Selects: Yeti: The Asian Bigfoot

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Stuff You Should Know" – Episode: "Yeti: The Asian Bigfoot"

Introduction to Cryptozoology and the Yeti

In the episode titled "Yeti: The Asian Bigfoot," hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve into the enigmatic world of Cryptozoology, focusing specifically on the Yeti, often referred to as Asia's Bigfoot. The conversation begins with an overview of the Yeti's place within both Western and Sherpa traditions.

Historical Origins and Folklore

Josh Clark introduces the Yeti by discussing its deep roots in Sherpa folklore. "The yeti has been around with the Sherpa of Tibet for a very long time," Josh states (04:32). The hosts explore traditional stories, such as "The Annihilation of the Yeti," where Sherpa communities attempt to rid themselves of yetis through various means. Chuck adds, "It's sort of like a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Like, be careful out on the woods" (05:43), highlighting the moral lessons embedded within these tales.

Western Exploration and Early Sightings

The podcast transitions to the early 20th century, detailing how Western explorers began to take an interest in the Yeti. In 1921, journalist Henry Newman interviewed British mountaineers who reported finding large footprints in the Himalayas. Chuck aptly summarizes, "He changed 'meito' to mean filthy and then changed that on his own to the word abominable. And that's where we get the Abominable Snowman" (11:31), explaining the origin of the Western moniker for the Yeti.

Notable Expeditions and Evidence

One of the pivotal moments discussed is the 1951 photograph taken by Eric Shipton, a respected explorer. "The track itself was very crisp... that little toe thing basically looked like a thumb and it just, you know, it looked odd," Josh remarks (19:39). This photograph reignited global interest and belief in the Yeti's existence. Chuck recounts another significant sighting in 1986 by hiker Anthony Wooldridge, whose genuine photographs were later debunked as images of rocks mistaken for the creature (26:23).

Prominent Figures in Yeti Research

The hosts highlight contributions from notable individuals like Sir Edmund Hillary and mountaineer Reinhold Messner. Hillary's involvement included an expedition that resulted in a supposed Yeti scalp, later identified as coming from a serro, a type of goat (29:40). Chuck mentions, "He was the kind of scientific person who kept his mind open until the evidence was in" (29:40), emphasizing the scientific approach taken by some researchers.

Scientific Investigations and DNA Analysis

Advancements in genetics brought a new dimension to Yeti research. In 2013, geneticist Brian Sykes at Oxford University analyzed 36 out of 57 Yeti-related samples, finding most to be ordinary animals like bears and cows. However, he initially thought some samples matched polar bear DNA from the Pleistocene era (38:55). Later reanalysis clarified these findings, attributing them to brown bears, thereby weakening the Yeti hypothesis. Josh notes, "But science at least was getting involved and scientists kind of roundly were like, you know what, this is great because we're using real science finally" (40:07).

Modern Sightings and Public Perception

The discussion moves to recent Russian expeditions in Siberia, which presented purported evidence of the Yeti, such as twisted tree branches and alleged hair samples. However, skeptics quickly identified these as man-made artifacts and confirmed that the Yeti might be a fabrication aimed at promoting tourism (43:16). Chuck humorously remarks, "Way to go, Russia," in response to these claims (44:47).

Cultural Impact and Popularity

The Yeti has permeated popular culture, inspiring movies and theme park attractions. Chuck references Disney World's "Expedition Everest" roller coaster and the Matterhorn ride's Yeti mascot, blending folklore with entertainment. "And if you're in Disneyland, there's a yeti on the Matterhorn ride," Chuck shares (46:53), illustrating the creature's lasting presence in modern media.

Conclusion: The Yeti as a Symbol of Mystery

Wrapping up, Josh and Chuck acknowledge that while scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the Yeti being a misidentified bear, the legend persists. "All it would take is one yeti to prove that yeti exists. But no matter how much there's no such thing as evidence that can prove it doesn't exist," Josh concludes (46:09). The hosts encourage listeners to explore the Himalayas' mysteries while maintaining a healthy skepticism.

Notable Quotes

• Josh Clark (04:32): "The yeti has been around with the Sherpa of Tibet for a very long time."

• Chuck Bryant (05:43): "It's sort of like a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Like, be careful out on the woods."

• Josh Clark (19:39): "The track itself was very crisp... that little toe thing basically looked like a thumb and it just, you know, it looked odd."

• Chuck Bryant (26:23): "He was the kind of scientific person who kept his mind open until the evidence was in."

• Josh Clark (40:07): "But science at least was getting involved and scientists kind of roundly were like, you know what, this is great because we're using real science finally."

• Chuck Bryant (44:47): "Way to go, Russia."

• Josh Clark (46:09): "All it would take is one yeti to prove that yeti exists. But no matter how much there's no such thing as evidence that can prove it doesn't exist."

