Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film is a hoax?

J

johne1618

Guest
I now think that the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film shown here is probably a hoax.


Source: https://youtu.be/TjhhFj3Vua0

Researcher Greg Long has investigated the case and concludes it was a hoax (see his 2004 book). Here he talks on a 2016 interview published on YouTube on Jan 18, 2022.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWmKQU4Hg34


In part 2 we hear from Bob Heironimus, the man who claimed to be wearing the Bigfoot suit, and we hear from author Michael Greene who has interviewed Philip Morris who claimed to have made the Bigfoot suit.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFHRLgMTB7A
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Once I saw a stabilized version of the footage it became very obvious to me that this was a man in a suit.

You can ignore the guy talking over this but just watching it.....walks like a man. The shaky cam was doing a lot of heavy lifting

 
I now think that the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film shown here is probably a hoax.


Source: https://youtu.be/TjhhFj3Vua0

Researcher Greg Long has investigated the case and concludes it was a hoax (see his 2004 book). Here he talks on a 2016 interview published on YouTube on Jan 18, 2022.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWmKQU4Hg34


In part 2 we hear from Bob Heironimus, the man who claimed to be wearing the Bigfoot suit, and we hear from author Michael Greene who has interviewed Philip Morris who claimed to have made the Bigfoot suit.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFHRLgMTB7A

This is ancient history and was debunked a long time ago. Philip Morris exposed that he made the suit back in the 70’s.
 
I now think that the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film shown here is probably a hoax.
...ery obvious to me that this was a man in a suit...walks like a man. The shaky cam was doing a lot of heavy lifting

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzoIvwNqKpw

This is ancient history and was debunked a long time ago...
Yeah, between the "which is most likely?" test and the various confessions over the years...it's a hard sell...
 
This is ancient history and was debunked a long time ago. Philip Morris exposed that he made the suit back in the 70’s.
Yes, but I'm seeing a resurgence of claims on paranormal sites about various features that "can't be faked." (The reasons WHY they can't be faked are normally not given.) So it's ancient history, and has been pretty thoroughly debunked, but it's also current events in terms of what people are falling for -- or at least are being encouraged to fall for.
 
Yes, but I'm seeing a resurgence of claims on paranormal sites about various features that "can't be faked." (The reasons WHY they can't be faked are normally not given.) So it's ancient history, and has been pretty thoroughly debunked, but it's also current events in terms of what people are falling for -- or at least are being encouraged to fall for.
UFO videos that are well and truly debunked make an appearance on Reddit etc about once every 3 months or so, it's never-ending.
 
54 years later with everyone on the planet carrying cameras, yet still no pic or video of an alien spacecraft as clear as this.
 
Boy did that film scare the s%*t outa me when I was younger!

I grew up in suburban housing tract, but my grandparents had some land next to Lassen National Forest that we would visit. I remember being about 9-10 years old and having just seen this footage on TV before we went "up to the woods". My dad suggested that me and my younger brother "head up to the 'ol fishing hole" a 1/2 mile or so up the creek
...through heavy timber:oops:
...just the two of us:oops:
...in Northern California Bigfoot country:oops:

In part 2 we hear from Bob Heironimus, the man who claimed to be wearing the Bigfoot suit, and we hear from author Michael Greene who has interviewed Philip Morris who claimed to have made the Bigfoot suit.
There has been some push back on these parts of Long's theory. Like with the original, it becomes stories vs. stories with no real evidence. Although one could say the film is evidence.

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.
Content from External Source
Long argues that the suit Morris says he sold to Patterson was the same suit Heironimus claims to have worn in the Patterson film. However, Long quotes Heironimus and Morris describing different ape suits in many respects.
Content from External Source
Long speculates that Patterson modified the costume, but only by attaching Morris's loose hands and feet to the costume,[261] and by replacing Morris's mask.[262] However, there's nothing he wrote on suit modification. There's no evidence or testimony that Patterson changed the Morris suit to horsehide, or dyed it a darker color, or cut it in half at the waist to agree with Heironimus's description.
Content from External Source
I've always found the fact that Patterson was trying to make a Bigfoot film prior to the encounter a little suspicious. He had been shooting and working out a story line and using people like Heironimus 4-5 months before heading to NorCal.

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.[23][24] Patterson would have needed a costume to represent Bigfoot, if the time came to shoot such climactic scenes.
Content from External Source
In addition is the timeline:

Critics claim that too much happened between the filming (at 1:15 at the earliest) and the filmmakers' arrival in Willow Creek (at 6:30 at the latest). Daegling wrote, "All of the problems with the timeline disappear if the film is shot a few days or hours beforehand. If that is the case, one has to wonder what other details of this story are wrong."[60][61] The film's defenders retort that although the time window was tight, it was do-able.[62]
Content from External Source
To my knowledge, the leader of the original film containing the date it was developed and possibly the lab that did it has never been shown. Why?

Ultimately, it's the lack of any hard to hoax evidence like scat, hair, skeletal remains or DNA vs something like a shaky film that can be hoaxed. At least if we're talking about a flesh and blood Bigfoot. If Bigfoot is a space/time portal hopping alien creature that can appear anywhere at anytime, than I'm not going back to the 'ol fishing hole.

All external content:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterson–Gimlin_film
 
Boy did that film scare the s%*t outa me when I was younger!

I grew up in suburban housing tract, but my grandparents had some land next to Lassen National Forest that we would visit. I remember being about 9-10 years old and having just seen this footage on TV before we went "up to the woods". My dad suggested that me and my younger brother "head up to the 'ol fishing hole" a 1/2 mile or so up the creek
...through heavy timber:oops:
...just the two of us:oops:
...in Northern California Bigfoot country:oops:


There has been some push back on these parts of Long's theory. Like with the original, it becomes stories vs. stories with no real evidence. Although one could say the film is evidence.

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.
Content from External Source
Long argues that the suit Morris says he sold to Patterson was the same suit Heironimus claims to have worn in the Patterson film. However, Long quotes Heironimus and Morris describing different ape suits in many respects.
Content from External Source
Long speculates that Patterson modified the costume, but only by attaching Morris's loose hands and feet to the costume,[261] and by replacing Morris's mask.[262] However, there's nothing he wrote on suit modification. There's no evidence or testimony that Patterson changed the Morris suit to horsehide, or dyed it a darker color, or cut it in half at the waist to agree with Heironimus's description.
Content from External Source

I've never known what to make of the Morris story -- other than having been in Morris Costumes consumer-level shop (it is a few miles from my house), where they sell pretty standard Halloween stuff and rent clown costumes and the like, I have seen some of the fancy stuff they do for pro clients on display and it is impressive. It is always possible that Morris sold them a suit, but it is not the one seen in the film -- being in pre-production for a low-budget fictional monster-movie about Bigfoot, they might well have shot test footage of more than one suit. If, as I have read, their script was going to based on the Ape Canyon incident, they might even have needed more than one suit, as the story would involve more than one 'squatch.


I've always found the fact that Patterson was trying to make a Bigfoot film prior to the encounter a little suspicious. He had been shooting and working out a story line and using people like Heironimus 4-5 months before heading to NorCal.
I find it HUGELY suspicious. It provides method, means and motive for a hoax. And the more I look at the film, the more it looks like test footage for a suit, to see what it looks like on film, walking, looking around, etc. That is not proof of fraud -- it is still possible that a guy who would need to own or rent bigfoot costume(s), would need to shoot test footage of it/them, and would profit from publicity increasing interest in bigfoot in the event he got his movie made, would also happen to stumble across a real bigfoot (assuming there are any) and shoot the only footage clearly showing one of them walking along in the open at close-ish range. But it don't pass the smell test.



To my knowledge, the leader of the original film containing the date it was developed and possibly the lab that did it has never been shown. Why?
Possibly because the original reel of film is lost, what we have now are copies. I am not knowledgeable of the procedures for making duplicates of a reel of film, but would the leader necessarily be included? It is tempting to speculate that it is missing because it tells us something that contradicts claims made, timelines and such, but I guess it would be more fair to say that in its absence we're missing one bit of corroboration we might have had, at least.
 
I've always found the fact that Patterson was trying to make a Bigfoot film prior to the encounter a little suspicious
Even more suspicious imo...after FINALLY finding a bigfoot, he never returned to that location ever again for further "study." Instead, he continued to search for bigfoot proof everywhere except the one place he knew he could find a bigfoot. Makes absolutely no sense.
 
I've never known what to make of the Morris story
It's one of the things that makes the PGF so interesting. Short of a smoking gun, the de-bunkers are dealing with the same challenges and shortcomings as the pro-paranormal/alien/cryptid crowd. Faulty or garbled memories, passage of time, people wanting to inject themselves into the story and so on. There are other claims about who made the costume and who wore it.
 
There are other claims about who made the costume and who wore it.
I'm not really aware of other maker claimants. Morris Costumes being nearby (some of the Halloween stuff I overdo decorating with every year is made by them) when their name came up it stuck in my consciousness. But given the Ape Canyon story would mean multiple bigfootses, it may be that there were more than one suit, from more than one source. And either way shooting some test footage of how the suit looks on film would be standard practice.
 
