It is quite undeniable that there are certainly large cryptids out there in our world, though whether they are what we envision, or something entirely different remains to be proven.

He never claimed to be an anthropological or zoological scholar, or even learned in any Sherpa or Tibetan lore. His thoughts on the Yeti went from being a true believer in the 1950s, a person who actually found evidence of their existence, to an older man who became frustrated with the pursuit. He turned the corner and reframed himself a debunker in the 1960s.

I am not surprised by his answer of “No” during a hurried book signing. In 2003, it would have been the answer he had grown comfortable with giving.

As to the parasites that Heuvelmans discusses, they were found in the Yeti stool samples discovered by the 1959 Slick-Johnson expedition. The results were not published in English, but only in French, until I wrote about them in my Tom Slick book.

It was the Hillary expedition that took the scalp out, and was subsequently examined by scientists. Here is an excerpt from the discussion on pages 150-151:

“At Khumjung and Pangboche, the expedition examined two alleged scalps of the Yeti…. Zoological experts in Paris, London, and Chicago studied the Khumjung scalp which Hillary was allowed to take out of Nepal…”

One of the most puzzling aspects of yeti-sas research to me is how things stop turning after findings like hair that can’t be traced to any known species, or parasite species unknown from any other animal. This could, I think, be considered a sub-category of the GIT: since the animal can’t exist, obviously (the un-stated assumption), then there must be some “simpler” way to describe what we’re looking at here.

How simple is THIS: as parasites tend to be species-specific, finding a new parasite might just, ya think?, indicate an uncatalogued species? How simple is “An unknown parasite suggests an unknown animal as its host”? Apparently not simple enough. Decades of cataloguing parasites just happens to have missed this one? Sure. About as likely as finding, all of a sudden, an animal one is not even looking for.

He did not find any evidence of yeti, but as he pointed out, the area is so vast that animals have huge territories, and evidence of the existence, even of known animals such as snow leopards, is sparse.

I’d love to see a well-funded scientific expedition, the sole purpose of which would be finding yeti.

A few things.

I appreciate that reference to an illustration of the painted Yeti next to Perkins from a news conference in Soule’s book. If you have my Tom Slick book, you will note I commented in print on several of the items Soule remembered. If my scanner was fixed, I’d post that photo in Soule here.

However, the image I recall was of Perkins inside the studio with a cutout, lifesize next to him in the Abominable Snowman episode of “Wild Kingdom.” It may have been of this Soule-shown version, but I recall it as more like the Hillary drawing.

Bernard Heuvelmans published in French, various notes on parasites found on Yeti material that did not match any species known, but I thought those related to the Slick years?

The high-powered “Capchur” dart gun was not used in other expeditions. I’d love it for my museum!

As I recall, the monks refused to use photographic equipment as they did not wish to capture imagery in that fashion, at least in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Yeti “nest” found and photographed by Norman G. Dyhrenfurth was later debunked to be that of an eagle’s, but Dyhrenfurth was not so sure of that finding.

Yes, Yeti research was severely hurt by the World Book expedition’s hasty negative findings.