Final Thoughts

"Yeti: The Asian Bigfoot" offers a comprehensive exploration of the Yeti legend, blending historical accounts, scientific investigations, and cultural influences. Josh and Chuck effectively balance enthusiasm for the mystery with critical analysis, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of why the Yeti continues to captivate imaginations worldwide.

Transcript

[Ryan Seacrest]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

It's me, Josh. And for this week's Sysk Select, I've chosen our 2019 episode on the Yeti. It's really fun to talk about serious attempts people make to find Cryptids, because we're just like tourists looking in on a world that's new to us and that turns out to be pretty neat. And if the story about Jimmy Stewart in here sounds familiar, we also recently covered it in our Tom Slick episode. So you're not experiencing deja vu, which is another episode that we did before. So you're not experiencing deja vu, which is another episode we did before. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. Somewhere over there. And this is stuff you should know. The continuing Cryptozoology edition.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, this finishes it, right?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I don't know about that. We've done Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, Yeti. We haven't done, like, Mothman, the Chupacabra. Chupacabra. That's a big one, too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this Slenderman.

[Josh Clark]

Slenderman's more Internet folklore than anything.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Did we do that one or did we think about it and not do it?

[Josh Clark]

The latter of those two, if I.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Remember correctly, I said it stinks or something.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If I remember correctly, it hurt my feelings.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

I think we could do Slenderman now. It was just so early on that it was very thin. Now I think it would be more robust.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Slender.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's right. Well, today we're talking about the yeti, which is not slender. Depending on which yeti you're talking about, Chuck, it's either enormous and like 8ft tall, covered in gray or white or maybe sometimes reddish hair.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Weighing 400, 500 pounds easily.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Or actually, it is kind of slender. It could be basically what amounts to a wild hippie. Basically, somebody who likes to grub roots out of the ground and lets out a squeal or a cry every once in a while just to, I guess, know that they're alive. And there's really two competing versions of what those of us in the Western world would. Would think was the yeti. But the one we're really talking about is the first one, what we also think of as the Abominable Sn. No, man.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

How tall was hippie Rob?

[Josh Clark]

He was average. Like five something, I guess. Like, high fives, probably. He was a little shorter than me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

He was not. He was not the. He was not the. The yeti of legend, as far as I know. He could be now, though.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't know. It just sounded an awful lot like him.

[Josh Clark]

It kind of does, doesn't it?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yelping in the mountains, grubbing for roots.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Covered in dirt and with wild, crazy hair.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So I think we should just tell, like, if you don't know what we're talking about. This is the legendary beast that lives in Asia.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Around the Himalayas, typically.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So it's known as Asia's Bigfoot. Or maybe Bigfoot is known as North America's yeti. I don't know. I guess yeti came first. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think yeti's been around with the Sherpa of Tibet for a very long time.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that's sort of the deal of this. The origin story of this thing is the yeti has been told for many, many years in traditional stories in that area. There was someone named Shiva Dakal that collected a bunch of these stories in a book called Folk Tales of Sherpa and Yeti. And all of them kind of figured the same way, which was whether it's a story called the Annihilation of the Yeti, in which this is pretty good. It's about Sherpa seeking Revenge on a tormenting group of yetis. This sounds like something that should be on, like, the Sci Fi Channel.

[Josh Clark]

I would be very surprised if it wasn't.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But all of these stories basically have the same moral message at the end, which is. It's sort of like a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Like, be careful out on the woods.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I think it serves the exact same purpose, too, like in the Grimm's Fairy Tales. And I thought the same thing. You know, there's witches that live in candy houses. So don't go wandering off in the woods, kids, because you'll end up getting eaten. For little kids in Tibet, it was, don't wander off into the Tibetan plateau or the yeti will get you, and you will. All sorts of terrible things will happen to you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which is funny, because there are all sorts of real things that could kill you in the Tibetan plateau.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's. I think what they were saying was, you know, you can't just be like, look out for the bears. Kid will be like, I don't know. I could see a brash kid being like, no, a bear. Everybody knows what a bear is. I'll wrestle a bear any day of the week.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

And then, you know, along the way, it gets into a drinking contest with Marion from Indiana Jones.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, Pistore.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Exactly. That was one of the best scenes in the history of film.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so. And Tibetan kids tend to agree with me, too. But before we move on, I want to say one thing. That annihilation of the yeti, keep that in the back of your mind. The story was that, like, there are a bunch of yeti that were hanging around, and the Sherpa were sick of them hanging around. So the Sherpa basically threw a yeti party and got drunk and fought with each other to kind of provide an example to the yeti. Hey, you should get drunk and fight with each other, too, in the hopes that the yeti would destroy each other. It didn't work, and the yeti all managed to escape, except for one who was supposedly killed by a lama, one of the Buddhist monks in the area.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that's part of the story. That's the end.

