Siberian Yeti Story: “Sorry, It’s A Mistake”
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 21st, 2009
All News Web is now claiming that the recent hominological tales are all a big mistake. The Siberian Yeti stories are nothing more than some confusion about two phenomena: bears and social dropouts, are being told.
According to a number of local residents who claim to have either knowledge of the supposed creatures or outright firsthand experience there are no Yeti’s in the vicinity rather the phenomena is a fusion of two separate issues.
Galina, a librarian from the city of Kemerovo, claims she has seen bears in the area where the Yeti was spotted. She believes they are a population of escaped zoo performers and their descendants. Also it is believed that a few ‘wild men’ live in the area. Yuri, a police man, claims to have seen one.
According to some local residents, these ‘wild men’ might simply be dropouts from society, who having run out of money or possibly as result of mental health issues, pursue an isolated existence in the wild and against all odds.
Read more here.
Maybe it stemmed from a mistranslation and sensationalism, after all? But then what about those footprints that were claimed to be Yeti’s?
Perhaps some of the mentally ill homeless people being confused with Yetis are “escaped zoo performers and their descendants” too? I want to be the first to interview those folks!
Thanks to the tip from Andreas Müller, and the new update summary below too.
…another follow-up, now by German RIA Novosti
Now they are reporting that the whole story is smelling like a tourist trap.
The field day of the local congressmen is said to have been done to estimate if the Yeti-story could be turned into a tourist attraction of the area arround the caves.
Previous to all the fuss about the Yeti sightings, Governor Aman Tulejew asked to support and push local tourism by offerig more rafting and hiking-trips through the area.
There was also a former Gulag (Soviet labor prison camp) that has been renovated and reconstructed for historical tourism purposes (even if I personally do not see a direct connection here to the Yeti-story).
While Tulejew visited the area he was also specially interest in the Asass cave. This was on January 30, and just after this visit the photo of the imprint was published and the local administration quoted reports of local hunters who claimed to have had seen the creatures several times.
Meanwhile local scientist remain skeptical: “There is no Yeti at all, this question has no scientific side”, Dr. Sergej Wassiljew of the Institut of ethnology and anthropology (ethnology) in Moscow told RIA Novosti.
A local travel agency agent is also quoted saying that it does not matter at all if the Snowman exists or not. The only thing that counts is that the story makes it headlines.
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.
Oh, for crying out loud!
sigh
WAIT A MINUTE.
Bear crossed with social dropout = Y-E-T-I.
STORY! SUMMON MONSTER QUEST!
Myra Shackley said it long ago.
If it isn’t brought back by a very small team in the field for a very long time…it isn’t proof.
Gah…. what a waste of time.
I’m not very surprised.
Maybe someday we might get a legit-yeti finding from Russia (if they exist), the place is huge and unexplored there is bound to be crypid species science hadn’t acknowledged there.
I thought they were Stalin’s group of secret Ape/Human Super Soldiers? 🙂
BIG SURPRISE!
Remember, any story the says they’ve captured or are closing in on bigfoot, yeti, etc…. will ALWAYS end up dissappointing.
I’m not surprised. Too many of these “on the very edge, but we’re a whisker short of total confirmation” reports of these hominids always go bust. Always. Since I was a kid and that was 40 years ago. I think if one were confirmed beyond doubt, it would rock the scientific community and news organizations around the world, and not appear in just Pravda or the Midnight Star. The guy that brings in the proof would be famous and wealthy. That’s why I’m always very suspicious of the guys who say they have “proof” but won’t produce it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this was all a publicity stunt to drum up tourist attention. This shameless playing up of a cryptid for publicity has happened before. For a place like Siberia, which I imagine is perhaps not on the top of everyone’s list of vacation destinations, this sounds like as good a way as any to draw people7s attention to the area.
maybe the Twilight Zone episode from the 80’s is right. This is the one where a KGB officer is sent to a Siberian town to investigate the deaths of government officials. He found vampires. The towns folk hide and feed the vampires in trade for protection from outsiders. Maybe these people are denying the reports because they want the yetis for themselves. After all the best way to protect them is to hide them from the world.
Now that was a sweet episode!