Roger Patterson

US Forest Service "Timber Management Assistant" Lyle Laverty said, "I [and his team of three, in a Jeep] passed the site on either Thursday the 19th or Friday the 20th" and noticed no tracks. After reading the news of Patterson's encounter on their weekend break, Laverty and his team returned to the site on Monday, the 23rd, and made six photos of the tracks. (Laverty later served as an Assistant Secretary of the Interior under George W. Bush.) Taxidermist and outdoorsman Robert Titmus went to the site with his sister and brother-in-law nine days later. Titmus made plaster casts of ten successive prints of the creature and, as best he could, plotted Patterson's and the creature's movements on a map.

Both Patterson and Gimlin had been rodeo riders and amateur boxers—and local champions in their weight classes. Patterson had played high school football.

When they rounded it, "there was a logjam—a 'crow's nest'—left over from the flood of '64," and then they spotted the figure behind it nearly simultaneously. It was either "crouching beside the creek to their left" or "standing" there, on the opposite bank. Gimlin later described himself as in a mild state of shock after first seeing the figure.

When he returned to the camp he and Patterson aborted their plan to remain looking for more evidence and departed for home, fearing the rain would wash out their exit. After attempting to go out along "the low road"—Bluff Creek Road—and finding it blocked by a mudslide, they went instead up the steep Onion Mountain Road, off whose shoulder their truck slipped; extracting it required the (unauthorized) borrowing of a nearby front-end loader. The drive home from their campsite covered about 580 miles, the initial 28.8 miles on a low-speed logging road, and then about 110 miles on twisty Route 96. Driving a truck with three horses, and allowing for occasional stops, it would have taken 13 hours to get home Saturday evening, at an average speed of 45 mph; it would have taken 14.5 hours at a 40 mph average speed.

Bernard Heuvelmans—a zoologist and the so-called "father of cryptozoology"—thought the creature in the Patterson film was a suited human. He objected to the film subject's hair-flow pattern as being too uniform; to the hair on the breasts as not being like a primate; to its buttocks as being insufficiently separated; and to its too-calm retreat from the pursuing men.

Patterson–Gimlin film (also known as the Patterson film or the PGF) is an American short motion picture of an unidentified subject which the filmmakers have said was a Bigfoot. The footage was shot in 1967 in Northern California, and has since been subjected to many attempts to authenticate or debunk it.

Patterson estimated he was about 25 feet (7.6 m) away from the creature at his closest. Patterson said that his horse reared upon sensing the figure, and he spent about 20 seconds extricating himself from the saddle, controlling his horse, getting around to its other side, and getting his camera from a saddlebag before he could run toward the figure while operating his camera. He yelled "Cover me" to Gimlin, "meaning to get the gun out". Gimlin crossed the creek on horseback after Patterson had run well beyond it, riding on a path somewhat to the left of Patterson's and somewhat beyond his position. Perez estimates he came within 60–90 feet (18–27 m) of "Patty". Then, rifle in hand, he dismounted, but did not point his rifle at the creature.

The Patterson–Gimlin film has seen relatively little interest from mainstream scientists. Statements of scientists who viewed the film at a screening, or who conducted a study, are reprinted in Chris Murphy's Bigfoot Film Journal. Typical objections include: Neither humans nor chimpanzees have hairy breasts as does the figure in the film, and Napier has noted that a sagittal crest is "only very occasionally seen, to an insignificant extent, in chimpanzees [sic] females". Critics have argued these features are evidence against authenticity. Krantz countered the latter point, saying "a sagittal crest ... is a consequence of absolute size alone."

Prominent primate expert John Napier (one-time director of the Smithsonian's Primate Biology Program) was one of the few mainstream scientists not only to critique the Patterson–Gimlin film but also to study then-available Bigfoot evidence in a generally sympathetic manner, in his 1973 book, Bigfoot: The Sasquatch and Yeti in Myth and Reality.

