with mystical forces among different peoples. It is quite possible that in some cases snow people people with unnatural hair or feral people were accepted.

origin of name

He was named Bigfoot thanks to a group of climbers who conquered Everest. They discovered the loss of food supplies, then heard a heartbreaking scream, and a chain of footprints similar to human ones appeared on one of the snow-covered slopes. The residents explained that it was the Yeti, the abominable snowman, and categorically refused to set up camp in this place. Since then, Europeans have called this creature Bigfoot.

Existence

Most modern scientists are skeptical about the possibility of the existence of Bigfoot.

... about Bigfoot he said: “I really want to believe, but there is no reason.” The words “no basis” mean that the issue has been studied and, as a result of the study, it has been discovered that there is no reason to trust the original statements. This: is the formula of the scientific approach: “I want to believe,” but since “there is no reason,” then we must abandon this belief.
Academician A. B. Migdal From guess to truth.

The attitude of a professional biologist to the question of the possibility of the existence of “Bigfoot” was illustrated by paleontologist Kirill Eskov in a popular article:

At least, I do not know the laws of nature that would directly prohibit the existence in the mountains of Central Asia of a relict hominoid - an “ape-man”, or simply a large ape. It must be assumed that, contrary to its name, it is not connected in any way with the eternal snows (except for the fact that it sometimes leaves traces there), but should live in the belt of mountain forests, where there is ample food and shelter. It is clear that any reports about North American “bigfoot” can be thrown out with a clear conscience without reading (for there are no primate species on that continent and never have been, and in order to get there from Asia through circumpolar Beringia, as people did, you must at least have fire), but in the Himalayas or the Pamirs - why not? There are even quite plausible candidates for this role, for example, Meganthropus - a very large (about two meters tall) fossil ape from South Asia, which had a number of “human” features that bring it closer to the African Australopithecus, the direct ancestors of hominids […]
So, do I admit (as a professional zoologist) the fundamental possibility of the existence of a relict hominoid? - answer: “Yes.” Do I believe in his existence? - answer: “No.” And since we are talking here not about “I know/don’t know”, but about “I believe/don’t believe”, I will allow myself to express a completely subjective judgment on this matter, based personal experience: […] where a professional has once set foot, not a single animal larger than a rat has any one chance remain “unknown to science.” Well, since by the end of the twentieth century there were almost no places left where a professional would not have set foot at all (at least on land) - draw your own conclusions...

- “Cryptukha, sir!”, article. Kirill Eskov, Computerra, 03.13.07, No. 10 (678): pp. 36-39.

Currently, there is not a single representative of the species living in captivity, nor a single skeleton or skin. However, there are allegedly hairs, footprints and several dozen photographs, video recordings (poor quality) and audio recordings. The reliability of this evidence is questionable. For a long time One of the most compelling pieces of evidence was a short film made by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin in 1967 in Northern California. The film allegedly showed a female Bigfoot. However, in 2002, after the death of Ray Wallace, for whom this filming was made, evidence appeared from his relatives and acquaintances, who said (however, without presenting any physical evidence) that the whole story with the “American Yeti” was from beginning to end. the end is rigged; The forty-centimeter “footprints of the Yeti” were made with artificial forms, and the filming was a staged episode with a man in a specially tailored monkey suit.

However, it should be noted that Patterson’s film aroused genuine interest among researchers from the National Geographic Channel. In the section “Reality or Fiction” (broadcast in December 2010), an attempt was made to study and examine Patterson’s film from the point of view of the possibility of its falsification. Experienced make-up artists, a tall actor imitating a gait, special effects specialists and scientists were brought in as experts. The appearance of the creature in the film, its fur adjacent to the muscles, the proportions of the limbs, the dynamics of movement were assessed, the shooting distance was taken into account, etc. As a result, according to the unanimous opinion of the experts involved, even at modern level With the development of the media industry and video effects, not to mention the level of 1967, it is almost impossible to achieve such a degree of realism in the plot of Bigfoot.

On the other hand, from enthusiasts of this topic one can hear accusations against “official science” that its representatives simply brush aside the available evidence. Here is a typical text of this kind:

