The Famed 1967 Bigfoot Film Was an 'Incredible Hoax,' Says the Director of a Groundbreaking New Documentary
Shot by a former rodeo star named Roger Patterson and his pal Robert Gimlin, the Patterson-Gimlin film had, for decades, been scrutinized by biologists, anthropologists and even Hollywood costume examiners looking to debunk its authenticity. Over the years, no one had been able to definitively prove that the 16mm movie was staged.
All that began to change in June 2024 when Evans, who has directed a handful of critically acclaimed documentaries, received an email from a part-time instructor named Teresa Brooks at Olympic College, where he teaches courses in documentary filmmaking.
Not long after receiving Brooks’ email, Evans had the 16mm film developed and days later found himself looking at a 40-second clip set in a location similar to the one in the 1967 movie, showing what appeared to be a slightly skinnier-looking Bigfoot walking into the woods.
“It took me maybe nine months to realize what we really had,” says Evans, who was able to determine, by markings on the film, that the footage had been shot in 1966, roughly a year before the now-famous clip in the 59-second Bigfoot movie was allegedly shot. “What we eventually found out is that [this new footage] represented a trial run, a rehearsal that was never discarded.”
Realizing he had physical evidence that finally put to rest the question of whether Patterson’s creation was a hoax, Evans knew he had the makings for an explosive documentary. He quickly went to work, he says, “connecting the dots” behind the making of the 1967 film and interviewing the cast of characters in Patterson’s hometown of Yakima, Wash., who were involved with its creation, including 80-something-year-old Bob Heironimus, who confessed to being the individual wearing the fake Bigfoot suit in the film.
Evans, whose father had grown up in Yakima and had heard plenty of gossip among locals about the film's authenticity, assumed that the family of Roger Patterson — who died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1972 — would, as they always had, refuse to speak about the film, which had generated millions of dollars in licensing fees over the years. But once Evans showed the new footage to Patterson’s oldest son, Clint, a 66-year-old Montana rancher, he was eager to talk.
“He’d learned the film was a fake from his mother years earlier and had been wanting to come out and tell this story,” says Evans. “The lie had been really hard on him, and he was ready and wanting to get out from under it.”
What makes the story even more complicated and tragic, says Evans, is that Patterson, who by all accounts truly believed in Bigfoot’s existence, knew that he was dying in 1967 when he made and released his film. “He knew he didn’t have long to live and that he was going to be leaving his wife with three young kids to take care of,” Evans says. “So he took a shot at leaving them some sort of legacy [that could possibly help pay the bills].”
The only piece of the mystery still unresolved is what happened to the Bigfoot suit that Patterson had painstakingly created. “Clint told me that he actually saw his dad burn the suit out behind the family house one night in a big barrel,” says Evans. “He basically spent about 30 minutes tossing it into the fire, piece by piece.”
https://people.com/famous-1967-bigfoot-f...c-11926085
So, which excuse will the believers in Bigfoot invent to preserve their belief in Bigfoot?
Shot by a former rodeo star named Roger Patterson and his pal Robert Gimlin, the Patterson-Gimlin film had, for decades, been scrutinized by biologists, anthropologists and even Hollywood costume examiners looking to debunk its authenticity. Over the years, no one had been able to definitively prove that the 16mm movie was staged.
All that began to change in June 2024 when Evans, who has directed a handful of critically acclaimed documentaries, received an email from a part-time instructor named Teresa Brooks at Olympic College, where he teaches courses in documentary filmmaking.
Not long after receiving Brooks’ email, Evans had the 16mm film developed and days later found himself looking at a 40-second clip set in a location similar to the one in the 1967 movie, showing what appeared to be a slightly skinnier-looking Bigfoot walking into the woods.
“It took me maybe nine months to realize what we really had,” says Evans, who was able to determine, by markings on the film, that the footage had been shot in 1966, roughly a year before the now-famous clip in the 59-second Bigfoot movie was allegedly shot. “What we eventually found out is that [this new footage] represented a trial run, a rehearsal that was never discarded.”
Realizing he had physical evidence that finally put to rest the question of whether Patterson’s creation was a hoax, Evans knew he had the makings for an explosive documentary. He quickly went to work, he says, “connecting the dots” behind the making of the 1967 film and interviewing the cast of characters in Patterson’s hometown of Yakima, Wash., who were involved with its creation, including 80-something-year-old Bob Heironimus, who confessed to being the individual wearing the fake Bigfoot suit in the film.
Evans, whose father had grown up in Yakima and had heard plenty of gossip among locals about the film's authenticity, assumed that the family of Roger Patterson — who died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1972 — would, as they always had, refuse to speak about the film, which had generated millions of dollars in licensing fees over the years. But once Evans showed the new footage to Patterson’s oldest son, Clint, a 66-year-old Montana rancher, he was eager to talk.
“He’d learned the film was a fake from his mother years earlier and had been wanting to come out and tell this story,” says Evans. “The lie had been really hard on him, and he was ready and wanting to get out from under it.”
What makes the story even more complicated and tragic, says Evans, is that Patterson, who by all accounts truly believed in Bigfoot’s existence, knew that he was dying in 1967 when he made and released his film. “He knew he didn’t have long to live and that he was going to be leaving his wife with three young kids to take care of,” Evans says. “So he took a shot at leaving them some sort of legacy [that could possibly help pay the bills].”
The only piece of the mystery still unresolved is what happened to the Bigfoot suit that Patterson had painstakingly created. “Clint told me that he actually saw his dad burn the suit out behind the family house one night in a big barrel,” says Evans. “He basically spent about 30 minutes tossing it into the fire, piece by piece.”
https://people.com/famous-1967-bigfoot-f...c-11926085
So, which excuse will the believers in Bigfoot invent to preserve their belief in Bigfoot?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
