Speaker 1: You're listening to the second and final part of Unexplained,
Speaker 1: Season seven, episode eight. Walking on Snow. In early February
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, a man in a silk cravat, golfing
Speaker 1: jacket and plimsuls strode confidently toward a small village of
Speaker 1: tents erected in the yak pastures of the Upper Dudecosey Valley,
Speaker 1: about fourteen thousand feet up in the Himalayas. The man
Speaker 1: was British Foreign correspondent ralph Izart, and walking alongside him
Speaker 1: were numerous mountaineers, ornithologists, zoologists and fellow journalists, as well
Speaker 1: as three hundred and seventy Nepalese porters. As they arrived,
Speaker 1: Anthropologist Charles Stoner welcomed them his art, waved back his greeting,
Speaker 1: then took a moment to catch his breath and fished
Speaker 1: inside his jacket for his cigarette case. He motioned for
Speaker 1: the porters carrying all his things to go ahead and
Speaker 1: set up his tent. Then he lit up a cigarette
Speaker 1: and gazed out at the surrounding mountains dusted white with snow.
Speaker 1: The Daily Mail's Yeti hunting expedition had well and truly arrived.
Speaker 1: Their mission was to find substantive physical evidence of a
Speaker 1: yeti and, if possible, capture one and bring it to
Speaker 1: the UK. After settling in to what would be their
Speaker 1: home for the next three months, the team promptly set
Speaker 1: about devising a plan. Since their quarry was supposedly a
Speaker 1: scarce solitary creature may be seen only once or twice
Speaker 1: by people who lived their entire life in these mountains,
Speaker 1: they decided to venture out in two person teams, each
Speaker 1: with local porters and guides to cover as much ground
Speaker 1: as possible, and so, day after day, equipped with huge
Speaker 1: tranquilizer guns, they clambered across miles of broken, rocky slopes
Speaker 1: and boulder filled depressions, doggedly, waiting out periods of foggy
Speaker 1: weather and periodic snowstorms. The higher terrain was still covered
Speaker 1: in a blanket of snow, excellent conditions they thought for
Speaker 1: finding fresh yetty tracks, but it was tough going. Members
Speaker 1: of the team who were not seasoned mountaineers, like Charles Stoner,
Speaker 1: found themselves feeling shorter and shorter of breath with every
Speaker 1: hundred feet they trudged above the camp. In late February,
Speaker 1: Ralph izz Art, now dressed more appropriately, and American naturalist
Speaker 1: Gerald Russell arrived at a deserted summer grazing village. According
Speaker 1: to their sherper guide, Serdar Ang Sharing, yety tracks had
Speaker 1: been seen there by locals just a few days earlier.
Speaker 1: After failing to find any evidence of them for themselves,
Speaker 1: the men decided to set up camp for the night.
Speaker 1: Setting off early the next morning, The men were crossing
Speaker 1: a slope covered in deep snow on the shaded side
Speaker 1: of the valley at around fifteen thousand feet when Sharing
Speaker 1: began gesturing excitedly. There in front of them was a
Speaker 1: single line of tracks about nine inches long and five
Speaker 1: inches wide, with a stride length of just over two meters,
Speaker 1: heading down the valley. Despite some melting and drifting having
Speaker 1: slightly obscured the footprints, there was enough detail to reveal
Speaker 1: one big toe and at least three smaller ones, almost
Speaker 1: identical to the prince that Eric Shipton had photographed in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one. The chirpers Ralph Izard and Gerald Russell
Speaker 1: followed the tracks up the slopes, where there was continuous
Speaker 1: snow cover, and across a small plateau. On the plateau's
Speaker 1: furthest rim the footprints became confused and seemed to be
Speaker 1: joined by a second set of tracks. Some of those
Speaker 1: tracks on the rim appeared to be smaller, leading the
Speaker 1: team to wonder if perhaps they were of a parent
Speaker 1: and child. The team continued to follow what they believed
Speaker 1: now to be two sets of tracks, made at the
Speaker 1: same time and heading in the same direction over two
Speaker 1: consecutive days, for a distance of around eight miles, placed
Speaker 1: just under four meters apart. At one point, the tracks
Speaker 1: divided i the side of a large boulder, clear evidence
Speaker 1: the men thought that two bipeds had passed that way together.
