Beijing -- Television production team members investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti -- aka "abominable snowman" -- said Friday in Katmandu, Nepal, they have discovered footprints that merit further investigation.

The team of nine producers from Destination Truth, equipped with infrared cameras, spent a week in the frigid Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of the Manju River at an elevation of 9,350 feet (2,850 meters).

One of the three footprints found is about 1 foot (30 centimeters) long, and looks a lot like those shown in sketches of the creature, the team said.

"It is very, very similar," Josh Gates, an archaeologist who serves as the host of the weekly travel adventure series, told Reuters in Katmandu after returning from the mountain. "I don't believe it to be a bear. It is something of a mystery for us."

Sherpa porters and guides have told stories about the wild and hairy creatures lurking in the Himalayas to mountain climbers going to Mount Everest since the 1920s. Several teams have searched for it and some have even claimed to have discovered footprints. But no reputable investigator has actually seen the creature, nor has it been scientifically established the Yeti exists.

Gates said the footprints on lumps of sandy soil, which would be sent to experts in the United States for analysis, were "relatively fresh, left some 24 hours before we found them."

Some local sherpas believe the Himalayas are abodes of strange creatures and consider the Yeti as a protector. Others say it is a destroyer.

"There is a kind of mysterious creature that lives in the Himalayas," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of Nepal Mountaineering Association in Katmandu, who hails from the Khumbhu region.