Did yeti kill Russian skiers?

BIGFOOT: Shadowy pic of the mythical beast

THERE lies an icy peak in Russia’s northern Siberia called Kholat Syakhl – meaning ‘ The Mountain of the Dead’.

When a group of nine skiers went missing there in February 1959, rescuers feared the worst.

The local Mansi people speak of an Abominable Snowman – known as the ‘ menk’ – that haunts the area.

So when a search party stumbled upon a bloodcurdling scene of carnage, with broken bodies strewn across the wasteland, all signs pointed to this sinister Russian yeti.

All nine skiers had been slaughtered.

The deceased had suffered harrowing internal injuries, as if they’d been repeatedly bludgeoned – their bones snapped like twigs.

One doctor said it was “as if someone had hugged them, oh so tightly”.

The group’s tents had been ripped from the inside out – the doors remained fastened shut – as if they’d been desperately trying to flee an assailant.

The victims, including 23- year- old team leader Igor Dyatlov, were found strewn in a line for a third of a mile down the slope.

Some were partially naked, despite temperatures dipping to minus 24, while others had frantically dug a snow cave, hiding themselves from danger.

But it was the injuries to Lyudmilla Dubinina’s body that stopped researchers in their tracks, so gruesome they were in their nature.

The poor girl had also been viciously assaulted, but unlike the others her eyes and TONGUE were missing.

Had a yeti stalked the skiers as they’d hiked through a forest, and then set upon them during the dead of night, taking the girl’s soft internal organs as a snack?

Those who DID suspect a murderous mythical creature had every right to do so.

This remote region has long been associated with yeti sightings – beasts also known here as ‘ almas’ or ‘ almasti’.

In woods that throng with brown bear, lynx and wolverine, yetis are taken just as seriously as any other apex predators.

In 2011, the local government in Kemerovo announced plans to open a new scientific research institute to study the yeti.

And in May last year new evidence emerged from the 1959 incident that left researchers stunned…

A photo found in one of the victim’s cameras showed a shadowy, muscular figure peering out from the forest’s edge.

Did the skiers try to document the ‘ animal’ tailing them?

Whatever happened in those snowy wastelands, the official

Soviet investigator into the tragedy, Lev Ivanov, failed to offer any answers.

Meanwhile, the mountain was sealed off from visitors for the next four years.

However, that’s not the end of the story and yeti sightings in Siberia continue to this day.

Dr Igor Burtsev, Russia’s leading proponent of the Abominable Snowman, pores over the countless photos and videos appearing to show hulking beasts trudging through the tundra, often with yeti infants visible, too.