The Yeti, or Bigfoot, is another mystery in Tibet. This is how the famous mountaineer, conqueror of Chomolungma, Tiger of the Snows N. Tenzing describes it. His father, also a mountaineer who devoted his whole life to mountains, told N. Tenzing the following story: “For the first time I met this strange creature on the Barun glacier. I bumped into him so unexpectedly and close that I could see him quite clearly. It was a beast that resembled a great ape. I was struck by his deep-set eyes and pointed upward head. The body of the beast was covered with gray wool, which grew up above the waist and down below. It was a female."
In China, yeti have been interested for a very long time. Rumors about Bigfoot have been spreading in the Middle Kingdom for two and a half thousand years.
The first mentions and descriptions of the Yeti (Chinese Yezhen [70]) can be found already in ancient sources. So, for example, during the time of the Chou Cheng-wang (1024–1004 BC), a living Yezhen was allegedly brought to the court of the ruler of one of the barbarian kingdoms. The famous poet of antiquity Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BC) dedicated the song "Shangui" ("Mountain Devil") from the cycle "Nine Chants" to the "wild man". There is also very recent evidence of Bigfoot. This is what the Chinese newspaper "Guizhou Shanbao" writes on December 6, 2004: "… in the Yuelyanshan mountains, which stretch across the provinces of Guangxi and Guizhou, the legends of the" wild man "have been passed from mouth to mouth for 70 years … One June 1930 d. 12 men with hunting dogs went to the mountains to hunt. Suddenly the dogs barked loudly. The hunters raised their guns, but instead of the usual game they saw a strange animal:something resembling a man stood between two huge trees, looking fearfully at the hunters and dogs. The creature's body was covered with thick black hair. Long hair on the head framed a face with yellow skin. There was no facial hair. The creature's two breasts were also devoid of vegetation; it was noticeable that they were full of milk. The creature was shaped like a woman and was about 6 feet tall …
… 66 years later, there was another meeting with the “wild man”. On January 18, 1996, a sixty-year-old man from the village of Bailatsun, after shopping at the rural municipality market, returned home. As soon as the old man had time to drive the ox into the corral, a female wild man attacked him. Grabbing the old man across the body, the creature dragged him into the thicket and there, in a secluded clearing, brutally raped him …
… In the fall of 1984 in the Rongjiangxian county an expedition of 11 people headed by the chairman of the Chinese Association for the Search and Study of the "Wild Man" Liu Mingzhuang worked. They managed to get pieces of wool and skin of the "wild man". According to experts, the wool "belongs to a creature standing between a monkey and a man" … In 1996, scraps of wool, clots of clotted blood and "Yezhen" feces were collected here … Currently, more than 1000 people in these places claim to have seen "a wild man."
Bigfoot is not only "seen" in China. Eyewitnesses, if they really are, met him (or his traces) in the Caucasus, California, Yakutia and other places. Especially famous is the California Yeti, nicknamed Bigfoot ("Big Foot"). His name was used by manufacturers of products and machines, films and cartoons were made about him, as well as a computer game. But after the death of the man who allegedly discovered Bigfoot's tracks - Ray Wallace, whose company was building a railway in Northern California, the funny truth came to light. Wallace himself invented Bigfoot in order to scare away the local residents from the construction site, who were striving to steal something. Wallace made huge paws out of wood and left "mysterious" footprints in the snow.
Maybe other evidence of the Yeti's existence - fuzzy photos and videos - is also fake? Are the numerous witnesses just liars?
Oddly enough, but the problem of the scandalous yeti was of interest at one time to very serious scientific organizations, including the USSR Academy of Sciences.
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On January 31, 1957, a meeting of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, dedicated to Bigfoot, took place in Moscow. The well-known theoretical physicist, academician Igor Tamm, anthropologist Mikhail Nesturkh, historian and philosopher, professor Boris Porshnev and other scientists took part in the discussion.
Boris Porshnev suggested that the Yeti, allegedly seen in the Pamirs, may have migrated there from its main area of residence in the Himalayas. As a result, it was decided to organize an expedition for the scientific study of the two most inaccessible and poorly studied areas of the Pamirs - the Sarez Lake basin and the Muk-Su river basin. A commission was created, headed by a famous geologist and geographer, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences from Leningrad, Sergei Obruchev. Obruchev's deputies were Porshnev, animal morphologist Kleinberg and director of the Pamir station Stanyukovich. The commission included the rector of the Leningrad University, the head of the executive committee of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, the academician-secretary of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR and the director of the Moscow Zoo. However, the commission returned with nothing and the topic was officially closed, but by no means exhausted to the end.
Modern scholars treat the Yeti problem in different ways. For example, a well-known scientist, Doctor of Biological Sciences VB Sapunov writes: “The founder of the evolutionary doctrine Charles Darwin introduced the principle of divergence into science, which says: any biological form tends to disintegrate in historical development into many new forms, of which the greatest chances of survival have two extreme. This is also true of the evolution of the human race. Its entire course is the relationship of the biological with the social. Representatives of the biological branch evolved based on the strength of their muscles. The representatives of the alternative branch relied on the power of their mind. The evolutionary reality was as follows - only one branch can win, become the master on Earth. Anything else would be contrary to the laws of evolution and ecology. The issue was resolved with the advent of a modern man, who became the winner. The alternative evolutionary variant was not completely destroyed. He remained in hidden form as a mysterious Bigfoot. It is not just a rare species. This is a backup path for human development. Or, if you like, one of the biosphere fuses."
At the same time, Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Averyanov, head of the mammals laboratory at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, answering the questions of the correspondents of the newspaper Itogi, gave a very serious argument against the existence of the Yeti: “Cryptozoology has nothing to do with zoology. There is no place for zoological scientists on expeditions to find Bigfoot, because today there is no convincing evidence of its existence, except for blurry pictures, questionable footprints and eyewitness accounts.
For Bigfoot to exist, you need a population. For example, chimpanzees need several hundred individuals to survive. Of course, even today there are amazing zoological discoveries, for example, a striped hare was recently discovered in Vietnam. But the existence of hominids is hardly possible, because the last find of a humanoid primate is 3-4 million years old."
And yet, cryptozoologists don't give up. The representative of this profession, Vadim Makarov, believes that the search for Bigfoot should be intensified: “The descendants will not forgive us for being indifferent to this very important scientific problem. If there are hominids, then most likely their number is small, but I am sure that today you can still find individual representatives in those remote areas where humans rarely appear."
Whatever one is looking for in Tibet: Bigfoot, Shambhala, healing, truth, oneself in the end …
If in the middle of the 20th century Tibet was practically closed to Europeans, then nowadays anyone can get to the "Land of Snows", even to Lha-su - the heart of Tibet, where even missionaries and scientific expeditions were not allowed there with rare exceptions. The scent of mystery that surrounded Tibet has been mercilessly dispelled.
Moreover, in March 2009, the PRC State Council approved a program according to which Lhasa is doomed to become an international tourist destination. Five-star hotels, modern entertainment complexes and huge parking lots will be built in the city. New transport routes will connect the main areas of the city. According to the forecast, in 2020 Lhasa will be able to receive 12 million tourists. Will the city be able to save its face, or will it really become the "administrative center" of the "Tibet Autonomous Region", which, in turn, will turn mysterious Tibet?
From the book: “History of Humanity. East"