Speaker 1: As they continued, Iard tripped over a ridge of hardened
Speaker 1: snow and pitched headlong into the snow drift. A little embarrassed,
Speaker 1: he struggled back to his feet, then smiled at the
Speaker 1: sight of another deep impression in the snow next to him.
Speaker 1: Clearly one of the creatures they were tracking had done
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing as him. From there, it appeared
Speaker 1: to have sat down on the snow and slid down
Speaker 1: the rest of the slope on its backside, before rising
Speaker 1: and continuing again on two feet. Whatever these creatures were,
Speaker 1: they seemed to use human made paths with the utmost
Speaker 1: caution and often made lengthy detours around huts or other
Speaker 1: structures that might be inhabited by humans. To Izard and Russell,
Speaker 1: this painted a captivating picture of a creature determine to
Speaker 1: avoid being seen, let alone court. The expedition took photos
Speaker 1: of the tracks, but despite continuing the search deep into
Speaker 1: the surrounding snowy slopes, they failed to find any tangible
Speaker 1: evidence to present to their sponsors. Meanwhile, Charles Stoner was
Speaker 1: dispatched to follow up on another lead, back down into
Speaker 1: the village of Pangboche, where it was rumored that the
Speaker 1: monastery there contained a yetty scalp. As Stoner and his
Speaker 1: guide made their way down a winding path through glades
Speaker 1: of birch trees and rhododendrons, in the distance, they heard
Speaker 1: the sound of ceremonial conch shell trumpets booming out from
Speaker 1: the monastery of Cross the Valley. When they eventually arrived
Speaker 1: in the village, Stoner was dismayed to find it seemingly lifeless,
Speaker 1: since most of the inhabitants had gone away trading. After
Speaker 1: much searching, he and his guide eventually found an elderly
Speaker 1: man who looked after the monastery's temple. With the help
Speaker 1: of his guide, Stoner persuaded him to find the key
Speaker 1: and let them in. After Stoner laid offerings at the
Speaker 1: temple altar, the elderly man disappeared into a deep cupboard
Speaker 1: housing ornaments for sacred dances, and returned moments later with
Speaker 1: a garish looking object, conical in shape and sparsely covered
Speaker 1: with stiff, thick, bristle like hairs that were foxy, red
Speaker 1: and black. The man explained earnestly that the scalp was
Speaker 1: over three hundred years old and was only brought out
Speaker 1: once a year, when it was worn by a dancer
Speaker 1: personifying the YETI. Stoner was unimpressed. However, to his mind,
Speaker 1: it looked more like it had been cut from an
Speaker 1: animal skin then fashioned to fit a person's head. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: he took some photographs and a few hair samples, which
Speaker 1: he then sent to London for analysis. The verdict, when
Speaker 1: it came was that the scalp was indeed quite old,
Speaker 1: but that this was not a true scalp at all,
Speaker 1: but rather, as Stoner had suspected, a piece of skin
Speaker 1: cut from the shoulder of some indeterminate animal. Another two
Speaker 1: such sculps were later tracked down by the expedition, but
Speaker 1: were similarly disregarded. After fifteen weeks of grueling searching, the
Speaker 1: Daily Mail's expedition came to an end with only photographs
Speaker 1: of footprints, the alleged Yeti scalps and a few bristly
Speaker 1: hair samples to show for all their efforts. For the
Speaker 1: next several decades, explorers from Britain, America, Russia and beyond
Speaker 1: would arrive periodically in Nepal and other parts of the
Speaker 1: Himalayas to search for the Yeti. The monasteries housing the
Speaker 1: apparent scalps became places of pilgrimage for many Yeti hunters
Speaker 1: desperate for physical proof of the creature's existence. Among them
Speaker 1: were members of a nineteen fifty eight expedition funded by
Speaker 1: explorer Tom Slick, a Texan oilman who'd assembled a team
Speaker 1: including several mountaineers, a photographer, a filmmaker, and Irish brothers
Speaker 1: Peter and Brian Byrne. Naturalist Gerald Russell, veteran of the
Speaker 1: fifty four Daily Mail expedition, was the team's deputy leader.
