January 11, 2009

People + Feral Lifestyle = Yetis?

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.

Filed under Abominable Snowman, Breaking News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, CryptoZoo News, Yeti