WEBVTT - Selects: Yeti: The Asian Bigfoot 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.440 Ei the Friends. It's me Joshum for this WEEK'SYSK Select. 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:08.319 I've chosen our twenty nineteen episode on the Yetti. It's 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.040 really fun to talk about serious attempts people make to 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.280 find cryptids, because we're just like tourists looking in on 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:16.600 a world that's new to us and that turns out 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.240 to be pretty neat. And if the story about Jimmy 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.280 Stewart and here sounds familiar, we also recently covered it 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.120 in our Tom Slick episode. So you're not experiencing deja vu, 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.880 which is another episode that we did before. So you're 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.760 not experiencing deja vu, which is another episode we did before. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:45.720 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.239 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.680 there's Charles w. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.440 somewhere over there, and this is Stuff you should Know. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.760 The Continuing Cryptozoology edition. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:05.520 Oh this finishes it right. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.600 Oh, I don't know about that. We've done Bigfoot, Lockness 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:17.240 Monster YETI we haven't done like Mothman, the Chewpacabra Chewpacabra. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:18.479 That's a big one too. Yeah. 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:19.280 This slender Man. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.399 Slender Man's more Internet folklore than anything. 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:25.600 Did we do that one or did we think about 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:25.920 it and. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.280 Not do it the latter of those two. 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.119 If I remember correctly, I said it stinks or something. 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.080 Yeah, if I remember correctly, it hurt my feelings. Oh man, 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.040 I think it was. I think we could do slender 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.000 Man now. It was just so early on that it 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.360 was very thin. Now I think it would be more robust. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:48.360 It was slender. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.080 Yeah, that's right. Well, today we're talking about the yetti, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.960 which is not slender, depending on which YETI you're talking about, Chuck, 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:02.480 it's either enormous and and like eight feet tall, covered 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:07.000 in gray or white or maybe sometimes reddish hair, sure, 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:14.000 weighing four hundred five hundred pounds easily, Yeah, or actually 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.400 it is kind of slender. It could be basically what 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:22.519 amounts to a wild hippie, basically a somebody who likes 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.280 to grub roots out of the ground and lets out 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.600 a squeal or a cry every once in a while, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.160 just to I guess know that they're alive. And there's 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:36.080 really two competing versions of what those of us in 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.640 the Western world would think was the yetti. But the 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.799 one we're really talking about is the first one, what 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.760 we also think of as the Abominable Snowman. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:47.639 How tall was Hippie Rob? 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:53.239 He was average, like five something, I guess, like high fives. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:54.760 Probably he was a little shorter than me. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.280 Okay, yeah he was. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.720 He was not the He was not the the Yeti 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:03.360 of legend as far as I know. He could be 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:04.239 now though. 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:06.680 Well, I don't know. It just sounded an awful lot 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:07.359 like him. 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:09.480 It kind of doesn't. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.480 Yelping in the mountains, grubbing for roots. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.000 Yep, covered in dirt and with wild, crazy hair. 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.000 So I think we should just tell, like, if you 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:23.840 don't know what we're talking about, this is the legendary 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.440 beast that lives in Asia. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:29.480 Yeah, around the Himalayas typically. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.480 Yeah, so it's known as Asia's Bigfoot, or maybe Bigfoot 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.240 is known as North America's Yeti. I don't know. I 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.320 guess YETI came first, right. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.600 Yeah, I think Yeti's been around with the Shirpa of 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.560 Tibet for a very long time. 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.360 Yeah, And that's sort of the deal of this. The 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.680 origin story of this thing is the Yeti has been 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:56.400 told for many, many years, and traditional stories in that 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:02.400 area there was someone named Shiva do Hall that collected 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.360 a bunch of these stories in a book called folk 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.880 Tales of Sherpa and Yeti, and all of them kind 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.240 of figured the same way, which was, whether it's a 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:16.640 story called the Annihilation of the Yeti in which this 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.080 is pretty good. It's about Sherpas seeking revenge on a 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.200 tormenting group of Yettis this sounds like something that should 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:25.440 be on like the Sci Fi channel. 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.000 I would be very surprised if it wasn't. 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.760 But all of these stories basically have the same moral 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.440 message at the end, which is it's sort of like 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.760 a Grim's fairy tale, like be careful out on the woods. 