All language subtitles for Historys Greatest Mysteries S06E04 720p WEB H264-JFF[EZTVx.to]

Tonight, the search for the Yeti, a
creature of myth, allegedly lurking

the highest peaks of the mountains of
Eastern Asia.

Tales of the Yeti, this mythical beast
from the high mountains of Asia and

Siberia, have existed for thousands of
years.

Traditional belief that the Yeti is
actually protecting the sacred mountain

peaks and that if humans encroach on
those spaces, they get killed on sight.

the Yeti does exist.

Is it a living being or something else
entirely?

This is a species that should have gone
extinct thousands of years ago. No

normal animal could survive at those
altitudes indefinitely.

Now, we'll explore the top theories
surrounding this legendary creature.

This is a tooth that comes from a
creature that was kind of like an

except that this one is around 10 feet
tall and potentially weighs around 1

pounds. It's hard to say 2 ,000 years of
eyewitness accounts

is all just mistaken identity.

So really, what is happening here?

At that high an altitude, maybe people
don't see what they think they're

What exactly is the Yeti? And could it
really exist?

April 9th, 2019, the Himalayas.

An Indian Army expedition is on a remote
mountain pass on the border of Nepal

and China when they make a bizarre
discovery.

Massive footprints in the snow that
don't match any known animal on Earth.

The footprints that they find don't look
human in any way, shape, or form.

The footprints measure about... 32
inches long by 15 inches wide, which is

significantly beyond what any normal
human footprint should look like. They

what any of us would do nowadays, which
is they tweet it. They take pictures.

They post them online from the official
Indian Army Twitter account. They send a

tweet to the world saying, we have found
the Yeti. And the scientific world and

the cryptozoological world explode.

Tales of the Yeti, this mythical beast
from the high mountains of Asia and

Siberia, have existed for thousands of
years.

And what they describe it as is a large,
towering, fanged, bipedal creature

that is covered from toe to head in
hair. And it has the features of both an

and a human.

The first recorded sighting of the Yeti
occurs in the 4th century BCE.

In 326 BCE, as Alexander is attempting
to conquer the Himalayas, he hears these

stories about this wild man of the
snows. And so he sends members of his

out to go and see if they can find this
beast, but to no avail.

No monster or no wild man is ever
caught.

The origins of the Yeti, where it
actually begins, is unknown.

But we can go back to 7th century CE,
where if you look at Tibetan folklore,

they describe a wild, hairy man of the
mountains, originally known as the

Glacier Beast.

And if you look at Tibetan religious
beliefs, they see the Yeti as actually a

god of the forest and all the animals
that live within it.

There's not consistent agreement about
the nature of this creature. Everyone

pretty much agrees that it exists.

Some cultures feature him as feral and
aggressive and dangerous, and

others describe it more as shy or even
mischievous.

There are ideas and traditional beliefs
that the Yeti is a spiritual protector,

that it's actually protecting the sacred
mountain peaks,

Humans encroach on those bases.

They get killed on sight.

The Yeti first captures the modern
world's imagination at the turn of the

century. In 1899, Scottish explorer
Lawrence Waddell publishes his book

the Himalayas.

And in it, he talks about an excursion
that he's going on while in the

mountains.

He recounts a story of being at 17 ,000
feet and coming across a series of

tracks. And he looks to his guides and
is like, what is that?

They say this is the wild, hairy man of
the eternal snows. In 1921, the

explorer Charles Howard Beery, he's up
around 20 ,000 feet. And he and his

guides also see the same thing, these
giant footprints in the snow.

So he pulls out his binoculars and is
scanning the horizon, and he actually

something.

He sees off in the distance against the
snow this giant lumbering creature.

Now, it's far away. He can't see a lot
of details of it, but it's really

there, stark against the snow.

When he asks his guides, okay, so what
am I seeing here? They also have an

answer for him.

The wild man of the snows.

They call it the meadow kong me.

