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Speaker 1: That's ALLLBI rds dot com. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with
Speaker 1: me Richard McClean smith, where for the weeks in between episodes,
Speaker 1: we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason
Speaker 1: or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In
Speaker 1: last week's episode, Tales from the Cryptid, we heard the
Speaker 1: unnerving story of a group of prospectives who claim to
Speaker 1: have been attacked by a number of strange, apelike creatures
Speaker 1: in the Cascade Mountains back in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four. In nineteen sixty seven, one of the group,
Speaker 1: Fred Beck, and his son Ronald, published a full account
Speaker 1: of the apparent episode in a book titled I Fought
Speaker 1: the ape Men of Mount Saint Helen's, Washington. Though no
Speaker 1: conclusive evidence was ever found to confirm Beck's account, the
Speaker 1: story remains one of the most loved accounts of an
Speaker 1: apparent encounter with Bigfoot in the annals of Cryptozoology. The
Speaker 1: story was, however, given a slight air of credibility after
Speaker 1: the mysterious disappearance of a man in nineteen fifty not
Speaker 1: far from where Beck and his team had been working.
Speaker 1: Jim Carter was part of a twenty member strong skiing
Speaker 1: party enjoying the last of the year's snow at the
Speaker 1: top of Mount Saint Helen's when he volunteered to take
Speaker 1: some photographs of the group making their way down to
Speaker 1: the bottom. Carter told the group to wait thirty minutes
Speaker 1: before they set off to give him time to set
Speaker 1: up his equipment, and then promptly skied away. Having watched
Speaker 1: Carter disappear behind a rocky outcrop, the group waited the
Speaker 1: agreed thirty minutes, then one by one shot off down
Speaker 1: the mountain, but Carter never arrived to meet them all
Speaker 1: at the bottom. A search team later found Carter's tracks
Speaker 1: and traced them to the rocky outcrop where he'd last
Speaker 1: been seen, where they found a discarded film container and
Speaker 1: another set of ski tracks pointing straight down the mountain.
Speaker 1: Bob Lee, a member of the Seattle Mountain Search and
Speaker 1: Rescue team that searched for Carter, recounted years later that
Speaker 1: Carter appeared to have set off at an astonishing taking
Speaker 1: chances that no skier of his caliber would take unless
Speaker 1: something was terribly wrong or he was being pursued, even
Speaker 1: jumping over two or three large crevasses in the process.
Speaker 1: The search team eventually traced Carter's ski tracks to the
Speaker 1: edge of the gorge where fred Beck's group had apparently
Speaker 1: had their terrifying encounter, astonished to find that they continued
Speaker 1: straight down into the canyon. Despite a two week search,
Speaker 1: no sign of Carter was ever found. For Bob Lee,
Speaker 1: it was one of the strangest rescue operations he'd ever
Speaker 1: participated in. As he said, it was as though somebody
Speaker 1: was watching me the whole time. I could feel the
Speaker 1: hair on my neck standing up. It was eerie. I
Speaker 1: was unarmed except for my ice ACKs, and believe me,
Speaker 1: I never let go of it. Almost every culture, it
Speaker 1: seems as a story of wild mythical creatures living out
Speaker 1: in the woods and mountains, from Bigfoot to Sasquatch, to
Speaker 1: the Yetty and the Yawi. These ape like creatures seem
Speaker 1: to supersede folklore, and sometimes they even break out from
Speaker 1: the myth to be apparently captured on film, recorded on audio,
Speaker 1: and seen in real life, and in eighteen fifty one
Speaker 1: was even said to have been caught. The mountainous regions
Speaker 1: of the Caucuses and Pamir in Central Asia and the
Speaker 1: Altai Range in Mongolia are said to be home to
Speaker 1: a group of creatures known locally as the Almas or
Speaker 1: the Almasty, loosely translated to English from Mongolian to mean wild,
Speaker 1: and the Almasty are believed to be half human half ape,
Speaker 1: walking upright like a human, but looking much more like
Speaker 1: a primate with wild, dark hair, a thick set skull,
Speaker 1: and low, stooping brow. In eighteen fifty, in the region
Speaker 1: of Abcacia, an area in the South Caucuses that lies
Speaker 1: between present day Georgia and Russia, it was claimed that
Speaker 1: one such wild creature stalked the woods in the snow
Speaker 1: covered foothills of a local mountain range. Incredibly, the creature
Speaker 1: was eventually tracked down, where it was then set upon
Speaker 1: by a group of men who forcibly bound it to
Speaker 1: a log and placed a felt gag in its mouth
Speaker 1: before carrying it back to a nearby village. There, the
Speaker 1: creature was kept locked up where locals could come and
Speaker 1: gorpet it, trading stories about how it could run as
Speaker 1: fast as a horn and even swimmed the freezing rivers
Speaker 1: at high tide. The creature was described as having dark
Speaker 1: skin and was covered head to toe in coarse red hair.
