Read the text carefully and choose the alternative that best suits the context and meaning.

The Yeti: A Story of Scientific Misunderstanding
By Joe Smith

The Yeti is a cryptozoological phenomenon popularized in the early 20th century by British mountain explorers in the Himalayas.

Those who
claim to be seen
claim to have seen
claim to have been seen
it report a modest-sized, two-legged, hairy mountain creature with disproportionately large feet.

A recent scientific study has shown,
once and for all
now and again
then and there,
that physical evidence (fur, bone and skin) purported to be from the Yeti are instead from bears, based on genetic analysis.

The reports of Yeti sightings began as soon as Western explorers made headway into the Himalayas. The explorers gathered first-hand accounts
in
with
from
locals and translated these observations into prosaic descriptions of the creature’s shape, fur color and gait.

With this, the Western world began to believe that the Yeti could be real, and Yeti-finding expeditions
would be
are
were
dispatched.

Over the decades, Yeti
encounters
encountering
encounter
continued to accumulate,
because
though
thus
physical evidence has always been elusive.

Lost in Translation

But to conclude that the Yeti isn’t “real” may perpetuate a misunderstanding that began when western and eastern cultures met on the slopes of the Himalayas. We may think of the Yeti as something of a cryptozoological hoax
on
with
by
par with the Loch Ness Monster. But
anything
nothing
something
about the Yeti, long present in the lore of local cultures, may have been lost in translation.


There
That
It
may be that these Western strangers far from home may have simply suffered a failure of imagination and did not fully grasp the cultural context of the Yeti myth.

The major religions of the Himalayan region are polytheistic and inclusive,
absorb
absorbing
absorbed
older folk beliefs and deities as time goes on. This yields a complex spiritual world full of magical beings and places that are
in
on
at
constant interaction with the landscape and affairs of people.

This perspective encompasses old gods and new gods, mountain spirits and river demons.

The purview of a deity may range from being,
say
to say
saying,
a goddess of destruction, to such minor responsibilities as guarding over a river crossing or one’s home.

Often, tales of the Yeti hint at something
what
where
that
is beyond reality. It isn’t easy to parse the first-hand reports of the Yeti – it is reported as
seeing
being seen
having seen
in the flesh, yet it is also given mythical powers.

In retrospect, perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of the Yeti legend
are
is
were
that Western science took on its potential existence as a hypothesis to test.