The Yeti, known in the West as the Abominable Snowman, is a large, hairy, upright creature said to live in the Himalayas. It has deep roots in the beliefs of Himalayan peoples, where it is part bear, part wild man and part spiritual being, and it became an international sensation in the twentieth century through mountaineers’ reports of mysterious footprints in the snow. Dozens of expeditions have searched for it. The physical evidence they collected, from scalps and hands kept in monasteries to hair, bones and droppings, has repeatedly turned out to come from known animals, above all Himalayan bears. A 2017 DNA study of nine “Yeti” samples found that eight were bears and one was a dog.[1][2]
| Region | The Himalayas: Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim and neighboring areas |
|---|---|
| Name | From Tibetan g.ya’ dred, “rock bear” or “bear of rocky places” |
| Other names | Migoi (wild man), michê (man-bear), dzu-teh, bun manchi, kang admi |
| “Abominable Snowman” | Coined in 1921 through a newspaper mistranslation |
| Famous evidence | Shipton’s 1951 footprint photo; monastery scalps and the Pangboche hand |
| DNA verdict | Samples tested in 2014–2017 came from bears, a dog and other known animals |
| Likely explanations | Himalayan brown and Asiatic black bears, misread tracks, folklore and hoaxes |
What’s in a name
“Yeti” comes from the Tibetan g.ya’ dred, a compound of words meaning “rocky place” and “bear,” so its very name suggests a bear of the high mountains. Himalayan peoples use several related terms: michê, “man-bear”; dzu-teh, “cattle bear,” for the Himalayan brown bear; migoi or mi-go, “wild man”; and the Nepali bun manchi, “jungle man.” Tibetan lore distinguishes several kinds, from a huge, fierce, black-furred type to a small reddish one only three to five feet tall.[1]
The name “Abominable Snowman” dates from 1921. During the British Everest reconnaissance that year, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury found tracks in the snow that he thought were probably made by a loping wolf, but his Sherpa guides attributed them to the “wild man of the snows,” which he recorded as metoh-kangmi. A Calcutta journalist, Henry Newman, interviewed the porters and translated metoh as “filthy,” rendering it “abominable,” apparently for effect. He later admitted that the story seemed such a “joyous creation” that he sent it to the newspapers.[1]
The Yeti in Himalayan belief
Long before Western climbers arrived, a wild man of the mountains was part of Himalayan religious life. The anthropologist Halfdan Siiger reported that the Lepcha people worshipped a “Glacier Being” as a god of the hunt, and that followers of the Bön religion believed the blood of the mi rgod, the wild man, had ritual uses. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Yeti is regarded as an animal that is nonetheless human enough sometimes to follow the Buddhist teaching; stories tell of Yetis serving as helpers and disciples of holy figures. Images of Yetis appear in monastery paintings, such as those at Tengboche, and seeing or hearing one was often considered a bad omen.[1]
Early Western reports
- 1832. The British naturalist B. H. Hodgson reported that his guides in northern Nepal had seen a tall, upright creature with long dark hair that fled from them. Hodgson himself concluded it was an orangutan. Earlier versions of this entry wrongly said Hodgson saw it himself.[1]
- 1899. Laurence Waddell recorded footprints his guide attributed to a large ape-like creature; Waddell thought they were a bear’s, and wrote that no Tibetan he asked could ever give him an authentic case, only something “somebody heard tell of.”[1]
- 1925. N. A. Tombazi, a photographer, said he watched a dark, upright, human-like figure pulling at rhododendron bushes near the Zemu Glacier, at a distance of 200–300 yards, and later found small, man-like prints.[1]
The great Yeti hunts
Western interest exploded in the 1950s. In 1951, the mountaineer Eric Shipton photographed large footprints in the snow near Everest, including a famous close-up of a single print beside an ice axe. The photograph remains the most celebrated piece of Yeti evidence, though critics argue that melting snow can enlarge and distort ordinary tracks. In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported large footprints on Everest; Hillary later dismissed Yeti reports as unreliable, and Tenzing grew more skeptical over time.[1]
