People + Feral Lifestyle = Yetis?

Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 11th, 2009

Sometimes, items on the Internet take on a life of their own. A Pravda (from Utro) published article from 2005, emphasized below, with my reactions attached, is one such example.

It is amazing such theorizing occurs, at all, but to survive for so long online is a crime against intellectual cryptozoology and hominology.

It begins with the title, and goes downhill from there.

Yeti originates from mentally unbalanced individuals

Headlines like this one tend to hide great generalizations based on faulty logic and litte evidence.

The phenomenon that we call Yeti or Bigfoot today was for the first time covered in the press in 1954 when the Daily Mail journalists organized a mission to the Himalayas. Locals said there was some humanlike tousled being lounging about the mountains; they called the being “an Abominable Snowman.” The quick-witted British journalists borrowed the name and translated it into English.

Wrong. The term “Abominable Snowman” is actually a phrase coined by a Calcutta Statesman newspaper reporter Henry Newman, from the mistransliteration and/or mistranslation of metoh-kangmi. The Sherpas on Colonel C. K. Howard-Bury’s 1921 expedition into the Tibetan side of the Himalayan mountains used that phrase to say the tracks found were made by a metoh-kangmi. The media got ahold of the story, as the “Abominable Snowman,” in 1921, not 1954, and the rest is history. (Source: Cryptozoology A to Z, more details, p. 23; Tom Slick, pp. 33-34).

The Daily Mail expedition of 1954 was not the “first time” the topic was covered in the press, and it had nothing to do with the origins of the naming of these creatures as “Abominable Snowmen” or “Yetis.” (Source: Tom Slick, pp. 41-48.)

Since that, people who believe in Yeti have gathered so much evidence that it allows them to state that this creature actually exists. Hominologists, experts who study the yeti phenomenon, say that much evidence provided by eyewitnesses observing Yeti is the number one argument proving the hominid is real.

Some hominologists might point out that while testimony and sightings are important, it is the whole body of evidence – e.g. folklore, traditions, sightings, footprint finds, fecal material, hair samples – that tends to promote an openminded consideration of the continued pursuit of Yetis as cryptids. But even a “true believer” hominologist cannot say today that the Yeti has been “proven” to be “real” yet.

Evidence reported by different eyewitnesses often resemble each other. On the other hand, these experts state that Yetis are particularly cautious and do not let people see them. In addition to the evidence of eyewitnesses, hominid researchers have gathered a large collection of hair and faeces and even a foot that are said to be part of Yeti. They say that analysis of the hair DNA revealed the hair belonged to some primate, of which science has no notion.

“Do not let people see them”? How can anyone place motivations on what the Yeti are doing and thinking with such firm phrasology?

This almost sounds like the definition that is often written about how cryptids “are creatures no one ever sees.” Yikes.

What experts? What “foot”? Have some Russian reporters been reading T. Biscardi press releases?

The hominologist archives include some pictures of hominids and even a 960-shot film made by American Roger Patterson in 1967. The film shows a large being covered with hair all over the body that is walking about American woods. Various experts, criminologists and zoologists among them, have not yet identified the creature in the film, but it seems to be resembling none of known primate kinds.

This statement seems on safe ground, perhaps. Okay, moving along.

Until recently, the official science has been ignoring the stories of annoying enthusiasts saying they saw unknown primates.

Yes, ha ha, we all have to watch out for those “annoying enthusiasts.” These folks are only as unknown as those folks who are doing all the ignoring and speaking for “the official science.” Maybe something is lost in translation here, but I have a feeling this writer is being serious.

Biologists are sure that any relic specimen of human being’s ancestors – Australopithecus, Neanderthal man and other Sinanthropus – could hardly survive till today.

We all might agree that any “biologists” who would be sure of the above stated point would not be a very good biologist.

To maintain the population of such creatures their number must be considerable enough. However, Yeti is still a rare phenomenon indeed. It is also unlikely that some unknown primates may be developing close to human beings. People often compare Yeti with some traditional folklore character, the spirit of woods or a wood-goblin. But the official science waves the comparison aside: it insists that a wood-goblin is rather a non-material power that takes various forms just for a while. That is why hominids cannot be considered wood-goblins who are rather fairytale characters.

What a terrible mess this contoured pathway to nowhere is. OMG.

Otherwise, hominologists must prove that either a wood-goblin actually exists as species or admit that Yeti is the result of people’s imagination.

When there are only two choices to any problem like those stated, I would respectfully suggest that I might question the wisdom of either one of those extremes.

Several months ago, respectable Russian biologists made a hypothesis as concerning the present-day origin of yeti. Audacious researchers state that the unknown primate is a wild retard or his retarded descendants. We know from history that retarded people often sought isolation from the society, consequently soon lost all habits typical of the society in general and turned into real “snowmen.” Russian classical writer Ivan Turgenev told a story about such a creature that he came across. Locals in some place in Russia remembered a crazy woman; she escaped to the woods when got absolutely insane and got really wild but still remained incredibly strong. The writer said he met the creature while hunting in the woods in that area. Therefore, the Yeti phenomenon may be no evolution at all but a mere degradation of ordinary people into apelike creatures.

This would be comical if they weren’t taking themselves so seriously.

Now we get to the point of the whole piece, apparently. “Respectable Russian biologists” is curious, for why are this “respectable” people not named, yet a “classical writer” is? If this is such a credible theory, why no credit to the theorists?

