Odette Tchernine (c. 1897-1992) was a British author, cryptozoologist, novelist and journalist. She was born in Paris to a Russian financier father, Dimitri Tchernine (Dmitry Chernin), and a French mother, Yvonne, from Toulouse. She grew up in Kensington and had a younger brother, Serge Tchernine. Odette Tchernine is best known for writing several books on the abominable snowman or yeti, such as In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman, Taplinger Publishing, (1971). Before ‘In Pursuit’, she published The Snowman and Company. Initially a socialite and novelist, she earned a reputation from the 1950s through the 1970s “as one of Britain’s most formidable monster hunters.” This is her hitherto unpublished third cryptozoological book.
In ‘ALIVE…The Missing Link’ Odette brings together evidence of bigfoot (and its counterparts) in an effort to encourage researchers and explorers to keep looking for the missing link between these mysterious beasts and the human race.
Odette believed (and many others do too) that this link in human history to bigfoot has been either ignored or covered up for a very long time and she wanted to bring it out into the light of day, have it investigated, researched, and discussed as commonly as one would with any other branches of the ‘tree’ but was unfortunately unsuccessful before her passing in 1992.
In her book, she highlights the difficulties in doing this from a political, moral and financial viewpoint but reminds the reader of the importance of keeping their mind open to every possibility and to keep fighting to find the truth.
She also coins a new phrase in ‘Anthropo-zoology’ which she very much hoped would become a common term, to describe the study and research, to prove a biological link exists between bigfoot and humans. She believed some research had started to be taken seriously by a very select few individuals, but no serious research had been done since the 1970s. It has been the work of ‘Fringe science’ to investigate unexplained phenomena for centuries and she longed for this type of research to become more mainstream.
We hope the publishing of this lost manuscript will help reignite the flame under this research and finally be able to prove that these incredible beasts are not just a cryptid hidden in the trees but perhaps distant cousins of ours or even much closer on the family tree than we think…
Guin Palmer, the Assistant Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ), worked diligently on the manuscript which turned up in a North Devon Auction House. It was purchased accidentally by someone who – serendipitously – knew one of the senior members of the CFZ to whom he subsequently sold it.
She also amassed a collection of reference material appertaining to Odette which can be found at this address: