News
Wait, What?! REAL Yeti Footprints Found in the Himalayas!
We here at Mail Order Mystery love cryptozoology, otherwise known as the study of hidden animals. We’re talking Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Yeti...These are mysteries that are never really solved. For every piece of evidence that disproves their existence, another comes along to prove they really do exist.
In this week’s breaking news, reported not by some obscure internet site but by NBC: Indian soldiers have discovered giant Yeti footprints in the snow around their basecamp in the Himalayan mountains.
These footprints are huge - 32” long by 15” wide - and this is not the kind of location where someone could pull over to the side of the road to do a little hoaxing. These soldiers are on a mountaineering expedition on Mount Makalu, which is 12 miles away from Mount Everest and the fifth highest mountain in the world.
A spokesperson for the Indian defense ministry says the photos of the mythical beast’s footprints have been sent to scientists for analysis. There are skeptics, of course, who are calling details of the photos into question (there are always skeptics calling details into question) - like the fact that the footprints are in a straight line, as if Yeti was walking like a runway model.
Our favorite part of the story though, is a tweet from a former lawmaker named Tarun Vijay, who says that we should not be calling Yeti beasts. “Show some respect for them,” says Vijay.
Molecular biologist Ross Barnett says DNA samples could help determine who or what left the footprints, but regardless of the outcome, people will continue to report Yeti sightings. That’s the thing about cryptozoology - no matter what science has to say on the subject, people will keep on seeing creatures like Bigfoot and Yeti and they will keep on insisting they are real because they saw them. “You can’t kill a legend with anything as mundane as facts,” says Barnett.
For the mystery of all mysteries, check out our cryptozoology-themed “Case of the Missing Bigfoot.”
What’s real and what is not, you may ask? That’s an excellent question, and a mysterious one, too. Especially when nothing is as it seems.