In fact, those who say “there is no reason” simply do not even want to get acquainted with what has been “dug up” by enthusiastic researchers. “We hear countless examples of this in history.” I will give only two. When the Canadian Rene Dahinden at the end of 1971 brought us a copy of the film shot by Patterson in 1967, I personally once approached the then director of the Institute of Anthropology of Moscow State University V.P. Yakimov and offered to show the film to him and the staff of the institute, he literally put his hands forward, like would recoil from the proposal and say; "No! No need!" But this did not stop him from declaring that there was no reason...
And when at the international symposium, which he (Yakimov) chaired, Professor Astanin went to the podium to present to those present the materials of an anatomical study of the hand of the Yeti from the Pangboche monastery (Tibet), Yakimov did not allow him to speak and drove him from the podium in violation of the democratic traditions of such forums - to the protests of the participants... As a result, some of them left the symposium meeting.
And a recent example: when I came from the USA after a five-week “investigation” of the events at the Carter farm in the fall of 2004, where, according to the owner, a clan of Bigfoot lived, and I offered to speak and talk about the results in the anthropology department of the Institute of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, its head. S. Vasiliev declined under the pretext of being busy with other issues.
At the same time, when there was a noise in the press about the existence of a “Bigfoot” in the Shoria mountains (south of the Kemerovo region), the same Vasiliev stated without hesitation: “Alas, we do not have data on the existence of humanoids anywhere in the world"…
Igor Burtsev, Ph.D. ist. Sciences, Director International Center Hominology, Moscow.

The Soviet scientist B.F. Porshnev paid much attention to the topic of Bigfoot.

Commission of the Academy of Sciences to study the issue of “Bigfoot”

Commission members J.-M. I. Kofman and Professor B.F. Porshnev and other enthusiasts continued to actively search for Bigfoot or his traces.

Society of Cryptozoologists

Mentions in history and literature

Abstract drawing of Bigfoot.

There are numerous known depictions of creatures similar to Bigfoot (on art objects from Ancient Greece, Rome, Ancient Armenia, Carthage and Etruscans and medieval Europe) and mentions, including in the Bible (in Russian translation shaggy), Ramayana ( rakshasas), in Nizami Ganjavi’s poem “Iskander-name”, folklore different nations (faun, satyr And strong in Ancient Greece, yeti in Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan, ghoul-baths in Azerbaijan, chuchunny, chuchunaa in Yakutia, almas in Mongolia, ezhen (野人 ), maoren(毛人) and renxiong(人熊) in China, kiik-adam And albasty In Kazakhstan , goblin, shish And shishiga from the Russians, diva in Persia (and Ancient Rus'), Chugayster in Ukraine , dev And albasty in the Pamirs, shurale And yarymtyk among the Kazan Tatars and Bashkirs, Arsuri among the Chuvash, picenus among the Siberian Tatars, abnauayu in Abkhazia , sasquatch In Canada , teryk, girkychavylin, worldygdy, Kiltanya, market, arysa, Rackem, Julia in Chukotka, trampoline, sedapa And orangpendek in Sumatra and Kalimantan, Agogwe, kakundakari And ki-lomba in Africa, etc.). In folklore they appear in the form of satyrs, demons, devils, goblin, merman, mermaids, etc.

Opponents of the version of the existence of Bigfoot, which includes most professional biologists and anthropologists, point to the lack of unambiguous evidence (living individuals or their remains, high-quality photographs and videos) and the possibility of arbitrary interpretation of the available evidence. There are frequent references to a well-known biological fact: the long-term existence of a population requires a minimum size of the order of hundreds of individuals, the vital activity of which, according to critics, simply cannot be invisible and not leave numerous traces. The explanations put forward for the evidence generally boil down to the following set of versions:

Notes

K. Eskov. “Cryptuh, sir!”
Patterson's film
B. F. Porshnev Current state of the issue of relict hominoids Viniti, Moscow, 1963
Soviet "Bigfoot" Itogi magazine
Zhanna-Marie Kofman
see, for example, “Popular Biological Dictionary”, 1991, Ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, edited by corresponding member A. V. Yablokov
V. B. Sapunov, Doctor of Biology. Sciences Bigfoot in two dimensions, or an alternative to the noosphere
J. Kofman At the origins of a new science (To the 40th anniversary of the publication of Professor B. F. Porshnev’s monograph “ Current state the question of relict hominoids" VINITI 412 since 1963) magazine "Mediana" No. 6 2004
KAZAKHSTAN CHRONICLE “P” Year 1988
Trakhtengerts M. S. Habitat of primates of the Alamas species, journal “Natural and Technical Sciences” ISSN 1684-2626, 2003, No. 2, pp. 71-76
Dmitri Bayanov, Igor Bourtsev In The Footsteps of the Russian Snowman 240 pages “Pyramid Publications” 1996 ISBN 5-900229-18-1 ISBN 978-5-900229-18-8 (English)
B. A. Shurinov 20th century paradox « International relationships» 315 pages 1990 ISBN 5-7133-0408-6
A Russian biologist considers Sasquatch and other yetis to be feral oligophrenics.
Beiko V. B., Berezina M. F., Bogatyreva E. L. et al. Great encyclopedia of the animal world: Pop. edition for children. - M.: JSC "ROSMAN-PRESS", 2007. - 303 p. UDC 087.5, BBK 28.6, p. 285.

Before we talk about the mysterious Bigfoot itself, let's first talk about those who are looking for him. These are cryptozoologists. Cryptozoology is the science of animals unknown to science. What a paradox: science about what science does not know...

