This is the Oriental Yeti? This? That’s supposed to be a Yeti. That thing in the above photo. Are we just not trying anymore?
News broke this week that hunters in a remote location of central China had captured a “hairless beast" that’s now being referred to as the Oriental Yeti. Now I know that we don’t have any great pictures of an actual Yeti to work with, but anyone who’s even remotely familiar with the idea of the Yeti, Sasquatch, or Bigfoot probably imagines some sort of large ape/man hybrid.
Not the Oriental Yeti, though. Oh no. One of the hunters who trapped the Oriental Yeti offers the following description:
"It looks a bit like a bear but it doesn’t have any fur and it has a tail like a kangaroo. It also does not sound like a bear – it has a voice more like a cat and it is calling all the time – perhaps it is looking for the rest of its kind or maybe it’s the last one? There are local legends of a bear that used to be a man and some people think that’s what we caught."
So a bear with a kangaroo tail that makes noises like a cat. That, my friend, is no Yeti. It’s not the hunter’s fault. The media’s running with the whole Oriental Yeti angle. Certain Yeti/Sasquatch sightings are absolutely cases of misidentified bears, sure. I could even see an upright kangaroo being mistaken for what we’ve come to identify as Bigfoot.
But under no circumstances would the giant, powerful, majestic bipedal creature that scores of cryptozoologists have been tirelessly searching for since time immemorial make noises like a cat.
A cat.
The “beast” has been shipped to Beijing to undergo DNA tests, where scientists will very likely find it to be a known animal with mange. Current theories include a binturong (Asian bearcat, seen below) or a civet.
As for the “local legends of a bear that used to be a man,” this whole story may be a clever ruse to get him to come out of hiding. If I was a bear that used to be a man and I caught wind that people were mistaking me for a sick bearcat, I’d be like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. First of all, that thing’s tiny. That’s like if a baby turned into a bear. Second of all, are we all just forgetting that forest fires in this area have plummeted? That was the deal, you guys. I turn into a bear that wears jeans and tells people that only they can prevent forest fires. In return, you make me the hero of the local legend we all agreed upon. Not a bearcat with mange. That wasn’t the deal at all.”