NEPAL/FILE: Footprints seen around Mount Everest stoke Yeti mystery

A U.S.-based television channel says it has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman. A U.S.-based television channel investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal has found footprints similar to those said to be that of the abominable snowman, the company said on Friday (November 30). A team of nine producers from Destination Truth, armed with infrared cameras, spent a week in the icy Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of Manju river at a height of 2,850 metres (9,350 feet). One of the three footprints discovered on Wednesday is about one foot long, or is of similar size and appearance as shown in sketches of the mystical ape-like creature believed to live in snowy caves, the TV company said. Josh Gates, host of the weekly travel adventure television series, told Reuters in Kathmandu that the footprint was very similar to sketches he had seen of the Yeti. Tales by sherpa porters and guides about the wild and hairy creatures lurking in the Himalayas have seized the imagination of foreign mountain climbers going to Mount Everest since the 1920s. Several teams have searched for it and some have even claimed to have discovered footprints. But no one has actually seen the creature nor has it been scientifically established that the Yeti exists. Gates said the footprints on lumps of sandy soil, which would be sent to experts in the United States for analysis, were "relatively fresh left some 24 hours before we found them". Destination Truth chronicles some of the world's notorious crypto-zoological creatures and unexplained phenomena. Some local sherpas believe that the Himalayas are abodes of strange creatures and consider the Yeti as a protector while others say it is a destroyer.

ITN Source | December 3, 2007

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