Monster mania is set to sweep a country park when a team of hunters begin their search for Northumberland's own yeti.
Experts in the unknown are arming themselves with infra- red night-sight and high-tec recording equipment in a bid to prove the Belsay Bigfoot exists.
Last week two anglers claimed they had been confronted by a tall hairy creature with glowing eyes in woodland at Bolam Lake on a late-night fishing trip.
Jonathan Downes, head of the Centre for Fortean Zoology in Exeter, has arrived with his team to get to the bottom of the mystery and says their electro-magnetic frequency devices will read changes in temperature and frequency to alert them if a hulking hairy primate is close by.
But Mr Downes, who has spent 10 years hunting for strange unknown creatures, is not convinced that a yeti has been found in the North East.
He said: "Our job is to find out the truth, whatever that is. We're totally impartial.
"We don't have a preconceived idea of what we're looking for.
"Nine times out of 10, sightings turn out to be something quite ordinary, but if we've solved that mystery for future generations I'll be happy.
"I'm absolutely convinced the yeti exists - but not here. I think people would've found it by now.
"People who say they've seen the yeti here are like people who claim Elvis is still alive and working in Sainsbury's."
Team-mate Richard Freeman said: "There's no doubt that there are flesh and blood creatures still undiscovered."
Mr Freeman, who says he was inspired by the 1970s Doctor Who series, is a crypto-zoologist, a specialist in animals that are only known about through myth and folklore, or creatures presumed to be extinct.
He added: "I actually hate apes. They are filthy, vicious, dirty, horrible things. I prefer working with reptiles.
"If the yeti were here it would've been found centuries ago. But there's definitely something here - I think it's something paranormal."
The group does a lot of work with Twilight Worlds, an X-File-style association in South Shields whose volunteers investigate the paranormal.
Its next mission is a journey to West Africa in August to hunt for the Ninka Nanka dragon which is said to have killed several people.
John Fuller, Mr Freeman's assistant, said: "I don't know what to expect, but I've got an open mind.
"We haven't seen anything yet, but you never know what's out there."
The fishermen claimed they fled to their car in terror after encountering a figure about 8ft tall, with muscular arms and eyes that glowed in the dark. One of their friends also reported seeing a figure in March last year at night on a hill close to the remains of an Iron Age settlement by the park boundary.
A few weeks later he said he had heard a loud thud and a growl. You can follow the trail of the yeti hunters at their website www.cfz.org and on the British Hominid Research website www.lincolns.org.uk.
