Yeti and Bigfoot Seeker Peter Byrne Dies
by Loren Coleman, Director, Worldwide Cryptozoology Museum
The Abominable Snowmen and Bigfoot hunter, Peter C. Byrne has died, on the age of 97, on Friday, in response to one report, at round midday, however extra particularly, at 4:44 PDT, on July 28, 2023. He lived a protracted and devoted life, in pursuit of cryptozoological topics, and achieved what few may think about, routinely discovering sponsorships for his trying to find Yeti and North American Sasquatch, for nearly six many years. On the finish of his life, within the early 2000s, Byrne retired to a modest dwelling on a salmon-filled river close to Pacific Metropolis, Oregon, after some rocky years of controversial moments that won’t distract from his legacy.
Herewith is a ultimate tribute and detailed remembrance of the well-known explorer.
Peter Byrne in Nepal, 1958, throughout his Tom Slick-sponsored quest for the Yeti within the late Fifties.
Early Days of Peter Byrne
Peter Cyril Byrne was born in Dublin, Eire, on August 22, 1925, to an Irish father and an English mom. His father owned a beneficiant 300 acre Irish farm the place Peter grew up, looking and fishing. He graduated from college, and in 1943, Byrne went on to serve in World Conflict II. He enlisted within the Royal Air Pressure and was stationed on an island within the Indian Ocean piloting rescue boats initially designed after WWI by Thomas Edward Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia” (1888-1935). Within the south Asia struggle theater, Byrne was promoted to Main Aircraftman, incomes private honors and three marketing campaign metals.
Enter Tom Slick
After his service, Byrne got here to work on a tea plantation in northern India within the late Forties; he opened Nepal’s first tiger looking concession (on the finish of his life, he helped shield them) and shortly discovered himself nose to nose with tales concerning the Abominable Snowman or Yeti. In 1956, after a few years and not using a trip, from a job which many individuals would contemplate a working trip, Byrne requested go away from the tea plantation for a trek to Zongri, Sikkim, an Indian state on the east boundary of Nepal. There he realized a lot concerning the Yeti and decided to seek for the mysterious creature, which was stated to descend in winter to villages and howl within the night time.
1956 proved a really productive 12 months for Peter. Once more, with an official allow, he trekked deep into Sikkim the place he met Tenzing Norgay, who in 1953, crested Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. They grew to become associates. As soon as whereas they have been speaking, Tenzing informed Peter one thing that might form his life for many years. Amazingly, and fortuitously, earlier that summer time Tenzing had met one other American who was wandering in the hunt for the Yeti. Tenzing stated the man left a notice together with his spouse and that Peter was welcome to see it.
Again in Tenzing’s Darjeeling dwelling, Peter visited Mrs. Norgay. “After all,” she remembered the very good American who wished to know concerning the Yeti, and purchase a few of their Lhasa Apso puppies. She produced “a scrap” of paper with this notice: “Thom Slick, c/o The Nationwide Financial institution of Commerce, San Antonio, Texas.”
Then in 1957, Tom Slick agreed to Peter Byrne’s proposal for a Yeti expedition and arrived in Nepal for a one month reconnaissance with Peter. It started on St. Patrick’s Day, as did different of Slick’s treks.
After a month of mountaineering about, together with a bus-related knee accident, Slick (and particularly his mom) had sufficient of Nepal, and Slick returned to the oil fields in Oklahoma and Texas. Nonetheless, Slick funded Byrne’s lengthy expeditions in 1958 and 1959 for the seek for the Yeti. Slick requested detailed stories on work effort and {dollars} spent. These years unhappily resulted in no pictures or physique of a Yeti.
By the tip of the Fifties, Byrne’s three-year mission to hunt and observe down the Yeti got here to an finish.
I documented these expeditions by Tom Slick, and Peter Byrne’s involvement in them in two books printed in 1989 and 2002.
The Slick-Johnson expeditions, which Byrne was a member, discovered footprints and a mummified hand in a monastery. Byrne took the Pangboche finger and changed it with a human finger; the finger was examined and located to be someplace between human, gorilla and chimpanzee, however the finger was supposedly misplaced. The creature remained shrouded within the blowing Himalayan snow.
