Scientists '95% Sure' Bigfoot Lives in Russian Tundra

[Ter]

Scientists and yeti enthusiasts believe there may finally be solid evidence that the apelike creature roams the vast Siberian tundra, reports the Guardian.

A team of a dozen-plus experts from as far afield as Canada and Sweden have proclaimed themselves 95% certain of the mythical animal's existence after a daylong conference in the town of Tashtagol in the Kemerovo region, some 2,000 miles east of Moscow. In recent years, locals there have reported sightings of the yeti, also known as the abominable snowman.

The Kemerovo government announced on Oct. 10 that a two-day expedition the previous weekend to the region's Azassky cave and Karatag peak "collected irrefutable evidence" of yetis' existence on the wintry plateau.

"Conference participants came to the conclusion that the artifacts found give 95% evidence of the habitation of the 'snow man' on Kemerovo region territory," read a statement. "In one of the detected tracks, Russian scientist Anatoly Fokin noted several hairs that might belong to the yeti," it added. The group also discovered footprints, a presumed bed and various other markers.

The scientific community has historically disputed the existence of the yeti given scant conclusive evidence. But numerous sightings of such creatures have been reported in Himalayan countries and in North America, where it is known as Sasquatch, or bigfoot.


Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/10/11/scientists-95-sure-bigfoot-lives-in-russian-tundra/#ixzz1aVOU5eZa

[frogmarch]

1. Weird.

I'll bet the hairs found in the cave aren't of a yeti. I'd be surprised if they turned out to be from any unknown animal.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1023_031023_bigfoot_2.html

snip:

But the vast majority of scientists still believe Bigfoot is little more than supermarket tabloid fodder. They wonder why no Bigfoot has ever been captured, dead or alive.

snip:

After Bigfoot tracker Ray Wallace died in a California nursing home last year, his children finally announced that their prank-loving dad had created the modern myth of Bigfoot when he used a pair of carved wooden feet to create a track of giant footprints in a northern California logging camp in 1958.

Dennett (writer for Skeptical Inquirer magazine) says he's not surprised by the flood of Bigfoot sightings.

"It's the same kind of eyewitness reports we see for the Loch Ness Sea Monster, UFOs, ghosts, you name it," he said. "The monster thing is a universal product of the human mind. We hear such stories from around the world."

~~

Yes, “the monster thing” is universal. Even many NASA astronauts who have seen UFOs don’t rule out the possibility, however slight, that some UFO might be alien crafts. Neither do I. I doubt that any are, but I’m not totally convinced. Not yet. (Neither is my daughter, an astrophysicist who was on the Cassini launch team. Maybe we're both nuts.)

As for Bigfoot, Nessie and ghosts, they’re not on my list of possible “monsters,” but I don’t diss people, including scientists, who want to investigate reports of them. How would investigating sightings and examining possible physical evidence of these things be considered pseudoscience? In my opinion, pseudoscience is dismissing out of hand all things generally thought to be too weird to be true.

[Name removed]

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[William Seger]

3. If they're 95% sure...

... and they can still get 100:1 odds from Vegas bookie William Hill, they should take out second mortgages and cash in their 401Ks, and soon they'll be 1%'ers.

[frogmarch]

4. film footage of Yeti hair and footprints!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/8823466/Russian-footage-of-Yeti-hair-emerges.html

You can also hear a 1974 recording of an interaction with a yeti. :-)

The scientists at the Yeti conference look unconvinced. One says (translation) "So long as we do not find the bones of this snowman, it is pointless to talk about him."

(Sure, but it's fun.)