The term “cryptozoology” was coined by the French zoologist Bernard Euvelmans. Naturally, cryptozoology cannot be called a real science, it is a typical pseudoscience, but many who are passionate about the idea of searching for unknown animals dream of their dream becoming a reality. It must be said that among cryptozoologists there are real scientists who admit that perhaps “there is something”, but are very critical of the available information and facts.

The famous field zoologist George Schaller, in principle, without denying the possible existence of the “Bigfoot” and even participating in his search, complained that his remains or at least feces had not yet been found, without which it is impossible to draw conclusions about whether he really is and what he is.

But most cryptozoologists are enthusiasts without the appropriate education, and among them there are also, to put it mildly, inadequate people. Several times I had the opportunity to see them on the screen, and I immediately remembered my psychiatric past - as if I had been in the ward again. People who are passionate about one and only one idea, brushing aside all reasonable doubts and arguments from the other side...

Often the basis for the search is the myths and stories of the aborigines, which tell about strange creatures who live somewhere nearby and, if these creatures are large, strike terror into their hearts. However, the okapi, which the pygmies told the whites about, was a completely ordinary animal for these African people, living in their native virgin forests; the Europeans simply did not believe them - its description looked too unusual. As a result, okapi was discovered only at the very beginning of the twentieth century! The most difficult thing, listening to the stories of the natives, is to separate truth from fiction. In addition, according to cryptozoologists, animals that are considered long extinct could survive on earth. For example, who said that all dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago? Maybe they have been preserved in some distant “lost worlds”, untrodden places where no one has yet set foot white man. In the end, they discovered a living coelacanth, a lobe-finned fish whose ancestors appeared on earth long before the dinosaurs, about 380 million years ago and were thought to have gone extinct 70 million years ago! Moreover, at the end of the 20th century, another modern species of coelacanth was found.

From this point of view, our closest relative, human, but wild, is an ideal and beloved object of cryptozoology. Ancient people are not dinosaurs; they appeared on earth just over two million years ago and also died out quite recently. But are they all extinct? In almost all corners of our planet, among traditional peoples there are legends about some strange people, or monkeys, covered with hair, but moving on two legs, who live in almost inaccessible wilds and are extremely rarely seen by representatives of our species . Moreover, there are even eyewitnesses who encountered these incomprehensible creatures, and there seems to be some material evidence of their existence.

For some reason, people are very concerned about the question of our closest relatives, who managed (or didn’t manage?) to survive, no matter what.

So, the elusive Yeti, Bigfoot (in different places he is called differently: Bigfoot, Metoh Kangmi (Tibetan), Sasquatch, Yeren or Chinese savage, Kaptar, Alamas or Alamasty, etc.). Either a Neandarthal, or a Pithecanthropus, or even an Australopithecus, some not-so-lucky relative of Homo Sapiens, who was forced out into the most harsh conditions habitat, where he survived against all odds. According to the descriptions of so-called eyewitnesses, this is a large hairy man or a giant upright walking monkey. Every now and then cryptozoologists go in search of him, going somewhere to the Himalayas or to the islands of the Malay Archipelago. By the way, our cryptozoologists searching for Bigfoot currently call themselves hominologists.

Bigfoot has been “seen” or traces of it have been found on almost every continent. In North America it is called sasquatch or bigfoot. Here is a description of him made at the end of the 18th century by a Spanish scientist from the words of Canadian Indians: “They imagine that he has the body of a monster, covered with stiff black bristles; the head is similar to a human, but with fangs much sharper, stronger and larger than the fangs of a bear; he has extremely long arms; his fingers and toes have long, bent claws." Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, there were reports of a mysterious creature somewhat bear-like but walking on its hind legs; US President Theodore Roosevelt wrote about such a monster that killed a trapper in his book “Hunter of Lifeless Spaces.” Most often these meetings took place in British Columbia. In 1967, a short color film about a Sasquatch woman was even filmed in Northern California; They said about this film that if it was a hoax, it was a very clever one. From the tropical forests of southern Mexico there are reports of creatures called sisimites: "In the mountains live very large wild people, completely covered with short thick brown fur. They have no neck, small eyes, long arms and huge hands. Their tracks are twice as long human." Several people have reported being chased up mountain slopes by Sisimites. Similar creatures are said to live in Guatemala, where they are said to abduct women and children. Zoologist Ivan Sandersen, who worked in Honduras, wrote in 1961:

“Dozens of people have told me that they have seen it... One junior forester described in great detail two small creatures that he unexpectedly noticed as they watched him on the edge of a forest reserve at the foot of the Maya Mountains. ...

