: On this episode of "Destination Truth,"
Josh travels to one of the world's
most isolated nations,
the Kingdom of Bhutan,
following an outbreak of recent sightings of the Yeti,
known the world over as the "Abominable Snowman."
The team made international headlines
when they discovered a massive footprint
high in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal.
GATES: That is a huge footprint!
I don't even know what to say about that.
NARRATOR: Tonight, the hunt for the Yeti continues
as Gates and company embark
on an arduous 10-day expedition...
Go!
across this unspoiled wilderness
and capture evidence that might just close the books
on the legend of the Yeti.
It's moving! It's up there! Go, go, go!
Hold on!
GATES: I'm Josh Gates.
In my travels, I've seen some unexplainable things,
and I've done some things I can't quite explain.
Aah!
Now I've pulled together a team
armed with the latest technology
in the search for answers to the world's strangest mysteries.
I'm not sure what's out there waiting for me,
but I know what I'm looking for —
the truth.
Sightings of Bigfoot and his descendants
are reported around the world
as often as I google my own name.
Scratching off our own list,
we've already conducted investigations
into the Malaysian Bigfoot,
the Yowie in Australia
and the Yeti in Nepal,
which remains one of the most brazen adventures
in "Destination Truth" history...
[ Gasps ] Oh, my God!
and also yielded our best evidence to date.
Are you kidding me?
I'm not kidding!
After countless fan requests to continue the search,
as well as our own nagging unanswered questions,
we've decided to dig into the mystery
of the elusive Himalayan beast once more.
Our plan was to head east
from our original investigation site in Nepal
to the Kingdom of Bhutan,
where in the country's easternmost province,
Yeti sightings run rampant.
Known locally as the Migoi, he's so popular that the country
has dedicated an unprecedented official preserve
for the all-but-invisible creature in a national park,
a place where the Yeti can live and thrive tax-free
on government land.
This, I had to check out.
We collected hundreds of scattershot eyewitness reports
and then entered only the consistent
descriptions into our software.
Sightings of the Yeti occur in the remote valleys
of eastern Bhutan,
around caves, rivers, and dense woods.
Though he's classically depicted by many locals
as having reddish-brown hair, late-20th-century reports
evolved to tales of thick white fur covering his body,
blending him into his snowy surroundings.
But unwavering are the reported 24-inch footprints
he is said to leave behind.
Other descriptions include menacing fang teeth,
large piercing eyes
and a low-set forehead, similar to a male gorilla.
Though he's sometimes called the Abominable Snowman,
most eyewitness reports actually occur in warmer months,
when locals believe the creature forages for food.
With mild weather forecasted, this was the perfect window
for an investigation.
With tickets in hand, we packed our trekking gear
and made for the airport.
We boarded a flight in Los Angeles bound for Bangkok
and then on to the one and only airport servicing
Bhutan in the city of Paro.
Putting down a plane in Yeti territory is no easy task.
Only two planes in the world fly here,
and the only runway is nestled
between the peaks of the Himalayas.
With Everest in the distance, we descended into the most
remote international airport in the world.
[ Tires screech ]
WOMAN: Welcome to Bhutan, ladies and gentlemen.
Bhutan may be a land of peace and love,
but after a 17-hour flight,
we found the hopeful movement a little hard to follow.
Our translator greeted us with traditional scarves,
and since he would be accompanying us
on our long journey,
we were encouraged by his name.
Great. Good karma, this guy.
Good karma.
♪
From the airport in Paro,
we headed to the capital city of Thimphu.
Often referred to as the last Shangri-La,
Bhutan remains one of the most closed-off nations on Earth.
Television did not exist here until 1999,
and access to the country is strictly controlled
and must be arranged by invitation only.
I was honored to be granted access to explore here.
Walking around the capital, we thought we'd struck pay dirt
at a local restaurant.
Do you have a Yeti?
Okay, false alarm.
False alarm.
