Footprints, claimed by the Indian Army in its twitter account to be of the “mythical beast Yeti”, which were sighted by their expedition team near the Makalu Base Camp, nepal. (Twitter/PTI Photo)Posting photographs of “mysterious footprints” that measure 32×15 inches, the Army claimed on Twitter Monday that its mountaineering expedition team in the higher Himalayas had sighted “the mythical beast Yeti”. It went on to claim that the “elusive snowman” had “only been sighted nearby at Makalu-Barun National Park in the past”.
Yeti or snowman is a mythical creature that is part of many legends and folklore in the Himalayan areas of India, nepal and Tibet. Believed to be a bipedal ape-like creature, it has never been sighted, and most scientists believe no such creature exists.
But sightings of unusually large footprints have been reported by mountaineers and adventurers in the past as well, and these have variously been explained as footprints of other animals such as the Asiatic black bear or Tibetan brown bears. So, when the claim on Twitter went viral, the sighting of a “mythical” Yeti sparked disbelief on social media at the Army's expense.
Explained |
Daniel Taylor, who has spent years searching for the mythical Yeti and has written a book ‘Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery', believes the footprints put out by the Army could also be that of bears, possibly one footprint overlapping on the other. “This is almost…
