Not just yetis, but bigfoot too! Now Yetis and Bigfoots fall under the heading of cryptids and not so much conspiracy theories. The conspiracy part comes in later.
Let's be honest here. I love writing about Bigfoot. Maybe it was growing up in the 1970s when there was a surge in the popularity of Bigfoot sightings. But in any case, I have talked about them a lot here.
- Monstrous Monday: Bionic Bigfoot
- October Horror Movie Challenge: Night of the Demon
- Monstrous Mondays: Illinois Hominids
- Monstrous Monday: Sasquatch (BECMI Special)
- October Horror Movie Challenge: Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot
- #AtoZChallenge2021: Y is for Yeti, Almas
My introduction to RPGs was via monsters of myth and legend in the AD&D Monster Manual and while the Sasquatch was not originally there, the Yeti was.
With all these posts (and these are just the ones on the subject) you would think I have had said everything I can and...that is accurate. But I have not talked about the conspiracies surrounding these cryptids.
Conspiracy #1: The various governments are hiding the evidence of Bigfoot/Yetis for ... reasons.
I have seen this one in various books and websites and the one thing they all have in common is that there are no good reasons given for why the government would want to go through the efforts to hide it. The reason given is usually "to protect the population." But how this is supposed to happen is never very clear.
Conspiracy #2: All the bigfoot sightings are faked by a small group of fakers. This I am likely to believe except that I doubt they are organized in any way.
For NIGHT SHIFT
I do use Sasquatches, Bigfoots, and Yetis in my games. They might even outnumber regular animals in my games! Well not really. But close.
The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).
My first memory of yetis comes from Jonny Quest. Yeah, all the brown ones were just Commies in costumes, but the white one that we see at the end, the one that killed every faux-yeti that the kids didn't account for - that was clearly a "real" yeti.
ReplyDeleteBigfoot, of course, is an alien cyborg from the Six Million Dollar Man.
On the Rifftrax site I saw the movie "To Catch a Yeti" starring the late Meat Loaf which posits a sort of conspiracy theory that people might not have seen a Yeti because they're looking for a huge monster when in fact it's a weird, tiny thing with huge feet. That seems as reasonable as anything else really.
ReplyDeleteGreat! I´ve never thought about yetis in a D&D campaign, That should be quite interesting to see.
ReplyDeleteI remember that my cousins firmly believed as kids that an uncle that lived in Seattle had seen a sasquatch decades ago. sadly, there were no photos about that.
They're hiding evidence of bigfoot because they are actually extra-dimensional creatures that can phase between their reality and ours. I think this kinda makes into bouncers for the fairy realm? You can then combine that with the bigfoot-UFO stuff too for a... strange take on the X-Files.
ReplyDeleteHi Timothy! It doesn’t surprise me to hear that this is the subject of conspiracy theories. I can’t help thinking of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, which has great fun with them. Adam Young, the Anti Christ, insists that the government is hushing everything up, and War works for a conspiracy theory paper which, among other things, tells its readers that Elvis has been seen working s5 a fast food joint in Des Moines, Iowa(turns out he is!)
ReplyDeleteIt does make you wonder, doesn't it? How so many people can claim an encounter with a creature in so many places, yet there's no "concrete proof" it exists. Very curious. Unless that cover-up is real. But it would mean getting certain groups to agree to silence or to be mocked so they aren't taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteJ Lenni Dorner (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) ~ Co-host of the #AtoZchallenge, OperationAwesome6 Debut Author Interviewer, Reference& Speculative Fiction Author
Like I tell my kids. Never attribute to malice what ignorance and laziness will explain. People run into these "creatures" mostly because they have no idea what they are actually seeing. Most of the Yeti fur for example has been tested to be Asiatic Black Bears.
ReplyDeleteSome can't be bothered to do the proper due diligence that real research takes.
Others still make the claims because they want the attention.
Yeah, I can just about manage to be agnostic on whether there could possibly be large undiscovered apes in various remote parts of the world, but I simply cannot figure out why any government anywhere could possibly care less about hiding them! On the whole, they'd probably rather reveal them and bring in tourist dollars, or maybe send evil scientists to conduct tests on them, as you do, but why hide them?
ReplyDeleteY is for Yonder
I love the idea of Yetis and Bigfoot, but like you I don't see why the government would be motivated to cover up their existence. I think it's more likely that people have seen large bears or apes from a distance and let their imaginations run wild. I watched a documentary on Bigfoot once and people were convinced they had spotted one on some very grainy footage, but it looked like absolutely nothing to me. I'd love it to be true, though.
ReplyDelete