Turned out finding the Yeti was going to take more
than simply perusing a menu.
We travelled across town to the king's palace,
which is also the nation's administrative nerve center.
Perplexing to outsiders,
Bhutan's government measures the country's "GNH,"
or gross national happiness,
which actually measures and maintains
the general good vibe of its citizens.
So happy.
We smiled our way over to
the Nature Conservation Division,
responsible for creating the Yeti preserve.
Considering over a third of the entire country of Bhutan
is dedicated to national parks,
there is an immense amount of wilderness here,
and the distant area of Sakteng
is considered the epicenter of Yeti belief.
Many of the local people in Sakteng do believe in the Yeti.
And do you believe in the Yeti?
Are they afraid of it?
Before we left, he wanted to show me
the impressive collection of Yeti footprints
he proudly displays.
I've seen a few of these in my day.
These are all from Sakteng?
Boy, this guy is really freaking me out.
Mm-hmm.
Living among these dangerous predators,
it's only natural that the nation's
favorite pastime is archery.
I put down my investigator's cap for a minute
to get a lesson in this meticulous sport.
I'm going to try not to shoot you in the neck.
Let's go. Okay.
♪
And it's okay if I shoot the birds?
No?
Well, they shouldn't be on the archery field, then.
Yeah, this is we know when you're really a true...
Where'd it go?
Yes!
God, you're good.
Down there — way down there.
GATES: The Bhutanese kids are laughing at me.
They don't have to laugh.
Like to see them come to America and play Xbox.
[ Chuckles ]
Okay, so I wasn't going to qualify
for the U.S. Olympic team.
My team and I continued on the trail of the Yeti
and caught up with a local author
who collected various stories
about the creature for her book about him.
And so what prompted you to write a book on the Yeti?
We grow up without ever questioning
the existence of the Yeti.
We knew it was there, as old as the Himalayas.
Where do people typically believe the Yeti lives?
It's always at very high altitudes,
mostly in caves,
or they even sort of kind of make nests.
That's what they believe. In the forest?
Yes, in the forest.
And so why are people so terrified of the Yeti, though?
What are they afraid of?
You can be killed — physically killed.
You can be killed by it? Yeah.
We set out from the capital,
but the journey ahead would not be an easy one.
With no internal flights or helicopters here,
we would travel 17 hours across the winding,
mountainous roads of Bhutan to Trashigang.
From there, we would continue with a two-day hike up
to the Yeti preserve in Sakteng
where we would camp and investigate recent reports.
As we ventured away from the city,
it became clear that Bhutan's self-imposed isolation
has allowed this country to remain a wild paradise.
Beyond the Buddhist temples and prayer flags,
the forests here conceal populations
of elephants, tigers
and many small primates,
and I wondered if any of these animals
could be mistaken for the Yeti.
A Yeti sighting is sometimes described
as a spiritual experience,
and we stopped at a monastery along our route
to speak with a monk who claims
to have heard the creature's call.
[ Speaking Dzongkha ]
And what is the sound that people hear?
How do they describe it?
[ Howls ] [ Speaking Dzongkha ]
Along with the sound of a Yeti,
I also heard a more familiar sound.
[ Cellphone rings ] Oh, sorry.
Did that monk's cell phone just go off?
[ Laughter ] Even here,
in the very last refuge against the modern world,
free nights and weekends are still a big draw.
We had more than 400 miles of single-lane
winding mountain roads still ahead of us,
and I was beginning to feel road-weary
until I came across a Bhutanese school bus
or, should I say, school dump truck,
full of kids who reminded me to just be happy.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
♪
Once darkness and fog had set in over the twisting roads,
we were keenly aware that, at any moment,
we could be visited by a roaming tiger or a wild bear,
not to mention, a hungry Yeti.
What we were visited by, however,
we could never have anticipated.
What... Oh, boy.
Oh!
A-And I'm under attack.
Um...
