"You will take the Yeti!" - so in the Himalayan mountain villages, many mothers are afraid of their disobedient children. In our region in this role is usually Baba Yaga. Yeti... That creature is described by the inhabitants of the most powerful and highest mountain system of the Earth in different ways.

Some people speak about him as a disgusting, bloodthirsty creature with bared teeth, others believe that he, on the contrary, timid, cautious and lead a concealed mode of life. Although among the peoples of the Himalayas: Tibetan, Nepalese, inhabitants of Bhutan and Sikkim, - many generations there is a legend about the existence in the most remote, mountainous areas shaggy "person" monkey with a long arms and stocky body, who deftly moves on two legs, in the Western world of information about it penetrated only about a hundred years ago. Since then all again and again the thought of scientists returned to the secret this big hairy biped. In advance I must say that apes probably have some relation to the mystery of the so-called Bigfoot.

Since then, as the first of Western climbers began with the ascent to encounter snow fields and vast mountain chains of the Himalayas on a huge, shaped like a human traces Yeti, a chain of search expeditions not interrupted; people tend to see living this strange creature to shoot it, and if it works out, and catch.

From time to time report on meetings with a snow man and travelers. Local people call it differently: for example, in Nepal - Yeti, and in Tibet - kangmi; the latter means: "resident rocky slopes". However, detailed esspreso pretty often it turns out that these stories is not that other as inventions. This category should include a version according to which snow people are criminals who had escaped from prison and found refuge in the icy wilderness. And yet at the camp fire Sherpa, serve as porters in many high-altitude expeditions in the Himalayas, in a subdued voice tell about the late-night meetings with Bigfoot, a giant creature with black leather and fiery-red hair, polutora, man, appearing lonely dark silhouette on the moonlit snow fields.

In remote mountain villages you will be acquainted with a terrible cases. Let us mention a relatively harmless: Tibetan shepherd in July 1974, allegedly attacked Bigfoot and was beaten them until he lost consciousness. Then shaggy creature killed in her little flock five longhair Jacob.

Some argue that Bigfoot abducted men and women and keep them in inaccessible caves.

In villages Dimi, Hikari and Massima with the fear talk about the violence raging Yeti: for four years, these mysterious snow people brutally murdered at least five Nepalese.

Feverish activity of many groups and individual researchers who wanted to catch in Nepal Yeti, over time, became increasingly disturbed by the local authorities. They feared that this persecution will frighten away or will lead to the extermination of Bigfoot, if any exist. Therefore, in 1957, the Nepalese government issued a strict order, it zatrudnilsya activities such expeditions.

Nevertheless, the search continues. Just say: results remain scarce. No one instance of these mythical creatures, ghosts was never caught even the camera lens.

But the giant footprints in the snow still ask scientists. The first and perhaps the remarkable images of these tracks have been made on March 8, 1951 English specialist in study of the Himalayas Eric Shipton at the height of 6,000 meters. Three years later the Englishman Ralph Izzard, the correspondent of the newspaper, and American Gerald Russell, naturalist and traveler, went on an expedition with the hope to get crucial information that would lead to the disclosure of secrets. They could not see a single instance of a Bigfoot, but they came upon the tracks, which Izzard wrote in the spring of 1954 in the paper "daily Mail":

"Amongst towering mountains, steep rocky walls, glaciers and frozen waterfalls in the upper valley of the Dud-Kosi Gerald Russell and I'm two days in a row followed the steps at least two Yeti for about 13 km. As far as I know, no one has managed to find such continuous and stretching at such a distance trail Yeti".

Both researchers also heard about the scalps Yeti, which are stored in monasteries Khumjung and Pangboche. Pangboche is surrounded by mountains place of pilgrimage. Scalp from head Yeti, which you are going to see, was received by the monastery of about 350 years ago, during the reign there's fifth Lama). When ritual dances he serves as the head decoration. Now dark skin feels like thick skin. On the oval scalp many prolixin, but for the remaining then it is clear that before he was densely covered with hair. Remaining in the scalp hair - Fox-red, with an admixture of black people; they are as a person, his forehead sent back, and the sides - slightly down. Noticeable kind of crest, moving in the middle of the head. To this vertex bone crest of the gorilla and orangutan attached powerful occipital and chewing muscles (This is not entirely accurate: occipital muscles are attached to separate the occipital crest. - Approx. as amended)

In 1959 the Soviet expedition held in the Pamir mountains nine months, not having met for all time any trace the mysterious occupant of the mountains; therefore, it was concluded that the Yeti is a legend. However, British zoologist Vladimir Chernetsky, who studied pictures of Shipton, came to a completely different conclusion:

"Bigfoot - huge creature sturdy build, related to apes, similar, apparently, with gigantopithecus, great apes, who lived on Earth millions of years ago".

