Dehradun: The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has turned down the theory of mythical creature 'Yeti', saying that the footprints could be of an animal as a similar situation had taken place in the past too.
"There is a mention of Yeti in Nepalese and also in Buddhist literature. The foreigner explorers have spent ample time in collecting evidence about the mythical snowman. Some have even collected hair and bones from Himalayas and had done genetic analysis of the samples which came out to be of brown or black bear," said GS Rawat, a senior scientist and dean at Dehradun-based WII.
The scientist believes the huge footprints whose images Army Twitter handle shared could be of some animal.
"Sometimes bear also walks on two legs and the same footprints could expand after three or four days. I once spotted footprints of sambhar (a deer) in the upper Kedarnath glacier that appeared as huge as elephant's," Rawat added.
Rawat said the images have no scientific backing and hence it appears as if the explorers released images in excitement.
"They (Army) should have followed (footprints) as Yeti cannot disappear in the thin air. If Army or Nepal government (as the site is in Nepal) still feels there is something, then they should install camera traps," the dean of WII advised.
On Monday, after tweeting pictures of mythical beast Yeti measuring 32x15 inches, Army said in a statement, "We tweeted as we thought prudent to excite scientific temper and rekindle the interest. Some of us who reject the story, surely shall have a definite answer to the evidences." However, the image shared in the tweet shows imprint of only one foot.
(With inputs from Sunil Navprabhat)
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