Top 10 things that you don't want to run into
in the middle of the night in a road,
a guy dressed like a dragon shooting fire at you.
We had stumbled upon a roving ceremony
to ward off evil creatures and spirits
and, apparently, to incinerate clothing.
MIKE: Oh, they like Gabe.
Gabe, they must really think you're evil, man.
I feel really warm right now, for some reason.
[ Indistinct chanting ]
[ Laughter ]
Oh, you're on fire!
Dude lit me on fire.
Incredibly rare to witness, this amazing roadside ritual
illustrated for us the sheer power of belief here,
and as the fire throwers
continued their quest for the Yeti,
we sought out accommodations for the night.
♪
In the morning, the lodge owner here,
aware of our expedition,
let us examine a family heirloom,
bones that she said were the vertebrae of a Yeti.
It's okay if I touch?
[ Speaking Dzongkha ]
As these had been passed down for generations,
she was unwilling to part with such personal relics,
but she did allow them to be documented through photographs
for a specialist in the states to analyze later.
There was no doubt that the bones
were that of a very large creature.
But a Yeti? Time would tell.
Before we pressed on, I wondered if our host
could offer any advice
on enticing a Yeti out for a visit.
Oh, then I'm all set. I'm filthy.
I haven't showered in days.
We still had miles to go on our drive to Trashigang
into our hike into the Sakteng Yeti preserve,
but what seemed like a never-ending car ride
was about to come to a screeching halt.
Oh, this doesn't look good at all.
Well, that might be the end of the Jeep.
- What are we going to do? - I don't know. Let's look at it.
♪
Guys, we're walking from here.
Before departing on our journey,
we heard that this single-lane road
to Sakteng is often flooded out,
so like any good adventurer, I came prepared.
Dry tops on for sure, guys.
This water is like ice.
You're like a Lego figure, Bicha.
Go!
Here we go!
As we came upon rough waters,
our expedition almost lost a member of the team.
- Forward! - Forward!
GATES: We rushed downstream
and tried to stay afloat in the uncharted rapids.
Having closed in on the edge of the park,
we pulled into an eddy, just happy to be alive.
- Ow! - Woo-hoo!
After a few miles of hiking on the road along the river,
we discovered a small village.
The locals greeted us kindly,
and we chartered their pack horses
to carry the load of our equipment
the rest of the way to the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary.
After two days of driving, an impromptu rafting expedition,
and a full day of hiking mountain trails,
we had finally arrived in Yeti territory,
in the midst of 300 square-miles
of preserved wilderness.
Targeting events from both news accounts
and our own local interviews,
these densely forested valleys
of the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary
have seen numerous recent Yeti reports by local farmers.
We unloaded our horses and set to work
at constructing a base camp in an open field
near the most clustered sightings.
We strung out four infrared cameras
for reconnaissance and to provide
a safe perimeter for our camp.
Further out, trap cameras would be hidden on game trails
and would begin firing photos
at anything moving in the darkness.
We know that we're in the area where eyewitnesses
have reported encounters with the Yeti,
so I think what we'll do is,
I'll go out on an initial sweep with Mike and Evan.
Mike, Evan and I headed upstream beyond our camera perimeter
to do an outlying sweep of the valley
with the thermal imager.
Bicha, Jael and Gabe began to explore
the areas adjacent to our camp.
Oh, no, I got something. - You got something?
GATES: I got something on the FLIR:
It's across the river, whatever it is.
Come on. There's got to be a way across it.
There's an old bridge here, Mike.
EVAN: [ Chuckling ] Oh. Are you kidding me?
Look at this. Look at these floorboards.
How far down are we gonna fall if we drop?
50 feet, 80 feet.
This is insane.
♪
Oh, wow.
[ Shouts ] Dude! Dude!
[ Gates Shouts ] Dude! Dude! Dude!
Ow! Ow! You okay?
Car— Don't stand right there. Okay.
The whole floorboard just came out.