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.280 Exactly, yeah, exactly. I think it serves the exact same 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.159 purpose too in the Grim's fairy tales. And I thought 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.520 the same thing. You know, there's witches that live in 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.120 candy houses, so don't go wandering off in the woods, kids, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.359 because you'll end up getting eaten. For little kids in Tibet, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.880 it was don't wander off into the Tibetan plateau, or 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.400 the Yetti will get you, and you will all sorts 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.200 of terrible things will happen to you. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.720 Which is funny because there are all sorts of real 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:09.880 things that could kill you in the Tibetan plateau. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.560 Well that's what I think. What they were saying was, 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:14.800 you know, you can't just be like, look out for 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:15.320 the bears. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:15.839 You can't. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.560 Kid'll be like, I don't know. I can see a 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.359 brash kid being like, no, a bear. Everybody knows what 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:23.080 a bear is. I'll wrestle a bear any day of 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.200 the week maybe. And then you know, along the way 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.839 it gets into a drinking contest with Marion from Indiana Jones. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:35.279 Oh yeah, right, exactly. That was one of the best 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.080 scenes in the history of film. Yeah, yeah, I think so, 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.760 and Tibetan kids tend to agree with me too. But 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:44.520 before we move on, I want to say one thing 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.039 that Annihilation of the Yetie, keep that in the back 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.320 of your mind. The story was that, like, there are 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.800 a bunch of yetti that were hanging around and the 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.320 Shripa were sick of them hanging around. So the Shirpa 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.480 basically threw a yetti party and got drunk and fought 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:01.839 with each other to kind of provide an example to 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.720 the YETI, Hey, you should get drunk and fight with 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.599 each other too, in the hopes of the Yeti would 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.000 destroy each other. It didn't work, and the Yeti all 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:14.359 managed to escape, except for one, who was supposedly killed 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:19.960 by a Lama, one of the Buddhist monks in the area. 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:21.680 That's part of the story. That's the end. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:23.839 That's the annihilation of the Yeti. 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.960 Wow. Story, I didn't know Alama figured in. 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.800 And really, annihilation is kind of a strong word if 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.280 you think about it, because if you just killed one 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.000 out of I think two hundred and forty Yeti, it's 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:35.960 hardly annihilation. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:37.679 That's a good point. 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:39.640 I think so too. 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.560 So throughout history, these legends have been pervasive in the region, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:50.840 so much so that supposedly the Great Alexander or Alexander 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.920 the Great, I'm not sure why I did that. When 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.839 he came through town and conquered the Indus Valley, he said, 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.120 I'd like to see one of your famous a yeties. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:05.280 I don't know. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.200 If that's what Alexander the Great sounded like. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.480 No, no, what did ancient Roman sound like? If not? 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.520 Was he Roman? I think he was Greek? Was he? Uh? Huh? Jeez? 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:19.520 How about uh really screwed that up? 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:25.640 I say, let's see, I knew that to a German accent. Oh, 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:26.480 I'm just slot. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:27.840 I'm just gonna leave. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.200 No, hang, hang tight, Chuck, you can rebound. 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.160 Yeah. Why did I think he was Roman in that Greek? 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.760 Well, because the Romans like to pretend they were Greek themselves. 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.480 I'm not firing on all cylinders. But regardless of my 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.160 bad accent, or maybe I should just edit back in 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:45.840 and say that was my Greek accent. 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:46.800 There you go. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.080 He said, I want to see a YETI and they 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:53.840 the local locals that were like, you know, we totally 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.680 would do that. However, you can't get him down this 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.680 low and you'd have to hike really high up those mountains, 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:02.880 and I know you're not down with that, so. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.200 Sorry, yeah, exactly. So I guess Alexander the Great was like, 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.680 I'm bored. I can't believe we're still talking about this. 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.200 Give me some wine. Yeah, gotten a drinking contest, and 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.560 that was that. So the yetti continued on in Sherpa 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:23.280 tradition in Tibetan, Nepal, and Bhutan, but in the West 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.320 it kind of disappeared from view until the twentieth century. 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.600 And so remember these are tall tales that the Sherpa 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:38.200 teached their kids. Although there is supposedly some I guess 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.160 general belief as well, but I can't I can't quite 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.640 penetrate it. But just imagine that it was just strictly 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.800 tall tales the Sherpa people told their kids. Then Westerners 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:49.360 came in and said, what is this you're talking about? 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.160 Tell us about this and just bought the whole thing, 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:53.439 hook line and sinker. 