Speaker 1: Tall and muscular at six foot six inches, with a
Speaker 1: thick low brow, it was simply like nothing any of
Speaker 1: the villagers had ever seen before. After being examined by
Speaker 1: a doctor, the creature was declared to be female and
Speaker 1: given the name Zana. As a subject of intense interest,
Speaker 1: Zana was traded between a number of people until she
Speaker 1: was apparently bought by a local businessman named Edgi Gannaba,
Speaker 1: who took her home to his estate in nearby Tequina. There,
Speaker 1: she was kept shackled in a cage while Gannaba tried
Speaker 1: to figure out what exactly he should do with her.
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Speaker 1: to start living a happier life today over time. Having
Speaker 1: realized that Zana was not hostile, Guanaba had her removed
Speaker 1: from the cage and placed an a fenced in enclosure
Speaker 1: outside instead, where she was given more freedom and space
Speaker 1: to roam about. Attempts were then made to tame Zana
Speaker 1: by giving her clothes and teaching her how to speak.
Speaker 1: Although she learned to respond to her name, she rejected
Speaker 1: the clothes and proved uninterested in learning words, and despite
Speaker 1: having the opportunity to sleep indoors, she always preferred to
Speaker 1: sleep outside in a pit that she dug for herself
Speaker 1: in the ground. When it was found that Zanna could
Speaker 1: understand simple instructions, she was then incorporated into Naba's workforce
Speaker 1: and forced to carry out various manual labor jobs. At
Speaker 1: some point, some of the local men on the estate
Speaker 1: started coming to Zarah at night, then plied her with
Speaker 1: alcohol and raped her. After falling pregnant and then giving
Speaker 1: birth to a healthy daughter, Zana is said to have
Speaker 1: taken her baby and washed it in the near freezing
Speaker 1: waters of a local river, whereupon it died in her arms.
Speaker 1: When the same thing happened again, some of the women
Speaker 1: from the local community soon realized it was simply because
Speaker 1: she didn't know that the cold waters would kill them.
Speaker 1: It is said that Zana would go on to have
Speaker 1: a further four children, with each of them being removed
Speaker 1: from her care and adopted by local families. After twenty years,
Speaker 1: enslaved on Gonaba's estate, Zanna died. Little else is known
Speaker 1: about her. All four of her children were believed to
Speaker 1: have integrated well and been accepted into local society. The
Speaker 1: Almusty hunters of Russia continued to believe after Zana's death
Speaker 1: that she was either a genuine example of the mythical
Speaker 1: almasty or some kind of subset of Neanderthal that had
Speaker 1: somehow survived undiscovered in the snowy foothills of the South
Speaker 1: Caucuses while humanity evolved around them. The truth, however, was
Speaker 1: far more tragic. In June twenty twenty one, as Shot Margarian,
Speaker 1: a scientist specializing in the field of ancient human population genomics,
Speaker 1: headed a paper titled the Genomic Origin of Zana of Abkhazia,
Speaker 1: which stated although the exact location of Zanna's burial site
Speaker 1: was unknown, the grave of her son Quit was identified
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one. The genomes of Quit and the
Speaker 1: alleged Zana skeleton were sequenced using ancient DNA techniques. The
Speaker 1: identical mitochondrial DNA and the parent offspring relationship between the
Speaker 1: two indicated that the unknown woman was indeed Zana. Population
Speaker 1: genomic analysis demonstrated that Zana's immediate genetic ancestry can likely
Speaker 1: be traced to present day East African populations. We speculate
Speaker 1: that Zana might have had a genetic disorder such as
Speaker 1: congenital generalized hypertrichosis, which could partially explain her strange behavior,
Speaker 1: lack of speech, and long body hair. In July twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, Zana's origins were narrowed down even further by
Speaker 1: molecular anthropologist doctor Miguel Villa of the University of Maryland.
Speaker 1: After analyzing her DNA data, Phila concluded that she was
Speaker 1: likely related to the Dinka pastoralist people from South Sadan,
Speaker 1: describing them as a marginalized group known to be above
Speaker 1: average in height and body size. In short, the so
Speaker 1: called Zana wild Woman of the Forest wasn't Almusty at all,
Speaker 1: but simply a human of East Central African descent. This
Speaker 1: episode was co written by Donna McKay smith. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, you
Speaker 1: can now do so via Patreon to receive access to
Speaker 1: add three episodes. Just go to patron dot com Forward
Speaker 1: Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained, The book and audiobook,
Speaker 1: featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on
Speaker 1: the show, is now of ailable to buy worldwide. You
Speaker 1: can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among
Speaker 1: other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music,
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
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