Are you okay, though? Are you okay right there? I'm fine. I'm fine.
[ Groans ]
Thing just busted right out.
Oh, my God, dude.
Okay, let's take this one step at a time.
Hear that? What? What'd you hear?
That's something.
Bicha... What?
I think I just heard growling.
What if it's a big cat or something?
[ Rustling ] Whoa!
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Bicha! Bicha!
What was that?
Shh.
Bicha, I'm freaked out.
Something ran over here.
You saw something?
I don't know, but it just ran right through here.
Look at this. What?
Come here and check this out.
Oh, my God.
Yeah. There's hair on this tree.
Something definitely came through here.
We should snap a couple of photos.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'll get this kit loaded up.
Hopefully, this will come to something.
Let's walk down a little further down there.
What is that? I don't know.
Definitely looks like scratch marks right there.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
It looks like four fingers.
Well, the rest of the tree
doesn't have any markings like it.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's crazy.
GATES: Whatever I saw on the other side of this river
was pretty big.
We should stay on it. Hopefully, we get lucky.
Here's a cave here. MIKE: Oh, yeah.
Look at the overhang on that thing.
If I was a Yeti, that wouldn't be a bad place to live.
Doesn't look too extensive.
Keep an eye out for animal tracks, Mike.
Something might have come up here.
Be really careful, Mike. Okay.
Lots of big things live in caves.
♪
Be very careful.
Lots of poisonous spiders in here.
I got some old cave art in here.
Oh, wow! See that?
Whole ceiling is covered in it.
Well, people have been in here.
Now, we know that.
Oh, yeah.
No Yeti, though.
All right. Let's hustle back out.
Which way?
I thought you knew the way?
Well, yeah, we crossed that bridge.
Now, I don't know where base camp is?
We need to track back across the river at some point.
That goes towards the river.
That kind of is like the middle road,
and that goes up the mountain.
That goes to the Yeti's house.
Let's go towards the Yeti's house.
Let's go.
Josh for base camp. Come in, base camp.
Base camp, do you copy me?
Are we out of range?
We're going to have to get back across this river
and make our way back to them
'cause we're starting to get really far out of range.
What the... What is that?
It sounds like it's coming from the ridge above this trail.
♪
- Oh. - Whoa.
Something moved right there.
I mean, that sounded really close, Josh.
Do you see anything?
Okay, let's just keep going forward.
God, that's just... There's no way through it.
It is. It's a big thicket.
There's no way we're getting through here.
There's an animal trail back down there, Mike.
Let's just track along the trail,
see if we can just keep pace with it.
Maybe it's just moving laterally.
Going back down. Yep.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
Careful!
You okay?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm all right.
Whatever it is moved off.
Let's just take the animal trail.
We'll follow it along. Maybe we catch it.
All right. All right. Ears open, ears and eyes open.
Let's go. Come on.
I got nothing on the FLIR:
Nothing, huh? No.
Whatever we saw moved off, and I got no sign of it.
This is just about the only trail it could've come through.
Yeah. And I don't think anything is climbing up these sheer cliffs.
It's so dense, too. Look at how thick it is.
We are a speck in this landscape, nothing more.
It's just huge.
MIKE: You'd be hacking through it forever.
That's actually worse than the last bridge.
This is a bridge that was built when dragons ruled the Earth.
♪
Josh for base camp. Come in.
Go for base camp. Just to let you know,
we found a way back across the river.
We're now on the same side as you.
We're headed back toward base camp.
Whatever we saw and heard in the jungle moved off.
I had a brief image of it on the thermal imager
and a noise that I think we have clean audio on,
but we lost it after that.
We're headed to camp now.
SHARRA: Copy that.
- Wow! - That was an epic sweep.
GATES: The good news is, we found our way across the river,
saw something really weird on the thermal imager,
some large animal across the bank,
chased it down, definitely not a yak,
definitely not a horse.
It was something large, something close.
I mean, it sounds like you had close encounters back here, too.