[Josh Clark]

That's the annihilation of the yeti story.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I didn't know a lama figured in.

[Josh Clark]

And really, annihilation is kind of a strong word if you think about it, because if you just kill one out of, I think, 240 Yeti, it's hardly annihilation.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's a good point.

[Josh Clark]

I think so too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So throughout history, these legends have been pervasive in the region. So much so that supposedly the Great. Alexander or Alexander the Great. I'm not sure why I did that. When he came through town and conquered the Indus Valley, he said, I'd like to see one of your famous. A yetis.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know if that's what Alexander the Great sounded like. No, no.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What did ancient Roman sound like if not Italian?

[Josh Clark]

Was he Roman? I think he was Greek.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, was he?

[Josh Clark]

Uh huh.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Jeez.

[Josh Clark]

How about.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I really screwed that up.

[Josh Clark]

Give us a. Let's see.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I knew that.

[Josh Clark]

Do a German accent for him.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm just gonna leave.

[Josh Clark]

No, hang tight, Chuck. You can rebound.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Why did I think he was Roman and not Greek?

[Josh Clark]

Well, because the Romans like to pretend they were Greek themselves.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm not firing on all cylinders, but regardless of my bad accent, or maybe I should just edit back in and say that was my Greek accent.

[Josh Clark]

There you go.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He said, I want to see a yeti. And they, the locals, they were like, you know, we totally would do that. However, you can't get them down this low and you'd have to hike really high up in those mountains. And I know you're not down with that, so. Sorry.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly. So I guess Alexander the Great was like, I'm bored. I can't believe we're still talking about this. Give me some wine.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Pretty much got in a drinking contest and that was that. So the yeti continued on and in Sherpa tradition in Tibet and Nepal and Bhutan, but in the west it kind of disappeared from view until the 20th century. And so remember, these are tall tales that the Sherpa teach their kids. Although there is supposedly some, I guess, general belief as well, but I can't quite penetrate it. But just imagine that it was just strictly tall tales that Sherpa people told their kids. Then Westerners came in and, and said, what is this you're talking about? Tell us about this. And just bought the whole thing, hook, line and sinker.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And things really took form. In 1921. There's a journalist named Henry Newman. He did an interview with some British explorers. And this is a time of great exploration, especially from the British. These sort of, these, I guess, Indiana Jones like mountaineers who would go all over the world in search of these, you know, jungles and mountains in search of crazy beasts and treasures and things like that.

[Josh Clark]

Right, sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So he interviewed some of these guys and they said, you know what? We found these huge footprints up in the mountains and the Locals there, I guess Sherpa said. Because isn't Sherpa the plural Sherpa? Didn't we determine that?

[Josh Clark]

I'm pretty sure, yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That was a good episode, by the way, everyone.

[Josh Clark]

It was. Go back and listen to that one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What was the title? Warm Friendly Living.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, because that's, I think, what Tenzing Norgay said.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So they said that their guides, our Sherpa guides, called them Mito Kangmi, which the translation, the real translation is a little awkward. Man Bear Snowman.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But Neumann confused all that. He got the snowman part right, but he translated that first part to mean meito M E T o h to mean filthy or dirty. And then he changed that on his own to the word abominable. And that's where we get the Abominable Snowman.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he was like, I don't like filthy snowman. I'm gonna change the name that I've already gotten wrong and turn it into Abominable Snowman.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he really great journalist, but it's.

[Josh Clark]

Fascinating that you can trace it back to this one. Dummy. Yeah, that's the whole Abominable Snowman. That's where it came from. Was this one guy, and that obviously just completely captured the attention of the rest of the world when he wrote this. Because, like, this was not just like, oh, yeah, they heard about an abominable snowman. It was these explorers found tracks and their Sherpa guides told them the tracks belong to this abominable snowman. Therefore, there are abominable snowmen living in the Himalayas. And the explorer who was. Who led that particular expedition was Charles Howard Berry. Howard Hyphen Barry B U R Y and apparently he and Newman were really big into promoting the idea of an abominable snowman, or men living in the Himalayas. And that it just being like this giant, huge creature with shaggy hair and very much akin to Bigfoot. But if you look at the descriptions, the traditional descriptions of the yeti, they're much smaller and not nearly as huge as the Westerners kind of immediately made it out to be.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, There was one description, one of the earlier written descriptions from 1942, there was a researcher named Mira Shackley, and I believe that she got this information from two hikers that reported seeing the yeti. And this is what they said. The height was not much less than 8ft. So tall for sure. But it's not like it was 10ft tall. The heads, because there were two of them, were described as squarish. And the ears must lie close to the skull, because there was no projection from the silhouette against the snow, the shoulders sloped slowly down to a powerful chest covered by reddish brown hair, which formed a close body fur mixed with long straight hairs hanging downward about the size and build of a small man. The head covered with long hair, but the face and chest, not very hairy at all. This all sounds like they always describe him as. Or it as bipedal.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Means, you know, walking upright.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But if you go back and look at that 1942 description and how detailed it was, those hikers who gave the description said that they saw all this from observing two black specks moving across the snow about a quarter mile below them. And yet they could see that it had a thick undercoat and a very long hairy overcoat and that it was reddish. That's just basically perfect. Abominable snowman sighting.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, agreed.

