Most of us are familiar with the covert war being waged by the CIA and their proxy armies on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Fewer of us are in the know about the secret war being waged between Chinese secret society ninjas and the Illuminati, as reported by Benjamin Fulford a couple of years ago.

But the strangest conflict of all may be unfolding in the Siberian taiga, where The Voice of Russia claims that forest fires have forced a population of Yeti out of the Altai region of Russia and into "the Kuzbass region, where they have started a "war" with local bears."

This year's expedition to Mountain Shoria is already the third. One of its participants, the director of the International Center for Hominology Igor Burtsev assures that yetis leave traces of their stay in the taiga and fight with local bears.

While there have been reports from credible officials such as forest wardens going back to 2004, Burtsev's first expedition to the region was launched in 2009 after hunters reported sightings of the shambling man-beast. In that first trip no visual contact was established, but the searchers did claim to find evidence in the form of fresh footprints.

This was enough for Burtsev to launch follow-on searches, which have now led him to believe the Yeti have started a conflict with the region's erstwhile top predators, the Siberian Brown Bear. And it's a conflict the Yeti appear to be winning, despite the bear's massive size - they weigh as much as 800 pounds - and ferocity. As Burtsev told The Voice of Russia:

it seems that today yetis in Siberia are competing with bears, and the yetis are winning – they are obviously stronger and have rudimentary intellect. If this "war" between yetis and bears continues, there is a risk that bears will not sleep this winter because of a shortage of food, instead going to villages in search of something to eat.

It's a very real fear, one that some locals say has already materialized, with some of the Shor residents complaining that the Yeti are decimating their coveted supply of fresh leeks.

Just as Sasquatch or 'Bigfoot' legends go back to the First Americans in California, Washington and British Columbia, and just as the Sherpas legends of the Himalayan Yeti stretch into the mists of their own origins, Russia has for many years reverberated with whispers of the Russian Wild Man. Vladimir Nabokov wrote about it in his story The Wood Goblin, and his countrymen, Ivan Turgenev, was even more acquainted with it, relating a very personal tale to his friend Guy de Maupassant:

"I remember a story that Turgenev told us. He was hunting in a Russian forest. He was wandering the whole day and in the evening he went out to a bank of a quiet river. The river was flowing in the shadow of trees, the water there was crystal pure and cold. Turgenev was gripped with a desire to swim in that water.

He took his clothes off and jumped in the river. He was a tall, strong, well-built man, and he was a very good swimmer too. He was enjoying the current of the river with his body and soul. Grass and aquatic plants were caressing him.

Suddenly, someone's hand touched his shoulder. He looked around quickly and saw a strange creature. The creature was gazing at him with great curiosity. It looked like something in between a woman and a monkey. The creature had a wrinkled face of a monkey. Messy red hair was framing the face and flowing behind the back.

Turgenev was flabbergasted. Horror chilled him to the bone. He started swimming to a bank of the river, even not trying to understand, what he just saw. However, the creature was swimming beside him, touching his neck and back and feet. Finally, the young man reached the ground and ran as fast as he could. He did not care about either his clothes, or rifle. He forgot about everything and was guided only by the immense uncontrollable wish to stay alive. The monster was following him.

It was running very fast too, uttering some squealing sounds. The young man could hardly catch his breath. He was about to fall down on the ground, but he suddenly saw a boy with a whip in his hands. The boy started whipping the creature and it ran away, yelling with pain. The courage of the little shepherd is explained with the fact that it was not the first time that he saw it.

Dr Marie-Jeanne Koffman is considered a leading authority on the phenonemon of the The Wildman of the Caucasus, also known as the alma, having been researching the topic since 1957. In 1988, Koffman told an interviewer about physical evidence she had collected.

It is absolutely excluded that these footprints could have been hoaxed. They have been found, for example, 60 kilometers from the nearest village, in winter conditions. They were in forested areas in very deep valleys, which are not frequented by humans. The tracks are anatomically very similar to human footprints, which is not surprising, considering the lineage which led to man has been bipedal for several million years. There are not 36 different ways of making bipedal primate feet. Apart from some minor details, the tracks look very much like human footprints.

It is also interesting to note that a Neanderthal skeleton found in the Crimea, about 500 kilometers from this area of the Caucasus, has an almost intact bone structure of the feet. There is only one phalanx missing. And these feet are also essentially human-looking.

Still, not all Russians are as convinced as Koffman and Burtsev.

Moscow Ethnology and Antrhopology Institute Anthropology department head Dr. Sergei Vasiliev said that Bigfoot probably does not exist as scientists have never found any bodies, and that any populations would be recorded.
PR and marketing specialists dismissed press reports about finding Bigfoot as fodder for gullible tourists.

Of course, if the Wood Goblin ever runs out of leeks, it may be the tourists who become the fodder.....