Yeah, we definitely did.
We got hair sample and this amazing claw on a tree,
something that matched the eyewitness description,
just big claw marks that they said they leave on trees.
Jael, why don't you come with me on a sweep?
You can at least show me the area where you guys
collected that evidence.
Mike, Evan... All right.
you guys come with. Let's get back out there.
Then, maybe if it was fresh,
we can catch sight of whatever was there.
It's pretty dense in here, guys.
Watch your step. There's a lot of mossy rocks.
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
What was that?
♪
Whoa! Whoa!
JAEL: What? Shh, shh. Animal, animal, animal.
♪
Whoa! Whoa!
JAEL: What? Shh, shh. Animal, animal, animal.
Something just walked right through those trees.
Did it look big?
Yeah. What'd it look like?
I don't know. It was just behind the trees.
I couldn't get its shape,
but it was right behind the tree on this side,
and then it just cruised right by.
Do we have any weapons?
Well, what if it's a freaking tiger?
I don't... What kind of weapon
are you going to use against a tiger?
I don't know. A bazooka?
[ Scoffs ]
♪
Eyes wide open. Be really careful.
MIKE: Okay.
GATES: Move, move, move! Really, animal!
[ Panting ]
Oh, my God.
Let's just very carefully see if we can figure out what it was.
I can hear it on the boom.
I heard it. [ Roaring in distance ]
That was definitely a roar.
I got it clean. I heard it clean.
That way. That way. That way.
Whatever we heard moved off, either upstream or down.
At least we have a great thermal hit,
and we have the audio recording.
Let's head back to base camp.
All right, guys, we've got a couple hours left
until daylight, but we should get some rest
'cause we've got another big day of hiking tomorrow.
Cameras on record and everybody into the tents.
It had been a long journey and a physical investigation.
I am beat.
We saw something on our thermal imager,
which moved off to the east.
We also heard noises and collected
potentially exciting evidence.
Exhausted, we stopped down in the predawn hours
for much-needed rest ahead
of the next phase of our expedition.
I got to start looking for monsters in Hawaii.
This is ridiculous.
♪
Our first investigation in Sakteng was full of intrigue.
Our plan was to continue hiking east
for nearly a full day to higher altitudes
and into the heart of the Yeti preserve.
Here, in rocky canyons, additional eyewitness reports
had been steadily rising.
After endless hours on the trail,
we came upon a small cluster of buildings.
How are you?
Good to see you. I got some bad news for you.
I'm not sure you want to go that way.
Nobody listens.
Parched after our long hike,
salvation appeared nearby in the form of the world's
most inconveniently-located convenience store.
I will have an iced venti mochaccino.
JAEL: And I'll have a caramel macchiato, please.
And no whip on both.
[ Woman speaking Dzongkha ]
No? You don't have that? The machine is broken?
Oh, no. Okay.
Well, then I'll have this plastic whistle
and this terrifying rusty knife
and this entire container of super fruit gum —
together.
They didn't have exactly what I was looking for,
but since this was the last village
on our way up the mountain,
I tried to find something to snack on.
Crack crackers — sweety salty.
Well, that's just confusing.
Stocked up, we followed the sound of chanting
from a nearby monastery and couldn't resist the call.
[ Indistinct chanting ]
Sitting in on this Buddhist prayer ceremony,
we absorbed the tradition and peacefulness
that has come to define Bhutan.
We left in high spirits, and back on the trail,
I made a botanical discovery.
And I think I just figured out
why these people are so happy all the time.
It's growing everywhere.
And we hiked on to meet a farmer with a Yeti tale to tell.
He told me that, several years ago,
a Yeti ransacked his village.
[ Speaking Dzongkha ]
Okay, so there were some casualties?
Yes.
What does the Yeti look like?
[ Speaking Dzongkha ]
The farmer explained that if we continue traveling east,
we would find a river where his people believe
the creature lives.
