In an undisclosed Himalayan country, Dr. Frank Parrish, Paul Langton, leads a scientific expedition to collect rare botanical samples. The party includes several sherpas, led by Subra, Teru Shimada, who is the only one among them capable of speaking English, and photographer Peter Wells, Leslie Denison. Early on, Subra’s wife is abducted by what he insists is a Yeti, and the situation quickly turns volatile. When Parrish resists chasing the creature, Subra seizes the expedition’s guns and assumes command, dragging Parrish and Wells along as they search for opportunities to overturn Subra’s authority.
As the group pushes deeper toward the truth behind Subra’s terrifying claim, evidence begins to mount that challenges Parrish’s skepticism about the Yeti’s existence. The tension within the expedition grows, with each step toward the frozen summit bringing new signs that the legendary beast might actually be real. The team eventually makes contact with the Snow Creature, a towering figure who hurls stones from his high mountain refuge. Their pursuit leads them to a cave where they encounter two other Yeti — a female and a young one — shifting the stakes from curiosity to a fragile moral debate about discovery versus danger.
In a pivotal moment, Parrish stops Subra from firing on the Yeti, arguing that capturing the creature alive would yield far more valuable scientific knowledge. This decision sparks a violent struggle that culminates in a cave-in, killing the female and the young one while leaving the male unconscious. Amid the confusion, Parrish gains control of the expedition’s guns and resolves to bring the Yeti back to the United States for study. The Snow Creature is boxed up and shipped first to Bombay and then to California in a freezer the size of a telephone booth, a surreal journey that shadows the line between science and spectacle.
Back in the United States, Parrish faces a torrent of media attention as reporters swarm him. Wells’ photographs have already made headlines, complicating matters for U.S. Customs, who must decide whether the Yeti is an animal or a man. The creature is kept in quarantine while an anthropologist is brought in to determine humanity’s stance on this enigmatic visitor. But the delay proves dangerous: in the quiet hours, the Yeti breaches containment and begins roaming the city, attacking women and slipping into the cooler sewer system and even meat lockers for sustenance.
The chase ends in the sewers, where authorities corner the Yeti in a large net. The creature continues its attack, throttling a policeman before the confrontation ends with a fatal shot. In the aftermath, the line between scientific curiosity and public danger is starkly drawn, leaving Parrish to reckon with the ethical costs of bringing a legendary creature into the modern world.