In 1954, the Daily Mail sponsored a “Snowman Expedition,” which obtained hairs from a supposed Yeti scalp kept at Pangboche monastery; the anatomist Frederic Wood Jones concluded they came from the shoulder of a coarse-haired hoofed animal, not an ape or bear. From 1957, the Texas oilman Tom Slick funded several expeditions, and the United States government even issued rules for American Yeti hunters. In 1960–61, Hillary’s Silver Hut expedition borrowed the Khumjung monastery scalp; scientists concluded it was made from the skin of a serow, a goat-antelope.[1]
Bears, footprints and the Barun Valley
In 1983, the conservationist Daniel Taylor and naturalist Robert Fleming led an expedition to Nepal’s Barun Valley after alleged Yeti footprints were found there. They found similar prints, tree nests, and local stories of two kinds of bear, a small “tree bear” and a larger “ground bear.” Research showed both were Asiatic black bears. Young black bears spend much time in trees and develop an outward-turned inner claw; when a bear walking uphill places its hind foot over the print of its forefoot, the combined track can look like an elongated, human-like footprint with a thumb-like toe. That work helped lead to the creation of Makalu-Barun National Park in 1991. The mountaineer Reinhold Messner also concluded that the Yeti is the Himalayan brown bear.[1]
What DNA has shown
Modern genetics has tested the remaining physical evidence directly. In 2014, a team led by Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes announced that two hair samples matched an ancient polar bear, raising the possibility of an unknown bear in the Himalayas. Later reanalysis found the samples most likely came from Himalayan brown bears.[1]
In 2017, a study led by Charlotte Lindqvist of the University at Buffalo, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, analyzed nine purported Yeti specimens from museums and private collections, including bone, teeth, skin, hair and droppings. Eight came from Asian bears, one Asian black bear, one Himalayan brown bear and six Tibetan brown bears, and one came from a dog. A piece of skin from a monastery relic hand was from a black bear, and a bone from a “Yeti” found in a Tibetan cave was from a brown bear. “Clearly, a big part of the Yeti legend has to do with bears,” Lindqvist said.[2]
Modern footprints and hoaxes
Reports continue. In 2007, the TV series Destination Truth cast footprints in the Everest region, though the anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum, who first thought them genuine, changed his mind. In 2008, hair from India’s Garo Hills thought to be from a Yeti proved to come from a goral, a Himalayan goat-antelope. In 2019, the Indian Army publicized photos of huge prints near Makalu base camp, which drew widespread skepticism. A 2011 “captured Yeti” in Russia was a hoax.[1]
Relatives around the world
The Yeti is often grouped with other reported wild men and ape-men, including North America’s Bigfoot, Florida’s Skunk Ape, the Almas of Central Asia and China’s Yeren. Like the Yeti, these are built from a mix of folklore, misidentified animals and occasional hoaxes, and none has produced a body or verified specimen.[1]
Our assessment
The Yeti is a real and meaningful figure in Himalayan religion and folklore, but there is no good evidence that it is an unknown ape. The footprints can be explained by bears and melting snow, and the relics and samples tested so far come from bears, goat-antelopes, a dog and other known animals. The Western “Abominable Snowman” is in large part a twentieth-century newspaper creation. As Charlotte Lindqvist put it, the legend has a great deal to do with bears.
References
- “Yeti,” Wikipedia, citing C. Howard-Bury (1921), H. Siiger, B. H. Hodgson (1832), L. Waddell (1899), N. A. Tombazi (1925), E. Shipton, D. Taylor, R. Messner, B. Sykes et al. (2014), and others.
- “Abominable Snowman? Nope. Study ties DNA samples from purported Yetis to Asian bears,” University at Buffalo News (28 November 2017), on C. Lindqvist et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2017).
Correction note (October 2026): This entry was rewritten from documented sources. Earlier versions said B. H. Hodgson saw a Yeti in 1832; it was his guides, and he concluded it was an orangutan. The illustration above is an artistic impression.