♪
Unfortunately, to continue that way
would require some special skills.
Oh, boy.
Sharra?
SHARRA: Yeah?
Climbing gear.
Go for it.
We unloaded our gear and descended
into the untouched canyons of eastern Bhutan.
Oh, God. There better be a Yeti down here.
I'll tell you that.
There's a ledge to the left.
♪
Okay! I'm down!
Looking great, Sharra.
Yeah, you're two-thirds of the way.
Plant your feet apart, about shoulder width apart.
[ Screams ]
GATES: It's okay. She's okay.
♪
Okay to jump.
[ Cheering ]
Oh, my God. Look. The end of the rope.
- Wow! - [ Laughs ]
GATES: Safely on the ground,
we continued our trek without our beasts of burden.
This was a lot easier with horses.
Almost to the top of the Sakteng Sanctuary,
we came across a farmer who told us
just where to look for the creature.
So you had a first-hand experience with the Yeti, yes?
Where exactly were they when they saw it?
[ Speaking Dzongkha ]
This area was the focal point of numerous reports,
and we set up camp adjacent to the rocky canyon
and deployed a similar camera arsenal
in an attempt to image whatever the locals were seeing.
One of the nice things about tonight
is that we have a fairly linear trajectory
of where we're going to investigate.
We're going to look upriver,
and we're going to look downriver.
This pass is the area
where this creature has been spotted.
They say it comes down to this river at night to drink,
and people passing through this area at night
have seen the animal.
So I'm going to take a sweep team upriver.
Jael, Evan and Mike, you'll come with me.
Bicha, you'll lead a team downriver with Gabe.
Let's get into, guys. Let's go.
- All right. - All right!
♪
Josh, there's a big cave over here!
Wow! That is a big cave.
There could be anything in there.
Well, that's what the thermal imager is here for.
Okay, we got to be really careful here.
Careful is my middle name, Jael.
Unfortunately, my last name is reckless.
Look at all these branches.
They look like they were placed here, Josh.
It does. It looks like a nesting area.
It certainly fits with the eyewitness descriptions
that the Yeti, they say,
tears down branches to sleep on.
Okay, let's go through all this, see if we can find
any material remains of any kind.
Oh, wait. Right here. Right here. What do you got? What do you got?
What is it? Oh, wow.
It's hair. Something was on this nest.
For sure. Sleeping here.
Okay. Well, let's take this back to the lab,
see what we got.
It's definitely a good find.
Moving on.
[ Beeping ]
GATES: Thermal is clear.
I'm going in.
Looks like there's an upper chamber up here —
hard to get to, but it continues up there.
This looks like a lower tunnel.
All right, Jael... What?
I'm going to go try to get up the high tunnel.
You check out the low tunnel. We'll meet back here.
Nobody gets eaten by a Yeti.
We can't plan that, Josh.
But if I say it, I sound like I'm safety-conscious.
Got you. I'll see you back here.
Okay. Okay?
All right.
Here we go.
JAEL: This looks like a really small spot to crawl through.
All right.
It's really tight in here.
I'm not quite sure if a Yeti would be able to fit.
I'm not really seeing any evidence of anything
that's been living in this little crevice.
Jael for Josh.
Go for Josh.
I just found a little chamber inside the cave.
I crawled through to try and see
if I could find any evidence of any animals,
but I've come out on the other side,
and it seems like it's a dead end, so I'm going to head back.
[ Grunts ]
Okay. God, it's narrow —
narrow and scary.
[ Breathing heavily ]
It's pretty tight.
The chamber is just all petered out.
I think I'm the only thing that's been up here
for a long time.
I'm coming back down.
Okay, guys. Let's keep moving.
♪
What? What? What? What? What? What? What?
What? What? What?
What? What? What? What?
What? What? What?
Ew, I got the chills right now.
I could've swore I saw an eye up there.
Bicha for base camp.
Gabe just saw something and is going up the cliff right now,
chasing whatever it was.