Esteban Sarmiento is a specialist in physical anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. He has 25 years of experience with great apes in the wild. He writes, "I did find some inconsistencies in appearance and behavior that might suggest a fake ... but nothing that conclusively shows that this is the case." His most original criticism is this: "The plantar surface of the feet is decidedly pale, but the palm of the hand seems to be dark. There is no mammal I know of in which the plantar sole differs so drastically in color from the palm." (But see Meldrum, 170–71.) His most controversial statements are these: "The gluteals, although large, fail to show a humanlike cleft (or crack)." "Body proportions: ... In all of the above relative values, bigfoot is well within the human range and differs markedly from any living ape and from the 'australopithecine' fossils." (E.g., the IM index is in the normal human range.) And: "I estimate bigfoot's weight to be between 190 and 240 lbs."

Munns started posting his online analysis of the film in 2009 and summarizing it in the online Munns Report. In 2013 he and Jeff Meldrum co-authored three papers in Meldrum's online magazine, Relict Hominoid Inquiry. In 2014, Munns self-published When Roger Met Patty, a 488-page book incorporating material from those articles that analyses the film and film subject from various perspectives.

It has also been said that Heironimus was not as bulky as the creature, but film critics claim that a suit could correct for that (and for height). However, Heironimus did not mention there being padding in the torso, either when questioned by Long about the suit or when specifically asked about padding by Rob McConnell in his 2nd XZone radio interview, on August 6, 2007.

A re-creation of the PGF was undertaken on October 6, 2004, at "Cow Camp," near Rimrock Lake, a location 41 miles west of Yakima. This was six months after the publication of Long's book and 11 months after Long had first contacted Morris. Bigfooter Daniel Perez wrote, "National Geographic's [producer] Noel Dockster ... noted the suit used in the re-creation ... was in no way similar to what was depicted in the P–G film."

In 2002, Philip Morris, owner of Morris Costumes (a North Carolina-based company offering costumes, props and stage products) claimed that he made a gorilla costume that was used in the Patterson film. Morris says he discussed his role in the hoax "at costume conventions, lectures, [and] magician conventions" in the 1980s, but first addressed the public at large on August 16, 2002, on Charlotte, North Carolina, radio station WBT. His story was also printed in The Charlotte Observer. Morris claims he was reluctant to expose the hoax earlier for fear of harming his business: giving away a performer's secrets, he said, would be widely regarded as disreputable.

After the death of Ray Wallace in 2002, following a request by Loren Coleman to The Seattle Times reporter Bob Young to investigate, the family of Wallace went public with claims that he had started the Bigfoot phenomenon with fake footprints (made from a wooden foot-shaped cutout) left in Californian sites in 1958.

Bill Munns, retired, was a special effects and make-up artist, cameraman, and film editor. He argues that Universal and Disney were not the most knowledgeable studios to consult with. He says that Fox, MGM, and special effects artist Stuart Freeborn in England, "who had just completed his groundbreaking ape suits for 2001: A Space Odyssey," would have been preferable.

A computerized visual analysis of the video conducted by Cliff Crook, who once devoted rooms to sasquatch memorabilia in his home in Bothell, Washington, and Chris Murphy, a Canadian Bigfoot buff from Vancouver, British Columbia, was released in January 1999 and exposed an object which appeared to be the suit's zip-fastener. Zooming in on four magnified frames of the 16 mm footage video exposed what appeared to be tracings of a bell-shaped fastener on the creature's waist area, presumably used to hold a person's suit together. Since both Crook and Murphy were previously staunch supporters of the video's authenticity, Associated Press journalist John W. Humbell noted "Longtime enthusiasts smell a deserter."

A month after watching the December 28, 1998, Fox-television special World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed?, he went public, via a January 30 press release by his lawyer, Barry Woodard, in a Yakima newspaper story. He stated, "I'm telling the truth. I'm tired after thirty-seven years." Five days later, a second newspaper story reported that his "lawyer's office has been inundated with calls from media outlets. ... 'We're just sort of waiting for the dust to settle,' he said, explaining he and his client are evaluating offers." He also said, "We anticipate that we will be telling the full story to somebody rather quickly."

In 1995, almost three decades after the Patterson–Gimlin filming, Greg Long, a technical writer for a technology firm who had a hobby of investigating and writing about Northwest mysteries, started years of interviewing people who knew Patterson, some of whom described him as a liar and a conman.