These people were from 3.6 to 4 feet in height, proportionally built, but they had very heavy shoulders and rather long arms, they were covered with thick, dense, almost brown hair, like a short-haired dog; they had very flat yellowish faces, but the hair on their heads was no longer than the hair on their bodies, with the exception of the lower part of the back of the head and neck... Neither the local resident nor any other person who reported the words of the local residents indicated that these the creatures were simple "monkeys". In all cases, they noticed that they did not have tails, they walked on two legs, and they had human features."

So, all these bigfoots and other sasquatch did not exist and could not exist, we can put an end to them.

American monkeys are broad-nosed monkeys Unlike the narrow-nosed animals from which our ancestors descended, this is a completely different branch of primates. Well, representatives of the narrow-nosed people of our species appeared on the American continent no earlier than 15 thousand years ago. What about Patterson's 1967 movie story with the walking sasquatch? Look at “Peculiarities of the National Hunt”. Bigfoot looks no worse there. Moreover, in 2002, participants in the hoax said that the whole story was falsified; The forty-centimeter “footprints of the Yeti” were made with artificial forms, and the filming was a staged episode with a man in a specially tailored monkey suit.

Of course, the most famous “Bigfoot” is the Himalayan Yeti. In the 19th century, reports of it were found in the reports of British officials working in the mountainous regions of India and Nepal. The British resident at the Nepalese court, V. Hogdson, reported that his servants were afraid of a hairy, tailless humanoid creature during their travels. Yeti appear in Nepalese and Tibetan religious images. The Sherpas believe in his existence and are very afraid of him. In the last century, when the pilgrimage of climbers began in the Himalayas, new stories about Bigfoot appeared. For example, when approaching Everest, they saw prints of his feet... Some mountain monasteries store “material evidence” of the existence of the yeti. In 1986, solo climber A. Woolridge claimed to have met a two-meter yeti in the northern part of the Himalayas and even showed a photograph that showed something very small - the photograph was taken at a great distance - and humanoid.

Serious expeditions were also sent to Nepal in search of yetis, for example, under the leadership of the famous mountaineer Ralph Izard, but they did not find anything significant. The most interesting results, but negative, were obtained by a complex expedition of Edmund Hillary (the same one who first conquered Everest) and Desmond Doyle, an expert on Nepal and local languages in 1960-1961; Zoologists also took part in it. First, the mystery of the giant footprints was solved. It turns out that under the influence sun rays the snow on the surface melts, and the tracks of small animals, such as foxes, merge into giant prints. Secondly, members of the expedition obtained three “Yeti” skins - they turned out to be the skins of a local subspecies of bear. Thirdly, with great difficulty, the members of the expedition managed to temporarily borrow the “Bigfoot scalp” from the Khutjun monastery; For this, Hillary got money to donate to the monastery and also build five schools (he generally helped the local population a lot). A study in Chicago confirmed his assumption: the “scalp” turned out to be very old, but made of skin mountain goat serow.

The mummified “Yeti hand” from the same monastery was human.

In Central Asia, Bigfoot was called Alamas or Almasty. In 1427, the German traveler Hans Schiltenberger, who visited the court of Tamerlane, published a book about his adventures, in which he also mentioned wild people: “In the mountains themselves live wild people who have nothing in common with other people. The entire body of these creatures is covered with fur, only there is no hair on the arms and face. They run around the mountains like animals and feed on leaves and grass and whatever they can find." A drawing of an almasta appears in a 19th-century Mongolian medical reference book. There is evidence of a meeting with Almasty in the 20th century. It seems that in 1925, the body of a dead wild woman in the Pamirs was seen by Red Army soldiers - they found her in a cave where the Basmachi were hiding. According to traveler Ivan Ivlov, on the Mongolian slopes of Altai in 1963 he saw several “humanoid creatures” through binoculars; he also collected stories from local residents about numerous encounters with these strange creatures.

Biologist Wang Zelin in 1940, according to him, saw the corpse of a wild man shot by hunters. According to his description, this is a woman covered with thick and long grayish-red hair. 10 years later, two wild people, a mother and her cub, were seen in the mountains by another scientist, a geologist. In 1976, in Hubei province, a “strange tailless creature covered with reddish fur” was encountered by six officers of the Chinese People's Army. After this, a scientific expedition was sent there, which found many mysterious traces, hair and excrement, and also recorded eyewitness accounts. But the results of these studies are classified.

Reports of “wild people” also came from Malaysia and Indonesia. After all, just recently, in 2004, the remains of ancient tiny people who were nicknamed “hobbits” were found on the Indonesian island of Flores. They immediately remembered that local residents talk about “Ebo-Gogo,” dwarfs who supposedly had big eyes and hair all over their bodies; they spoke a strange language and stole fruits and moonshine from people. Well, maybe these are the hobbits, Homo floresiensis? But the Flores people died out not 17 thousand years ago, as previously thought, but, according to updated data, about 50 thousand, and no traces of Ebo-Gogo were found, other than in folklore.