When Howard Burey is later interviewed
by a journalist about his experience in

the Himalayas, he mentions meadow kong
me. The reporter mistakenly substitutes

the word meadow, which means wild, with
mech, which is filthy.

So, little journalistic embellishment,
little playing around with some

and because of this...

The Yeti now gains a brand new title and
becomes known henceforth as the

Abominable Snowman.

The idea that there is some undiscovered
giant bipedal creature living in the

mountains of Asia and Siberia, well,
that just stokes the fires of the

scientific community, and it basically
begins this wonderful charge into the

mountains to discover this.

And who's going to discover it first?

In 1951, you've got two British
explorers, Eric Shipton and Dr. Michael

who make their way to the Himalayan
mountains, and they are, again, a part

exploration. As they're ascending these
mountains, they also come across these

footprints in the snow.

The footprints are really intriguing
because it's a very low, bulbous, big

toe, almost more like a thumb than a
toe.

and then three or four additional toes
that seem kind of hooked, spaced out

differently, unmistakably afoot, and
seemingly not human

at all. In their letters home, Shipton
and Ward are describing these

and they're stating that there's no
possible way that any animal or any

could have created these footprints in
the Himalayas. So they conclude...

that these footprints do indeed belong
to the Yeti.

About a decade later, Dr. Ward, in 1961,

is at a base camp at about 19 ,000 feet,
and he meets this Nepalese man.

He shows up in just a wool coat with no
shoes and no gloves.

Now, he spends the next 14 days without
a tent.

And the temperatures were in the single
digits and then at night getting even

colder. And the most amazing part about
it is that he didn't get frostbite.

But that's not the only thing. His feet
do not look like a typical human foot

might look.

The skin is thick, the toes are
misshapen and bulbous.

Ward is starting to think, well, if he's
not really affected by the snow, And

he's also walking around barefoot.

Is it possible he's creating these odd
footprints in the snow?

Over time, Ward has spoken to a lot of
Himalayan residents of the area, and

he's come to realize that it's not just
one man that's walking around barefoot,

but a number of people living in this
Himalayan region are doing the exact

thing, walking around.

Barefoot. So later on, Dr.

Ward really delves into this theory.

He actually puts out this theory of cold
-induced vasodilation so that instead

of the blood vessels in the feet and the
extremities immediately constricting

and causing frostbite as they...
typically would, they dilate and

dilate and constrict, which allows
people to be barefooted in the snow in

temperatures for extended periods of
time.

Ward also proposes that these foot
deformities are more common in certain

of the Himalayas.

According to Ward's theory, we have
these remote villages, no doctors.

no clinics, and these genetic defects.

And so it would make sense that these
people that are born with these things

that can't get operated on just have to
deal with it.

In these extremely remote regions, the
villages are very tiny. And so with just

tens of people, you would imagine that
these genetic defects with a small gene

pool and possibly some inbreeding would
be passed on from generation to

generation.

And that would help explain why these
sightings have been so consistently

reported over time. It's not one person.
It's an entire lineage of people with

feet shaped this way, walking barefoot
over the snow.

Additionally, people in the Himalayan
region look at wearing shoes as

formal, which is something that they
don't necessarily want to do. On top of

that, if you're somebody that has...

A foot with all of these deformities on
it, wearing shoes is going to be

incredibly uncomfortable.

When we put these things together, the
shape of people's feet, the fact that it

would be hereditary, the fact that they
have this almost superpower to walk

barefoot over the snow, we get a really
plausible explanation for

photos like Eric Shipton's.

Ward's theory offers a compelling answer
to what could be making these tracks.

But what about the large, hulking,
bipedal creatures that people are

seeing? It does not explain that at all.

The Yeti is commonly described as a
tall, menacing creature covered head to

in shaggy hair.

But it's possible many witnesses over
the generations have fallen prey to a

of mistaken identity.