REX: Copy that, Bicha.
I don't see it anymore!
GABE: Yeah.
I guess just stay here for a minute.
I'll go check it out.
All right? Yep.
♪
Gabe, is everything all right?
Yeah!
All right. I'll meet you down there.
All right. Cool.
All right.
GATES: We got caves.
We got the river where the creature has been sighted,
and we're in a national park named for the Yeti.
I don't know how much more I can do to get up close
to where this animal is supposed to live.
Animal, animal!
Animal, animal, animal. There it is! There it is!
You see something? Right there!
Oh, my God.
It's on the backside of that rock.
It just came up a second ago.
I mean, it was huge, Jael, and it moved. Are you kidding me?
It moved right across there. Are you kidding me?
What if it's a bear or something?
Whatever that was that just popped up
was not a cow or a yak.
That thing was moving, and it was big.
And it was big. It just —
But it sounds farther back now.
I know. I think it's moving off. Come on.
You guys, I don't think we should go for the bear.
I don't see it, though. Whatever it is, I don't see it.
It's moving! Go, go, go!
[ Panting ]
This way. Come on. This way.
Josh for base camp. Come in. REX: Josh, go ahead.
We just saw something incredible on the thermal imager.
We're trying to chase it down now.
I don't know what it was.
It was certainly as big as a Yeti.
It scrambled up a hill.
I think that we're actually in pursuit of it right now.
I don't think it has anywhere to go.
We're just trying to chase it down.
Copy that, Josh. You guys, be real careful.
Whatever it is, it could turn on you.
Camera guy's trying to catch up.
Okay.
Look at this.
That's the leg of a deer.
And it's been broken off.
The pull bone has been snapped off.
It's fresh, too.
That thing just got snapped off,
like, straight... just popped.
Whatever this thing is, it's ripping up animals in its path,
so let's just go ahead with a lot of caution.
I mean, I can hear the river.
Let's at least get down to the river and see what it is.
I can hear the river getting closer.
Wow. Yeah.
JAEL: That's a huge drop, Josh.
It's, like, a 200-foot drop down to the river.
Well, whatever we heard was breaking rocks
down here somewhere. Yeah.
That just looks like sheer walls.
There's a trail or something I can see right there.
See it? It's, like, a trail.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, do you think it went through here?
Yeah, this is where we heard. It sounded like it was right down here somewhere.
I mean, it sounded like it was pushing rocks down,
tumbling down this way.
I got it. Got it? You got it?
I got it. I got it right there.
We got to get across this thing. Go. Come on.
Let's go. I'm not going to lose this thing again.
Come on.
That side doesn't look any better.
It just looks completely sheer,
like a steep cliff.
I got a structure. I got a structure. MIKE: What?
JAEL: Where? I got a bridge.
It's just down here.
It's a bridge.
That is not a bridge.
That is a terrifying bucket of death.
Josh, there's no way I'm getting in that thing.
Pins look new. The bolts look good.
I don't know about the wire, but I looks thick and strong.
[ Rattling ]
Unh-unh.
No way.
It's got to give a little.
Jael, want to go for a ride? Are you kidding me?
Oh, come on. Get in it.
Let's go. Come on.
Oh, my God.
♪
This is crazy. Are you ready?
No.
Whoa.
[ Groans ]
Oh, my God.
We stopped. We stopped in the middle.
Wh— Wh— What?
We stopped. We stopped in the middle.
Wh— Wh— What?
I'm gonna pull it over. It's a pulley system.
It's on a wire — I can pull it.
This maybe wasn't the best, thought-out idea
I've ever had.
I can see the other side.
I got it.
It's uphill [Grunting] a little bit.
♪
And we're there. We're over a ledge now.
Just kick the gate open, jump out, and hold the cart.
Okay, I'm getting out.
I'll jump out and grab.
I need you to hold it for a second, okay?
Okay. Just hold on to it.