[Josh Clark]

But it's one of like many. Like after that Howard Berry expedition came back and Newman broadcast this to the world, people started going to the Himalayas in droves. And they weren't just necessarily looking for the abominable snowman. Everest was there and everybody knew Everest was there. And a lot of people wanted to be the first one to summit Everest. The first westerner, I should say, to summit Everest. So while a lot of them were in the area, they're like, well, we'll look for the Abominable Snowman while we're here too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And some pretty legendary mountaineers. And granted, these are not like zoologists or anything, but they're respected men in their field. People like Reinhold Messner and one Sir Edmund Hillary both searched for evidence of the yeti while they were hiking. And Messner even wrote a book called My Quest for the Confronting the Himalayas Deepest Mystery.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But I mean, well, we'll save the big reveal till the end, right? Or the third act of this show.

[Josh Clark]

Okay?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Is there a third act?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's gotta be.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

We're in big trouble if there's not.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, why don't we take a break and then we'll come back and talk a little bit about a couple of more of these reported sightings.

[Josh Clark]

Let's do it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right.

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[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, so we've started to get some sightings from expeditions that are going to Everest and just hanging around the Himalayas. And then I think in 1951, something really big happened. One of those explorers, Eric Shipton, took a photograph of a track that to this day, looks pretty remarkable, actually.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, this is. Again, it's not, like, hard evidence, but this is a very famous photo. I remember seeing this when I was a kid, and, like, I guess it was probably the Guinness or Ripley's Believe it or not or something.

[Josh Clark]

It was Time Life books for me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, was it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember that it's a very famous picture of, like, a pick. Like a, you know, pickaxe.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Used for scale.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Right next to it. And I remember that very distinctly when I saw this picture, I was like, oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then when you look at it, you're like, wait, that doesn't look quite right. That's a really weird track. It's. It looks like an elongated human foot, but rather than a left toe, it's. It's got. It's kind of bulbous and weird. It doesn't look like the other toes, and it certainly doesn't look like what a human toe should look like. And it's also huge. I think it was. It measured about 13 inches, which is a pretty typical size for a yeti track, from what I understand, over the ages. But the thing about it is, it is a nice, crisp, fresh track. And the other thing about it, and this is what really captured the attention of the world. Eric Shipton was not known to be a particularly fraudulent person.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

He was a very respected explorer and mountaineer. He knew the area well. And as a guy who has tracked yeti his whole life, I believe his name is Daniel Taylor.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Daniel Taylor put it. If Shipton's coming back with a picture of a track, you know, it's a real track. It's not faked. It's not a hoax. So the question was, what was it? And this is 1951. And it hit the world, that picture, that track hit the world like the surgeon's photo of the Loch Ness monster hit the world back in 1933. It just became like proof to people who believe in the yeti around the world that the yeti definitely exists.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, like you said, it was really what made it different than other photos that it was so sharp. It was a really good picture. And that little toe thing basically looked like a thumb and it just, you know, it looked odd. But this Daniel Taylor guy, he actually, when I started reading that article, I thought, oh boy, this crackpot. But he actually turned out to be a pretty cool guy because he spent a lot of his life looking for the yeti, went over there, even met with the king of Nepal. And the king of Nepal said, well, if you want to go like to the wildest place in the most remote place in our land, go to Barun B A R U n this Barun Valley. And he went there and he looked around and he did not find a yeti. But what he did do was ended up helping to work toward conservation of that area, which was kind of a nice silver lining to his story, was he got there and he was like, this is one of the most beautiful places on earth and one of the greatest wildernesses I've ever been to. He realized it wasn't protected and that like, Chinese loggers were infringing on one side and farmers were infringing on the other. So he kind of spun it into like, good work doing conservation work in that area, which was kind of cool.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he got it turned into a national park in Nepal. It's a protected area now, which is significant. Have you seen pictures of the valley?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's astounding. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. And it was just being used because the people living there like, well, we need this land. Yeah, it's beautiful, but we can't afford to preserve it because a lot of people around here live on $15 a year.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So they were just making use of it however they could. And he, he came in with the government, said, no, no, no more of that. Get out of here. This is protected now, but it is gorgeous. And his, his, he had actually been raised there. Daniel Taylor's grandparents were missionaries in the Himalayas and his parents kind of took over his grandparents work. So he was raised in the Himalayas. So he'd been looking for the yeti his whole life. But when he went to the Barun, he feels like he found the answer to that track, that it was a kind of tree bear.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

But there's a big problem with that. The Barun Valley is a subtropical rainforest. So a tree bear living in there wouldn't survive very, very well in the snow of the Tibetan plateau, you know, 10,000 or more feet higher up the mountain. So it doesn't really solve the mystery much.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, but his notion that it could have been a big tree bear makes a Little more sense with these tracks, because a tree bear does have a. I don't know if you call it a thumb, but some sort of opposable digit to make climbing easier. And that would at least explain this weird thumb, like, thing in these prints.