When it comes to eyewitness accounts of
the Yeti, most of these eyewitnesses spy

the Yeti from a pretty far distance. Or
if they do come across any sort of

evidence, like stray hairs, for example,
These are stray hares that could

potentially belong to any number of
creature.

There's a really great example of it
from 1832, this explorer B .H. Hodgson.

He's in the Himalayas. He has a bunch of
native guides with him, and they all

report seeing this kind of creature,
tall, hairy, bipedal,

off in the distance.

And as they approach the creature,

it shot off into the woods. And he was
like, what the heck could that possibly

be? It'd have to be the Yeti.

And so after he published this account,
he actually backtracked and said, must

have been an orangutan.

You've got to wonder, why would an
orangutan, who typically lives in

,500 miles south in a tropical jungle,
be doing up...

in the Himalayas.

The only feasible excuse would be a
traveling circuit. But why would a

be trying to summit Everest?

It's possible that he picked an
orangutan maybe because that was the

of creature known to him at the time
that would resemble what he potentially

in the snows during his excursion.

There's really a lack of hard evidence.
So researchers who want to take this

question seriously know that they need
something more.

They need something like DNA.

In 2012, a professor at Oxford named
Brian Sykes sends out this public appeal

everyone around the world, basically.

Send me your Yeti sample.

And he gets like 57 samples.

About half of them, 30 of them, are
viable. And he begins testing them.

and he finds what we might expect, a
large number of very normal animals,

and dogs and bears.

But there are two samples that really
stand out.

One of those samples comes from a hunter
that shot this giant beast 40 years

prior in the Himalayas, and the other
sample comes from this high -altitude

in Bhutan.

Both of these samples, upon analysis,
reveal...

that they closely match a known species,
Ursus maritimus, the

polar bear.

Sykes speculating on this suggests that
maybe what we're seeing here is some

sort of descendant of an earlier polar
bear species.

Now, there are some researchers who
speculate that perhaps the polar bear

is being found in these genetic samples
might actually be a subspecies of polar

bear called Ursus maritimus tyrannus.

Ursus tyrannus was a monster of a
species.

On its hind legs, it stood as tall as 12
feet and could weigh over a ton.

Now, Ursus tyrannus...

went extinct about 40 ,000 years ago.
But some speculate that it is possible

that maybe Ursus tyrannus bred with
other local bears in the region over

a number of years and created a new
species.

So polar bears actually have a lot of
characteristics that make them a pretty

good contender for the Yeti. For one,
they are perfectly adapted.

to incredibly cold climate.

So these are creatures that are meant to
live in conditions that human beings

cannot survive within.

And they're also really solitary.

They will usually roam for hundreds of
miles by themselves in search of food.

it is possible that if you have this
solitary figure roaming these snowy

environs on its own, seemingly unfazed
by anything, It is possible that that

particular species of bear could be
mistaken for the Yeti from a distance.

The fact that bears walk around on four
feet would have people believe, well,

there's no way to confuse that with a
Yeti. But if you think about bear

the front paw actually combines with
that back paw print, which would form a

large single print, which could look
like a bipedal Yeti footprint.

But when the two key samples from the
study are subsequently retested, there's

an issue.

Two separate molecular biologists take a
look at Zykes' results, and they

contest that the samples that he was
looking at to extract DNA from were

actually damaged.

DNA is a fragile thing. And so if these
samples had not been kept at the right

temperature, with the right humidity,
they break down very quickly.

And after further examination, the
molecular biologists believe that these

samples actually match more closely the
Himalayan brown bear, which is much

smaller than a polar bear.

But Sykes himself, he stands by his
interpretation of this possible

of Ursus tyrannus. Either way, a
descendant of Ursus tyrannus or a local

We still have a plausible explanation
for the Yeti. Bear species are known to

walk on two hind legs.

So we could still be seeing where these
prints come from.

The Himalayan mountain range stretches
for more than 1 ,500 miles across five

countries.