Then the hunt shifted from Nepal to the Pacific Northwest.
The Texas oil and beef millionaire Tom Slick favored to be in charge of every little thing. In California, and shortly in British Columbia, whereas Slick was the “chief” and Titmus was the “subject chief” or “deputy chief,” the pull of Slick’s different obligations distracted him from the hunt. Slick wanted somebody he knew to be in cost, and that somebody was Peter Byrne, who had been his level man within the Yeti hunt.
Byrne, Irish-born, refined, a dashing and profitable large sport hunter of tiger and elephant in India and Nepal, had discovered his first Yeti print in 1948 in Sikkim. He had first met Tom Slick in a valley within the Himalayas in 1956, and had grown to know Slick via their shared love of journey, ladies, and an analogous life-style. He had headed Slick’s slightly profitable searches for Yeti in 1957, 1958, and 1959, which had found tracks in snow and dust, and the mysterious Pangboche Yeti hand.Listening to of the invention of huge footprints in northern California, Slick requested Byrne to move up a “Pacific Northwest Bigfoot Expedition.”
So, on Christmas 1959 Slick despatched a message to finish the seek for the Yeti. However Slick’s enthusiasm for the search didn’t wane; he wished Peter to come back to the Pacific Northwest to seek for Bigfoot. In 1960, the hunt, for a short while, included the Byrnes, Rene Dahinden, John Inexperienced and Bob Titmus.
So Slick flew his buddy, Peter Byrne, and Peter’s brother, Bryan, over from Nepal, and early in 1960, Byrne had develop into the brand new chief of The Pacific Northwest Expedition.
The Byrnes did their greatest to arrange the hassle, however cash, tools, and males had been misplaced. Earlier than they returned to Canada, Titmus, Inexperienced, and Dahinden shared duties within the Pacific Northwest Expedition with the Byrnes. Everybody has their very own view of these days, and it’s apparent that nobody received together with each other—or Peter Byrne. Dahinden referred to as the expedition a “whole screw up,” however Dahinden was not a simple individual to be round both.
“René had a nasty behavior of pacing in entrance of the campfire and spitting into it,” John Inexperienced recalled for Vancouver Courier reporter Robin Brunet in 2001. “And whereas René tended to sleep in, one other fellow was liable to rising early and firing his rifle. René would lose his mood, go stamping off into the bush and make a lot noise that no creature would come inside a mile of them.”
These gents weren’t completely satisfied having a Brit (truly, an Irishman who appears like a Brit who wore an ascot) being introduced in to run the present. Dahinden left after a month-and-a-half, however Inexperienced and Titmus stayed a bit of longer till Slick was killed in a airplane crash in 1962.
After Slick’s loss of life in 1962, the operations shut down within the Pacific Northwest.
The movie Sasquatch Odyssey paperwork how these 4 males – Peter Byrne, Rene Dahinden, John Inexperienced, and Grover Krantz – labored collectively and labored individually.
Byrne returned to the Bigfoot hunt in 1971, with funding from Ohio millionaire Tom Web page (1928-2020). In 1976, Byrne wrote The Seek for Bigfoot: Monster, Fantasy, or Man? however left the hunt once more in 1979. A dozen years later he got here again, selling a no-kill place, when he received new funding from New Hampshire millionaire Robert Rines (1922-2009). Byrne directed the Bigfoot Analysis Undertaking from 1992 till 1997. In between, Byrne, sporting his trademark ascot, would make a profession out of showing frequently in tv documentaries about Bigfoot. Within the documentary Sasquatch Odyssey, Peter Byrne informed of getting used “three million {dollars} of different individuals’s cash” to seek for Yeti and Bigfoot in the course of the course of his life.
In 2017, Todd Neiss reported that considered one of Byrne’s two wheel covers was given to Neiss.