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.839 Yeah, and things really took for him. In nineteen twenty one, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.000 there's a journalist named Henry Newman. He did an interview 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.560 with some British explorers, and this is a time of 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:12.200 great exploration, especially from the British. These sort of these 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.080 I guess Indiana Jones, like mountaineers who would go all 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.880 over the world in search of these you know, jungles 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.920 and mountains, in search of crazy beasts and treasures and 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.440 things like that. Right, sure, So he interviewed some of 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.840 these guys and they said, you know what, we found 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.080 these huge footprints up in the mountains and the locals there, 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.000 I guess Sherpa said, because what in shirpa the plural 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:38.400 sherpa did me determine it? 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:39.400 I'm pretty sure. 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:44.360 Yeah. That was a good episode, by the way, everyone. 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.200 It was go back and listen to that one. 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:46.920 What was the title of Warm, Friendly Living. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.000 Yeah, because that's I think what ten Zing Norgay said. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:51.040 It's so great. 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:52.120 Yeah. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:57.600 So they said that their guides are Sherpa guides called 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:03.040 them mito kangmi, which the translation, the real translation is 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:08.840 a little awkward man bear snowman. Right, but Newman confused 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.120 all that. He got the snowman part right, but he 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.560 translated that first part to mean mato m EtOH to 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.840 mean filthy or dirty, and then he changed that on 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.720 his own to the word abominable, right, and that's where 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.400 we get the abominable snowman. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.800 Yeah, he was like, I don't like filthy snowman. I'm 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.560 going to change the name that I've already gotten wrong, right, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.520 and turned it into abominable snowman. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:36.360 Yeah. He really great journalist. 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:38.720 But it's fascinating that you can trace it back to 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.720 this one dummy. Yeah, that's the whole the abominable Snowman. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.240 That's where it came from, was this one guy. And 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.600 that obviously just completely captured the attention of the rest 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.240 of the world when he wrote this, because like this 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.200 was not just like, oh yeah, they heard about an 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:59.600 abominable snowman. It was these these explorers found tracks and 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.080 there sure, but guides told them the treks belonged to 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:07.560 this abominable snowman. Therefore, there are abominable snowmen living in 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:12.199 the Himalayas. And the explorer who led that particular expedition 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:17.520 was Charles Howard Berry Howard hyphen Barry bu Ry, and 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.360 apparently he and Newman were really big into promoting the 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:27.479 idea of an abominable snowman or men living in the Himalayas, 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.800 and that it just being like this giant, huge creature 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.079 with shaggy hair, very much akin to Bigfoot. But if 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.880 you look at the descriptions of the traditional descriptions of 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.560 the Yeti, they're much smaller and not nearly as huge 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.160 as the Westerners kind of immediately made it out to be. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.480 Yeah, there was one description, one of the earlier written 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.160 descriptions from nineteen forty two. There was a researcher named 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:59.360 Mira Shackley, and I believe that she got this information 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:05.360 from two hikers that reported seeing the Yetti, right, and 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.760 this is what they said. The height was not much 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:12.840 less than eight feet so tall for sure, but it's 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.320 not like it was ten feet tall. Right the head 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.040 were the heads, because there were two of them, were 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.840 described as squarish, and the ears must lie close to 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.559 the skull because there was no projection from the silhouette 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.600 against the snow. The shoulders sloped slowly down to a 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.160 powerful chest covered by reddish brown hair which formed a 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:35.400 close body fur mixed with long, straight hairs hanging downward, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.679 about the size and build of a small man that 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:41.520 had covered with long hair, but the face and chest 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.959 not very hairy at all. This all sounds like they 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:51.320 always describe him as it as bipedal, right, means you know, 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.680 walking upright, right. 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.000 But if you go back and look at that nineteen 0:12:56.080 --> 0:13:00.480 forty two description and how detailed it was, Yeah, hikers 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.440 who gave the description said that they saw they saw 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:09.400 all this from observing two black specks moving across the 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.440 snow about a quarter mile below them. And yet they 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.200 could see that it had a thick undercoat and like 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.160 a very long, hairy overcoat and that was reddish and 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:23.680 like that's just basically perfect abominable snowman sighting. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.000 Yeah, yeah, agreed, But it's one. 