Any one of these countries could hold
the answer that finally solves the

of the Yeti.

But some researchers believe that the
most compelling clues come from China.

As far back as around 300 BCE, one of
the original accounts is a Chinese

dictionary that mentions one of these
wild men that have like the face of a

human and the body of a beast.

In the 16th century, during the Ming
Dynasty, a naturalist named Li Shizhen

describes different types of wild men
that exist all around

China. Now you have to understand that
China is an incredibly large country,

all the different mountainous regions
all start to yield their own kind of

legend about the wild men.

Over the years, these Chinese legends
begin to coalesce and form one story,

mythology, one legend, one bit of
folklore. And this legendary creature

becomes known as the Yerek.

One of the most well -known stories is
that these wild men, if you come across

one, they will be so filled with joy at
coming upon you that they will bear hug

you and pass out.

from excitement, and you'll fall to the
ground with them because they're so

strong you can't get away.

And then when it wakes up, it eats you.

However, there are some researchers who
speculate that the Yeren might not

entirely be based in myth and in
folklore, and that in fact, it might be

off of a species that existed on the
planet in reality a long, long time ago.

The name Yarin comes from the Shenanjia
region of China, where in 1555, a

local newspaper reported that wild men
were living in the forest just outside

town, and they were coming into town and
stealing people's dogs and chickens to

eat them.

It would be really easy to dismiss these
stories as being a relic of the past,

an old wives' tale, but sightings
persist.

In 1976,

Six officials from the Chinese Regional
Forest Committee are walking along in

the woods, and they come across these
wild men.

And they get within a few yards of them,
and they describe them as being tall,

fully covered in hair, and having facial
features that are a mix of humans and

apes.

In 2007, some tourists that are in the
Shenangia region, say they saw these two

large... Figures that are covered in
hair.

And as they tried to approach, those
individuals ran into the forest.

They go back and they get forest
rangers, and together they go back to

out exactly where these creatures went,
and they find broken branches, some

footprints, and even half -eaten fruit.

It's hard to say that 2 ,000 years of
eyewitness accounts

is all just mistaken identity.

So, really, what is happening here?

One theory that still intrigues
researchers to this day first emerges

1935, thanks to a Dutch anthropologist
with an interest in the Far East,

Ralph von Kuningswald.

is in hong kong on a research trip and
during the day he stumbles into a

medicine shop and while he's in there he
sees in a jar a giant molar

labeled dragon's tooth the reason
they're selling this tooth is because

purported that if you grind up this
tooth and you ingest it it's supposed to

give you magical powers but von
konigswald looks at that tooth And he's,

this tooth. I know where this comes
from. This is a primate tooth. So he

the tooth.

He takes it back, does research on it.

And through his research, he identifies
it as an early hominid species from the

human family tree.

According to him, this particular
species would have been far back enough

human family tree that it would have
been completely covered in hair, except

its face and its hands, kind of like a
chimpanzee. Except this chimpanzee would

have been about 10 feet tall and weighed
upwards of 1 ,200 pounds.

Based on the primate's immense size, the
species is named Gigantopithecus.

Fossil discoveries over the last eight
or nine decades show that Giganopithecus

lived in the area that is China and
Tibet over two million years ago.

Most scientists agree that
Giganopithecus went extinct about 250

But there are those of us that believe
because of the remoteness of the region

and their ability to adapt, they have
actually thrived in the high -altitude

environments of China, Tibet.

Bhutan, and Siberia.

In the 1950s, a British zoologist, he
looks at Shipton's photograph, and he

creates a plaster mold of what he thinks
that footprint would have looked like.

After he examines this plaster cast, he
determines this could not have been made

by a bear. It had to be made by a very
large bipedal hominid, and he determines

that it is likely the Gigantopithecus.

Other researchers soon voiced their
support for the Gigantopithecus theory.