The skeptical views of Grieve and Napier are summarized favorably by Kenneth Wylie (and those of Bayanov and Donskoy negatively) in Appendix A of his 1980 book, Bigfoot: A Personal Inquiry into a Phenomenon.

Greg Long reports that a 1978 legal "settlement gave Dahinden controlling rights—51 percent of the film footage, 51 percent of video cassette rights, and 100 percent of all 952 frames of the footage. Patty Patterson had 100 percent of all TV rights and 49 percent rights in the film footage. Dahinden had ... bought out Gimlin, who himself had received nothing from Patterson; and Mason and Radford, promised part of the profits by Patterson, had nothing to show for their investment or efforts."

After Patterson's death, Michael McLeod wrote, "With the consent of Al DeAtley and Patricia Patterson, the film distributor Ron Olson took over the operation of Northwest Research ... and changed its name to the North American Wildlife Research Association. ... He worked full-time compiling reports, soliciting volunteers to join the hunt, and organizing several small expeditions. A Bigfoot trap Olson and his crew built still survives. ... Olson ... continued to lobby the company [American National Enterprises] to produce a Bigfoot film. ... In 1974 ... ANE finally agreed. ... [It was released in 1975,] titled Bigfoot: Man or Beast. [H]e devised a storyline involving members of a Bigfoot research party. ... The film comes to a frightful end when a Bigfoot terrorized the expedition at night. Olson spent several years exhibiting the film around the country. He planned to make millions with the film, but says it lost money." Olson is profiled in Barbara Wasson's Sasquatch Apparitions.

On November 25, 1974, CBS broadcast Monsters! Mystery or Myth, a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. (It was co-produced by the Smithsonian Institution, who cancelled their contract with the producer the next year). The show attracted fifty million viewers. In 1975, Sunn Classic Pictures released "Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monster" aka "The Mysterious Monsters", which remixed parts of "Monsters! Mystery or Myth" another documentary called "Land Of The Yeti", and also included footage from the Patterson–Gimlin film.

Patterson died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1972. According to Michael McLeod, Greg Long, and Bill Munns, "A few days before Roger died, he told [Bigfoot-book author Peter] Byrne that in retrospect, ... he [wished he] would have shot the thing and brought out a body instead of a reel of film." According to Grover Krantz and Robert Pyle, years later, Patterson and Gimlin both agreed they should have tried to shoot the creature, both for financial gain and to silence naysayers.

Christopher Murphy wrote, "Dahinden traveled to Europe [with the film] in 1971. He visited England, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Russia. Although scientists in these countries were somewhat more open-minded than those in North America, their findings were basically the same . ... A real glimmer of hope, however, emerged [in Russia, where he met Bayanov, Bourtsev, and their associates]."

Patterson's expensive ($369) 16mm camera had been rented on May 13 from photographer Harold Mattson at Sheppard's Camera Shop in Yakima, but he had kept it longer than the contract had stipulated, and an arrest warrant had been issued for him on October 17; he was actually arrested within weeks of his return from Bluff Creek. After Patterson returned the camera in working order, this charge was ultimately dismissed, in 1969.

Daegling wrote, "Bigfoot advocates emphasize that Patterson remained an active Bigfoot hunter up until his death." For instance, in 1969, he hired a pair of brothers to travel around in a truck chasing down leads to Bigfoot witnesses and interviewing them. Later, in December of that year, he was one of those present in Bossburg, Washington, in the aftermath of the cripplefoot tracks found there. Krantz reports that "[a] few years after the film was made, Patterson received a letter from a man ["a US airman stationed in Thailand"] who assured him a Sasquatch was being held in a Buddhist monastery. Patterson spent most of his remaining money preparing an expedition to retrieve this creature" only to learn it was a hoax. He learned this only after having sent Dennis Jenson fruitlessly to Thailand (where he concluded that the airman was "mentally unbalanced") and then, after receiving a second untrue letter from the man, going himself to Thailand with Jenson.

