Japanese team finds 'yeti footprints' in Nepal

Tuesday 21st October, 05:27 AM JST

KATHMANDU —

A team of Japanese adventurers say they have discovered footprints they believe were made by the legendary yeti said to roam the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet.

“The footprints were about 20 centimeters long and looked like a human’s,” Yoshiteru Takahashi, the leader of the Yeti Project Japan, said in Kathmandu on Monday.

Takahashi was speaking after he returned with his seven-member team from their third attempt to track down the half-man-half-ape, tales of which have gripped the imaginations of Western adventurers and mountaineers for decades.

Despite spending 42 days on Dhaulagiri IV—a 7,661-meter peak where they say they have seen traces of yetis in the past—the team failed in their prime objective of capturing one on film.

But Takahashi said the footprints were proof enough. “Myself and other team members have been coming to the Himalayas for years and we can recognize bear, deer, wolf and snow leopard prints and it was none of those,” he said.

“We remain convinced it is real. The footprints and the stories the local tell make us sure that it is not imaginary,” he added.

Photographs of the prints have been posted on the expedition’s website, www.everest.co.jp/yeti2008/.

The team had set out nine motion-sensitive cameras in an area where Takahashi saw what he thought was a yeti during a previous expedition in 2003.

“It was about 200 meters away in silhouette. It was walking on two legs like a human and looked about 150 centimeters tall,” said Takahashi.

Despite their lack of success this time, the team plans to continue the quest.

“We will come back as soon as we can, and we will keep coming back until we get the yeti on film,” said Takahashi.

Wire reports

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Latest 15 of 20 Total Comments Show All

Disillusioned at 09:10 AM JST - 21st October

This smells like bovine poo to me! Or is that yeti poo!
8iamhappy8 at 09:13 AM JST - 21st October

Always stir up people's imagination to capture the media's attention... There is no Yeti...
soldave at 09:13 AM JST - 21st October

“We will come back as soon as we can, and we will keep coming back until we get the yeti on film,” said Takahashi.

Expecting a few return visits then.
timorborder at 09:13 AM JST - 21st October

Was this before or after they experimented with mind-altering substances?
tkoind2 at 09:21 AM JST - 21st October

I keep telling my Yeti friends to get some shoes so they can keep people thinking that they don't exist. But Yetis never listen.
buffalo at 09:25 AM JST - 21st October

Amazing! a team of international yeti hunters arrive and a set of tracks are found. What a croc of mud!
Chessnutroastin at 10:12 AM JST - 21st October

20 cm footprints? 150cm tall? I think my little sister was camping up there last week.
fatloser at 11:20 AM JST - 21st October

Not YET chums!! Why not find those footprints at USJ and give the park a much needed boost!! I sure hope there will be a flood of SNOW MONSTER movies next year!!!
solarbuster at 11:26 AM JST - 21st October

It wasn't me, my feet are 27cm.
OssanULTRA at 11:30 AM JST - 21st October

Frankly I think Yeti, Bigfoot, Yeren believers are a bunch of wackjobs who need to get a life. Or perhaps a real job. But still, every year new animals including quite large mammals are being discovered by scientists in areas some less remote than the Himalays. As much as I ridicule these folks I'm smart enough to know that one day I may be proven wrong.
Alphaape at 01:09 PM JST - 21st October

I was surprised about a few years back about the find of a type of deer that had been thought to have been extinct in Vietnam. If they survived years of massive bombings, then I could in a way see that maybe such an animal as a yeti may exist.

Maybe oneday one of these creatures will be captured. I wonder where PETA stands on this issue?
GW at 01:14 PM JST - 21st October

PETA has to determine if they are tasty or not
Noripinhead at 01:49 PM JST - 21st October

One thing's for sure: "Yeti" is much easier to pronounce than "Abominable Snowman." Try saying that five times fast.
romulus3 at 02:15 PM JST - 21st October

why do grown men look for Life on Mars, The Yeti, Big foot, the Lock Ness Monster, Nibiru Planet X and fulfillment in marriage? What a waste of time. Grow up!
fatloser at 07:59 PM JST - 21st October

I survived those masive bombings as well!!!!!!! But back to the mysterious Yeti. These Scientists have decided to follow the lead of the cops in Georgia who found a Big Foot carcass. Fakers all of them!!!