Speaker 1: As with the previous expedition, this team split into small
Speaker 1: groups and hold themselves up in caves in the middle
Speaker 1: of a leige Yeti country for extended periods of observation,
Speaker 1: during which they claimed to have seen Yeti tracks, but
Speaker 1: no yetis. Like Charles Stoner before him, Peter Burn of
Speaker 1: Tom Slick's expedition visited the monasteries to inspect their alleged
Speaker 1: Yeti scalps. Some who had seen them were convinced that
Speaker 1: they were single pieces of skin with no traces of
Speaker 1: stitches or glue, with hair that did not match any
Speaker 1: known animal, But Peter Burn was not impressed, noting that
Speaker 1: it was well known in Nepal that one of them,
Speaker 1: taken from the Kumjong Monastery, was an accepted fake. It
Speaker 1: was believed to be made around fifteen years earlier by
Speaker 1: a Tibetan taxidermist who was jealous of all the attention
Speaker 1: that the Lamas at pang Botche, the teachers of Buddhism
Speaker 1: who reside at the monastery, were getting with their Yeti scalp.
Speaker 1: When Burne then visited the Pangbotcha monastery, unlike Stoner, he
Speaker 1: was shown something else alongside the scalp, what looked like
Speaker 1: the large mummified hand of an unknown primate. As the
Speaker 1: monks explained, many years ago, one of them had climbed
Speaker 1: to a high cave to meditate, but they had encountered
Speaker 1: a Yeti there and soon made a rapid return to
Speaker 1: the village. When the monk went back to the cave
Speaker 1: a few days later, he found that Yeti was dead,
Speaker 1: and so decided to remove its scalp and hand. Looking
Speaker 1: at it now, Burne could see it was unusually large,
Speaker 1: around twice the size of a large human hand, and
Speaker 1: about four times bigger than the average hand size of
Speaker 1: the local people. Burne told Tom Slick about the relics,
Speaker 1: and Slick in turn relayed the news to a professor
Speaker 1: William Hill, a primatologist at the Royal College of Surgeon's
Speaker 1: Hunterian Museum back in London. Slick and Hill desperately wanted
Speaker 1: the hand, but the monks refused to give it to them,
Speaker 1: believing it would bring disaster to the temple if it
Speaker 1: was ever removed. Reports of what happened next diverge. In
Speaker 1: a letter written to mountaineer Mike Alsop, Burn claimed to
Speaker 1: have made a donation to the temple in exchange for
Speaker 1: the lamour's permission to take one finger and replace it
Speaker 1: with another. Finger bone from a human hand, which he
Speaker 1: happened to have brought with him in a paper bag.
Speaker 1: Others say that Burn and Slick got the monks drunk
Speaker 1: one evening, giving Burn enough time to secretly steal one
Speaker 1: of the relic's fingers and wire in a substitute bone
Speaker 1: in its place. Way, Burne did smuggle a finger from
Speaker 1: the pang Botcher hand, along with a piece of the
Speaker 1: leathery mummified skin taken from the palm, across the Nepalese
Speaker 1: border into India. The real problem then was getting the
Speaker 1: items from India to London without being caught by customs.
Speaker 1: While traveling, Burne received a cable from Tom Slick instructing
Speaker 1: him to make his way to Calcutta, where Slick had
Speaker 1: arranged a meeting with his friends, the American movie star
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart and his wife Gloria, who happened to be
Speaker 1: holidaying in India at the time. Convinced that customs officials
Speaker 1: would never examine the underwear of a famous woman, the
Speaker 1: finger and skin fragment were then hidden in Gloria Stewart's
Speaker 1: lingerie case, which indeed was never opened. Despite all that
Speaker 1: where the relics finally made it to Professor Hill in London.
