01x01 - Yeti, Myths & Men

[bunniefuu]

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Don Williams led the reconnaissance for

a British climb on Mount annapurn

I was with Mike Thompson and two Sherpas

these are many really understand the

mountains they take life very seriously

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[Laughter]

very bad for you no good nobody

we were moving through deep snow and it

was fairly exhausting

the evening we set up base we just put

our Pakistan to make camp

when there was a commotion at the back

of me

I turned around just in time to see

something drop out of sight behind the

ridge

together but now it was coming so I put

it to the back of my mind

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I had to get up

I had this strange feeling that if this

creature was still around it would show

itself

it was Daylight practically the moon was

so bright

and I saw a dark patch in the shadows

definitely saw it move

and I got the impression it was an

airplane creature I watched it for

almost 10 minutes then as if it knew it

was being watched it dropped out of

sight

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foreign

that is the book of known animals there

are just four great apes gorillas

chimpanzees orangutans and man and the

remarkable thing is that we humans are

so similar to the others in fact we

share 98 of our genes with chimpanzees

so maybe it's not too surprising that

there are so many other Legends of

hominid primates in cultures all around

the world stories of big hairy monsters

wild men that sort of thing but then why

are these Legends so common and why do

we like to believe in them and at the

end of the 20th century could there

really be a close living relative of

ours out there in the wild as yet

unknown to science

I've come here to Nepal because probably

the most famous of all those legends

that of the Abominable Snowman or the

yeti is deeply ingrained in the culture

here

its popularity has spread ever since

Western Mountaineers first brought back

Tales of their encounters with these

animals high in the Himalayas

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it feels strange setting off in search

of a myth but then I haven't come here

to see a Yeti my quest is to investigate

the possibility of its existence in

purely biological terms and that means a

trek High into Sherpa country

okay

the culture here is so different there's

a real sense of spiritual harmony with

nature and the landscape the headquarter

told me that the yeti represents a very

potent force in the mountains a

destructive force

now I'm no athlete

I don't work out in the gym three times

a week

but I'm only 36 I've never smoked I'm

not overweight

but at this altitude

I'm really struggling

I'm up in the clouds and the Sherpas are

probably already in the Tea House

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Johnny

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by the time I'd reached namche Bazaar at

13 000 feet that's over 4 000 meters I

needed to stop and acclimatize

lapka Norbu is one of the village Elders

renowned for his wisdom it was a perfect

opportunity to find out how seriously

the locals take the yeti as an animal

so you think they're definitely a real

animal I think so but it's a rare animal

but that's why it's very hard

people believe there are two kinds of

deity one 180 which is more rare which

mostly look for man

by the other deity

mostly its animal

but only eats animals like animals so to

most of the people here then actually

fear yetis they're afraid of them are

they

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traditional Sherpa paintings are

pictograms two-dimensional maps of the

fields houses even the number of yaks

each family owns as there are no roads

up here they show the routes between

each place

and typically peering down from the

Peaks

there are Yetis

so how often do local people encounter

these animals well there is one

extraordinary story in 1974 lapkadoma

said she was brutally att*cked by one

when I was 14

Ford grazed our chairmel and that's

where it happened

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thank you

I turned and there was a block figure

just behind me it threw me into the

river

when I came out to the river I realized

my hair had been pulled out

she was found by her brother

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so Yaks had been k*lled

when wolves or snow leopards att*ck

cattle they make a lot of wounds

but these had only teeth marks yet all

the flesh had been eaten from inside

I found a Yeti footprint in the sand

it was narrow at the hill and the toes

were long and spread out

story but it's far too late to provide

tangible biological evidence

exists now it must have a history

before I'd left Kathmandu I Met George

Schaller a brilliant field naturalist

who knows the Himalayas well and he had

a view on the history of the Yeti it's

no question that

during the pleistocene

based on fossils found in China and

Vietnam and so forth a gigantic ape

lived in the region nobody is sure

exactly what it lived on but most likely

lived on a combination of meat and

vegetable matter

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is gigantopithecus it might have lived

