Yeti mystery: Answer now lies in US lab

An American TV crew which claimed to have found footprints of the mysterious Yeti in the Himalayas plan to get castings from the prints analysed in the US, even as the Nepal Mountaineering Association expressed doubts over the discovery.

Josh Gates, leader of the TV crew which is working on a Sci-Fi serial called Destination Truth, said he took three castings from the footprints discovered by his team and will would them analysed in the US in an attempt to prove that the mythical creature really exists.

But Ang Tsering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, said the footprints were most probably made by a mountain bear.

"Yeti's footprints found in the past had four toes whereas the present footprints have five toes," he said.

However, the shape and the size of the footprint is big and it must be that of some unusual creature, he added.

On November 28, the American team found the 12 inch-long footprints at an altitude of 2,850 m in Khumbu region on way to Mount Everest.

The team members said they saw the fresh foot prints when they were returning from Khumbu by the confluence of Ghettekhola and Dudhkoshi rivers, near Monju village.

In the past, there have been a number of reported sightings of the Yeti in the Himalayas. In 1925, Greek photographer N A Tombazi had claimed that he had seen an ape-like creature on way to the Everest.

British climber Eric Shimpton and Michael Ward found footprints attributed to the creature in 1951 near Nepal-China border in the Himalayas. The father of Tenzing Norgey Sherpa, the first person to climb Everest, also claimed to have seen the Yeti.