Are Yeti and Chupacabra just someone's invention?

• How to distinguish a myth from a scientific hypothesis?
• What myths about cryptids are known and how to dispel them?
  • Myth 1. The Loch Ness monster
  • Myth 2. Chupacabra
  • Myth 3. Bigfoot (Yeti)

There is such a section of pseudoscience - cryptozoology. Its supporters are trying to prove that representatives of unique biological species live on Earth - they are called cryptids. But for some reason, official science does not want to admit that these mysterious animals are not fiction.

Why are researchers so sure that the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, the giant British cat, the Mothman, and other exotic creatures only live in our heads?

How to distinguish a myth from a scientific hypothesis?

In science there is the concept of falsifiability and non-falsifiability of any theory. This term has nothing to do with the ability to falsify the results of experiments or convince the scientific community of incorrect conclusions.

What is falsifiability? Falsifiability is the ability to demonstrably disprove a theory. For example, to conduct an experiment that will show under what conditions the hypothesis is true and where is the limit beyond which it stops working.

If a theory is not falsifiable, we can never prove or disprove it by scientific methods. An example is the existence of the resurrection stone in the Harry Potter saga. According to this theory, if no one has seen this object, it is impossible to say that it does not exist in nature.

Hermione, as a supporter of the scientific approach, says that this is absurd. After all, it is impossible to collect all the stones on the planet and check whether any of them is resurrecting. So the theory is unscientific. If someone does not agree, let him prove that the stone really exists, and not require to justify why it does not exist.

Scientists believe that falsifiability is a criterion for the scientific nature of any theory. And its absence is evidence of unscientific. If we return to our cryptozoological myths, we will see: scientists cannot look into all corners of the jungle, climb every mountain and catch all the animals there. And then check if they got a cryptid. Therefore, the theory of the existence of cryptids is not falsifiable, and therefore unscientific.

Expert’s opinion. “The burden of proof for such claims lies with those who make them, not the skeptics. Cryptozoological myths, as a rule, also suffer from a lack of falsifiability.”

The question arises who can be attributed to cryptids and how not to confuse them with insufficiently studied species.

Scientists have proposed several "criteria for fabulousness":
• The cryptid changes its appearance in a very short time. It is enough to study eyewitness accounts to conclude: the mythical animal looked completely different just a hundred, or even a dozen years ago. This time is not enough for evolutionary changes.
• The change in the appearance of the cryptid occurs after a significant cultural event, for example, after the release of a new film or publications about new scientific discoveries.
• Reports of a meeting with a cryptid are associated with the appearance of other, real animals. That is, it has been proved: in the area where many observers allegedly saw a cryptid, at that time the activity of animals of a different species increased.

What myths about cryptids are known all over the world and how to dispel them?

In some corners of the Earth there are local myths. For example, the legend of a huge British cat, which was allegedly seen in England and Ireland. Or the story of the Mothman in West Virginia, USA.

But there are cryptids that have been heard about in different parts of the Earth. The most famous are Nessie, or the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, or Bigfoot, and the Chupacabra, a monster from South America.

Let's try to apply the "criteria of fabulousness" in the analysis of the three most famous cryptozoological hoaxes.

Myth 1. The Loch Ness monster is a mysterious plesiosaur

People started talking about unknown water monsters back in the 19th century. Moreover, eyewitnesses spoke about their appearance in various reservoirs of the globe. Interestingly, the statue of Nessie, installed in the UK, is very similar to the sculpture of Issy, a Japanese water monster. These animals are separated by tens of thousands of kilometers, but the differences in their appearance are quite insignificant. However, this was not always the case.

It turns out that eyewitnesses reported that at the beginning of the 19th century, monsters looked like giant snakes. But by the end of the century, for some reason, they turned into aquatic dinosaurs.

Let's check our knowledge about them according to "mythological" criteria:

The change in appearance occurred in less than 100 years.

The transformation of the snake into a plesiosaur coincided with the discovery of aquatic dinosaurs. And with the advent of numerous publications in which there were photographs of the skeletons of fossil reptiles exhibited in museums. And also with illustrations by artists who tried to recreate the appearance of plesiosaurs.

“It turns out that monsters have grown their necks over the course of a century under the influence of some kind of cultural event. This is an indicator that they live only in our head.”

Myth 2. Chupacabra is an alien

This is a mysterious monster that allegedly attacks cattle in South America. It changed its appearance even faster - in just ten years.

In 1995, in Puerto Rico, there was a sudden wave of reports of terrible creatures that attack grazing animals and drink their blood. They were called chupacabra, which in Spanish means "sucking goats."

The first Chupacabras were described as follows: they are two-legged strong creatures that look like scary aliens with huge eyes and sharp teeth. But modern monsters somehow look like sick jackals. Or like coyotes and other animals that resemble wild dogs.

A huge wave of reports about chupacabra coincided with the release of the movie “Species”. Immediately after its premiere in Puerto Rico, there were stories about creepy monsters that are very similar to the main anti-hero. Or rather, the anti-heroine of the film named Seal. The Chupacabra had the same human-stranger figure and the same elongated head with large eyes.

But a decade later, the monsters got on all fours. Now they resemble jackals or coyotes - these animals do sometimes attack livestock. Interestingly, today reports of chupacabra attacks appear sporadically, and not massively, as in the nineties of the last century.

Myth 3. Bigfoot is a human-like primate

Scientists suggest that the numerous evidence of meetings with the Yeti are explained very simply. They take ordinary bears for Bigfoot.

In most people's minds, the Yeti is a tall, furry primate. But it is known that many bears can stand up on their hind legs. For example, baribal is a brown bear that lives in the United States.

These animals are not just able to rise on their hind legs. They are also able to move in this position - however, only for short distances. Then the bears get down on all fours again. But in fog or at night, it is quite possible to mistake a baribal hugging a tree trunk for a primate. And even for an unknown intelligent hominid.

Recently, an interesting work was published, which studied the statistics of the appearance of news about the Yeti. The study was conducted by data analyst Flo Foxon.

He found that in the United States, the frequency of reports of contacts with Bigfoot directly depends on the population density of the territory. This is understandable, because the more people, the more likely it is that one of them will see a yeti. But the main thing is that the number of news about such meetings depends on the size of the baribal population. More precisely, for every 900 baribals, there is one report of a meeting with a yeti. And the more bears, the more such meetings.

But scientists should have checked to see if the yetis live in other regions, for example, in Central Asia and Tibet. To do this, the researchers analyzed samples of fur - they were brought by people who talked about meetings with Bigfoot. It turned out that all of it belongs to well-known and well-researched species - raccoons, dogs, and many other animals. But most often among the samples that were offered by eyewitnesses for genetic analysis, there was bear hair.

You can apply the well-known "duck test", which says: if someone looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, this probably is a duck. And if we see a creature that looks like a bear on its hind legs and is covered with bear hair, we can safely assume that we are dealing with a bear.

So the simple criteria that we talked about above help us distinguish a fairy tale from the truth.