Yeti hunters have 3 simple rules from US government

Slate magazine has published a rare, 1959 memo from the US embassy in Nepal outlining the three rules for hunting Yeti.

Yes, abominable snowmen reputed to live high in the caves of the Himalayan Mountains.

Should you come across one, says the memo, here is what you do:

1. First, make sure to have your 5000 rupees permit to search for the reclusive creature, in Indian currency.

2. The Yeti must only be photographed or captured alive. You can’t kill the Yeti or even shoot at it unless in an “emergency arising out of self-defense.”

3. If you find it, you can’t leak it to the press. Your first point of reference is the Nepalese government.

The Foreign Service dispatch is dated Nov. 30, 1959 and signed by Ernest H. Fisk, counselor of the embassy.

Slate gave credit for its story to Mark Murphy of the National Archives.

It suggests the memo was more a “hat tip” to Nepal, which had authored a similar document a couple of years earlier.

Slate said the US embassy in Kathmandu had just opened, and reissuing Nepalese memos was probably a sign of good faith rather than acknowledgement Yetis existed.

Legend of the Yeti, which means “magical creature” in Nepalese, really takes hold in Western culture around about 1925, The UnMuseum says on its website.

It says a Greek photographer captured a grainy image from about 1,000 feet away.

“Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes,” NA Tombazi said, according to the website. “It showed up dark against the snow and, as far as I could make out wore no clothes.”

The legend sparked such fascination that even legendary mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, reported finding large tracks in the snow as they scaled Mount Everest in 1953.

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