[Josh Clark]

It would. So he's got, like, half of the thing explained. The other half is, what the heck was that tree bear, the subtropical rainforest tree bear doing up in the mountains of the Himalayas, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, like in the snow, above the snow line, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But the other thing about that, that Shipton photo that became world famous for the yeti was that, like, the track itself was very crisp. And there's a guy named Benjamin Radford, who's a skeptic, who has written a lot about the yeti, and in particular, how difficult obtaining yeti tracks could be. Or actually, more to the point, how easy it would be to confuse a normal animal's tracks for something weird because of the fact that the snow is a terrible medium for tracks, because, like, say, a bear walks through an area, leaves some tracks in the snow. The next morning, as the sun comes up and it hits the tracks and it shoots all that heat onto that track, it starts to melt the sides, maybe elongate it, maybe make the toes look splayed. And it just doesn't resemble a bear track anymore at all. It looks like something weird and not previously known, like an entirely new species. That's the thing about the Shipton photograph that captured everyone's attention. It doesn't look like that at all. It looks sharp, new. It doesn't look melted at all. The edges are clean and crisp. That's what I think really kind of struck everybody. It wasn't like a melted, mangled track. It was like a new track by something that was not immediately identifiable.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So there have been other photographs through the years, as, you know, supposed evidence. In 1986, a hiker named Anthony Wooldridge said, there's a yeti over there. He's about 500ft away, and he saw a bunch of tracks in the snow that looked like it was going that way. And he took some photographs that were proven genuine. But I think by genuine, that just means they weren't faked.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's how I understand it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Because wasn't this the photo that they said, actually, those are just rocks standing up? Yeah, like a rock outcropping or whatever.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This guy was also a respected mountaineer and explorer and knew the area really well, and so when he came back with this photo and they said this photo wasn't faked, it's not been doctored.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

People listen to him, too, but it just turns out he was wrong.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This photo of rocks has not been doctored.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. That's ultimately what they were saying, because another expedition went back to the same spot the next year and we're like, oh, yeah, it's those rocks over there. And even in his account, that guy, what was his name? Woodridge. Yeah, Woodridge says, like, yeah, they just stood there motionless, staring at me like rocks. Yeah, they were still as boulders, as upright boulders. But the other thing is, he swore that there were tracks leading up to it. So he seemed to think that they really were there. But from what I understand, he was earnest in his report. It wasn't like a fraud or a hoax or anything like that. And I think he was a little. A little red faced afterward, probably.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They even made a movie about it called Ernest Goes Hiking.

[Josh Clark]

Ernest Saves Christmas with the Abominable Snowman. I'll bet Ernest did save Christmas in one movie. I guarantee there was a movie called Ernest Saves Christmas.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think there was. Right?

[Josh Clark]

No, the Only one I'm 100% sure of is Ernest Goes to Camp.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I never saw any of those.

[Josh Clark]

My family saw that movie in the theater. Paid top dollar.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Top dollar, which was three dollars.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I guess. I hope so at the time, which is surprising because my mom used to sneak in bulk candy from like the little store across the way from the movie theater in Southwick Mall.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we know that move in our.

[Josh Clark]

Family works really well.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So over the years, there have been not only things like, oh, look, footprints, or, hey, look at that rock across the valley. There have been, I don't want to call it evidence, but alleged evidence brought forward by legitimate scientists and people like Sir Edmund Hillary. He brought back a scalp and said. He didn't say, I scalped the yeti, but he said, hey, I think this is a yeti scalp.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he. I don't think he was trying to.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Fool anyone, though, was he?

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no. He was supposedly kind of a casual believer in it. He'd been sent on a yeti expedition by New World Encyclopedia years before, and he came back with a yeti skullcap that he'd gotten from a monastery in Nepal. They had a yeti skullcap and a hand. A yeti hand. A mummified yeti hand. And what's crazy is that yeti skullcap was supposedly the skull, the scalp of the one yeti that had been killed during the annihilation of the yeti story.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I didn't know that.

