Yeti DNA Puts Mystery To Bed … Or Did It?

New Yeti DNA testing has employed science to explain one of the natural world’s greatest mysteries — an elusive, quite likely mythical beast also known as the “abominable snowman.”

The Yeti DNA discovery follows recent claims about proof of “Bigfoot,” another, similar cryptozooid who allegedly favors warmer climes.

Testing on the DNA samples culled from a suspected “Yeti” revealed a bit about the creature and the mythos surrounding it, and as is often the case, the real answer is not only not fully conclusive — it’s not really that exciting.

Bryan Sykes is a geneticist at the University of Oxford, and he pulled out the sometimes wet blanket of science on a sample of suspected Yeti DNA. Spoiler alert… it’s probably not a Yeti.

Sykes did explain that no one really ever entertained the DNA being from a mystical beast — researchers just looked at it like any other genetic study and did all their objective science business:

“The principle purpose of the project is not to find the yeti – though it can be interpreted that way and usually is – but really it’s to do a systematic study on what material is alleged to have come from a yeti, because that’s never been done.”

Sykes also says he didn’t approach the Yeti DNA analysis with a jaded eye so much as a dose of healthy skepticism, adding:

“I’m as curious as anyone to know what these creatures might be and I saw an opportunity to do a proper scientific study because of the advances in the analysis of hair samples… I’ve been able to develop a protocol to get good DNA from a single hair shaft, no roots required. I’ve been going around museums and also getting samples sent in from mummies and stuffed animals and putting them through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA.”

The geneticist admits that Yeti DNA has up until now been the domain of a “more eccentric fringe over the last 50 years,” but believes the hair samples are that of a polar bear or similar. Predictably, folks are already suggesting that the samples may have come from someone confused about what they saw, or been contaminated by polar bear hair.