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The Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film is the best known alleged movie of a real hairy biped.
Overview
October 20th, 1967. Roger Patterson, a Bigfoot enthusiast who had self-published a book on the subject the year before, is in the Bluff Creek area of Northern California. He is making a documentary with a rented 16mm camera, and has been shooting background landscape footage. He's heard about reports in this wilderness area, including a find of gigantic footprints within the last few months.
According to Patterson (and Robert Gimlin, who accompanied him), they had an amazing encounter. They came across a Bigfoot. Patterson's horse reared, apparently frightened by the huge beast. Scrabbling to get the camera out of the saddlebag, Patterson grabbed the camera and began filming and running after the creature simultaneously.
The film (which runs less than a minute) is shaky in the beginning, which fits Patterson's story. However, it is clear that the film depicts a bipedal figure walking away from the camera, arms swinging. There is a now iconic moment, when "Patty" (as the subject has become known) looks back over her (the pendulous breasts have led most observers to interpret the creature as female) shoulder at Patterson. Patterson has reportedly described this look as one of contempt and disgust, presumably at these puny intruders.
Had Patterson gotten the proof that followers had sought for almost ten years?
Reaction and Distribution
If Patterson believed that merely presenting this footage would convince scientists of the existence of a hairy biped in the American Northwest, he must have been disappointed. Most scientists weren't willing to look at it. Even if it was genuine, it wouldn't be proof. If it was a hoax (which must have seemed likely to many mainstream scientists), even having examined it could be damaging to their reputations.
Reportedly, Patterson's documentary did play locally, but it didn't reach a wide audience.
In the February 1968 issue of Argosy, a "men's adventure" magazine, Ivan T. Sanderson wrote an article about the film entitled, First Photos of Bigfoot, California's "Abominable Snowman". Sanderson was a well-known naturalist who had written a comprehensive book on hairy bipeds in 1961. While a significant amount of the article is about the controversy, it certainly did not dismiss the movie as a hoax.
Napier, a primatologist who had been the Director of the Primate Biology program at the Smithsonian, had seen the film in a showing in Washington D. C. on December 2, 1967 (just weeks after it was taken). He claimed to have watched a half-dozen times then, and examined it frame by frame since that time. He reproduces (as an appendix) a report by D. W. Grieve, a British biomechanician.
- "Perhaps it was a man dressed up in a monkey-skin; if so it was a brilliantly executed hoax and the unknown perpetrator will take his place with the great hoaxers of the world. Perhaps it was the first film of a new type of hominid, quite unknown to science, in which case Roger Patterson deserves to rank with Dubois, the discover of Pithecanthropus erectus or Java man..."
Peter Graves narrated this popular documentary which brought the Patterson film to a wide audience.
The 18 page Chapter 6 of the book is entitled Roger Patterson's Movie, and there are passing references throughout the book.
- "...it may well prove eventually that the evidence to establish the existence of the sasquatch has been on that piece of film since 1967."
Green discusses attempts to investigate the film, and cites the opinions of experts, from biomechanical to Janos Prohaska, an actor who had portrayed gorillas in numerous movies. The bulk of the opinions he presents lean against a "man-in-a-suit" explanation.
Greg Long and Prometheus (2004)
Popular Culture
Arguments in Favor
Arguments Against
More to come...
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