[Josh Clark]

So he brings it back. I think it wasn't that he was gullible and I also am sure it wasn't that he was a hoaxter. He was the kind of scientific person who kept his mind open until the evidence was in.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Man, can you imagine a time when an encyclopedia company would send Sir Edmund Hillary out on assignment? Like, how great is that?

[Josh Clark]

I know that was the mid 20th century. It was a great, great time to be alive in the way of wonder and curiosity.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So, yeah, he comes back with his scalp and it turns out they did a little research and it was an animal called a serro. It's kind of like a goat.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Some poor serro got scalped.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But that happened a lot. Like there was this finger, and this is a pretty good story that actor Jimmy Stewart, believe it or not, was involved in smuggling out supposed yeti finger.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Again from a monastery. I believe it might have been the same monastery.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And wasn't he just on vacation there and just got sort of mixed up in this plan?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we gotta mention Tom Slick, the oil man.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Cause he figures into this story he was a British guy who. He was one of these dudes, this sort of adventuring rich guys that was like, I'm a yeti hunter for this year.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And when you say hunter, like he was a hunter, his entire point to finding the yeti was to shoot and kill it and to take it back and have it stuffed. And the government in Nepal had a real problem with that and basically said, you expedition is banned. Nobody can come in here and kill the yeti. And apparently the US State Department got in touch with Nepal and said, hey, by the way, we have the same feeling. We have a policy of not killing yeti either. So apparently with that, Tom Slick's expedition was allowed back in on the basis that they would never try to kill the yeti except in self defense.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And I guess later on when he became interested in bigfoot, he had a change of heart and he stopped hunting to kill and started hunting just to find and maybe capture on photograph. And that was it. And his change of heart changed the way that Bigfoot is searched for to this day. And the yeti now, it's a much more. Yeah, it's much more peaceful search. He was like the last of the big game hunters involved in like trying to find unidentified animals again to kill them so they could be stuffed and kept to the National Geographic Society or Something like that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, and that was a big thing that Daniel's guy talks about. Just these legends in history and how, quote, unquote, science back then was in the Victorian age were. Because, you know, all these tales of Tarzan and these fantastic beasts, people would just. These rich people would go into the jungle and search for animals that no one had ever seen before, so they could shoot and kill them and bring them back and say, look at this weird thing.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And I mean, a lot of people, like, don't really, like, you point to the guys who were out there, like, doing the hunting and killing and the exploitation and all of that. But they were very frequently working at the behest of museums.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Who for a very long time got a pass, even though they were the source of those expeditions and the funders of those expeditions. And the reason people were out there in the first place was to go get specimens for the museum's collections and ostensibly to study or whatever, but it was to study them dead. And I think probably because there wasn't really any reliable way to ship a live specimen back, in a lot of ways, but also there was. So I think Tom Slick kind of represented the end of that and then the beginning of this new era of much more peaceful exploration and expeditions.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I don't want to leave everyone hanging on Jimmy Stewart. He was on vacation, I think, in Calcutta, got mixed up in this yeti finger, helped smuggle it back, and they finally did DNA testing about seven or eight years ago, and they said, oh, this is a human finger.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But I mean, for a while there, they weren't 100% sure. And I guess Tom Slick was friends, had a common friend with Jimmy Stewart, and Jimmy Stewart happened to be in India. And so Tom Slick's agents in Nepal managed to get this finger to Jimmy Stewart, who agreed to smuggle it out on the basis that Jimmy Stewart's luggage is not going to get searched. And Jimmy Stewart smuggled a yeti finger out of India and to the UK for it to be studied.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Go ahead and put the finger in my bag.

[Josh Clark]

I was so hoping you were going to do a Jimmy Stewart yeti impression.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

In my head, I was like, jimmy Stewart, can I pull that off?

[Josh Clark]

You did, man. You nailed it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, let's take another break and we'll come back and talk more about DNA and how that is figured in the search in more recent years right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and chuck, it's stuff you should know.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Stuff you should know. All right.

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[Josh Clark]