alongside humans so in a storytelling

culture that stretches so far back maybe

the yeti Legends are based on fact

but what about now could a whole

population of these Apes remain hidden

well George has spent years here

tracking one of the most elusive animals

on Earth the snow leopard the snow

leopard

lives in the high mountains where it can

see a person approaching miles away

and it can Crouch down and you can walk

within a few feet of it and never see it

or it moves off quietly like a cloud

Shadow like a whisper smoke

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local naturalists only Glimpse these

animals once every couple of years so

could it be that the yeti is just as shy

I think the chances are

extremely

small that's another great ape is likely

to be found

on the other hand

it's very difficult to prove something

doesn't exist

I think

there's still a faint chance that

something might exist something

unexplained obviously is still there

thing is here it's got to be in the

forest because that's the only place it

could remain hidden and more importantly

the only place it could find any food

in summer this force is quite a pleasant

environment given the limited diversity

of plants but a primate needs a constant

food supply so the key test is the

winter

now everything edible has shriveled and

d*ed and the few species of animal that

do live here have either moved lower

down or hibernated

in effect this Larder is empty

if a hidden population

of hominid type animals

has evolved to live here

and it's living

in some of the harshest conditions that

any primate possibly could

but okay

if the yeti has overcome

these obstacles

of physiology metabolism

and ecology

what's the evidence for its existence

strangely the documented evidence comes

from up here above the tree line in the

form of footprints

a number of explorers this Century

including Don Williams have discovered

tracks they often appear two-footed but

to save energy when they walk through

snow four-footed animals like Bears

we'll plant their hind feet in the

prince of their four feet

and that leaves a track like an upright

Apes a track like mine

but there's another very serious problem

the incredible shortage of oxygen up

here often makes it difficult for

unaccustomed westerners to make reason

conclusions about anything they see

probably the most famous set of

footprints of all

those taken by Shipton

published in 1951.

just look at these Footprints they're

pretty convincing

what's really neat about them is that

they LED in a trail which went for over

a mile now the thing is Shipton never

admitted it but it was widely thought to

be a hoax

foreign

with Footprints left in snow and it's

known as the freeze thaw phenomena and

basically when an impression is left in

snow

and then it thaws out probably during

the daytime when the sun shines and then

re-freezes again at night the whole

footprint can change shape

the only evidence that's going to

convince anyone else especially

scientists is a body skin and bones

so thankfully yetis are so revered up

here that some of the monasteries have

relics which are alleged to be pieces of

Yeti

it was said that the Teng bote Monastery

had the bones of a Yeti hand

it was stolen

and unfortunately a fire at the

monastery at Pang boce destroyed another

Relic

that leaves the monastery here at

kunjong which houses the only remaining

Yeti art

in the whole region

and it's one of the sherpa religions

most revered relics and it's meant to be

a Yeti scalp

y

thank you

so did this really come from a real

animal from a real Yeti

yes it is yeti totally different from a

human skull

to me it looks like a very poor fake

it's got an obvious seam and more

importantly the hair is growing up

towards the crown and that just isn't

natural and in the 60s the most famous

of all Himalayan Mountaineers so Edmund

Hillary took this scout back to the West

for testing the verdict Sarah a

Himalayan goat antelope

but they just checked the hairs under a

microscope now we have infallible DNA

testing so I needed to meet with Tenzing

head of the village committee I'd like

to take Just One Hair from this Yeti

scalp to test using the latest

scientific techniques which would

determine once and for all with no doubt

whether this comes from a known species

of animal or a species which is yet

unknown to science so can I have just

one hair just one

um sorry

because uh I don't care uh whether the

Western people are saying

buffalo skin or whatever skin

but this is we do believe this Yeti

sculpt and so

you let them say whatever it is

I respect your passion

I'll leave you with all of your hairs

thanks thank you thanks

so the relics don't prove anything

biological and the Sherpas aren't

concerned either way for them the yeti

is a symbol and that's fairly obvious at

their Annual Festival the dumji

the purpose of the festival is to

exercise those evil forces which

thr*aten the well-being of the community

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during the ceremony the sacred scalp is