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.640 Of like many after that Howard Berry expedition came back 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.480 and Newman broadcasts to the world. People started going to 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.320 the Himalayas and droves, and they weren't just necessarily looking 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.640 for the abominable Snowman. Everest was there, and everybody knew 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.120 Everest was there, and a lot of people wanted to 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.319 be the first one to summ at Everest, the first Westerner, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.400 I should say, to some at Everest. So while a 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:52.160 lot of them were in the area, they're like, well, well, 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.760 look for the Abominable Snowman while we're here too. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:59.520 Yeah, and some pretty legendary mountaineers. And granted these are 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:04.720 not like zoologists or anything, but they're respected men in 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:09.480 their field. People like Ryan Hold Messner and one Sir 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.920 Edmund Hillary both searched for evidence of the Eddie while 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.400 they were hiking, and Messner even wrote a book called 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.720 My Quest for the Eddie, confronting the Himalaya's deepest mystery. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.360 But I mean, well, we'll save the big reveal to 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.200 the end or the third act of this show. 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.160 Okay, is here a third act? Yeah, there's gotta be Okay, 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.880 we're in big trouble. If there's not, well, why. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:36.560 Don't we take a break and then we'll come back 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.160 and talk a little bit about a couple of more 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:39.360 of these reported sightings. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.520 Let's do it, all right, Well, now we're on the road, 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.600 driving in your truck. I want to learn a thing 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.760 or two from Josh Chuck. It's stuff you should know. 0:14:52.040 --> 0:15:10.960 Should all right, okay, Chuck. So we've started to get 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.520 some sightings from expeditions that are going to Everest and 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.560 just hanging around the Himalayas. And then I think in 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:24.880 nineteen fifty one, something really big happened. One of those explorers, 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:29.040 Eric Shipton, took a photograph of a track that to 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.600 this day looks pretty remarkable. Actually yeah, I. 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.800 Mean this is again it's not like hard evidence, but 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:38.880 this is a very famous photo. I remember seeing this 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.680 when I was a kid, and like, I guess it 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.320 was probably the Guinness or Ripley's Believe it or Not 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:44.880 or something. 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.240 It was Time Life books for me, was it? Yeah? 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.040 Yeah, I mean I remember that it's a very famous 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:55.400 picture of a like a pic like you know pickaxe. 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.760 Yeah, use for scale, yeah, right next to it. 0:15:57.800 --> 0:15:59.960 And I remember that very distinctly. When I saw this picture, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.359 I was like, oh yeah. 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.000 And then when you look at it, you're like wait, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.920 that doesn't look quite right. That's a really weird tracks. 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.240 It looks like an elongated human foot, but rather than 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:18.480 a left toe. Got it's kind of bulbous and weird. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.720 It doesn't look like the other toes, and it certainly 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.080 doesn't look like what a human toe should look like. 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.520 And it's also huge. I think it was measured about 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:30.520 thirteen inches, which is a pretty typical size for a 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.720 yetti track from what I understand over the ages. But 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.960 the thing about it is it is a nice, crisp, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.240 fresh track. And the other thing about it, and this 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.160 is what really captured the attention of the world. Eric 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:49.120 Shipton was not known to be a particularly fraudulent person. 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.680 He was a very respected explorer and mountaineer. He knew 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.040 the area well and as a guy who has tracked 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.600 yetdy his whole life. I believe his name is Daniel Taylor. Yeah, 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.720 Daniel Taylor put it, if Shipton's coming back with a 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.560 picture of a track, you know it's a real track. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.760 It's not faked. It's not a hoax. So the question 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.680 was what was it? And this is nineteen fifty one, 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.119 and it hit the world, that picture, that track hit 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.000 the world like the surgeon's photo of the Lochness Monster 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.439 hit the world back in nineteen thirty three. It just 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.960 became like proof to people who believe in the Yeti 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.480 around the world that the Yeti definitely exists. 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.560 Yeah, I mean, like you said, it was really what 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.800 made it different than other photos that it was so sharp. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:46.000 It was a really good picture. And that little toe 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:50.080 thing basically looked like a thumb and it just you know, 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.840 it looked odd. But this Daniel Taylor guy, he actually 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.800 when I started reading that article, I thought, oh boy, 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.520 this crackpot. But he actually turned out to be a 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.360 pretty cool guy because he spent a lot of his 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.160 life looking for the YETI, went over there, even met 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.240 with the Kingdom Nepal, and the Kingdom Nepal said, well, 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:11.960 if you want to go, like to the wildest place 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:16.240 in the most remote place in our land, go to 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.760 bhun b a r u n this Barun valley. And 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:25.400 he went there and he looked around and he did 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.159 not find a Yeti. But what he did do was 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.439 ended up helping to work towards conservation of that area, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.239 which was kind of a nice silver lining to his 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.640 story was he got there and he was like, this 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.439 is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.040 one of the greatest wilderness wildernesses I've ever been to. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.480 He realized it wasn't protected and that like Chinese loggers 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.520 were infringing on one side and farmers were infringing on 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.560 the other. So he kind of spun it into like 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:56.840 good work doing conservation work in that area, which was 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:57.360 kind of cool. 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.280 Yeah, he got it turned into a notional park in Nepal. 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.240 It's a protected area now, which is significant. Have you 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.560 seen pictures of the valley. It's astounding. It's one of 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.040 the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.680 And it was just being used because the people living 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.760 there like, well, we need this land. Yeah, it's beautiful, 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.239 but we can't afford to preserve it because a lot 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.760 of people around here live on fifteen dollars a year, 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.280 so they were just making use of it however they could. 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.160 And he came in with the government and said, no, no, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.159 no more of that, get out of here. This is 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.359 protected now. But it is gorgeous. And he had actually 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.680 been raised there. Daniel Taylor's grandparents were missionaries in the Himalayas, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.240 and his parents kind of took over his grandparents' work, 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.560 so he was raised in the Himalayas, so he'd been 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:46.600 looking for the eddy his whole life. But when he 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:51.119 went to the Bahun he feels like he found the 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.919 answer to that track, that it was a kind of 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.280 tree bear. But there's a big problem with that. The 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.600 Barun Valley is a subtropical rain forest, so a tree 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.800 bear living in there wouldn't survive very very well in 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:09.920 the snow of the Tibetan plateau, you know, ten thousand 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.080 or more feet higher up the mountain, So it doesn't 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:14.840 really solve the mystery much. 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.800 No, But his notion that it could have been a 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.760 tree bear makes a little more sense with these tracks, 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:25.080 because a tree bear does have a I don't know 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.280 if you call it a thumb, but some sort of 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:31.240 a posable digit to make climbing easier, and that would 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.800 at least explain this weird thumb like thing in these prints. 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.720 It would. So he's got like half of the thing explained. 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.240 The other half is what the heck was that tree bears, 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:44.200 the subtropical rainforest tree bear doing up in the mountains 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:46.439 of the Himalayas. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, like 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.560 in the snow above the snow line, I guess, is 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.919 what I'm trying to say. But the other thing about 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.919 that ship ten photo that became world famous for the 0:20:56.000 --> 0:21:01.520 yetti was that, like the track itself was very crisp. 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.480 And there's a guy named Benjamin Radford who's a skeptic 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.960 who has written a lot about the yetti and in 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:14.480 particular how difficult obtaining YETI tracks could be, or actually, 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:16.840 more to the point, how easy it would be to 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:21.840 confuse the normal animal's tracks or something weird because of 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.960 the fact that the snow is a terrible medium for tracks. 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.200 Because like say, a bear walks through an area and 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.960 leaves some tracks in the snow. The next morning, as 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.840 the sun comes up and it hits the tracks and 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.600 it shoots all that heat under that track, it starts 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.720 to melt the sides, maybe elongate it, maybe make the 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.840 toes look splayed, and it just doesn't resemble a bear 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.240 track anymore at all. It looks like something weird and 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.320 not previously known, like an entirely new species. That's the 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.600 thing about the Shipton photograph that captured everyone's attention. It 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.080 doesn't like that at all. It looks sharp new. It 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.080 doesn't look melted at all. The edges are clean and crisp. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:08.760 That's what I think really kind of struck everybody. It 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.560 wasn't like a melted, mangled track. It was like a 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.520 new track by something that was not immediately identifiable. 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.760 Yeah, for sure. So there have been other photographs through 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:24.080 the years, as you know, supposed evidence. In nineteen eighty six, 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:29.920 a hiker named Anthony Wooldridge said there's a yetty over there. 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:34.200 He's about five hundred feet away and he saw a 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.399 bunch of tracks in the snow that looked like it 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:41.119 was going that way, and he took some photographs that 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.119 were proven genuine. But I think by genuine that just 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:45.199 means they weren't faked. 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:48.320 Yeah, that's what I That's how I understand. 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.080 It, because wasn't this the photo that they said, actually 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:56.480 those are just rocks standing up, Yeah, like rock outcropping 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:57.000 or whatever. 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.560