Grover Krantz writes that "Patterson had the film developed as soon as possible. At first he thought he had brought in proof of Bigfoot's existence and really expected the scientists to accept it. But only a few scientists were willing to even look at the film," usually at showings at scientific organizations. These were usually arranged at the behest of zoologist, author, and media figure Ivan Sanderson, a supporter of Patterson's film. Seven showings occurred, in Vancouver, Manhattan, The Bronx, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. again (all by the end of 1968); then, later, in Beaverton, Oregon. Of those who were quoted, most expressed various reservations, although some were willing to say they were intrigued by it.

The film is 23.85 feet long (preceded by 76.15 feet of "horseback" footage), has 954 frames, and runs for 59.5 seconds at 16 frames per second. If the film was shot at 18 fps, as Grover Krantz believed, the event lasted 53 seconds. The date was October 20, 1967, according to the filmmakers, although some critics believe it was shot earlier.

In May/June 1967 Patterson began filming a docudrama or pseudo-documentary about cowboys being led by an old miner and a wise Indian tracker on a hunt for Bigfoot. The storyline called for Patterson, his Indian guide (Gimlin in a wig), and the cowboys to recall in flashbacks the stories of Fred Beck (of the 1924 Ape Canyon incident) and others as they tracked the beast on horseback. For actors and cameraman, Patterson used at least nine volunteer acquaintances, including Gimlin and Bob Heironimus, for three days of shooting, perhaps over the Memorial Day weekend. Patterson would have needed a costume to represent Bigfoot, if the time came to shoot such climactic scenes.

Prior to the October 1967 filming, Patterson apparently visited Los Angeles on these occasions:

In October 1967, Patterson and his friend Gimlin set out for the Six Rivers National Forest in far Northern California. They drove in Gimlin's truck, carrying his provisions and three horses, positioned sideways. Patterson chose the area because of intermittent reports of the creatures in the past, and of their enormous footprints since 1958. (His familiarity with the area and its residents from prior visits may also have been a factor.)

The most recent of these reports was the nearby Blue Creek Mountain track find, which was investigated by journalist John Green, Bigfoot hunter René Dahinden, and archaeologist Don Abbott on and after August 28, 1967. This find was reported to Patterson (via his wife) soon thereafter by Al Hodgson, owner of the Willow Creek Variety Store.

As their stories went, in the early afternoon of Friday, October 20, 1967, Patterson and Gimlin were riding generally northeast (upstream) on horseback along the east bank of Bluff Creek. At sometime between 1:15 and 1:40 PM, they "came to an overturned tree with a large root system at a turn in the creek, almost as high as a room".

At approximately 6:30 PM, Patterson and Gimlin met up with Al Hodgson at his variety store in Willow Creek, approximately 54.3 miles south by road, about 28.8 miles by Bluff Creek Road from their camp to the 1967 roadhead by Bluff Creek, and 25.5 miles down California State Route 96 to Willow Creek. Patterson intended to drive on to Eureka to ship his film. Either at that time, or when he arrived in the Eureka/Arcata area, he called Al DeAtley (his brother-in-law in Yakima) and told him to expect the film he was shipping. He requested Hodgson to call Donald Abbott, whom Grover Krantz described as "the only scientist of any stature to have demonstrated any serious interest in the [Bigfoot] subject," hoping he would help them search for the creature by bringing a tracking dog. Hodgson called, but Abbott declined. Krantz argued that this call the same day of the encounter is evidence against a hoax, at least on Patterson's part.

The film generated a fair amount of national publicity. Patterson appeared on a few popular TV talk shows to promote the film and belief in Bigfoot by showing excerpts from it: for instance, on the Joe Pyne Show in Los Angeles, in 1967, which covered most of the western US; on Merv Griffin's program, with Krantz offering his analysis of the film; on Joey Bishop's talk show, and also on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Articles on the film appeared in Argosy, National Wildlife Magazine, and Reader's Digest.

One radio interview, with Gimlin, by Vancouver-based Jack Webster in November 1967, was partly recorded by John Green and reprinted in Loren Coleman's Bigfoot! Patterson also appeared on broadcast interviews on local stations near where his film would be shown during his four-walling tour in 1968.