Byrne couldn’t proceed his efforts till the early-Nineteen Seventies, when the Boston Academy of Utilized Sciences started funding Byrne (quoted a reporter as $3 million), and Byrne was capable of set up a Bigfoot Info Middle close to The Dalles, Oregon. This effort continued for 9 years, from 1970-1979. Throughout that point, Byrne appeared on In Search Of… and likewise his personal quick documentary, titled Manbeast: Fantasy or Monster in 1978.
Byrne additionally wrote an early ebook, The Search For Bigfoot: Monster, Fantasy or Man in 1975.
Byrne seemingly dropped out of sight after that venture was completed till 1992, when he was as soon as once more funded by a bunch to type the Bigfoot Analysis Undertaking, this time based mostly close to Parkdale, Oregon, within the Hood River area. This was a full-scale monster search, full with helicopters, infra-red sensors and 1-800-BIGFOOT cellphone quantity. Byrne’s efforts, which continued till round 1997, didn’t produce a lot in the best way of fine proof, however he gave it a superb shot. After this venture, Byrne was commissioned to research sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in Southern Florida, the Skunk Ape. This effort was documented in a manufacturing referred to as Shaawanoki, produced by Andreas Wallach and Ronnie Roseman (Byrne received directing credit score).
Peter Byrne, 2013
Peter Byrne, 2015, at Beachfoot
Byrne then went into semi-retirement from the Bigfoot subject, though he continued his vacationer/journey work world wide. He would typically make appearances at Bigfoot gatherings, as, for instance, at Beachfoot in Oregon in 2015 and different years (see right here).
Peter Byrne, Beachfoot, 2021.
Peter Byrne and Tula Hatti
As a result of Byrne was the first topic of my Tom Slick ebook, first printed by Faber and Faber in 1989, Peter Byrne approached that writer about printing his elephant ebook. Faber and Faber printed Tula Hatti: The Final Nice Elephant (1991). Byrne continued with a part of the Yeti story on this ebook, when he requested the actor James (“Jimmy”) Stewart to put in writing the elephant ebook’s introduction concerning the “elimination” of the Pangboche “hand.”
Peter Byrne and the Pangboche Hand
One of many early mysteries of the Slick-Byrne years was the thought that the Pangboche finger bone was misplaced. When it was discovered once more, all of us have been informed, it was merely that of a “human” relic. No thriller, scientists stated.
The results of the DNA evaluation was introduced on a program entitled Yeti Finger on BBC Radio 4 on December 27, 2011.
In 2011, the BBC said: “A DNA pattern analysed by the zoo’s genetic professional Dr Rob Ogden has lastly revealed the finger’s true origins. Following DNA checks it has discovered to be human bone….Dr Rob Ogden, of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, stated: ‘We needed to sew it collectively. We had a number of fragments that we put into one large sequence after which we matched that in opposition to the database and we discovered human DNA. So it wasn’t too shocking nevertheless it was clearly barely disappointing that you simply hadn’t found one thing model new. Human was what we have been anticipating and human is what we received.’
Due to Bryan Sykes ebook, The Nature of the Beast, we now know that’s hardly the tip of the story.
In Chapter 19 of his ebook, Sykes tackles the riddle of “The Pangboche Finger,” and the end result he discovered have been startling and stunning.
Ogden’s “human” DNA end result was curious to Sykes, and Sykes knew he may discover out what mitochondrial DNA it was aligned to. Sykes was capable of finding that it was “a European mitochondrial DNA sequence, within the clan of Ursula.” The notion that the “human” of the Pangboche finger may be from a monk needed to be thrown out. Certainly, Sykes wrote, “The Pangboche Finger sequence was nearly definitely not from Nepal or anyplace else shut by….” (web page 194).
Sykes did the detective work, discovered who was the most certainly candidate to have left his DNA on the finger, and in contrast the DNA to “cheek swab DNA” he had collected. Please learn your entire story in The Nature of the Beast. (See my evaluation of the ebook right here.)
It seems the DNA precisely matched that of Peter Byrne.
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Peter Byrne’s Authorized Troubles
After years of phone conversations and communiques, Byrne and I had a break in discussions after my books got here out. Then I heard from Byrne on December 12, 2013, out of the blue, saying he wished to “put behind us a few of the misunderstandings we reluctantly shared in recent times.” (I gained’t go into our detailed historical past, however Byrne loaned some slides to me and requested me to be his agent with a tv program. He ended up being given a charge for his or her use. The publishing of my ebook in 1989, on Tom Slick, turned out to have benefited Byrne drastically.)