[ Gate rattling ]
Okay. I got it. I got it. I got it.
Okay. I got it. I got it.
You are insane.
You know that, right?
I got to get one of these things.
Come on, we got a thermal hit to chase.
Let's go.
Whatever was over here,
I don't see it.
This doesn't look good up here.
Get across this and you slip, you're going to die.
You're going to go down there,
and you're not going to come out of it again.
It's a sheer cliff over there! Uh...
Look at it! Whoa!
That's it!
Yeti or not, it's gone.
Really careful, let's get back down here.
We got to head back to base camp.
We got nothing up here. We're at a dead end.
♪
GATES: Having come to a dead end and having been outmaneuvered
by whatever large animal we were tracking,
we regrouped at camp.
We let our cameras roll out for the night
and rested in preparation
for a four-day journey back to Western Bhutan.
We then flew safely through the passes of the Himalayas
and back to Los Angeles, where we took our
photographic vertebrae evidence to Dr. Jim Dines
of the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History
to find out the origin of these venerated bones.
Hey, good to see you. Good to see you, as well.
How you doing? Pretty good.
I've been looking at the photos that you sent me.
Based on these, can you make some sort of determination
as to what these vertebrae came from?
First of all, I determined that it was a lumbar vertebra,
so that's the lower backbone from a mammal.
Could these vertebrae be human?
The bones depicted in the photographs
are way too big to be from a human.
Having delved into the museum's collection,
do these vertebrae line up with anything in the collection?
Actually, they do.
This bone that I'm holding up is from an American black bear,
and if we hold it up to the photograph,
you can see it matches up
almost exactly with the photographs,
which isn't to say the photo is of an American black bear,
but there is such a thing as an Asian black bear.
It's about the same size as an American black bear.
Okay, so we don't have a Yeti on our hands?
I'm afraid to tell you we do not have a Yeti on our hands.
♪
And what of the hair sample we recovered in Bhutan?
Would it also turn out to be that of a known animal?
To find out, I hopped on a plane and headed for Houston, Texas.
♪
Here, in the Lone Star State, I drove due east
to the DNA Diagnostics Forensics Lab
in the slightly out-of-the-way town
of Timpson — that is if I could find Timpson.
How could there be less towns in Texas than in Bhutan?
Am I in the west or the Old West right now?
I finally sat down with Dr. Melba Ketchum,
an experienced forensic analyst
who had been working on the hair samples
we collected in Bhutan.
I didn't think we would have anything
to talk about here, to be honest.
I was just going to rule out Yeti and be done with it.
I submitted the sequence that we obtained
from this hair sample
to a large international database
that scientists use to deposit their sequence data.
Well, at first, I was very skeptical
because we've had these things come into our lab in the past,
and they've never panned out to be anything interesting.
However, this sample did test very clearly on
the human panel of markers.
That makes it a primate,
and it makes it a large primate.
And how are we sure that it isn't just
human contamination
or that it's just DNA from human hair?
The hair, visually, is not human.
It's coarser than horse-tail hair.
What she told me next seemed unbelievable.
Initial searches indicate that it's an unknown sequence.
There are literally millions of sequences in this database,
and we're really shocked to find that
it didn't match any of the species
exactly on the database.
What would be required in order for us to say,
from a DNA standpoint, the Yeti is a real animal?
If we're going to prove that there potentially
is a new species
with this first hair sample here,
we really need more hair samples like it,
and once you establish there's a group of animals,
that will go a long ways toward proving that
there is a new species, indeed.
There are no large primates in Bhutan,
and the doctor's belief that we may well
have tangible evidence of an unknown animal
is a major development in this story
and, potentially, a huge find for my team.
We were emboldened by the doctor to continue our search,
knowing that this discovery adds yet another page
to a growing body of evidence that suggests that
somewhere in part of the last truly untouched
wilderness on Earth,
a distant relative of the human race
may still be alive
and waiting to be discovered.