1977 American anthropologist Grover
Kranz believes that the Gigantopithecus

could have survived in a small tribe in
the remote areas of the Himalayas and

therefore could be the basis for what
the modern Yeti is.

It's possible there are even more layers
to the origin story of this ancient

primate.

Researchers and scientists have found
very, very few fossils when it comes to

Gigantopithecus. And because of that,
it's very hard to suggest that there's a

tribe of Gigantopithecus that hangs out
in the mountains and evolved into a new

species that became the basis for the
Yeti.

Until we have something like a
complete...

it will remain in the realm of
speculation.

Further research into the Yeti legend
suggests that perhaps Yeti is an even

closer relative to humans than we had
previously thought.

For centuries, researchers attempting to
solve the mystery of the Yeti have

relied on inconclusive or circumstantial
evidence to try to build their case.

Despite some compelling pervasive oral
history, the hard proof... has not come

easily. But in 2011, a Russian scientist
announced an intriguing discovery in

Siberia that could completely change the
narrative.

Dr. Igor Bertsev claims to have found
footprints in a cave in the Kemerovo

region of Siberia, which is just north
of Mongolia.

Footprints that he says belong to the
Yetis.

In the cave, researchers not only find
the footprints, but they find what could

be bedding laid out as if something was
staying there. And in the bedding, they

find these long gray hairs.

DNA tests on the hairs confirm that it
is not from Homo sapiens, but it is from

another hominid species, one that is
closely related to Homo sapiens.

Bertsev concludes that...

The gray hairs that were found in that
cave actually belong to Neanderthals

are still living in these mountain
ranges in Russia.

Bertsev is not the only person to tie
the Yeti to Neanderthal. This is

that's been around for a little while in
the Russian academic world.

Bertsev believes...

A number of recent Yeti sightings in
Siberia support this claim.

In September 2012, there's actually
three sightings in the Komarovo

Siberia.

In fact, one of the biggest was a
fisherman.

He's cruising along and he sees what he
thinks are just a couple bears at the

shoreline drinking water.

But as he gets closer, they actually
stand up and run off into the forest.

To date.

The most compelling evidence we have
comes from a short video that was taken

February of 2013.

Some boys are playing along the Ur River
in the Camarivo region, and they see

this large bipedal hominid walking
through the trees, carrying what looks

to be offspring or young.

And as they're excitedly filming this,
very freakily, the creature turns and

looks at them, and they lose it.

They lose it and they run.

But were these various encounters
actually with Neanderthals or something

else?

Neanderthals are a very distinct species
that showed up around 400 ,000 years

ago in the area of the world that's now
known as Eurasia. There was a period of

time for about 30 ,000 to 50 ,000 years
where Neanderthals and Homo sapiens did

coexist.

The difference between Neanderthal and
humans are that we are very thin, our

builds, where they were very robust and
built for cold climate. They had thick

bones, a big rib cage.

They have elongated skulls, large wide
noses, and like a thick brow.

The scientific community believes that
Neanderthals went extinct about 40 ,000

years ago.

due to the fact that they were competing
with humans for resources.

However, there are some researchers that
do suggest that Neanderthals didn't go

extinct and that they continued to live
on in very isolated regions of the

planet. It makes sense if you're a Yeti
living in northern Russia that you could

basically stay out of view of humans
because it's extremely remote, extremely

cold, and there's very few humans.

It's a place where these yetis or
Neanderthals would actually be able to

peacefully.

If the majority of Neanderthals went
extinct 40 ,000 years ago, save for

this small group, that means that there
have been 1 ,000 generations of

Neanderthals interbreeding with each
other. And as they interbreed with each

other, those more brutish physical
features become that much more

You start to develop a kind of hominid
that is even hairier, maybe even

stockier, maybe even bigger, more barrel
-chested. The same qualities that could

contribute to why a Neanderthal species
would be able to survive in these

climates could also explain the sighting
of a Yeti creature today.