In gentle of what was revealed in 2013 throughout the Web and Fb, all of us must make our personal judgment about what this Peter Byrne information revealed however it’s on the document, and must be talked about clearly, so Byrne’s distractors won’t make extra it than there’s.
These two following objects have been sourced from official Justice Division “for speedy launch” paperwork.
PORTLAND, Ore. – A former resident of Pacific Metropolis pleaded responsible in federal court docket at the moment to stealing greater than $70,000 from the Social Safety Administration (SSA), the Oregon Division of Human Providers (DHS), and Medicaid. Peter C. Byrne, 87, admitted earlier than U.S. District Courtroom Decide Garr M. King that between 1992 and 2012, he hid from SSA and DHS his travels outdoors the USA and his compensation, whereas receiving Supplemental Safety Earnings (SSI) and meals stamps.
Sentencing is scheduled for December 3, 2013, at 10:30 a.m.
In accordance with paperwork filed by the federal government and Byrne’s admissions at the moment, Byrne started receiving SSI in 1990 and was required to report back to SSA sure journey outdoors the USA, in addition to his earnings and compensation. Between 1992 and 2012, Byrne traveled outdoors the U.S. for greater than 30 days no less than 15 instances, on some events remaining outdoors the U.S. for greater than 4 months. Between 2009 and 2012, Byrne additionally maintained financial institution accounts with Barclays of England and Wells
Fargo the place he held greater than $85,000 at one time, and did not disclose these financial institution accounts to SSA and DHS. When Byrne was questioned by SSA and investigators in 2012, he did not disclose all of his travels and property. When SSA requested to see his passport, Byrne suggested that he had by accident destroyed his passport by operating it via the washer.
The plea settlement requires Byrne to pay restitution to SSA, DHS, and Well being and Human Providers. Byrne has deposited $25,000 with the court docket to be utilized in direction of restitution instantly following sentencing.
The case was investigated by the Social Safety Administration Workplace of Inspector Normal, Workplace of Investigations. It’s being prosecuted by Particular Assistant United States Lawyer Helen L. Cooper, as a part of a partnership enterprise between the Social Safety Administration Workplace of Normal Counsel and the USA Lawyer’s Workplace.”
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PORTLAND, Ore. – A former resident of Pacific Metropolis was sentenced in federal court docket on December 3, 2013, for stealing greater than $78,000 from the Social Safety Administration (SSA), the Oregon Division of Human Providers (DHS), and Medicaid. Peter C. Byrne, 88, was sentenced to a three 12 months time period of probation and required to pay full restitution by the finish of the week. Byrne pleaded responsible in August and admitted that between 1992 and 2012 he hid from SSA and DHS his travels outdoors
the USA and his compensation, whereas receiving Supplemental Safety Earnings (SSI) and meals stamps. Byrne had beforehand deposited $25,000 with the court docket for restitution and indicated he was ready to pay the complete stability by the tip of the day.
In accordance with paperwork filed by the federal government and Byrne’s admissions, Byrne started receiving SSI, a need-based profit, in 1990 and was required to report back to SSA sure journey outdoors the USA as properly as his earnings and compensation. Between 1992 and 2012, Byrne traveled outdoors the U.S. for greater than 30 days no less than 15 instances, on
some events remaining outdoors the U.S. for greater than 4 months. Between 2009 and 2012, Byrne additionally maintained financial institution accounts with Barclays of England and Wells Fargo the place he held greater than $85,000 at one time, and did not disclose these financial institution accounts to SSA and DHS. When Byrne was questioned by SSA and investigators in 2012, he did not disclose all of his travels and property. When SSA requested to see his passport, Byrne suggested that he had by accident destroyed his passport by operating it
via the washer.
