The Cronin–McNeely yeti print
In December 1972 biologists Edward Cronin and Jeffrey McNeely found and photographed a line of fresh footprints across the snow outside their tent in Nepal's Barun Valley, one of the best-documented yeti tracks.
1972 CE · 27.78, 87.20 · status: disputed
The account
The prints, with a large inner toe, were made overnight in fresh snow and photographed before they melted. The find drew Daniel Taylor's later expedition to the same valley.
The sceptical view
Taylor's 1983 work in the Barun Valley showed that the Asian black bear can leave similar human-like prints, and most researchers now attribute the Cronin–McNeely tracks to a bear.
The researched reading
Real, fresh, well-photographed prints made by something walking past a scientists’ tent. A black bear walking over its own front tracks is the best fit; it remains one of the more honest pieces of yeti evidence.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 50% | Daniel Taylor’s later work in the same Barun valley showed that the Asian black bear places its hind foot partly over the front print, producing a human-like track with a big inner "toe"; fresh prints in soft snow fit that exactly. Genetic tests of supposed yeti samples have all returned bears or other known animals. |
| Undetermined | 15% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| An unknown or out-of-place animal | 14% | Two trained biologists photographed fresh prints made overnight beside their tent, which is better than most yeti evidence; an undescribed large mammal in a remote Himalayan valley is unlikely but not impossible. |
| A cultural story | 8% | The yeti tradition shaped how the prints were read; without it, the same tracks would probably have been logged as a bear. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | Sherpas or others could in principle have made prints at night, but there is no sign of motive and the biologists were careful. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 5% | The prints were real and photographed; perception played a part only in interpreting them. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 3% | Nothing about footprints requires more than an animal, known or unknown. |
Official position: No official investigation; most researchers now attribute the tracks to a bear following Taylor’s Barun valley studies.