Editing Carleton S. Coon (section)

===Cryptozoology===

Coon was, up to his death, a proponent of the existence of bipedal [[cryptids]], including [[Sasquatch]] and [[Yeti]]. His 1954 book ''The Story of Man'' included a chapter on "Giant Apes and Snowmen" and a figure showing the purported footprints of an "Abominable Snowman" alongside those of extinct hominids,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Coon|first=Carleton S.|title=The Story of Man: From the First Human to Primitive Culture and Beyond|publisher=Knopf|year=1962|edition=2nd rev.|location=New York|language=en|oclc=489646}}</ref> and near the end of his life he wrote a paper on "Why There Has to Be a Sasquatch".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Coon|first1=Carleton|title=Why There Has to Be a Sasquatch|url=http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/coon.htm|access-date=2020-10-05|website=Bigfoot Encounters}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Liechty|first=Mark|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zNYZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA58|title=Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2017|isbn=978-0-226-42913-7|location=Chicago|pages=55–59|language=en}}</ref> In the late 1950s, he was approached by [[Life (magazine)|''Life'' magazine]] about either joining [[Tom Slick]] and Peter Byrne's expedition to the [[Himalayas]] to search for evidence of Yeti, or organising his own expedition.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Dickey|first=Colin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zri-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102|title=The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained|publisher=Viking|year=2020|isbn=978-0-525-55757-9|location=New York|pages=102–105|language=en}}</ref> Although Coon spent some time planning the logistics, in the end neither materialised.<ref name=":1" /> Coon believed that cryptid "Wild Men" were [[Relict (biology)|relict]] populations of Pleistocene apes and that, if their existence could be proved scientifically, they would lend support to his theory of the separate origins of human races.<ref name=":1" />

Cultural historian [[Colin Dickey]] has argued that the search for Sasquatch and Yeti are inextricably linked to racism: "For an anthropologist like Coon, invested in finding some sort of scientific basis to justify his racism, Wild Men lore offered a compelling narrative, a chance to prove a scientific basis for his white supremacy."<ref name="Dickey" /> It has also been speculated that the Yeti expeditions that Coon was involved with were [[Official cover|cover]] for American espionage in Nepal and Tibet, since both he and Slick had links to US intelligence agencies,<ref name=":1" /> and Byrne was allegedly involved in the extraction of the [[14th Dalai Lama]] from Tibet by the CIA in 1959.<ref name=":0" />

Coon's views on cryptids were a major influence on [[Grover Krantz]], and the two were close friends in his later life.{{Sfn|Regal|2011}}