So check your member. In the Loch Ness episode, the Loch Ness Monster episode, we talked about how there's like a new search going on where they're sampling the lock itself and examining it for DNA. Apparently, applying modern genetics and genetic analysis to cryptozoology is like, the next chapter. And rather than saying, like, oh, well, that's it for us. Our big fraud is over with. Cryptozoologists are like, awesome. Good. We finally have the tools now to find out to get to the bottom of this Stu, and to actually discover new specimens or new species. So they seem to be quite happy about it and quite excited, although a lot of their beliefs hang in the balance and could just have the legs cut out from under them by science.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's true. So science wins. In 2013, there's a geneticist at Oxford named Brian Sykes who said, all right, yeti holders of yeti pieces, send them to me. If you have any yeti hair, yeti teeth, yeti tissue, send it to Oxford University. And he got it. He got 57 samples. They picked 36 of those to do some DNA analysis on. And most of these turned out to be animals that we all know, like bears and cows and horses. At the time, though, he found a couple of samples from Bhutan in India that he said were 100% match for jawbones of a polar bear from the Pleistocene era.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And this kind of excited people because this may have been. I mean, not the yeti, but this may have been sort of a combination, a hybrid of a polar bear and a brown bear, because this is when they were diverging genetically. And that in itself would be a pretty cool find.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It would be a new type of bear that was a direct descendant from bears that went extinct about 40,000 years ago, and it'd be a type of polar bear. There aren't polar bears in the Himalayas. There's black bears, there's brown bears, there's Himalayan bears, there's tree bears, but there's not polar bears. And the fact that he accidentally found this by putting out this call for samples of yeti or Bigfoot or whoever just made it all the sweeter that, like, he had just accidentally discovered a new type of polar bear living in the Himalayas.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But sadly, that was not even the case. Some more scientists came along later. They did reanalysis, and I think what they landed on was, you know, unfortunately, these. I think you're getting a bad reading because of a damaged sample. What these really are are just brown bears.

[Josh Clark]

They're brown bears. Yeah. Some other people followed up because it's not like it was any kind of hoax or anything like that. Wike. It's Wike, right? His last name is Wike Sykes. Sykes. Sykes is like a Leading expert on analyzing mitochondrial DNA, wrote the book the Seven Daughters of Eve, which kind of introduced the world to genetic analysis through mtdna. But he just made a mistake or leapt to a conclusion, I think, is the, the, the thing that everyone's being too polite to, to maybe say. But he, he shared all of his data on GenBank, which is this huge database. And other people came and analyzed it and said, no, it's just regular bears. And then other people analyzed and said, yeah, it's totally just regular bear, regular brown bears that we already know about.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But science at least was getting involved and scientists kind of roundly were like, you know what, this is great because we're using real science finally. And regardless of what result we get, we're doing it the right way. And that's really kind of the thing that counts. Like, don't be disappointed that we're not finding the yeti, because. And if it's not clear to everyone listening, it seems like the yeti are, are almost always just bears.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Not just the tissue samples or the fecal samples or the hair samples, but also the tracks, the sightings, all of it are probably just Himalayan bears, brown bears and black bears. And that's actually the opinion of Reinhold Messner, who actually is such a mountaineer around the area. He has a, a museum in the mountains. And one of his yeti samples were one of the ones that Sykes analyzed. His turned out to be the tooth of a dog. But he says that doesn't surprise me because I think they're all bears. I think all of his bears, including his own sighting, he became infatuated with searching for the yeti because he spotted something in the Himalayas that he couldn't explain. And then through his own methodical research, he wrote a book about it. He talked to other people about it, he did his own studies and he kept his mind open and his mind became converted to. It's all bears.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, pretty much. The Russians got involved, you would think, oh, in what, like the 1960s? No, they got involved about eight years ago and went searching for the yeti in Siberia. And what they came back with were things like, oh, look at this. These twisted tree branches were made into beds or sleeping pods by the yeti. And they twisted these branches and look at this. It's evidence. But it turns out that they were clearly man made. There were tool made cuts. And they were located not in a remote area at all, just like right.

[Josh Clark]

Off a trail, I think.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right, yeah. And what people think is, oh, they just cook this stuff up to try and bring tourism to a not very tourist friendly area.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Siberia. Like they. And apparently there's a long standing tradition among Russians and former Soviets of basically drumming up tourism by playing on people's beliefs in the yeti and the abominable snowman. And I think there was a period of time, one of the people interviewed in this great BBC article about the yeti, this Russian scientist says there's a period of time where it was like very fashionable for the intelligentsia of Russia and the Soviet Union to basically go on trips in the summer looking for the abominable snowman. And they would show up in these towns. And every town had a designated yeti witness. And the yeti witness's job was to basically regale them with tall tales that were supposedly true, take them on these tours into the forest, and then make a bunch of money off of them and say, thanks a lot, chump. Sorry we didn't see anything this time. But apparently in 2011, the Russian government orchestrated another one of those through this conference. And from the conference, they announced to the world they had found indisputable proof that yeti exists from this bed and these broken branches and supposedly a few hairs attached to a clump of moss. But some other people who were attending, anthropologists and biologists, were like, no, it's totally made up. This is all just a big tourist PR stunt.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which is hilarious.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Way to go, Russia.