worn by a man once he has placed it on

his head he represents the spirit of the

Yeti and that's a bad spill sent by the

gods to punish humans for their misdeed

you know it struck me that what I was

witnessing is played out in every

culture in the world a battle of good

against evil where people are reassured

by the suppression of dark Forces

eventually the yeti is driven out of the

village and those bad spirits are

banished by the symbolic burning of an

effigy

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so I suppose in a way the yeti is a

bogeyman in Sherpa culture and long may

it live

foreign

I don't believe a real animal exists but

as George shallow said it can be a lot

harder to prove that an animal doesn't

exist than to gather evidence that it

does

but here in the forest of Sumatra 8 000

kilometers to the South there's another

less well-known eight-man Legend

so could this be the sign that we're not

alone it's a print attributed to orang

pandek the short man and it certainly

excited leading primate scientist David

chivers the footprints uh amazing and

the mixture of ape and human features

Blended together it's retained some of

the grasping abilities of the Apes

but also got a sort of flat-footed

version of the human foot and this

enables it to walk upright

born on floor International and they're

out here looking for this animal they're

searching in an extraordinary place

called karinshi sablat now we don't know

much about this Forest but the one thing

we do know is that it's not a bow and

snow desert like the Himalayas

the forests of Southeast Asia

particularly some archers so complex and

diverse and still extensive

that it's quite feasible that there's a

species of ape that eluded

discovery

but it has been seen team member Debbie

martyr first glimpsed the animal in

1993.

it wrought straight across the valley of

me 30 meters away

so close and so clear

thank you

I didn't expect to see it certainly

didn't expect to see it that clearly

I'm just walking between these two trees

vegetation to about hip level

gorgeous graceful very strongly built

primate Big Ape walking out of a legend

and into broad daylight lit up by the

Sun and

disbelief of seeing this thing and if

I'd seen it in the concealed in

undergrowth I could have said well I saw

something

but I didn't see something I saw an

orange walk across the valley just 30

meters away from me

Debbie's main task is to follow up

sightings and encounters which means

effective liaison with locals

our first stop is a tiny village on the

edge of the forest because over the

years Farmers here have had clear

unobstructed sightings in their fields

they could identify the hair color and

were convinced of what they saw

they consistently describe the walking

action

and this local artist Pak jasa Drew

these pictures after collating some of

the farmer's descriptions it's not bad

it's not about at all particularly the

back of the head

it's not bad I've not seen the animal so

close that I could go off and say wow

amazing this is a photo fit

but there are also just a few people

left who actually share the habitat of

this ex-creature

the modern world has all but destroyed

the orangubu in this tribe only 30

remain

they're incredibly secretive difficult

to meet

but Debbie has their confidence

without question they're our best way of

finding out what lives in this Forest

s

hello hello

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it was the same color all over

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its face was covered in hair like a bed

