The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

by Kevin Candela

Watch the 1957 movie. The brilliant Nigel Kneale screenplay really does cover it all, from the Shipton Expedition that found and photographed the famous “first” footprints (mentioned, having happened only a few years earlier in “reality”) to the nobly intentioned scientist, the opportunistic entrepreneur, the callous career bounty hunter and the legend-obsessed everyman who once caught a glimpse of the yeti. Best of all, the head lama at the Tibetan monastery is more than wise: He, like the yeti, stands clear of the petty human race, smiling knowingly as the ambitious quartet of visitors who seek to know if the creatures exist insist on risking it all in trying to find out. Even the Sherpa is important, despite his precious few lines. And so is the scientist’s wife, who is perhaps the only peer of the head lama in terms of innate wisdom.

Peter Cushing plays the well-intentioned, gentle and respectful scientist. He’s shanghaied, more or less, by Forrest Tucker’s great turn in the role of Tom Friend. Friend is the classic carnival supplier/opportunist, and though he manages civility with ease there’s little doubt that the man underneath the polite veneer will do whatever it takes to get what he wants.

What he wants, of course, is a yeti. Live or dead. He’s enlisted a soldier of fortune, a not particularly deep thinker who is nonetheless functional in his assigned task—if perhaps reckless and uncompromising on the job. He’s there to do what Friend is paying him to do: Bring one back. When that proves tougher than expected, and things get hairy, the hired gun ends up with more cognitive dissonance than anyone else in the four man crew.

So in a very H.G. Wells-like way we have the scientist bonded by necessity to the capitalist. We all know how that goes, or should in any moral play. And few stories have greater morality than The Abominable Snowman. 

Why am I talking about a fiction movie? Because art imitates life, and Mr. Kneale nailed the whole mystique—which was brand new back then, at least as far as the masses went—in one flawless fell swoop. We’re still looking for yeti, of course, and considering the effort expended in recent years (Expedition Unknown spent a week or two there last year) it does seem rather strange that we still don’t have any solid evidence of the cryptid. 

Or does it? In the movie, there was a very good reason why people weren’t coming into Kathmandu with proof, and though I can’t reveal it here (spoilers thing) I can probably say that once you’ve seen the movie, you will understand. In the end, it comes down to respect. Is it just an animal? If so, it’s pretty clever. So are all its assumed brethren around the world.

Let’s look at it this way: Say we somehow survive our own greed and ignorance to reach the point where we can terraform a planet, a la the Genesis Machine in the Trek movies (sorry, another movie reference, but it kind of fits). Now, if we’re doing this organically, we hide ourselves from the “farm” we’ve made so that its denizens get very used to what is “normal” and what they expect to see on a daily basis.

We let the planet develop, keeping out of the way…or trying to, at least. But if there are enough of us doing this, running around monitoring and who knows what else, sooner or later we’re going to mess up and one of our farm animals will see us. How do we deal with that?

Maybe we have a quick way of getting underground, where we actually live. Maybe we have stealth craft waiting nearby to pick us up and get us clear, or maybe we can simply make ourselves disappear. 

Or maybe, as in the 1957 classic Hammer film, we affect their minds. Consider the Mantis Man report where the creature saw the man staring at him across the pond, turned around, took a couple of steps and just vanished. This can’t happen unless technology or the creature’s own nature allows it, or if in fact it didn’t disappear but instead merely told the witness’s mind that it was gone.

This is why we should approach all these cryptids with respect. We may well be the curious farm animals, not the more intelligent/advanced beings investigating the elusive “lower” ones. If they are smart enough to hide from us despite our proliferation of cell phones, drone cameras and the like, well—that’s something you should give a little elbow room. Killing Bigfoot? Seriously? I wonder if cheetahs in zoos have their own version of that show featuring their attendants that they silently run in their collective heads. 

Nah, they’re smarter than that.

I’m not saying “Don’t go looking for cryptids” at all here. But we all know a single image isn’t going to prove anything, so if you don’t have video equipment, don’t waste your time thinking you can click off a quick shot at a distance and get much support for your evidence. Footprints? Those are good. May not prove anything, but at least they can be analyzed for weight, pressure, structure, etc. as long as you get a plaster casting of it. Likewise, any physical evidence like hair that you find is legit. Don’t leave that behind, and don’t handle it with bare fingers. 

Hopefully this is putting your Bigfoot INVESTIGATION (as opposed to “hunting”) kit together for you: video recorder of high quality, bags and tweezer for samples, plaster kit…and of course anything else you can come up with that doesn’t involve stabbing, shooting, etc. 

HANDY TIP: A camera mounted on a drone can neither harm a cryptid nor be mind-controlled by it. Sound catcher isn’t a bad idea either. The senses are what bring us information, but besides any physical evidence there really is no current way to bring three of those senses (let alone the sixth) into play if you hope to come up with respectable and authentic evidence; that is to say, we don’t have Futurama’s Smell-o-scope yet. Touch and taste are, as Monty Python’s folks would probably say, “Right out.” That means we are limited to visual and sound evidence (barring physical finds). So get the best sound and visual equipment you can find, mount it as stably as possible—maybe bring a tripod for that camera—and do it right.

And please don’t shoot anything with a projectile. I really don’t want to see all those saucers and ships of theirs de-cloaking at the same time over our major cities. 

Oh, and here’s to you, Mr. Nigel Kneale: You were so far ahead of your time that we’re just now catching onto the depths of your insights in movies like The Abominable Snowman and Five Million Years to Earth. Well done, sir, and thank you.