This is nothing more than the old debunking that has been tried before, which basically states there are no unknown hominoids, but only feral humans among us (more, see page 164, here).

A “wild retard”? That one incident of a mentally ill woman running away into the woods and nearby sightings of wild people in the forest should be associated is weak, to say the least.

To make this the basis for a “new” theory from “respectable Russian biologists” is insanity, itself.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


13 Responses to “People + Feral Lifestyle = Yetis?”

  1. jayman responds:

    At least some of the difficulty here can be attributed to the incredibly bad translation, evidently by machine.
    I have always wondered if some of the Almasty type sightings could actually be a relict population of feral humans (not runaway “retards”). This would explain the reported ability to interbreed with humans.

  2. DWA responds:

    Wow.

    Just reading this, I feel myself degrading into an ape-like creature.

    But you know what you are reading here?

    Scoffticism, in a nutshell!

    (I LOVE how we got “yeti” from “metoh-kangmi.” The capacity of English-speaking peoples for mangling of native words is, truly, mind-boggling. In fact, if one wants a window into scoffticism, one may need go no farther than that! We hear something; take from it what we want to hear, and move on. Sure beats doing things like questioning cherished assumptions; listening to people; or, omigod, RESEARCH.)

  3. Viergacht responds:

    Seems like mentally handicapped people are the least likely individuals capable of lasting any length of time in the forest. I suppose the writer adheres to that theory because they assume that “less intelligent = more animal-like, and animals live in the woods so retards should be just fine,” but, of course, we humans don’t have the instincts that would compensate for learned surivival techniques. If someone is barely capable of feeding themselves when they’re faced with a pantry full of packaged food, how the heck would they be able to subsist in the wild. Very silly.

  4. fossilhunter responds:

    Greetings All!

    Someone help me out here. I’ve studied six different languages, but what is the REAL translation of “metoh-kangmi”? Sounds like some giant rubber-suited-monster fighting robot from Japan.

  5. crapple responds:

    They MAY be feral humans, but saying that they are “retards” doesn’t make sense, as Viergacht made a point of. But they could be feral humans, or mentally ill people who, may be smart, and may know how to survive in the middle of nowhere, refuse to live with other people.

  6. mystery_man responds:

    The only mentally incompetent person I see in this equation is perhaps the person who wrote this drivel. What an amazingly meandering, nonsensical, factually incorrect, and lazy piece of hogwash. I really don’t know what else to say about it.

    I wasn’t aware that science had determined, insisted no less, that wood-goblins are nonmaterial powers that take various forms just for awhile. Hmmm. News to me. Good that we have this guy to keep us up to date on all of the cutting edge scientific finds concerning wood-goblins and such. Sigh.

    The thing that bothers me about this sort of tripe is that someone who doesn’t know any better and is just getting into cryptozoology and researching on the internet might just come across this and take it as fact. I recommend that anyone researching anything on the net always be aware of the reliability of the sources they are studying. It’s sad, but a lot of people tend to take everything they read as fact. Big mistake.

    Anyway, everyone be careful of those “annoying enthusiasts” in the meantime. Excuse me while I bang my head against the keyboard a few more times.

  7. tropicalwolf responds:

    While completely flawed, I love the term “wood-goblin” and will make it part of my lexicon from now on.

  8. Andrew Minnesota responds:

    Wood-goblin? bahahaha don’t let Biscardi and the Georgia boys hear that one otherwise we’ll start to hear “we know we showed you the fake body, but the thing is the real body wasn’t dead. We kept it in a storage shed and it magicked itself out. It was a wood-goblin that’s how it got out. You got any change sir?”

    I know it’s sad that this article isn’t a joke but golly there is a lot of bad “drunk logic” going on here

  9. cryptidsrus responds:

    My take:
    This is Pravda. Come on. What else does one expect from the former mouthpiece of “The Establishment Party?”
    An aside, though: I did not know Turgenev had seen a Sasquatch-type creature. Interesting. Will have to look that up.

  10. sschaper responds:

    Translation issues plus the heritage of Lysenkoism?

  11. Lightning Orb responds:

    It does sound rather like the bogus explanation speech given by some mad scientist in one of those old b-grade monster films that’s undergone the voice-over translation. Never heard the retard explanation for Yeti or the vortex energy definition of goblins. Oh wait – those guys were serious? Well here’s another theory – maybe one of those demonic goblin energies used his hokey hocus to take over the body of the guy that wrote the article

  12. Texas_Grown responds:

    What really strikes me is that the author is serious. I’ve heard people make theories like this but as jokes. If people actually believe things like this then that can degrade the community that actually tries to study cryptids, and that has been hapening enough lately.

  13. MattBille responds:

    We’ve certainly seen accounts of “wild men” or “primitive men” based on exaggerated (or downright demonizing) accounts of indigenous people. Sometimes characteristics like hairiness are added.

    What, though, does one make of this?

    Headline: “A Primitive Russian People”
    New York Times, November 11, 1887:
    “A Russian savant and explorer, M.Kouznetsoff, gave an account at the last meeting of the Russian Geographical Society of a nomadic people living in the Upper Oural and called Vagouls.”
    The article says they worship bears but are advanced enough to make cloth. It goes on to say that contact with Finns has motivated some younger Vagouls to try agriculture.

    There is no other mention of these people I can find, other than just the name in a list of Russian ethnic groups.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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