The Indian armed forces seriously published, on Monday via Twitter, photos of footprints presented as those of an "abominable snowman." Quite pleased with themselves, the team that stumbled upon these clues in Nepal, in the foothills of the Himalayan peak of Makalu, just a stone's throw from Everest, took the opportunity to emphasize the exclusivity of this discovery.

"An Indian army climbing team on an expedition discovered, for the first time in History, the mysterious footprints of the legendary Yeti measuring 32x15 inches (81x38cm) near the Makalu military base camp on April 9, 2019. The elusive snowman had previously only been spotted in the Makalu-Barun National Park," explained the army in its tweet published on April 29, twenty days after this discovery.

Skeptical Internet Users

The military institution explained that it took so long to communicate about this finding to ensure its accuracy. But that didn't seem to convince Indian Twitter enthusiasts, who were quick to react in the comments.

Shae Faesal, for example, an independent politician and activist with a decent following on Indian social networks (91k Twitter followers), was ironic about the announcement. "This footprint suggests that this Yeti has only one leg. It looks like he lost his other leg in the Balakote airstrike!" He was referring to the recent bombing orchestrated by India at the beginning of March against this Pakistani city.

Lighter in tone this time, these two tweets were ironic and undeniably funny. One brought back Tintin's groundbreaking discoveries when he traveled to Tibet and ended up in the cave of this poor Yeti. And Siddharth Singh, an Indian ecologist author, preferred to find a more down-to-earth explanation for this discovery.

Questions to Be Answered

Following this announcement that had already made quite a splash, the army indicated that evidence of the accuracy of the affair was handed over to experts in the field. According to Cnews, this legend had already resurfaced in 2011 when DNA tests were carried out on a bone from Nepal that had been transferred to London a century earlier, which some believed to be a finger of the beast. It actually belonged to a man.

Thibault Bourru