Investigators subsequently served a search warrant at Byrne’s residence and situated monetary and journey data, and his Will. Byrne urged that the Can be stored confidential as a result of he feared the Social Safety Administration would come after his property for advantages he unlawfully acquired. Brokers additionally situated a duplicate of a letter from Byrne to Safari Press directing that any future royalties for his printed books be despatched to his girlfriend. Byrne had beforehand been questioned by investigators whether or not he was receiving royalties for the books he had written on subjects reminiscent of his seek for Bigfoot and game-hunting in Nepal. Byrne denied receiving royalties.
Prosecutors additionally famous that within the Nineteen Nineties, Byrne had two earlier overpayments of SSI due to unreported journey and property. These prior overpayments had been dealt with administratively by SSA.
The Honorable Garr M. King said that Byrne’s actions had been intentional and felony, however agreed with the events’ really helpful sentence of probation primarily due to Byrne’s age.
The case was investigated by the Social Safety Administration Workplace of Inspector Normal, Workplace of Investigations, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers, the Oregon Division of Human Providers, and the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Workplace, and was prosecuted by Particular Assistant United States Lawyer Helen L. Cooper, as a part of a partnership enterprise between the Social Safety Administration Workplace of Normal Counsel and the USA Lawyer’s Workplace in Portland.”
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Peter Byrne and the FBI Bigfoot File
Byrne discovered himself within the information once more in 2019.
The paperwork launched define how a number of individuals had reached out to the FBI after this text however the FBI have been, “unable to find any references to such examinations.
Within the letter to Byrne, the assistant director of the FBI’s Scientific and Technical Providers Division, Jay Cochran Jr., said that the hairs and tissue have been discovered to be of the deer household origin. Apparently Peter Byrne was by no means knowledgeable of the Bureau’s evaluation as a result of his middleman, Howard Curtis of the Academy of Utilized Science, was too busy coaching dolphins to search out the Loch Ness monster. Robert Rines, who based the AAS primarily to seek for the Loch Ness Monsters, and Curtis had been researching using dolphins within the Scottish lake since 1978.
Fort Walton Seashore, Florida Every day Information, Sunday, March 25, 1979. (Supply)
Miami, Florida, The Miami Information,
Tuesday Apr 3, 1979, Tue • Web page 1
One AAS-associated individual quoted as working with the dolphins was named Harold “Rusty” Nielsen (Supply).
It’s worthy of noting that among the many “Deer” (singular and plural) are the hoofed ruminant mammals forming the household Cervidae. The 2 fundamental teams of deer are the Cervinae, together with the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the fallow deer, and the chital; and the Capreolinae, together with the reindeer (caribou), the roe deer, and the moose.
If the samples have been discovered to be “of deer household origin,” in fact, they might have been moose.
Moose hairs have had an intriguing place in Bigfoot historical past. The well-known taxidermist who taught Jerry Crew in 1958 to make the primary plaster casts of “Bigfoot tracks” at Bluff Creek, California, was Bob Titmus.
Naturalist Ivan T. Sanderson discovered that Bigfoot fecal samples submitted by Titmus truly got here from a moose.
The alleged Bigfoot hair samples Titmus discovered additionally got here from a moose. As has Joshua Blu Buhs famous, Sanderson puzzled if Titmus was faking information as a result of California has no moose inhabitants, and due to this fact, there are not any moose in or discovered close to Bluff Creek, California, in any respect. Buhs wrote that this was “deliberate fraud” on Titmus’ half. I raised these similar questions initially in my 1989 ebook, Tom Slick and the Search For The Yeti.
A lot hypothesis has occurred down via the years that Peter Byrne felt strain from the rich males ~ Tom Slick, Tom Web page, Robert Rines ~ supporting his Yeti and Bigfoot work ~ to maintain producing “materials,” “encounters,” and “proof.” Had been any of the hair samples from Bob Titmus’ taxidermy work?
One other Boston-based “enterprise guide” working for the AAS on the dolphin coaching was talked about. He was 30-year-old (in 1979) Robert Borofsky. (It seems Borofsky is now a Ph.D. professor of anthropology, who coined the time period “public anthropology,” at Hawai’i Pacific College.)