To this day, the indigenous people of Sumatra are convinced that “orang pendeks” (“short guys” in the local dialect) live in the virgin forests of the island.

Like hobbits, the hypothetical Sumatran ape-men are small in size. On the island of Borneo (another name is Kalimantan), local residents call such creatures “tramututs”; they, according to them, were much larger. Ape-men in this region are sought out not only by amateur enthusiasts, but also by serious scientists. So, Professor Peter Chee puts special digital “traps” cameras on mysterious hominids, but so far no one has been caught in them. That is, the cameras captured a tapir, a marbled cat, the rarest Sumatran tiger, but not a hominoid. Several years ago, two cryptozoologist fans, who have no professional connection to science, but devote all their holidays to searching for mysterious creatures, found tufts of hair at a primitive site, which they were sure belonged to relict people. But, as it turned out upon careful study, this is the hair of a modern person...

Vague information about local “wild humanoids” came from Africa, but no one takes them seriously. Moreover, even in Australia their own “snow people” have appeared, which is simply ridiculous - it’s no different that kangaroos evolved into them!

In 2014, the results of a genetic study of all hair samples ever found attributed to Bigfoot were published. This work was carried out by a group of scientists led by Professor Brian Sykes from the University of Oxford. Cryptozoologists sent 57 samples, however, there were 55 left - because one sample turned out to be of plant origin, and one was actually fiberglass. DNA was isolated from 30 samples. Alas, these were the hairs of bears, wolves, tapirs, raccoons, horses, sheep, cows, and even the hair of a human sapiens and, moreover, a European. The most interesting thing is that two samples of hair belonged to bears - but not just any bears, but polar bears or their hybrids with the ancestor of the brown bear, judging by the analysis of mitochondrial DNA! This means that those researchers who believed that “Yetis” were bears of an unknown species were right! How beautiful it turned out! But, alas, everything is not so simple. The following year, two other groups of scientists doubted these results. It has been suggested that the hairs polar bear got into the samples by accident, Sykes naturally denies this. Most likely, this fur has nothing to do with Paleolithic bears, but belongs to the Himalayan (Tien Shan) subspecies of brown Ursus bear arctos isabellinus, called Ju Te in Nepal. Its range includes the northern regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Tibet, and it also lives in the Pamir and Tien Shan mountains. This is a very rare and largest animal in this region, males reach a length of 2.2 m, many researchers believe that it was he who was mistaken for the “Bigfoot”, which no one had seen up close.

In 1991, a Chinese-Russian scientific expedition worked in Chinese Tibet on the border with Nepal, officially a glaciological expedition, but everyone knew that its main goal was to find Bigfoot.

My classmate Arkady Tishkov, now a Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography, took part in this expedition. Russian Academy Sci. He actually met some kind of “humanoid” creature at an altitude of more than 5000 meters and even photographed it on film, albeit from a long distance, and the camera was without a zoom - the last century, after all. Tishkov is convinced that the yeti really exists, but this creature has nothing to do with primates; most likely, it is a bear. Well, the yeti remained a mysterious person, but the Russian researcher brought from this expedition 80 kilograms of herbariums alone, described several new species of plants, one of which, with lovely blue flowers, bears his name! The Japanese gave a grant to search for Bigfoot, but who would give money to study the Alpine - in this case, Tibetan - flora?

“Bigfoot” was also encountered in the Caucasus Mountains - if, of course, the testimony of “eyewitnesses” can be believed. However, I absolutely believe one witness - this is Professor Yason Badridze. For many years he conducted research in the Lagodinsky Nature Reserve, located on the South Caucasus Range, on the border of Georgia with Dagestan. There have long been stories in this area of giant wild men covered in fur who live high in the forest. In the 70s of the last century, many old people in mountain villages claimed that they saw these people with their own eyes. They were even given a name - Lagodekhi. One day a small company, including Yason Badridze, gathered at the weather station in the evening. The head of the weather station left the room, and suddenly his cry was heard. People running out of the house found him on the ground, he said that someone had hit him from behind and complained of severe pain. When he was taken to the station and undressed, the imprint of a human hand was clearly visible on his back - only it was three times larger than from the hand of an ordinary man. Yason Konstantinovich still wonders what it was.

Alas, all the materials and facts that supposedly speak in favor of the existence of relict humanoids : plaster prints of footprints, pieces of wool, photographs - raise very reasonable doubts among scientists, as well as the testimony of people who allegedly saw them with their own eyes. Plaster casts are easy to fake. And we’ve already figured out the wool thing.

