A Brief History
On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson shot his famous footage of a bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California. The creature was later determined to be female and became known as “Patty.”
Digging Deeper
Patterson was someone who might be considered an amateur bigfoot hunter. Together with Robert “Bob” Gimlin, a rancher and horse trainer who acted as a guide, he set out on horseback to capture a bigfoot, or sasquatch as they are also known, on film. They followed various sets of tracks (Patty’s were later found to have been the medium-sized ones…) until they reached Bluff Creek where the horses reeled upon catching sight of a kneeling bigfoot who got up and walked across the sandbar and disappeared into the tree line. Patterson, thrown from his horse, got up from underneath it, ran after the bigfoot and filmed it until he unfortunately ran out of film. All the while, with his rifle in hand, Gimlin watched the encounter, ready to shoot if necessary.
The resulting footage became known as the Patterson–Gimlin film. Whereas Patterson thought the film would be proof enough of the creature’s existence, he was met with skepticism from naysayers who tried to disprove the film’s authenticity, and before he died a little over 5 years later, he wondered if he should have perhaps killed the bigfoot to squelch the controversy and to have irrefutable prove that bigfoots roamed North America.
After Patterson’s death, his film was met with renewed interest as a result of programs such as In Search Of and Mysterious Monsters and the movie The Legend of Boggy Creek (please click on the links to watch the respective episodes). In the past 40 years, no film except for the footage of the Kennedy assassination has been as studied or as scrutinized as much as the Patterson-Gimlin film. Though some disbelievers still view it as a hoax, the film contains many interesting observations that are hard to explain or to recreate. In this article, the author presents 2 less-known pieces of evidence from the incident that she believes are worthy of consideration in the debate surrounding the 53-second-long footage.
First, without knowing it, Patterson had actually captured 2 bigfoots on film! This little known “fact” was easy to oversee due to the shaking of the camera as Patterson ran after Patty. The following video demonstrates that there was another, larger bigfoot in the vicinity, a little bit behind Patty but still right in front of the noses of Patterson and Gimlin:
This other bigfoot reaches the safety of the forest first, but Patty eventually catches up with him as seen in the next video that has been prepared by M.K. Davis who is well known within the bigfoot community for his analysis of bigfoot evidence. The entire video is fascinating, but the part concerning the second bigfoot begins at approximately 15:50.
Secondly, if this discovery were not amazing enough, you might also be interested to learn that this was not Patty’s “debut.” 7 years earlier, British Yeti researcher Peter Byrne had made casts of bigfoot prints at Bluff Creek. In the meantime, it has been determined that the casts he made are very likely to be the footprints of the same individual whose prints were cast after Patty walked across the sandbar, in other words, Patty’s own! If this does not speak for the legitimacy of the film, than the author does not know what else would. For more information and pictures, please click here. This find also shows researchers that individual bigfoots either always live in the same region or return to it regularly or travel through the same regions on an annual basis as they migrate.
Whatever your thoughts on bigfoot are, the author hopes to have presented some lesser known pieces of evidence that might sway your mind a little more in the direction of the credibility of the film and Patty, its main subject. Question for students (and subscribers): If you have had any personal experiences with bigfoot and would care to share, please do so in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Coleman, Loren. Bigfoot!: The True Story of Apes in America. Paraview Pocket Books, 2003.
Meldrum, Jeff and George B. Schaller. Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. Forge Trade, 2007.
