| Bigfoot
Encounters Three Yeti News Articles from the Past Source: Paul Cropper |
15 April 1993 UK: BBC PLANS EPIC HUNT FOR THE YETI - BRIAN BLESSED. The BBC is studying plans for an epic televised expedition in search of the Yeti, the mythical beast also known as the Abominable Snowman. Led by Brian Blessed, the actor, the proposed adventure series will take an eight-member camera crew on a 3,000-mile journey through the Himalayas and to the snowy wastes of Canada. Still in its early stages, the programme is based on the highly successful and lucrative series of BBC travelogues made by Michael Palin, the actor and traveler. Early estimates of the cost of the expedition, which programme-makers hope will be ready for departure by next February, are about £1million. Blessed, 57, who is planning to mount a separate expedition to Mount Everest in August, said yesterday the series could help to answer a deep contemporary need for adventure and myth. "There is a need for a monster like this in our society. If we did not have them, we would have to create them," he said. BBC Television Features in Bristol said the project was still awaiting approval. "Nothing has been decided yet. It promises to be very exciting, if it ever goes ahead," a spokeswoman said. Programme-makers say they intend to research the series at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and plan to complete the trek with the aid of local trackers and Sherpa guides. The Yeti features in many cultures' mythology as a huge humanoid, hairy beast. In Russia he is known as the Almas Giant, while in parts of Southeast Asia peasants refer to him as the Wildman of China. The Yeti's existence is based on reported sightings. Sources: THE TIMES 15/4/93 15 April 1993 UK: YETI SEARCH GETS OFF TO A HAIRY START - BBC. Actor's plans for a £1m BBC monster series appear difficult to track down. An elusive large hairy man was being frantically tracked down by the BBC yesterday after reports that the corporation was spending £1m on helping him and a crew to track down several other elusive large hairy men on three continents. The actor Brian Blessed, according to his own account, is to spend several months next year leading an eight-man camera crew on a 3,000-mile trek in a bid to come face to camera with the giant yeti. With that task in the Himalayas completed, Mr Blessed and team will set off for Sumatra to acquaint themselves with another yeti family member, the Orang pendek - or Upright Man, and then head off to North America for a photo-opportunity with Sasquatch or Bigfoot. "There is a need for a monster like this in our society. If we didn't have them we would have to create them," Mr Blessed told London's Evening Standard. But yesterday, Mr Blessed, who, at 57, will attempt to become the oldest man to climb Everest this August, was proving as elusive as his subject. BBC TV Centre said it had no evidence of the project, although Mr Blessed's agent claimed to have had several sightings. Eventually the trail led to BBC Bristol, where a spokesman said: "It's not even off the ground yet, let alone up the Himalayas." In London, John-Paul Davison, a BBC director, reported firm evidence of the series and hopes to begin filming next spring. He estimates the costs at nearer £700,000, and is unperturbed at spending licence-payers' money to find the yeti, when he probably won't: "One cannot be relied on to get a three-minute sequence of the yeti like David Attenborough and his gorillas but I think there is an unidentified animal there and if we do not actually track it down, it is still a useful device for getting through an interesting part of the world." Sources: INDEPENDENT 15/4/93 P3 29 January 1993 RUSSIA: Russian reporter discovers yeti "school". A Russian journalist believes that a clearing he has found in a Karelian forest is "a meeting place of abominable snowmen", ITAR-TASS reported on 28th January. Writing in the `Severnyy Kuryer' newspaper, the journalist, who has been tracking yeti for many years, said he believed he had come across a yeti school near Petrozavodsk. Yeti "hieroglyphics" scratched on the bark of trees could be books for the creatures' young, the journalist argued. (c) BBC Monitoring Summary of World Broadcasts Credit: Paul Cropper Back to Bigfoot Encounters Main page Portions of this website are reprinted and sometimes edited to fit the standards of this website under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law |