Speaker 1: He concluded that they were most likely human in origin.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty the now knighted Sir Edmund Hillary, who
Speaker 1: along with Tensing Norgay, was one of the first people
Speaker 1: to reach the summit of Mount Everest, received funding to
Speaker 1: make another expedition to the Himalayas, this time to find
Speaker 1: evidence of the Yeti. Not Aware of what Burn had
Speaker 1: done the previous year, Hillary judged the Pangbotcher hand to
Speaker 1: also be an unconvincing combination of human and animal bones
Speaker 1: wired together. Unlike Burn, Hillary succeeded in getting permission to
Speaker 1: take the Kumjung monastery's scalp away to be analyzed. When
Speaker 1: crypto zoologist Bernard Heivelman's first examined the scalp, he thought
Speaker 1: it appeared genuine. He eventually concluded that the alleged Yeti
Speaker 1: scalp had in fact been made by stretching some skin
Speaker 1: from a Himalayan tar an animal halfway between a goat
Speaker 1: and an antelope over a mold. There was no suggestion
Speaker 1: that either the Kumjung or pang Botcher scalps had been
Speaker 1: made deliberately to hoax outsiders. They'd been created several centuries
Speaker 1: previously to represent the Yeti in temple rituals. It was
Speaker 1: most likely that their true origins had simply been forgotten
Speaker 1: over the centuries, with subsequent monks coming to assume that
Speaker 1: they were genuine Yeti scalps. As for the finger bone
Speaker 1: from the pang Botcher hand, after Professor Hill's examination of
Speaker 1: it in nineteen fifty four, it subsequently disappeared. It later
Speaker 1: resurfaced in two thousand eight when a box in the
Speaker 1: Hunterian Museum was found to contain the nine centimeter long
Speaker 1: finger fragment, left to the museum as part of a
Speaker 1: bequest from Hill. In twenty eleven, the finger was analyzed
Speaker 1: by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland during the making
Speaker 1: of a BBC documentary about the Yetty. Its DNA was
Speaker 1: found to be human. A few years later, one bright
Speaker 1: and sunny morning, Professor Brian Sykes and his two research
Speaker 1: assistants sat in his study in Oxford, staring at two
Speaker 1: white envelopes on the table in front of them. Inside
Speaker 1: the envelopes were the results of DNA testing that had
Speaker 1: just come back from the lab. The results of thousands
Speaker 1: of miles of travel, months of intense lab work, and
Speaker 1: the hopes of cryptozoologists across the world. Back in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, Sykes, a genetics professor from Oxford University, had
Speaker 1: developed a new technique for retrieving and analyzing DNA from
Speaker 1: a ancient bones, but it wasn't until twenty thirteen that
Speaker 1: he and his team perfected the method for extracting DNA
Speaker 1: from hair samples. They proceeded to collect various samples for testing,
Speaker 1: including those thought to come from Russia's version of the
Speaker 1: Yeti called the Almasty, as well as North America's Bigfoot
Speaker 1: and potential Yeti hairs from Laddak in northern India on
Speaker 1: the west side of the Himalayas and Bhutan eight hundred
Speaker 1: miles away to the east. Could this advance in DNA
Speaker 1: technology confirm that these large hairy hominids, including the Yeti,
Speaker 1: really existed once and for all. After taking deep breaths,
Speaker 1: Professor Sykes and his team tore open the envelopes as
Speaker 1: they looked from one result to the next. Every DNA
Speaker 1: result showed the heirs to all be from well known animals.
Speaker 1: One of the potential Yeti heirs was revealed to be
Speaker 1: a Himalayan brown bear, a rare subspecies that lives in small,
Speaker 1: isolated populations in the remote higher reaches of the Himalayas.