The famous Zana, a “wild woman” from Abkhazia, found in the forest in the 19th century - the trump card of many Yeti seekers, from Professor Porshnev to Igor Burtsev - turned out to be a sapiens, albeit a Negroid, and not a Neanderthal. Since not everyone is familiar with her story, I will tell it briefly. Zana was caught by Prince Achba's hunters in the forest. She was a muscular woman of enormous height, over two meters tall, completely naked, completely covered with dark hair, with gray, almost black skin. Her face was wide, high cheekbones, with large features, a sloping low forehead, a wide mouth, a flat nose with large nostrils, and a protruding lower jaw. Prince Achba gave it to his friend, also a prince, and it passed from hand to hand until it found a permanent home in a log corral in the village of Tkhin. At first, Zana was kept in chains because she was violent, but gradually she got used to it, “tamed” it, walked freely around the village, still without clothes, and even did some work that required great physical strength. She spent the night in a hole she dug herself in winter and summer. She never learned to speak, but she knew her name. She loved to swim and was addicted to alcohol. She also gave birth to numerous children from local exotic lovers. She accidentally drowned her first child, and the next four were taken away from her immediately after birth. Zana died in the 80s of the last century, no one knows exactly when, and her youngest son Khvit, who remained to live in Tkhin, died in 1954. Her distant descendants, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are still alive today, among their own.

In 1962, a doctor learned about Zan from local residents. biological sciences A.A. Mashkovtsev, he told Professor B.F. about it. Porshnev, who together with his colleagues came to Tkhin, began to look for and question old people who personally knew Zana (remember that at least seven decades have passed since her death, most likely more). In the 70s of the last century, his research was continued by the historian Igor Burtsev, who met Khvit’s daughter Raisa, who, according to his description, had Negroid facial features and curly hair.

After much searching, he managed to find Zana's grave, and was eventually able to obtain the skulls of Hvit and - presumably - Zana herself.

According to the scientific editor of the portal Anthropogenesis.ru Stanislav Drobyshevsky, who examined them, the skull attributed to Zana has pronounced equatorial (Negroid) features, and the skull of her son, despite its massiveness and powerful brow ridges, belongs, alas, not to a Neanderthal at all, but clearly sapiens.

And now about how sensations are born. A year ago, loud headlines like “Zana really was a Yeti!” appeared in many popular publications. (in April 2015, a similar message, for example, was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda in the section - scary to say - “Science”!). The articles said that Professor Brian Sykes (the same one) examined the DNA of the skull and declared that Zana was not a person, but a Yeti! Now in the hands of Igor Burtsev there was supposedly irrefutable evidence of the existence of Bigfoot. What's the matter? It turns out that English popular publications published sensational news - supposedly, according to Professor Sykes, the “Russian” half-woman, half-monkey turned out to be Bigfoot! It is unclear whether this was a joke or whether the publishers were trying to attract attention to Sykes's new book, but it greatly damaged the professor's reputation in scientific circles. In fact, Brian Sykes did analyze the DNA of six descendants of Zana and her late son Quit and concluded that Zana was a person modern look, but at the same time “one hundred percent” African, most likely from West Africa. He suggested that most likely it came from slaves brought to Abkhazia by the Ottoman Turks. Or she belonged to those people who came out of Africa about 100 thousand years ago and since then lived secretly in the Caucasus mountains (we will leave this conclusion to the conscience of the professor). In fact, before making such assumptions, he could have asked what nationalities inhabit Abkhazia - but blacks really live in Abkhazia! A small group of people ethnically belonging to the Negroid race lives in the village of Adzyubzha at the mouth of the Kodor River and surrounding villages. They consider themselves Abkhazians, like everyone else around them. Historians do not have a consensus on how and when they got there. Most agree that in the 17th century. According to one of the most likely versions, these are the descendants of black slaves brought by the ruling princes of Abkhazia Shervashidze-Chachba to work on tangerine plantations.

But, alas, one of distinctive features many cryptozoologists - to ignore everything that contradicts their concept.

And still Igor Burtsev poses for journalists with the skull of a “Neanderthal” in his hands, and the furry yeti Zana flashes on television...

By the way, why is it furry? Indeed, it seems like a monkey trait. According to witnesses' descriptions, Zana was completely covered with hair. Well, you have to take their word for it, and this happens. It is worth recalling the drawings from a school biology textbook illustrating atavistic features: portraits of Andrian Evtikhiev, whose face was overgrown with thick strands of hair, and the “bearded woman” singer Yulia Pastrana, who was distinguished not only by a beard and mustache, but also by a sloping forehead, like that of ancient people. But rather, there was something else here. Hypertrichosis (increased hairiness) can be not only congenital, but also acquired due to hormonal changes due to hunger and deprivation - “wild children”, the so-called “Mowgli”, are often hairy. Most likely, Zana was a weak-minded girl who got lost in the forest and went wild - this very plausible version is given by Fazil Iskander in the story “The Encampment of a Man.” This applies not only to Zana - a feral man with mental disabilities, distinguished by increased hairiness, could well be mistaken for a “Bigfoot”. In particular, this can explain quite famous case- detention of a “wild man” in the mountains of Dagestan in December 1941. Colonel Karapetyan, whose squad caught the unfortunate man, described him as a deaf-mute and mentally damaged person, completely covered with hair. But the lice on it were not human... At one time, Carl Linnaeus, working on the taxonomy of the animal world, identified feral people (he knew of nine such individuals) into a special species “Homo ferus”, wild man.

