Was he maybe taking advantage of the stronger western currencies and maybe using local contacts to “get things done”.

Undoubtedly.

Does this mean he was “funded by the CIA”? Not necessarily.

This is really a sad story for cryptozoology. I remember watching a 1 hour documentary on him and his research on French TV a few years ago and this was the thing that convinced me there were more than pure legends and late evening stories about bigfoots, yetis and almas.

The guy had a really serious and scientific way of enquiry. As explained above he spoke the local languages and spent a lot of time travelling in the area which is very difficult: high mountains, no roads… He used dogs to help him carry equipment in the moutains and did have made friend with a young local boy around 10 years old who sometimes helped him as a servant and also to communicate with local people. For example in this very traditionalist muslim area it is very difficult for a european man to talk to local women so the boy was a good messenger.

The guy reminded me of the famous cartoon caracter Tintin (both physically and for his mind) and his friend Chang as the local boy: like when they encounter the yeti in “Tintin in tibet” if you know!

The most astonishing was the people he interviewed there: local sheperds mostly for whom the “Barmanu” was only a “normal” encounter although quite rare. But they had always known them and were even puzzled that someone interrogated them on this (for them) not so interesting subject. Only a foul smelling wildman that might scare their precious goats. So it was difficult to get details from them but their account of the meeting with the Barmanu seemed so natural that you could noy imagine they were telling lies.

And the way they reacted when shown some pictures of apes, monkeys and prehistoric men (australopithecus was the one they always pointed out if I remenber) was very interesting: it could not be a common wild animal that they would have mistaken. No it was the Barmanu that some of them even spied for more than 1 hour. Definitively something (someone?) different was living up there!

I don’t know if you had the chance to watch this documentary on Magraner in the US but for me it is really one of the most amazing one on the subject taht I saw (equal even if different to the Patterson movie).

Unfortunately the guy was killed in such strange conditions and this is a real loss to cryptozoology.

“Kailash”, by the way, is also the name of the sacred mountain in SW Tibet, near the border of Nepal. It is held sacred by Tibetan Buddhists, Bönpos, Hindus and Jains, and said to be the “abode of the gods”.