Speaker 1: The common name of this bear in Nepalese is zouter
Speaker 1: or cattle bear, and it has long been associated with
Speaker 1: YETI stories. More intriguingly, the samples from Laddak was also
Speaker 1: found to be a Himalayan brown bear. It was the
Speaker 1: same story once again in twenty seventeen when Professor doctor
Speaker 1: Charlotte Lynist and her team at the University of Buffalo
Speaker 1: College of Arts and Sciences analyzed the mitochondrial DNA of
Speaker 1: nine samples of purported YETI parts, this time gathered by
Speaker 1: a crew make a film about the creature. Eight of
Speaker 1: the nine samples were from local bears. One was an
Speaker 1: Asian black bear, another a Himalayan brown and six were
Speaker 1: the Tibetan brown bear. The ninth sample was from a dog.
Speaker 1: Once again, serious doubt was cast on more than a
Speaker 1: century of supposed YETI sightings. Over the decades, encounters between
Speaker 1: explorers and possible yeties have continued. British mountaineer Don Willans
Speaker 1: was a fervent believer, claiming he encountered the yeti while
Speaker 1: scaling Ana Purna, the tenth highest mountain in the world,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy. He awoke one morning to find a
Speaker 1: few human like footprints in the snow around its camp.
Speaker 1: Then later that evening he claimed to have watched a
Speaker 1: bipedal ape like creature for about twenty minutes through binoculars
Speaker 1: as it appeared to forage for food not far from
Speaker 1: his camp. While climbing solo in eastern Tibet in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, the Italian mountaineer Reinhold Mesner confronted a creature
Speaker 1: that he described as standing upright and moving with astonishing agility.
Speaker 1: Not sure whether he'd seen a human or another animal,
Speaker 1: he spent the next fifteen years searching across Nepal, Bhutan,
Speaker 1: and Tibet before concluding that the yeti was in fact
Speaker 1: a bear. American scholar and veteran Yeti hunter Daniel Taylor
Speaker 1: has spent sixty years tracking supposed Yeti evidence across the Himalayas,
Speaker 1: and he has an explanation for how some so called
Speaker 1: yeti footprints can be so large. Much like domestic cats,
Speaker 1: bears often put their hind foot on top of their
Speaker 1: forefoot print, making an overprint that can quite easily be
Speaker 1: thirty two inches long. During his years of field research,
Speaker 1: Taylor also noticed that larger prints are typically found on
Speaker 1: the steeper slopes, where the larger, heavier back feet of
Speaker 1: a bear going up hill would fall slightly further behind
Speaker 1: than an overprint on flat ground, exaggerating the size of
Speaker 1: the compound footprints even more. In the decades since the
Speaker 1: discovery of the iconic footprints pictured by Eric Shipton in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, Michael Ward, who was also on that trip,
Speaker 1: began to ponder the assumption made by most mountaineers that
Speaker 1: the prints were made by normal feet. Ward, who was
Speaker 1: a surgeon, suspected that there could be an alternative possibility.
Speaker 1: What if the footprints often identified as being made by
Speaker 1: a yeti could be those of Tibetan people living in
Speaker 1: the high Himalayas with abnormally shaped feet. In an article
Speaker 1: published in the Alpine Journal six years before his death
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, Ward suggested that in a
Speaker 1: high mountain community located many days travel from basic medical facilities,
Speaker 1: people born with abnormally shaped feet would tend to retain
Speaker 1: their deformity through their life, But how would a human
Speaker 1: walk bare feet through snow over fifteen thousand feet high
Speaker 1: above sea level without getting frostbite? Schrper and former Yak
Speaker 1: herder Jeta and Tamang from the village of Langtang, Nepal,
Speaker 1: who featured in part one of this episode, says that
Speaker 1: while growing up in the nineteen eighties, she and her
Speaker 1: family possessed no shoes, going bare feet in all seasons.
Speaker 1: She said that even when she worked as a porter
Speaker 1: carrying equipment for expeditions, she wore through the snow and
Speaker 1: over frozen ground, this way protected by a thick layer
Speaker 1: of hardened, cracked skin which had developed on the soles
Speaker 1: of her feet through long exposure to the harsh conditions.