It must be said that the USSR was almost the only country where cryptozoology was studied at the state level, and largely thanks to one person - Professor Boris Fedorovich Porshnev (1905-1972).

He was a scientist of universal knowledge, a doctor of both historical and philosophical sciences; He also had a biological education, but he did not receive a diploma, which he later very much regretted. His main historical works were devoted to the late French Renaissance, but he also studied the theory of anthropogenesis. In those days, the transitional links from monkeys to humans were still poorly understood, and many were not discovered at all, and now Porshnev’s theory has a purely historical meaning. He postulated that only modern humans are human in the full sense of the word, this is a qualitative leap, and all other proto-humans are closer to animals than to Homo sapiens. That is why he and all his followers considered Bigfoot a Neanderthal, albeit a degraded one, although, judging by the description, he is much closer to archanthropes, erectus or even more ancient creatures. By the way, Bernard Euvelmans also considered the Yeti to be a Neanderthal. Now we know that Neanderthals were very similar to us.

Porshnev was obviously a very charismatic person, otherwise how could he have convinced the USSR Academy of Sciences to send an expedition to search for Bigfoot? In the late 1950s, a Commission was created at the Academy to study the issue of Bigfoot. It included famous scientists: geologist, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergei Obruchev, primatologist and anthropologist Mikhail Nesturkh, outstanding geobotanist Konstantin Stanyukovich, physicist and climber Nobel laureate academician Igor Tamm, academician A.D. Alexandrov, as well as biologists G.P. Demenyev, S.E. Kleinenberg, N.A. Burchak-Abramovich. The most active members of the commission were physician Maria-Zhanna Kofman and professor Boris Porshnev. The working hypothesis that guided the commission: “Bigfoot” is a representative of the extinct branch of Neanderthals who has survived to this day.

In 1958, a complex and very expensive expedition took place to search for the yeti in the highlands of the Pamirs. The mission was led by the botanist Stanyukovich, who, it must be said, did not really believe in the existence of the Yeti. The expedition included zoologists, botanists, ethnographers, geologists, cartographers, as well as local residents, guides and barsol hunters. They also took with them service dogs trained to smell chimpanzees. Porshnev was dissatisfied that the expedition took place in the summer; in his opinion, it was necessary to look for traces of an unknown hominoid in the winter, in the snow, but need I say what mountains are like in winter? No signs of the existence of the Yeti were found, but scientists made many other discoveries, for example, they found a site of Neolithic man, and based on the results of the expedition, a geobotanical atlas of the highlands of the Pamirs was created.

After this, the Academy of Sciences officially closed the topic of studying Bigfoot, despite Porshnev’s objections. Since then, all searches for Yeti in our country have been carried out exclusively by enthusiasts who organized trips to the mountains of Central Asia and the Caucasus on their own.

How B.F. Porshnev conducted research in the field can be learned from the notes of one of the participants in the 1961 expedition to Tajikistan, S.A. Said-Alieva: “In the vicinity of the lake. Temur-kul we saw traces of various predatory animals. The next day at 7–8 o’clock in the morning near the shore of the lake. Temur-kul measured the bear's footprint. It ranged in length from 34.5 cm to 35 cm. When Prof. was told about this. B.F. Porshnev, he said that this was the trace of this animal (that is, “Bigfoot”). Then I asked B.F. what kind of claws he had - long or humanoid. He answered: almost like a person.” How easy it is to adjust facts to suit your concept! The result of Porshnev’s research was the monograph “The Current State of the Question of Relict Hominoids,” published in 1963.

The term “relict hominoid”, by the way, was coined by Pyotr Petrovich Smolin (1897-1975), the same teaching staff, or Uncle Petya, who became godfather several generations of Soviet biologists, heading in turn the KYUBZ (the circle of young biologists of the Moscow Zoo) and the VOOP (the circle of young naturalists at the All-Union Society for Nature Conservation). As the chief curator of the Darwin Museum, he founded the Seminar on Hominology, which after his death was called “Smolinsky”; this seminar still operates, and his works are published. In 1987, Maria-Zhanna Kofman organized the Russian Association of Cryptozoologists or the Society of Cryptozoologists, uniting Bigfoot seekers. Igor Burtsev founded and headed the International Institute of Hominology (it is difficult to say whether it has employees other than the director).

