LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to Russian radio, scientists as far away as Canada, Sweden, Estonia, Mongolia and China have been invited to evaluate evidence of the creatures at a conference later this week. Very much like the Loch Ness sea monster and Bigfoot, the existence of the Yeti has never been proven.

Alleged sightings of Yetis in Kemerovo and the neighboring Altai region, about 1,988 miles east of Moscow have increased by the threefold over the past 20 years. Scientists estimate that there is a population of at least several dozen Yetis in the area.

Existence of the creatures, such as basic twig huts, twisted branches and footprints of up to 14 inches have been found in the area.

A group of scientists from the conference will be sent out to search the region's mountains to examine the evidence and try spot a Yeti. The expedition will be the first of its kind since 1958, when scientists from the Soviet Academy of Sciences scoured Western Siberia trying to catch a Yeti.

Igor Burtsev, who heads the Moscow-based International Center of Hominology, said, "When Homo sapiens started populating the world, it viciously exterminated its closest relative in the hominid family, Homo neanderthalensis. Some of the Neanderthals, however, may have survived to this day in some mountainous wooded habitats that are more or less off limits to their arch foes."

One of the earliest sightings of the Yeti was in 1925, when N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, writes that he saw a creature at about 15,000 ft near Zemu Glacier. Tombazi later wrote that he observed the creature from about 200 to 300 yards, for about a minute.

"Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes." About two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended the mountain and saw the creature's prints, described as "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide... The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped."

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