Robert Borofsky, an academy spokesman, informed Sports activities Illustrated for publication in August 1979, “Everyone is aware of that dolphins are clever, however we haven’t even begun to discover the methods they can be utilized. They will do much more than simply bounce via hoops.”
The newspapers have been crammed with tales of AAS coaching them in March of 1979, however by July, the enterprise had taken a flip for the more serious.
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The Getting older Peter Byrne
Because the FBI Bigfoot information started to interrupt, a spotlight was positioned on Peter Byrne, then 93 years of age. CNBC reporter Dan Mangan tracked Byrne down and interviewed him again then. This article is worthy of studying completely, however let’s take a look at some excerpts:
When informed concerning the FBI paperwork displaying his correspondence with the company within the Nineteen Seventies asking it to check hair samples, Byrne chuckled.
However he additionally stated, “I don’t bear in mind this.”
“It’s out of my reminiscence.”
There’s a aspect of Peter Byrne that few want to talk about. He ceaselessly says he forgot some issues. Mangan handled this straightforwardly.
Byrne pleaded responsible in August 2013 to defrauding the Social Safety Administration, the Oregon Division of Human Providers and Medicaid out of greater than $78,000 by concealing his travels outdoors of the USA from 1992 via 2012.
Byrne, who was sentenced to a few years of probation and full restitution, had been receiving Supplemental Social Safety Earnings, and had been required to report back to Social Safety sure journey outdoors of the U.S. at instances he was getting that need-based profit.
“Between 1992 and 2012, Byrne traveled outdoors the U.S. for greater than 30 days no less than 15 instances, on some events remaining outdoors the U.S. for greater than 4 months,” prosecutors stated on the time.
He additionally had greater than $85,000 in financial institution accounts at one time when he was getting SSI and meals stamps, authorities stated.
In accordance with federal prosecutors in 2013, investigators discovered a duplicate of a letter Byrne had despatched his writer, Safari Press, “directing that any future royalties for his printed books be despatched to his girlfriend.”
“Byrne had beforehand been questioned by investigators whether or not he was receiving royalties for the books he had written on subjects reminiscent of his seek for Bigfoot and game-hunting in Nepal,” the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for Oregon stated in a press launch on the time. ”
“Byrne denied receiving royalties.”
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Peter Byrne: A Spy?
Peter Byrne additionally appeared to have had a “hiding in plain sight” previous that concerned the CIA, not within the Nineteen Seventies, however within the late Fifties. As I famous in my Tom Slick ebook and elsewhere, the Yeti expeditions of Slick and Byrne allegedly have been covers for CIA exercise.
Let’s begin with one essential incident, the escape of the Dalai Lama from Tibet. There are denials, for instance, of the rumors circulating that Tom Slick and Peter Byrne have been accountable, in some trend, for the secure passage of the Dalai Lama from Lhasa. Because the time of Tom Slick’s first official Yeti reconnaissance of jap Nepal in 1957, during which he was truly a member of the trek, the rumors of his expeditions’ involvement in spying have been rampant. The New York Occasions even noticed match to publish an article reporting on the Russians’ promotion of this story in an merchandise entitled: “Soviet Sees Espionage in U. S. Snowman Hunt.” The April 27, 1957 piece claimed Slick was behind an effort to subvert the Chinese language, and free Tibet.
…Who helped them get into Tibet? None apart from Peter Byrne, Tom Slick’s man in Nepal.
~ The Dalai Lama, Slick Denials and the CIA.
Extra could be discovered right here.
St. Patrick’s Day was all the time a fortunate day for Tom Slick adventures.
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The legacy and mysteries of Peter Byrne dwell on…
Peter Byrne, Might 10, 2023. Credit score Todd Neiss.
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I knew Peter, talked to him for years, received to spend three+ intense days interviewing him in 1988 for my Tom Slick ebook, noticed him distance himself from me and plenty of others, get in fights with a few of the old-timers, after which apologize to me late in his life. I by no means bore Peter any evil will, and understood that’s what occurs on this subject. Might he relaxation in piece and discover happiness within the hereafter. My deepest condolences to his household, his deep associates, and shut associates.