Speaker 1: Ward also quoted evidence from two scientific investigations, the first
Speaker 1: of which took place during an expedition he was part
Speaker 1: of in nineteen sixty, which wintered at nineteen thousand feet
Speaker 1: in the Everest region. Over the winter, the team had
Speaker 1: a visit from a thirty five year old Nepalese pilgrim
Speaker 1: who normally lived at six thousand feet. He stayed for
Speaker 1: fourteen days and at fifteen thousand feet and above throughout
Speaker 1: this period other than a woolen coat, wore minimal clothing,
Speaker 1: with neither shoes nor gloves. He was continuously monitored while
Speaker 1: spending four days without shelter around seventeen thousand feet high,
Speaker 1: with night temperatures down to as low as five degrees
Speaker 1: aahrenheit and daytime temperatures that remained below freezing. The man
Speaker 1: walked in the snow and on rocks in bare feet
Speaker 1: without any evidence of frostbite in conditions Ward said where
Speaker 1: any European members of the party would undoubtedly have become
Speaker 1: severely frostbitten and hypothermic. Photographs included in the study also
Speaker 1: show the deformed feet of a Himalayan highlander, showing clear
Speaker 1: similarities with the alleged Yeti footprints. Michael Ward also questioned
Speaker 1: whether some parts of the Himalayas where mountaineers have found
Speaker 1: seemingly inexplicable footprints are as deserted as foreigners might assume.
Speaker 1: The area where Eric Shipton took his nineteen fifty one
Speaker 1: photographs was visited regularly by people living in the wrong
Speaker 1: Shah Gorge only a few miles away, or could there
Speaker 1: be another explanation. Could a hominid species assumed to have
Speaker 1: gone extinct, still be living in small, fragmented groups in
Speaker 1: the remote, snowy vastness of the Himalayas. Even acclaimed naturalist
Speaker 1: Sir David Attenborough isn't sure. In an interview in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: he said, much like the way giraffes were once thought
Speaker 1: improbable to Europeans, he believes the abominable snowman could yet
Speaker 1: be real. A sister group to the Neanderthals, known as
Speaker 1: the Denisovans, are known to have lived alongside our Homo
Speaker 1: sapiens ancestors, and may even have been interbreeding with them
Speaker 1: as recently as fifteen thousand to thirty thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: according to a detailed analysis of the DNA of people
Speaker 1: living in Indonesia and Papa New Guinea twenty nineteen. Initially,
Speaker 1: Denisovans were known only from fragmentary fossils found at one site,
Speaker 1: the Denisova Cave in Siberia. Then in nineteen eighty, a
Speaker 1: large human looking jawbone with two huge teeth attached was
Speaker 1: found by a Buddhist monk who entered a cave on
Speaker 1: the Tibetan Plateau to prey. In twenty nineteen, results from
Speaker 1: the analysis of proteins extracted from the bone, published in
Speaker 1: the scientific journal Nature, revealed that this ancient jaw was
Speaker 1: in fact from a Denisovan who lived about one hundred
Speaker 1: sixty thousand years ago. Not only was this the first
Speaker 1: conclusive evidence that Denisovans occupied the Tibetan Platau, but it
Speaker 1: also presents the possibility that they passed some of their
Speaker 1: genetic traits to Himalayan peoples, including successful adaptation to high
Speaker 1: altitude hypoxic environments, and some believe they might even still
Speaker 1: live among them. Over the decades, reports and theories on
Speaker 1: the Yeti's existence by people from outside the Himalayas have
Speaker 1: blown hot and cold. In the folklore of the Himalayan
Speaker 1: country of Bhutan, it said that the Yeti is real
Speaker 1: and yet not real, possessing supernatural powers that enable it
Speaker 1: to appear in a tangible form and then suddenly vanish,
Speaker 1: so that those who search for it will be eternally
Speaker 1: doomed to fail. Despite all the legends, the footprints in
Speaker 1: the snow, and the endless searching so far, the complete
Speaker 1: truth of the Yeti's possible existence remains to this day unexplained.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Diane Hope and produced by
Speaker 1: Richard mclin Smith. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast
Speaker 1: created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
Speaker 1: including the music, are also produced by me Richard mc
Speaker 1: clain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never
Speaker 1: before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
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