Disney World's snowman still frozen

ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Engineers at Walt Disney World say they trying to figure out how to re-activate a 25-foot tall mechanical abominable snowman that stopped working last year.

The animatronic yeti that once lunged at rollercoaster riders at the Florida theme park stalled in March 2009 and has been idle ever since with no more than a flashing strobe light giving it the illusion of motion.

"It's embarrassing that this technological marvel is left … to just sit there," Tony Crane, 35, St. Louis, told the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel during a recent visit to the park.

Disney told the newspaper the 20,000-pound yeti has a lot of moving parts and is the most complex of Disney's animatronics. A spokeswoman said getting the yeti back in motion was equally complex and the company was considering its options.

The Sentinel said the frozen state of the snowman goes largely unnoticed by most customers on the Expedition Everest ride, but at least two Facebook groups lobbying Disney to fix the creature have been formed.

"The yeti not working to me is akin to riding the Haunted Mansion and not having any ghosts in the graveyard," Martin Smith, 38, Manchester, England, told the newspaper.