The fact that the Yeti seems to vanish
almost immediately once humans come upon

them. Neanderthal would be very adept at
hiding, especially if they know in

their collective history that humans are
the reason.

There's only a small handful left.

Like the Himalayas, Siberia is
incredibly remote. The possibility of an

intelligent species staying hidden makes
sense.

You would need definitive.

evidence before you can say that this
theory actually holds water. But it's an

interesting idea.

Researchers attempting to identify the
Yeti often focus on an unknown animal or

a lost species.

But some investigators contend that what
people think they're seeing is actually

a kind of mirage.

We can't say for certain that there are
a lot of Yetis out there, but there are

absolutely a lot of sightings.

So what are people seeing?

We ask that question and try to answer
it through the archaeological record,

through the fossil record, but we could
also answer that question with

psychology.

In 1998, famed mountaineer Reinhold
Messner decided that he was going to

book about the Yeti and get down to,
what is the Yeti really?

Reinhold Messner was the first person to
do a solo ascent of Mount Everest.

He was also one of the first people to
do it without any supplemental oxygen.

He is someone who knows what he's doing
in mountain climbing.

He interviewed as many people as he
could.

Sherpas, Bhutanese, Nepalese, everyone.

And what he came up with was he believes
people are not actually seeing a flesh

and bone animal. What they are actually
experiencing is something called

pareidolia.

A phenomenon called pareidolia, which
essentially...

is the human brain finding patterns and
seeing structures and connections among

designs that aren't actually there. For
example, why individuals have seen the

Virgin Mary in a piece of toast.

Or we see figures in the clouds.

When you go way back in deep time when
we had things to worry about like a

-toothed cat, every second counts.

And so that puts our mind into, like, a
defensive trick. And so the periodola is

basically your mind trying to give you
an extra split second to get out of the

way of danger.

But a lot of times, it's just a false
alarm.

But that isn't the only psychological
phenomenon that could explain the Yeti.

Another possible optical illusion that
they could be experiencing when having a

Yeti encounter are shadow people.

Shadow people are your mind playing
tricks on you.

A shadow person is literally you
perceiving that a shadow is a

humanoid or a threatening entity.

An example of this is you wake up in the
middle of the night and you look at the

foot of your bed and you see this dark
figure.

You shake it off a little bit and then
that shadow person is now vanished.

What's interesting about that is it
depends on your belief systems.

People who believe in the paranormal or
supernatural are far more susceptible

to seeing or experiencing shadow people.

However, not all shadow people are
figments of the imagination. There is

phenomenon that is known as Brocken
Specter. And you look in the distance

you do see a menacing shadow, a menacing
figure.

But Brock Inspector occurs when you're
standing and the sun is behind you

and it's essentially projecting your
shadow in front of you.

If the wind is blowing, if that mist is
moving at all, the shadow might appear

to move in ways totally unrelated to the
person whose body is casting that

shadow. In really high elevations,
especially where the air is really thin,

Brock Inspector becomes even more
common.

There's more opportunity for the right
angle of the sun and more opportunity

a substance or a surface on which the
shadow can be cast.

It's not hard to imagine that people
seeing this apparition might attribute

sort of supernatural significance to it.

Eric Shipton himself, the British
mountaineer who found the 1951 prints,

experienced a rock inspector while
climbing Mount Kenya in 1929, and he

describes it as...

Seeing the shadowy figure with this
beautiful rainbow light cast around it.

What's easier to believe?

That people are seeing a giant relic
hominid wandering the mountains? Or

minds are simply playing tricks on them?

Scientists speculate there is yet
another possible explanation for the

of yetis at these altitudes. And it is
less a question of a psychological

stress. And more a question of physical
stress.

Over the centuries, the vast majority of
Yeti sightings have occurred high in

the mountains.

And some researchers suspect there's a
reason why.

Humans have evolved to live pretty much
right at sea level.

And so when we go higher and higher up
in elevation, we lose that concentration

of oxygen.