Work in progress! More and more “relict hominoids” are being discovered in our country, even in the near Moscow region. Chuchuns in Yakutia, Almasts in Kabardino-Balkaria, someone else in Adygea... Burtsev admits that he has never seen them. But this does not stop hominologists. IN last years active search Bigfoot research is being conducted in the Kemerovo region, and cryptozoologists from almost all over the world are going there. One of the expeditions was led by boxer Nikolai Valuev, who wanted to fight Bigfoot. Cryptozoologists also visited where a certain creature was seen most often - on Mount Karatag and in the Azas cave. Alas, the “Yeti” hair found there turned out, as one would expect, to be bear hair. But this did not stop the authorities from organizing a tourist yeti boom; the snowman became a kind of symbol of Mountain Shoria. The governor of the Kemerovo region announced that whoever catches him will receive a reward of one million rubles, and the opening day ski season Now it will be a holiday - Bigfoot Day. I can completely understand the Kemerovo officials - not everyone is as lucky as Chebarkul with his meteorite, but the tourist infrastructure needs to be developed!

And a few years ago, Bigfoot showed up... in Moscow! In the Butovo forest, where residents of South Butovo walk their dogs. In winter, dog walkers found huge footprints of bare feet there. Women with dogs refused to go there; passed on by word of mouth horror stories about a torn cat and about people missing in the forest... They answered all the persuasion with one thing: let them first investigate, and only then... They investigated. Two men with service dogs, who were not afraid of the Yeti, met village teenagers in the forest who, over their felt boots, put on huge soles in the shape of bare feet with widely spaced toes. The boys were terribly pleased with themselves and loudly discussed the behavior of the nervous ladies, who, seeing the tracks, turned around with a loud squeal and ran back as fast as they could. People, as it turned out, did not disappear at all, and the cat’s corpse is on the conscience of local ravens, who are not averse to eating their pets. It’s good that everything became clear, otherwise the yellow press would soon have flashed headlines like “Bigfoot people are coming to Moscow!”

And some brief conclusions in conclusion:

Most likely, the legendary Yeti - Brown bear Himalayan subspecies Ursus arctos isabellinus.
There has never been and cannot be any “relict hominoid” on the American continent

There is still a lot of unknowns left in the world, but in the future scientists will be able to explain many phenomena based solely on real facts, and not on fictitious concepts and speculation.

Literature:

MAIN LITERATURE:

Bernard Euvelmans On the trail of unknown animals
Igor Akimushkin Traces of unprecedented animals

Both of these books are freely available on the Internet, but the facts given in them are largely outdated; it is better to familiarize yourself with modern book Vitaly Tanasiychuk:

Vitaly Tanasiychuk. Incredible Zoology (zoological myths and hoaxes). M., KMK, 2011
Arkady Tishkov Another meeting. “Light (Nature and Man)” No. 6-7, 1992, p. 39
Alexander Sokolov. Myths about human evolution. M. Alpina, 2015

Bigfoot is a humanoid creature supposedly found in the highlands of the Earth. There is an opinion that this is a relict hominid, that is, a mammal belonging to the order of primates and the human genus, preserved to this day from the time of human ancestors. Carl Linnaeus designated it as lat. Homo troglodytes (cave man).

Description of Bigfoot

Judging by hypotheses and anecdotal evidence, Bigfoot people differ from us in having a denser physique, a pointed skull shape, longer arms, a short neck length and a massive lower jaw, and relatively short hips. They have hair all over their body - black, red or gray. Faces are dark in color. The hair on the head is longer than on the body. The mustache and beard are very sparse and short. They have a strong unpleasant odor. They climb trees well. It is alleged that mountain populations of Bigfoot people live in caves, while forest populations build nests on tree branches.

Ideas about Bigfoot and its various local analogues are very interesting from an ethnographic point of view. The image of a huge scary man can reflect natural fears of darkness, the unknown, and relationships with mystical forces among different peoples. It is quite possible that people with unnatural hair or feral people are mistaken for Bigfoot people.

If relict hominids exist, they live in small groups, probably in married couples. They can move on their hind legs. Height should range from 1 to 2.5 m; in most cases 1.5-2 m; encounters with the largest individuals were reported in the mountains (Yeti) and in (Sasquatch). In Sumatra, Kalimantan, and in most cases, growth did not exceed 1.5 m. There are suggestions that the observed relict hominids belong to several different types, to at least three.

The existence of Bigfoot

Most modern scientists believe that Bigfoot is a myth.

However, in 2002, after the death of Ray Wallace, for whom this filming was made, evidence appeared from his relatives and acquaintances, who said (however, without presenting any material evidence) that the whole story with the “American Yeti” was from beginning to end. the end is rigged; The forty-centimeter “footprints of the Yeti” were made with artificial forms, and the filming was a staged episode with a man in a specially tailored monkey suit. It has become a serious blow by enthusiasts trying to find Bigfoot.