New Delhi: The
Indian Army in a tweet has claimed to have found footprints of the
Yeti, a monstrous ape-like creature, close to Nepal’s
Makalu base camp, and posted pictures of footprints appearing to be about three times the size of those of human beings.
The tweet, however, became controversial on the socialmedia site Twitter with users expressing disbelief and making fun of it. Importantly, the defence ministry was not informed about the discovery and had not been kept in loop before the Army through its official Twitter handle @adgpi posted it on the site. The ministry has asked the army for an explanation on the matter.
Experts are largely sceptical of the claim and assert that more concrete evidence is needed to prove that the yeti is not an age-old myth. The army, on the other hand, claims that its photographic evidences of the footprints match with earlier theories.
However, it has based its opinion on some studies it researched on the internet, which don’t conclusively prove the snowman’s existence.
“For the first time, an #IndianArmy Mountaineering Expedition Team has sited Mysterious Footprints of mythical beast Yeti measuring 32x15 inches close to Makalu Base Camp on 09 April 2019. This elusive
snowman has only been sighted at Makalu-Barun National Park in the past,” the Army tweeted.
However, Dr S Sathyakumar, a senior scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, said that the presence of yetis in the region cannot be conclusively said with footprints, because they enlarge in snow due to sun and wind. He added that it could be those of the Tibetan
brown bear, which is found in the region.