When you have people that are climbing
mountains like Mount Everest or Mount

Kilimanjaro, they usually will make base
camp at around anywhere from 17 ,000 to

19 ,000 feet, and they'll stay there for
a few weeks just to acclimate

themselves to that higher altitude so
that as they go higher, they don't get

sick. If we ascend to high altitudes too
quickly, that is when our bodies will

begin to fail us.

You can see, taste, touch, and fully
experience.

Something that is completely a figment
of your imagination.

Altitude sickness is no joke. It can
actually lead to death.

Symptoms of it are things like
headaches, nausea, dizziness,

disorientation, and also hallucinations.

Hallucinations.

which could explain the long history of
Yeti encounters in the Himalayas.

Hallucinations are sensory experiences
entirely generated from

within the brain. So it's important to
note that hallucinations aren't just

imaginary. It feels, looks, sounds,
smells

real.

When someone experiences a
hallucination, It's like a psychosis.

There's no distinguishing between
reality and fantasy.

Someone suffering from altitude sickness
may not even be aware that it's

happening to them because the symptoms
can come on very slowly and subtly.

One second you're there and you're
feeling great, and the next second you

talking to an imaginary person.

There is an example of this that takes
place in 2008. It's a mountaineer by the

name of Jeremy Windsor.

Jeremy Windsor is attempting to climb
Mount Everest, and as he gets higher and

higher, he suddenly has this companion
that's climbing with him by the name of

Jimmy. And Jimmy sort of keeps pace with
him. He sees him kind of out of the

corner of his eye, over his right
shoulder.

They encourage each other as they're
struggling to make it to the top.

When he gets back to base camp...

and starts to explain his friend Jimmy,
it becomes very apparent, not only to

his companions but to him, that Jimmy
was a complete figment of his

Hallucinations often vanish as quickly
as they appear, which could explain why

people are seeing the Yeti, because the
Yeti seems to vanish right when you get

a good look at it.

Researchers also believe that our
hallucinations...

can be influenced by deep -seated
cultural and personal beliefs.

Hallucinations happen. We know that.
It's a human, biological, physiological

experience. But how we interpret those
hallucinations owes a lot to culture.

Folklorists actually call this the
cultural source hypothesis when it comes

explaining a supernatural belief that
someone has.

If you're in the Himalayas and you've
been hearing about stories of the Yeti,

your subconscious might actually drum up
a Yeti for you to hallucinate as you're

making your way up this mountain.

We know that at about 8 ,000 feet, the
vast majority of people do not feel any

symptoms of altitude sickness.

When you get to 10 ,000 feet, however,
about 75 % of the human

population does start to experience...

of this altitude sickness, including
hallucinations.

So with the majority of Yeti sightings
happening at above 10 ,000 feet, it's

reasonable to say that these sightings
might just be a symptom of altitude

sickness.

But not everyone is convinced this
mythic creature is purely made up.

It's hard to actually refute the fact
that we have the same...

It's not just similar experiences over
thousands of years.

So it makes it very difficult to just
discount it all as some sort of

hallucination versus something that
actually might exist.

The fact that we don't have any concrete
clues over thousands of years lets the

skeptics basically weigh in and say it
doesn't exist.

But biologists discovered the coelacanth
thinking it was extinct.

tens of thousands of years ago. It is
also perfectly plausible that no single

explanation for the Yeti is the entire
explanation.

Human beings and science are also
continuing to evolve.

So it's very plausible that the
conclusive piece of evidence that is

definitively prove the existence of the
Yeti is just around the corner.

There's something uniquely compelling
about a wild, hairy humanoid.

prowling in the cold shadows in the
highest peaks of the Far East.

It's a campfire tale that still inspires
wonder and dread to this day. Is it a

real -life relic, a trick of the mind,
or something else?

The physical evidence may not be there,
but the intrigue lives on.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching History's
Greatest Mysteries.