Photos of “Yeti footprints” posted online by the Indian army triggered a social media storm yesterday, with users ridiculing the military for propagating theories debunked by science.
The army tweeted three images late on Monday showing a series of foot-shaped impressions, each almost a metre long in the snow in the Himalayas near the Nepal-China frontier.
“For the first time, an #IndianArmy Moutaineering Expedition Team has sited Mysterious Footprints of mythical beast ‘Yeti’,” the apparently serious tweet on the army’s official account said.
It added the “elusive snowman has only been sighted at Makalu-Barun National Park in the past”, referring to footprints reported by British explorer Eric Shipton in 1951 on the west side of Mount Everest.
Legend has it the “Yeti” or “Abominable Snowman” lives in the Himalayas - but no proof of the large creature has ever been produced.
Social media users were quick to jump on the military for its tweet, while scientists said the prints were probably made by a bear and elongated and misshapen by the elements.
“With all due respect, institutions such as yours should be more responsible and careful before going ahead and declaring the sighting of any footprints as ‘Yeti’s’!”, said Kushal Prajapati.
“There’s been lots of research done on Bigfoot/Yeti (including sighting/footprints) with none proving its existence,” he added.
“Seriously disappointing to see Army propagating such foolish myths into reality. Expected better from you guys,” said another comment.
Several Twitter users asked why there was a series of only one footprint when the beast would probably have had two feet.
Others were apparently more forgiving, though still tongue-in-cheek.
“Congratulations, we are always proud of you. salutes to the #IndianArmy Mountaineering Expedition Team,” wrote Tarun Vijay, a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The army said the footprints measured 32 inches by 15 inches and were spotted by a team on April 9 close to the Makalu Base Camp.
An army official said the pictures were released to “excite a bit of a scientific temper”.
“We will share whatever we get with the domain experts to analyse. We will be contacting the team on the satphone in the evening for more details about it. The idea is to find out more, to look for an answer,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Located on the border between Nepal and China, Makalu is among the highest mountains in the world and stands near the Makalu-Barun valley, a remote wilderness that has also been surveyed by researchers hunting for the Yeti.
The Yeti is traditionally described as an ape-like creature, taller than a human, that lives variously in the Himalayas, Siberia and parts of Central and East Asia.
The North American version is known as Bigfoot.
Most scientists have written the creature off as a centuries-old myth originating in Tibet.
Forensic results of previous samples have proved to be from prehistoric bears and one purported piece of evidence turned out to be a gorilla suit made of rubber.
“This is probably a footprint of a brown bear,” Sathyakumar Sambandam, a professor at the Wildlife Institute of India, said.
“The footmarks get enlarged due to strong sun and winds in the heights and the overlapping of hind and front legs gives an impression of single giant mark,” he said.
Daniel C Taylor, who has extensively explored the Makalu-Barun area and written a book on the mystery of the Yeti, said the footprints were likely those of bears.
“If that is the footprint of an animal or a single animal, it’s the size of a dinosaur,” he said, adding that repeated measurements of the footprints were required to ascertain their origin.
“One needs to really confirm those measurements of the footprint size because we know for sure that there are no dinosaurs living in the Barun valley.”
Tales of a wild hairy beast roaming the Himalayas have captured the imagination of climbers in Nepal since the 1920s, prompting many, including Sir Edmund Hillary, to go looking for the creature.
In 2008, Japanese climbers returning from a mountain in western Nepal said they had seen footprints, which they thought belonged to the Yeti.