3 – The Yeti
The Yeti is the Bigfoot of the Himalayas, a mountain man-ape that is often reported seen but whose existence has yet to be proved. The “man-bear” or “wild man” has a long history in local cultures, but it was the arrival of western mountain explorers from the 19th century that made the Yeti a global commodity. Footprints in the snow are the most common evidence of the elusive Yeti, but from the 1950s there have been a number of apparently physical fragments including a skull and a hand that Hollywood actor James Stewart allegedly smuggled from India to London. The term has come to have a wider use as a generic name for such mountain mysteries – there have been recent reports of a “yeti” in Siberia. The most recent Yeti sightings in the Himalayas were photographs of footprints taken by a British climber in 2013.