The second reel, showing Patterson and Gimlin making and displaying plaster casts of some footprints, was not shown in conjunction with the first reel at Al DeAtley's house, according to those who were there. Chris Murphy wrote, "I believe the screening of this roll at the University of British Columbia on October 26, 1967, was the first and last major screening." It has subsequently been lost.

Daegling notes that in 1967, movie and television special effects were primitive compared to the more sophisticated effects in later decades, and allows that if the Patterson film depicts a man in a suit that "it is not unreasonable to suggest that it is better than some of the tackier monster outfits that got thrown together for television at that time."

Morris said that he sold an ape suit to Patterson via mail order in 1967, thinking it was going to be used in what Patterson described as a "prank". (Ordinarily the gorilla suits he sold were used for a popular sideshow routine that depicted an attractive woman, supposedly from some far-flung corner of the globe, being altered by a sorcerer or scientist into a gorilla or otherwise apelike monster.) After the initial sale, Morris said that Patterson telephoned him asking how to make the "shoulders more massive" and the "arms longer". Morris says he suggested that whoever wore the suit should wear football shoulder pads and hold sticks in his hands within the suit.

Morris' wife and business partner Amy had vouched for her husband and claims to have helped frame the suit. Morris offered no evidence apart from his own testimony to support his account, the most conspicuous shortcoming being the absence of a gorilla suit or documentation that would match the detail evidenced in the film and could have been produced in 1967.

Patterson's book, Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?, was self-published in 1966. The book has been characterized as "little more than a collection of newspaper clippings laced together with Patterson's circus-poster style prose". The book, however, contains 20 pages of previously unpublished interviews and letters, 17 drawings by Patterson of the encounters described in the text, 5 hand-drawn maps (rare in subsequent Bigfoot books), and almost 20 photos and illustrations from other sources. It was first reprinted in 1996 by Chris Murphy, and then again re-issued by Murphy in 2005 under the title The Bigfoot Film Controversy, with 81 pages of additional material by Murphy.

The footage was filmed alongside Bluff Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River, about 25 logging-road miles northwest of Orleans, California, in Del Norte County. The film site is roughly 38 miles south of Oregon and 18 miles east of the Pacific Ocean. For decades, the exact location of the site was lost, primarily because of re-growth of foliage in the streambed after the flood of 1964. It was rediscovered in 2011. It is just south of a north-running segment of the creek informally known as "the bowling alley".

In 1962 he visited Bluff Creek and talked with a whole host of Bigfoot-believers. In 1964 he returned and met a timber-cruiser named Pat Graves, who drove him to Laird Meadows. There Patterson saw fresh tracks—for him an almost unbearably exciting, spine-chilling experience. What a tremendous feat it would be—what a scientific breakthrough—if he could obtain unshakable evidence that these tracks were not the work of a prankster, but the actual mark of a hitherto unknown creature! If he succeeded, he would be famous! And rich! Alas, fame and fortune were not gained that year, nor the next, nor the next. Patterson invested thousands of hours and dollars combing Bigfoot and Sasquatch territory. He fought constant ridicule and a shortage of funds. ... he founded ... the Northwest Research Foundation. Through it he solicited funds . ... The response was encouraging and enabled him to lead several expeditions. ... In 1966 he published a paperback book at his own expense. ... He added the income from its sales and his lectures to the search fund. As each wilderness jaunt failed to see or capture the monster, one by one the thrill-seekers dropped out. But Patterson never gave up.

Patterson said he became interested in Bigfoot after reading an article about the creature by Ivan T. Sanderson in True magazine in December 1959. In 1961 Sanderson published his encyclopedic Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, a worldwide survey of accounts of Bigfoot-type creatures, including recent track finds, etc. in the Bluff Creek area, which heightened his interest. Thereafter, Marian Place wrote:

The filmmakers were Roger Patterson (February 14, 1933 – January 15, 1972) and Robert "'Bob" Gimlin (born October 18, 1931). Patterson died of cancer in 1972 and "maintained right to the end that the creature on the film was real". Patterson's friend, Gimlin, has always denied being involved in any part of a hoax with Patterson. Gimlin mostly avoided publicly discussing the subject from at least the early 1970s until about 2005 (except for three appearances), when he began giving interviews and appearing at Bigfoot conferences.