An American Monster?

During my time at university i studied Anthropology and in particular Paleoanthropology the study of ancient man, it was  from these studies that i developed an interest in the so called Man Beasts that are part of folklore in many parts of the world and in particular i gained a life long interest in reports about Bigfoot or Sasquatch.

Other hairy ape men are reported throughout the world,  the most well known of these is the Yeti or Abominable Snowman as he is sometimes known of the Himalayas, being as the Yeti lives in such a remote place its not surprising there is a far smaller amount of evidence for this creature as is for Bigfoot, evidence for the existence of Yeti  mainly comes in the form of photographs of footprints, some hair samples that apart from one sample  came from bear or goat and a very small number of eyewitness accounts, however some symbolic paintings of the Yeti where discovered at Tengboche Gompa in the Himalayas between Everest and Kachenjunga in 1954 showing that the locals had had legends and belief in these creatures since ancient times. The Yeti has only been captured on film once and that proved to be a fake, the footage known as the “Snow Walker Film” was created by the Paramount network for their show Paranormal Borderland and later used by the Fox Network in a show about the greatest hoaxes of all time.

In all the reports of sightings of Bigfoot or Yeti its probably fair to say that the cryptid is described as being more ape like than human but in descriptions of the Russian and Asian apeman the Almas the homonid bears far more resemblance to the popular image of a caveman than any ape.There are many accounts and stories of this legendary hominid across Central Asia and Russia, there is even an account of an Almas being raised in a Russian village and having a child with one of the villagers! Descriptions of Almas usually entail a very human like creature covered in a large amount of hair with a protuding brow ridge, rather like can be seen on the skulls of Neanderthal remains, this has led to some scientists and cryptozoologists to suggest there may be or has been a group of Neanderthals that have survived into modern times, a not so unbelievable hypothesis as not so long ago in mans past we would have shared the Earth with our Neanderthal cousins and maybe even interbred with them and as Neanderthals died out relatively recently in Earths history its not beyond the realms of possibility that a few survived.