1832
— B.H. Hodson,the U.K. representative in Nepal, described a hirsute
creature who reportedly had attacked his servants. The natives called
the beast "rakshas," which means "demon." This was
the first report of the Yeti made by a Westerner.
1889
— British army major L. A. Waddell found what he took to be large
footprints in the snow on a high peak northeast of Sikkin. His bearers
told him that these were the tracks of a man-like creature called
Yeti, and that it was quite likely to attack humans and carry then
away as food.
1913
— A group of Chinese hunters reportedly wounded and captured a hairy
man-like creature, that the locals soon named the "snowman".
This creature was supposedly kept captive in Patang at Sinkiang
province for a period of five months until it died. It was described
as having a black monkey-like face and large body covered with silvery
yellow hair several inches long; it's hands and feet were man-like and
the creature was incredibly strong.
1914
— J. R. P. Gent, a British forestry officer stationed in Sikkim,
wrote of discovering footprints of what must have been a huge and
amazing creature.
1921
— Members of a British expedition (led by Col. Howard-Bury) climbing
the north face of Mount Everest sighted some dark figures moving
around on a snowfield above them. When the explorers reached the spot,
at some 17,500 feet, the creatures were not there but had left behind
some huge, humanlike footprints in the snow.
1923
— Major Alan Cameron, with the Everest Expedition of that year,
observed a line of huge and dark creatures moving along a cliff face
high above the snowline. Pictures of the creatures' tracks were taken
two days later, when the expedition reached the area where they were
seen.
1925
— A Greek
photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society named N. A.
Tombazi glimpsed a creature he later described as "exactly like a
human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or
pull some dwarf rhododendron bushes." Tombazi, who was at about
15,000 feet up in the mountains, later reached the spot where he
sighted the creature, only to also find some intriguing tracks in the
snow.
1936
— An expedition led by H. W. Tilman found strange footprints in the
snow by the outer reaches of the snowline on the slopes approaching
Mount Everest.
1937
— Returning from a campaign in Tibet, British explorer Frank Smythe
relayed several reports of strange hairy wildmen made by the native
Sherpas and Tibetans. He also claimed to have personally seen tracks
of the creature at the 14,000-foot level.
1938
— The Yeti emerges as creatures of kindness and sympathy according
to the story of Captain d'Auvergne, the curator of the Victoria
Memorial near Chowringhee in Calcuta. The Captain claims that, injured
while traveling on his own in the Himalayas and threatened with
snow-blindness and exposure, he was saved from death by a 9 foot tall
creature resembling a pre-historic human which, after carrying him
several miles to a cave, fed and nursed him until he was able to make
his way back home.
1942
— Slavomir Rawicz best selling book, The
Long Walk, — published in 1952, telling how he and
six friends escaped from a Siberian war camp and made their way to
freedom in India by crossing the Himalayas — describes an encounter
with two 8 foot tall creatures somewhere between Bhutan
and Sikkim.
According to Slavomir, he and his companions watched the outsized
beasts for over 2 hours, from a distance of 100 yards.
1948
— Norwegian uranium prospector Jan Frostis claimed he was attacked
by one of two Yetis he stumble upon near Zemu Gap, in Sikkim. His
shoulder was badly mangled and he required extensive medical treatment
to recover from his lesions.
1949
— A Sherpa named Tenzing claimed to have seen playing in the snow
near a monastery. This was the same Sherpa that shared the fame of Sir
Edmund Hillary in the first successful ascent of Mount Everest.
1950
— A patch of skin and a mummified finger and thumb were found in the
Himalayan mountains. Zoologists
and anthropologists considered the fragments to be "almost
human" and "similar in some respects to that of Neanderthal
man" even though they could not be associated to any known living
species.
1951
— The
Everest Reconnaissance Expedition (organized to evaluate
routes for an attempt to ascend Everest) encountered fresh tracks at
18,000 feet. During the following months, several additional sightings
of Yeti tracks were reported.
1953
— New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay spot giant
footprints during their conquest of Mount Everest.
1954
— The London Daily Mail's financed expedition (originally to hunt
and catch a live Yeti) examined some supposedly 'authentic' Yeti
scalps, but determined that these were mostly fakes made out of from
animal skin; a small handful of them proved to be intriguing though,
and zoologists were unable to link them to any known animals. The
expedition also found footprints and droppings that, when analyzed,
proved to contain both animal and vegetable matter.
1955
— Frenchman Abbè Bordet followed three separate trails of
footprints that belonged to an unknown creature.
1957
— Texas oilman Thomas Slick sponsors a Yeti hunt. His expedition
came back solely with reports made by Nepalese villagers that five
people had been killed by severe battering from Yeti over the
preceding four years.
1958
— An American scientist working in Katmandu (Nepal), Dr. Norman
Dyrenfurth, reports to have explored caves that were at some time
inhabited by a type of "very low grade of human or near human
creatures", presenting documentation and physical evidence in the
form of hair samples, plaster casts of footprints, and discarded food
scraps. Also in 1958 a Dr. Alexander Pronin reports seeing the
creature while he was in the Pamirs (a unique high mountain complex
located primarily in Tajikistan).
1960-61
— The Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition also found
some unusual tracks in the snow.
1970
— After hearing a strange noise near Mount Annapurna in Nepal,
mountaineer Don Whillans tracks and watches a strange humanoid
creature for about twenty minutes through his binoculars before it
lumbers away.
1978
— Lord Hunt photographed Yeti tracks.
1986
— Climber Reinhold Messner reported a close-up sighting of an Yeti
as it came into sight from behind a tree.
1992
— Julian Freeman-Attwood and two other men camping at a secluded
spot on a remote glacier in Mongolia reported finding an unusual trail
of heavy footprints one morning on the snow outside their tent,
definitely made by a creature larger and heavier than a human.
1998
— American climber Craig Calonica, on Mount Everest, reported seeing
a pair of yetis while coming down the mountain on its Chinese side.
Both had thick, shiny black fur, he said, and walked upright.
