Media Article # 209
Article submitted by Jon Singer

Thursday, March 17, 1988

Soviet Encounters 'Yeti'

New Haven Register (Connecticut)

MOSCOW -AP - A Soviet scientists said Wednesday she came within feet of the legendary abominable snowman during an eyeball to eyeball encounter with the furry beast in the snow covered forests of western Siberia.

In what radio Moscow described as one of the closest encounters of its kind, the creature reportedly stood and stared at her with red eyes, not making a sound, before her pet dog chased the snowman, or yeti, deep into the woods.

The scientists, Maya Bykova, told Radio Moscow she had spent 25 years studying the yeti. Her sighting occurred late last year when Soviet media reported three yeti encounters.

Bykova and two guides had stopped for the night in a forest cabin at an undisclosed site in western Siberia and were awakened by a sound of rolling logs. They said they rushed out to the porch and saw the creature they had waited so long to see.

"The day was breaking and we could see everything clearly. I saw in front of me an animal about 2 meters (6 foot, 7 inches) tall, covered with fur some 6 to 7 centimeters (2.5 to 3 inches) long," Bykova said. "It was covered with so much fur, its lips looked like slits. The fur on its head and face was shorter than that of its body. The creature studied us with great attention. Its eyes were red without any whites, and its ears didn't stick out," she said.

Radio Moscow said there had been an estimated 5,000 eyewitness accounts of yeti sightings in the Soviet Union, mostly by peasants, drivers, shepherds and other rural people.

The sightings had been reported in the Caucases region, the Altai district of south-central Siberia and the northeastern Yakutia area.

Bykova said she had prepared herself for such an encounter, so that she could have a "very good look at this creature and examine it thoroughly. There was a distance of 5 meters (16 feet) between us."

She said it had not been difficult to measure the hairy biped's height because it was standing against a tree.

Last month, the leader of Soviet scientific expedition, Igor Tatsl, told the official Tass news agency one of the creatures had repeatedly tried to make friendly contact with his research team to make friendly contact with his research team in the Pamir mountains near the border with Afghanistan.

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