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we all know bears

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he was a man of the forest

okay they know it's here but they

couldn't show me one but then there are

a few British mammals offers in England

Pine Martens in Scotland that I wouldn't

be able to show them

the fact is that Gathering good

scientific evidence here is incredibly

tough basically it's the environment the

heat the wet and the mud

in the last four years the team have

found Footprints in lots of different

locations often in long continuous

tracks and they all have the features of

upright walking that so excited David

Shivers the team are convinced that

they're pretty conclusive evidence you

can actually see the movement of the

foot you've got the toes one two three

four toes this is a large primate and

its foot doesn't approximate or any way

to any other primet that's known in

these forests

the one thing short of a dead body that

would prove there's a new species here

is DNA but its collection requires

absolute sterility in these conditions

that's quite unimaginable all we're

looking for is DNA from the gut wall of

the animal

treatment and get analyzed

so far none of the lab results have

proved positive and as for finding a

body there's virtually no chance when

something dies it can disappear

overnight in this heat and moisture it

becomes an insect and fungus banquet and

then porcupines eat the bones

nevertheless to David chivers the search

is still worthwhile

what really excited me was reading

Deborah's reports and it's then shivers

down your spine it was so uncanny and

given the frequency of these sightings

there's got to be something out there

that is incredible

we'll make a real tremendous discovery

a new eight for a new millennium

a new ape for a new millennium that

would be Sensational but what are the

chances really well those Footprints are

inexplicable they've got all the

characteristics of a bipede lake but

could it be a subspecies of a known

primate

what about orangutan they live in other

parts of Southeast Asia they live up in

the trees but it's not a physical

impossibility for one to walk outright

they can waddle Along on two feet

so could a new related species have

evolved to walk more efficiently

Strangely I remember seeing Footprints

like the allampendex before

this is an ex-surface chimp that's been

trying to walk very ably

it's weird isn't it watching another way

walking it's

um well it's scary it's as if the

bogeyman is real after all and maybe

that's the root of our Fascination in

these Legends these animals are close to

us

close to us

they're Almost Human

but that footage is also evidence Apes

can walk upright just like Debbie and

the locals have described but is it out

there how is anyone going to prove it

exists

short of the body or bones that science

craves a good clear photograph would be

the next best thing but just like

everything here it's not easy

a samarton forest is probably one of the

trickiest places to photograph wildlife

in the world even state-of-the-art

lightweight autofocus equipment isn't

going to get you a picture unless you're

extremely lucky and it's a result not

luck that's needed here

but whilst to date Debbie has drawn a

blank the team photographer Jeremy

Holden has made remarkable progress

this is how we're doing it this is how

we're getting the pictures

basically we're just using a

off-the-shelf infrared unit here fitted

onto a ordinary 35 millimeter compact

camera which has been specially adapted

to fire when the infrared beam here is

broken by anything passing along the

trail it's a simple technique producing

startling results this one for instance

is a picture of a samarchan tiger very

seldom seen and

very rarely photographed fantastic

this was a project first it's a

melanistic golden cat

and again an animal you wish you don't

see very often up with you well I did

actually manage to see this one but only

once

but this animal this much and Tapia the

size of a buffalo black and white

extremely conspicuous and not very

intelligent but yet I've never have seen

one and yet here it is in full color

this is something that's even rarer it's

a cloudy leopard look at that

but the most extraordinary was a bird

this one here very very poor quality

picture but it just shows what can be

done this is a giant Pitta which is

something that had n't been recorded in

the national park ever

and in fact hadn't been recording this

much for over 100 years wow wow

look at that

this is a picture of an animal that one

could reasonably call extinct so could

this technique record Another which

supposedly doesn't exist

if we're going to get a picture of our

appendix if we're going to prove it

exists this is the way we're going to do

it

and you know I believe him

I think if there's anyone on the planet

who's going to discover an animal that's

on the brink of our knowledge Jeremy

could be the one to do it

now I have to admit I found little more

evidence for orang pandek than for the

yeti but there's a dramatic difference

in their viability

Nepal is cold and Barren whereas this

samacharan rainforest is an incredibly

fertile resource

if as a rational scientist I could

afford to pin hope anywhere this is

where I'd stick my pen

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surely here is our best chance of an

ex-creature thousands of square miles of

the world's richest most productive

Forest an unexplored Wilderness and a

place where it's incredibly easy for an

animal to hide it's a place where an

animal can leave traces but no tracks

where a dead animal can be Skin and

Bones one minute and go on the next and

yet it's the same place that a small

team of people have already identified

animals that aren't meant to be here

so maybe tomorrow maybe next month or

next year somewhere out there in the

Mist a flash g*n will go pop in the

Gloom an Oram pen deck will go from

being an ex-creature to the next

creature

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flippers and oxygen lung are the ready

next week on BBC One when Chris Packham

attempts to track down the giant squid

better known to some as the alien in the

abyss

all right