The following are a few interesting previously posted anecdotes and recollections forwarded to me by readers over the years:
YETI ENCOUNTER
During Christmas break in grad school December 1983-January 1984, I was part of an Everest trek. We weren’t going to summit—basically we hiked from a small mountain town airstrip to the base camp at the Khumbu glacier where the real climbers take off from. Takes 10 days or so each way, with stops at monasteries along the way to adjust to the altitude.
It was winter in Nepal so most of the higher elevations were basically deserted. It’s very cold and rocky up there, not very inviting, but starkly beautiful. The pack train had gone on ahead to set up camp and we each just hiked along at our own pace until we caught up at the end of the day. It was mid afternoon and as I rounded a sharp corner in the tiny, narrow mountain ledge trail I encountered a creature standing on the trail in front of an ice fall.
It was clearly a primate of some sort. Not huge, between 3 and 4 feet tall. Thick reddish hair like an orangutan. Long arms. We just sort of looked one another over for maybe 10 seconds and then he turned, climbed up the ice fall (maybe 20-25 feet) and vanished over the top. I didn’t feel threatened by him at all, but was very impressed by his speed and agility—he just zoomed up the sheer ice face and was gone. He didn’t seem to be startled and fleeing, just moving on. It left me nonplussed for a few minutes, but eventually I resumed hiking. When I told our Sherpa guide about it, he said it was a yeti. Although his English was spotty, I got the impression there was a range of animals they considered to be a yeti, not just the Johnny Quest type abominable snowman we talk about over here. So whatever else is up there, at least in the early 1980s there were smallish apes with excellent climbing skills.
Bruce Freeman
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SHAPESHIFTER CONFRONTATION
I was with a group of people on Saturday, August 8th in Central Arkansas (out in the country) right before dusk. This area has one lane bridges with gravel roads and no road name signs. Many years ago this had been a Amish community. One of the people I was with had lived there when she was a child. We had returned to the area to go ghost hunting at a cemetery near her old home. None of us are drinkers or drug users and are all middle aged. We belong to a local ghost hunter's club, but this night, we were on our own.
We arrived well before dusk to make sure we had a good feel for our surroundings. I stepped out of the car and walked maybe 6 feet when I heard the sound of something quickly approaching me. It sounded like wings flapping, but not the same. Hard to describe really. It was on a much larger scale than I had heard before. I quickly turned around and saw this thing headed right for me. I was so scared I could not image what I was seeing. I screamed and hit the ground. It flew over my head and landed on the tree limb near me. I looked up and saw it looking down at me, I turned as my friends called my name and running to me. When I looked back, I couldn't see it. My friends witnessed it as it flew towards me though they didn't see it in the tree.
It didn't look the same in the tree that it had looked while flying toward me. In the tree, it looked more like a large worm or snake but much, much larger. It looked as if it had wrapped it's self around the tree limb. A bird can't do that. I did look to see if there were any other reports like this in the area, but did not find any documented. I am now afraid to go outside before dusk in fear of seeing another one. I have never been scared ghost hunting. This thing was the most amazing, scariest thing I have ever seen in my life. I pray I never see it again. Do you have any idea what this thing was? A shapeshifter or a Thunderbird maybe? Or a demon? I have no idea.
Name Withheld Upon Request
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FLYING BLOB
I read the article you had listed entitled "Flying Cryptid in County Durham, UK". I live in the USA, and saw something very similar to what was described in the article. My sighting occurred in a rural area of Henderson, West Virginia, approximately 20 years ago (1989). I had been visiting a friend with my daughter and was on my way home in the afternoon. The day was partly sunny with clouds in the sky, but not rainy or misty. We were traveling down an incline in the car and we saw something strange go across the road (from the left side to the right side of the road). I'm not good with distances but it was probably no more than fifty feet from us. The thing described in the article was much smaller than what my daughter and I saw. I watched it disappear and asked my daughter if she had seen anything, and she confirmed that she had seen it also.
What we observed was approximately horse or cow sized and it had a white, translucent appearance, without identifiable head, tail, or appendages. It was just a big oval shaped airy "blob" that you could see through! This thing was like watching a tiny cloud or a mass of fog move on its own. It was flying or gliding quickly across the road and just disappeared on the other side of the road. It moved straight and did not weave or bobble. We only saw it for maybe 5 seconds. I had never seen anything like it before and haven't seen another one since. I never reported it but I always remembered my sighting and was immediately struck by the similarity of what was reported in the UK.
Thanks for your website...it is extremely interesting.
Pat Queen
Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist (Darby Creek Publishing)
Cryptozoology A To Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
Monster Spotter's Guide to North America
