The Abominable Snowman
The Yeti, which means ‘wild man’, is a creature of Himalayan folklore, described as a very large, ape-like mountain creature. In the 1920s, English explorers were told about this mysterious being by locals after they discovered strange tracks in the snow. In 1951, the highly respected British explorer Eric Shipton took a picture of a huge and very detailed footprint in the snow near Mount Everest. The picture became a sensation, and many explorers travelled to the Himalayas to find the Yeti, also known in the West as the ‘Abominable Snowman’. Some attempts were very ambitious: American oilman Tom Slick headed a 6-month expedition with 500 porters. He even used bloodhounds to track the scent of the mysterious creature. Despite all these efforts, nobody found a Yeti. Scientists say that the Abominable Snowman probably doesn’t exist. They have analyzed many alleged Yeti hair samples, including a ‘Yeti scalp’ found in a Buddhist temple. Most belonged to known animals. Some came from a very rare species of Himalayan bear.Bigfoot
North America has its own version of the Yeti: Bigfoot, also known as the Sasquatch. Like the Yeti, Bigfoot is found in old legends and is described as a large ape-like creature. Its popularity exploded in 1967, when two men, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin, filmed a few seconds footage of a hairy female creature walking in a Northern California forest. Over the years, the mysterious Bigfoot has been caught on camera on other occasions, and many footprints and hair samples have been found. Yet all the evidence is controversial. The pictures and videos, for example, might be fake. Indeed, there are known cases of people dressing up in ape costumes and pretending to be real Bigfoots. Even the creature in the Patterson-Gimlin film might be a man in a costume. As with the Yeti, scientists find the evidence for Bigfoot unconvincing. So why do so many people still believe in the existence of these creatures?Why we believe
Daniel Taylor, an expert on the Yeti, gives an interesting answer. He says that the belief in ape-like creatures began in the Victorian era after Charles Darwin published his theory of human evolution. Some scientists believed that, if humans descend from apes, then there had to be a ‘missing link’, a creature that was more than an ape but not yet a human. And maybe that missing link still existed. Many explorers and scientists travelled the world searching for it. This search for an ape-man was not just a scientific project. In a way, it was also a spiritual one. “The deep mystery at our core,” says Taylor, “is that we want to be connected to the great beyond. And we need symbols to help us understand the connection. That’s why we believe in God or angels or the Loch Ness Monster. Throughout human history, and across human cultures, we have developed messengers from the great beyond. Ultimately, that’s what the Yeti is.”
Useful links
1) Check out the Indian Army tweet (and some answers) and the pictures of the Yeti footprints:
https://twitter.com/adgpi/status/1122911748829270016
2) Read these Wikipedia Simple English pages on the Yeti and the Bigfoot:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeti
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfoot
3) Here is Eric Shipton’s picture of the Yeti footprint:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeti#/media/File:Eric_Shipton_yeti_footprint.png
4) Watch the original Patterson-Gimlin film (Bigfoot appears at min. 2.37):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBTUQI60yqQ
Here you can see Bigfoot in greater detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngVH-7tMpjo
5) Read the interview with Yeti expert Daniel Taylor:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/yeti-abominable-snowman-bear-daniel-taylor/
COMPREHENSION
1) Read the article and complete the sentences with the right alternative.
___
(Carlo Dellonte)
(Image credits: pixabay and pixabay)
- The Indian army claimed that
- the Yeti exists.
- they had sighted the Yeti.
- they had found Yeti footprints.
- The reactions to the army’s tweet were
- positive.
- mixed.
- negative.
- In the 1950s the Yeti became very popular thanks to
- a local Himalayan legend.
- a scalp.
- a picture.
- Another name for the Yeti is
- Bigfoot.
- Abominable Snowman.
- Sasquatch.
- The evidence seems to suggest that the Yeti is actually
- an ape-man.
- a bear.
- the missing link.
- The Bigfoot in the Patterson-Gimlin film
- might be a man in a suit.
- is a man in a suit.
- is most certainly a real Bigfoot.
- Scientists say that the evidence for Bigfoot is
- not very good.
- very good.
- unbelievable.
- The origins of the Yeti and Bigfoot can be found in
- the Victorian era.
- legends and folklore.
- Charles Darwin’s theories.
- Scientists thought that finding the Yeti would
- disprove Darwin’s theory of evolution.
- solve the deep mystery at our core.
- prove Darwin’s theory of evolution.
- Daniel Taylor says that the Yeti is
- a symbol.
- an angel.
- a mystery.