Anyway footprints in the snow is not similar to the marks Tibetan bears, monkeys-tanatarov, mountain gorillas or person.

The case took a new turn when, in 1960, in the mountains of Nepal organized the expedition of sir Edmund Hillary, the first conqueror of Everest. Among his companions were Marlin Perkins, the then Director of the zoo behalf of Lincoln in Chicago. They also failed to see the living Yeti, but the biologist expedition Lawrence Swan seemingly found on the glacier Ripia it clear traces. But on closer examination it turned out that the shadow on the slope of the tracks look like Fox, and on the slope facing the sun, they have Abdali and only here turned into the typical traces of Bigfoot. A little farther down the snow-covered hill, where the sun rarely, traces again shortened and narrowed, becoming similar to the marks foxes, prompting one participant of the expedition to write: "Here's the explanation: the traces of a Fox, snow leopard, a bear or a wolf, or any beast, obtiva under the warm sun rays, turned on the track of fairy Yeti".

Does this solve the riddle?

Many disagreed with this conclusion, and after a long trade Hillary purchased from one of the nuns present to the contrary, the skin Yeti, which, however, after a more detailed study was skin rare Tibetan bear. Yes and Yeti scalp in the monastery Khumjung, which, according to legend, was kept there already 240 years and whom he attributed magical powers, also proved to be a forgery is installed biologist expedition. After long negotiations, the monks agreed to provide the scalp for research in Chicago and London. After it took place, the scientists came to a disappointing conclusion: "the skin of the Yeti" - actually stretched a piece of skin from the neck Himalayan mountain goats. To save this valuable item during his travels in the other hemisphere, it was sent to one of the villagers, who said, no matter what:

"My children see a Yeti, heard his screams. They called him, but he escaped. He looked like a dog with human head".

In a few years, the Yeti, erected in Nepal in a rank of national landmarks, has become a lure for tourists.

Interesting for scientists was shot taken in 1958 by the Englishman Slick in the monastery Pangboche. On the picture - mummified hand of Bigfoot. Having studied the picture, authoritative English zoologist hill said that it is the arm ' an unknown humanoids", close to a gorilla. The same conclusion was made by Russian explorers. So, Professor Porshnev, the famous Soviet historian and philosopher, believed that this hand is grasping organ that is significantly different from the hands of modern man, but with almost full similarity of the hand of the Neanderthal man, extinct, say, 40 000 years ago. According to Porshnev, and now living beings, in its development standing on the stage of the stone age man.

So is there a Yeti in reality or is it just fantasy Himalayan mountaineers?

Currently single answer exists. English zoologists Charles of Stoner and John Napier, thoroughly considering all available data, proposed the following new interpretations. They indicate that orangutans living in the jungles of Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra, in the XIX century there was another meeting in the mainland of South-East Asia. The fossil record suggests that two million years ago, and in historical time this reddish-brown "person of the forest" (it is translated Malay word "orangutan") felt in the South-East of the Asian continent like at home. Then this kind of monkeys reached a height of 2.2-2.3 metres. Present orangutans, in contrast, have a growth of 1.25-1.5 m, rarely-1.8 meters. Could it be that some of the varieties of the ancient orangutan have adapted to the cold highlands and in a small number survived in the Himalayas till our days?

Or strange footprints in the snow left by other animals, and to suspect them as signs of Bigfoot made only snow melting, dramatically increasing the prints?

Until there is a final solution to this puzzle, but we must not forget that we only recently became acquainted with many animals, hiding in the depths of the seas, the wilderness of forests, steppes - for example, freshwater dolphins, Okapi, mountain gorilla, gray bull, Przewalski's horses and some others previously unknown species.

Search of Bigfoot continue in the same broad scale, and still he serves as advertising for promoting tourism. So, under the protectorate of India, the Principality of Sikkim local forestry authority in the spring of 1978 has developed a comprehensive strategic plan, which aimed to prove that Bigfoot lives in sichinskiy, not in the Nepalese Himalayas. Noisy expedition, traveling to Nepal to hunt down and capture the mysterious creature, as claimed, motivated him "to emigrate" in its snow-covered high mountain valley of Sikkim to the East of Nepal.

One old man, allegedly so often heard the cry of the snow man that could ideally cardiology, wrote that cry on magnetic tape, and write as bait reproduced through a tape recorder, set in the mountains. In vain: the snow man had not been deceived and didn't catch or at least to see. But figures from the forest Department had already come up with for it profitable and promising monetary returns application: Yeti was supposed to be the main attraction in the mountain of the national parks of India. It is unlikely that a relic of our past would have issued such stress!