[Josh Clark]

And Putin supposedly tried to do it again. In 2016. He announced that he saw three Yeti from a helicopter tour of Siberia.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's funny.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So, I mean, I don't have much else. Yeti. Your bears, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. We couldn't talk about cryptozoology, though, without mentioning that coelacanth argument. And the thing about the yeti is that there was actually a species of ape called Gigantopithecus that was like a nine foot tall ape, the biggest ape that ever lived that lived in that very area and went extinct about 100,000 years ago. So the people who really believe in this are like, you know, we thought the coelacanth went extinct like 60 million years before. We just think this guy went extinct 100,000 years before. Who's to say? So that seems to be the thing that's carrying on this belief. That and the fact that as somebody put in one of these articles, all it would take is one yeti to prove that yeti exists. But no matter how much there's no such thing as evidence that can prove it doesn't Exist. So people are always going to believe it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Just like Nessie.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And Bigfoot.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. So there you go. If you want to know more about the yeti, go to the Himalayas and look for it yourself. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Or we should mention, if you're in Disney World, there's a roller coaster ride called Expedition Everest. Colon. Because you know, every good roller coaster has a colon in the name.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Legend of the Forbidden Mountain. There is a track on display there that the reason it's not in a scientific museum and it's at Disney World is because it's a yeti track. But you can go look at one.

[Josh Clark]

From a TV show.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This guy named Gates, who is not a zoologist at all, but he's an actor and an animal track or. I don't even think he's an animal tracker, is he?

[Josh Clark]

No, no, he's an actor and a TV presenter and a producer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So they presented one on his TV show, and now that's in Disney World.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So. And if you're in Disneyland, there's a yeti on the Matterhorn ride.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really? Like a real yeti?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they have one chained by the neck inside the Matterhorn. It's really scrawny. They clearly aren't taking very good care of it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I already said it's time for listener mail, Charles.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I got distracted. Sorry. So I'm gonna call this follow up on the chili finger that Jimmy Stewart planted at Wendy's. Nice and quick. Shout out. This is a local listener from Georgia Tech. But I just wanted to say hello to a couple of people I met last weekend at the High Museum when I went to the infinity mirrors exhibit.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, isn't that amazing?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yay. Yoi's kusama.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought it was.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Here's what I think. I think it was really cool. And it would have been a lot cooler if it's just like. Yeah, you just walk through all these things, and you don't wait 30 minutes to spend 20 seconds in the room.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That took away from it a bit.

[Josh Clark]

You. Me and I went at the end of the day, and people thinned out, and we could just keep going in and staying as long as we wanted in them. So I totally get what you're saying.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It was cool, though. And I also think, like, I went with my brother and his family, and Scott was kind of like, I could build one of these in my backyard by next weekend.

[Josh Clark]

I want to see Scott's infinity mirror. I thought the Same thing. It'd be awesome to build one of those and just like hang out in it. For sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I don't want to take anything away from her though. She's a great artist and it was really neat. I love the. I think the one that was sort of like the Christmas lights was my favorite one.

[Josh Clark]

What about the one that's like a kind of like an octagonal box that you look in?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That was awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's just like you see your Future in the 80s or something like that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I got a couple of cool photos, but I largely kept the phone in my pocket. Just tried to be in it, man.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, man, I'm with you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So anyway, I met a couple of listeners that were. Just happened to be there and they both came up and like, are you Chuck? And so my brother got a kick out of that as well.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But this was not one of those people.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It just reminded me because it's a Georgia Tech student. Hey guys. Relatively new listener. Have probably listened to about 100 episodes so far and tend to hop around. As you can tell, I'm a Georgia Tech student and really hope to run into you guys at some point in Atlanta.

[Josh Clark]

Did I mention I go to Georgia Tech?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Anyway, I finally sort of had something to write in about. I was listening to the Wendy's Chili podcast, suddenly heard the name of a place that sounded very familiar. Cole's Custard. Remember we mentioned that at the end as a place where there was a finger?

[Josh Clark]

Oh yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He said it was one of the places where a finger had been found. And it shocked me as it is just a tiny little custard shop that is not a chain on quite expensive beach property in North Carolina. I've been.

[Josh Clark]

As a Georgia Tech student, I was shocked.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I've been to the place probably five or ten times as a frequent visit of Wrightsville beach and had never heard of anyone mention this incident. Just think it's very impressive that a small little store managed stay afloat after such an incident occurred. Hearing about the finger incident will not deter me from going again though. And that is from Ethan Lyons. And Ethan. Maybe that is exactly why it endured is because people just want that custard so bad.

[Josh Clark]

It must be pretty good custard though, if you think about it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it didn't make like big national news probably because it's not a chain.

[Josh Clark]

I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure that's part of it. Plus they also did a better job spinning the PR than Wendy's did.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

I'm betting. Well, thanks a lot Ethan for letting us know. Just kind of bringing that home. Hadn't really envisioned the place where that finger was found in the custard until now, so thanks for that. If you want to get in touch with us and kind of paint a more illustrative picture than we did about something we talked about, we'd love that. You can join us on stuffyou should know.com check out all of our links there, or you can send us an email to stuff podcastowstuffworks.com.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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