Monsters and Myths

The expedition that went looking for bigfoots in a cave in the mountains of Siberia has so far been fruitless, but its organizers blame the weather for failure and say they will return in summer.

Earlier this week an expedition headed by “yeti specialist” Igor Burtsev set off to explore the several kilometer long cave in the Kemerovo Region, where local hunters reported to have seen the creatures. The expedition returned to Moscow without any success.

“Our expedition visited the Azasskaya Cave. Unfortunately, we did not find any direct evidence of a bigfoot’s presence there,” Burtsev was quoted by RIA Novosti as telling a press conference directly after his return.

But he was not discouraged by this failure, blaming it on bad weather and the curiousity of local people.

“People are simply pouring in there now. If there had been any footprints there originally, they were destroyed,” he said.

Besides, the cave is very deep, Burtsev said, and to explore its full length, a team of speleologists would have to join the mission. Since the exploration was made almost impossible by heavy snow drifts, the expedition should return in summer, he added.

In February the administration of Kemerovo Region in Russia’s Siberia started receiving reports from local hunters who claimed to have seen human-like creatures near Azasskaya Cave, 500 kilometers off the city of Kemerovo. The creatures reportedly were 1.5-2 meters tall and covered in fur. One of the hunters also made a photograph of what he said was the creature’s footprint in the snow.

Burtsev, a PhD in History and a passionate believer in bigfoots, says he sees nothing strange about bigfoots possibly showing up in the Kemerovo region. Its mountains are part of the Altai range, thought to be the favorite yetis reproduction spot. In late 19^th and early 20^th century, he says, female creatures with young ones were frequently spotted there.

The Russian Academy of Sciences, however, is skeptical of Burtsev’s enthusiasm. To preserve a stable population, there would have to be many yetis, but only single creatures have so far been spotted, an anthropologist of the Academy, Sergei Vasilyev, told RIA Novosti. Besides, no body of a bigfoot has ever been found and studied, no matter how many sightings have been reported.

mosnews.com/weird/2009/03/25/bigfootupd/

According to news sources, an expedition led by the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Kemerovo set off in search of a Bigfoot-like creature that was sighted by some frightened hunters in the area. A news report just last week claimed that some local hunters near the Azass Cave on Mount Shoriya had spotted “some hairy humanoid creatures” that resemble some kind of brown bear from a distance. They have black or red fur all over their bodies and stand some 5-6 feet tall. With the report came one of those things they say is worth a thousand words; namely, a photograph from the inside of the cave showing the track of an unidentified creature.

The priest is also expected to make a private visit to open and bless a small church at a gulag barracks camp in Mount Shoriya. There were many of these camps during the Soviet era. The expedition will require snowmobiles to reach the village where the Bigfoot sightings took place. A spokesman from the Russian news-agency, RIA Novost said:

“A more formal scientific expedition to investigate the sighting is currently being organized for this coming summer. The financial details are being worked out, and there are already many enthusiasts, businessmen and hunters ready to help.”

Nikita Shulbayev, deputy head of the local administration said:

“People here are scared the creatures will attack villages because of hunger. We made a decision to send an expedition to research this issue. We need to understand whether they are dangerous for people and we need to calm people down.”

The head of the department of anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow is not impressed and he stresses that despite the numerous reports of their sightings throughout the world, anthropologists have never seen or studied the body of a Bigfoot or yeti. He further stated that the spotting of singular yetis is “biological nonsense” as a large population must exist in order to create generation after generation. He made no comment about the fact that this particular sighting involved several creatures.

Whatever these things are or aren’t, it would seem that the entire matter is a lot more frightening for the creatures, n’est ce pas?

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Kemerovo (Russia), Feb 19: A group of people led by the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Kemerovo and a regional official set out Thursday in search of a bigfoot sighted by hunters in Tashtagol area in Russia, a regional spokesman said.

Earlier this week, the Kemerovo regional administration released a report that local hunters had spotted “some hairy humanoid creatures with a height of 1.5-2 metres near the Azass Cave on Mount Shoriya. The report was illustrated with a photograph from inside the cave showing the track of an unidentified creature.

“From the nearest village of Ust-Kabyrz, the bishop, regional head and a group of others will reach the Azass Cave by the only transportation possible: snowmobiles,” the spokesman told RIA Novosti.

According to the head of the department of anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow, anthropologists have never seen or studied the body of a bigfoot or yeti, although there are numerous reports of their sightings throughout the world.

He also noted that yetis for some reason are always spotted singularly, which is “biological nonsense”, as a large population must exist in order to create generation after generation. According to the anthropologist, Earth has been studied so thoroughly that if a population of yeti existed it would have been confirmed.

The Kemerovo regional spokesman said a scientific expedition is being organized for the summer to investigate the sighting. The financial details of the expedition are being worked out and there are already many enthusiasts, businessmen and hunters ready to help.

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