I always find it interesting when people say "It looks like a man in a suit" when talking about a thing that would look like a man in a suit.

There has been some push back on these parts of Long's theory.
There are real problems with Long's approach, including irreconcilable differences in people's stories and asking severely leading questions in the interviews that border on badgering. Long took the reverse approach to a serious investigation. He began from the premise that the film was a hoax and then set out to try and prove it, and openly says as much in the book. That's not the way research is done. Long offers no analysis of the film itself and simply paints an unflattering picture of Patterson as something of a scoundrel who owed everybody money, which is pretty much universally acknowledged. The problem is that's all circumstantial, and at the end of the day the film has to stand or fall based on what it shows, not to whom Patterson owed money.

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.
Moreover, Morris was asked to produce another one like it and said he would, but what he produced looked nothing like either what the film shows or the suit he was selling. He says it was an off-the-shelf costume that was modified for Patterson. Here is a photo of Morris standing next to the gorilla costume that he was selling at the time, and the suit he produced to prove his claims. You be the judge. To date, nobody has been able to reproduce what the film shows, despite many well-funded efforts.



Long argues that the suit Morris says he sold to Patterson was the same suit Heironimus claims to have worn in the Patterson film. However, Long quotes Heironimus and Morris describing different ape suits in many respects.
Heironymous first claimed that Patterson had killed a red horse and skinned it to make a two-piece costume with a drawstring waist. You'll note that the figure in the film is black. Then after Morris made his claim, Heironymous changed his story to say that it was just a gorilla suit with football shoulder pads underneath. Both of those things cannot be true, so either he lied before or he's lying now. He also doesn't know where the film site actually was.


I've always found the fact that Patterson was trying to make a Bigfoot film prior to the encounter a little suspicious. He had been shooting and working out a story line and using people like Heironimus 4-5 months before heading to NorCal.
It might seem suspicious to some, but it makes sense in the larger context. Patterson and Gimlin weren't randomly out in the woods when the film was allegedly taken. They were following up on a series of recent sightings in the area and Patterson was shooting some B-roll footage to be used in the film. The first 2 minutes of the film consists entirely of this B-roll stuff. Patterson had also just published his book the year before, so if he was looking to cash in, why not publish the book after?

Complete Film
Content from External Source
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.
This is where it gets really interesting. It's possible that everyone could be telling the truth to some degree. We know that there was a considerable bit of footage already in the can, and so it's possible that there was indeed a suit of some sort for an actor to play the part of the monster, much like Legend of Boggy Creek. Heironymous may indeed have been the actor chosen for it and is simply confused about the date and location. This would have been a completely separate piece of footage from the film we are discussing and would fit with claims that Patterson had developed a really terrible piece of film of a man in a suit prior to October. Alas, we will never know because all of that completed footage is lost.

Critics claim that too much happened between the filming (at 1:15 at the earliest) and the filmmakers' arrival in Willow Creek (at 6:30 at the latest). Daegling wrote, "All of the problems with the timeline disappear if the film is shot a few days or hours beforehand. If that is the case, one has to wonder what other details of this story are wrong." The film's defenders retort that although the time window was tight, it was do-able.
I've never understood this argument. The timeline isn't even particularly tight as far as I can tell. Listen Bob Gimlin describe the day and see if anything seems amiss.

Bob Gimlin Discusses the Film
Content from External Source
To my knowledge, the leader of the original film containing the date it was developed and possibly the lab that did it has never been shown. Why?
Because the camera original is lost and the best we have are 1st gen copies. At the time of Patterson's death in 1972, the original was in the possession of a production company called American National Enterprises. Patterson's estate failed to get it back after his death, and then ANE went bankrupt and the film was sold in a liquidation sale. The new owner put it in storage, and in 1980 Rene Dahinden informed the owner that Patterson had sold him his rights to the film before his death (which was true) and Dahinden was allowed to check it out for examination. It's unknown whether Dahinden returned it, passed it on to somebody else, or kept it. He was a cantankerous sort who didn't play well with others, so he never discussed it. His estate has been contacted, but they haven't found it. If it could be found there is a lot we could learn from it.

https://www.isu.edu/media/libraries...-OF-THE-PATTERSON-GIMLIN-FILM-IMAGE_final.pdf
Content from External Source
As far as the lab goes, the lab in Seattle where Kodachrome was developed was open that Saturday but they weren't processing Kodachrome that day. Al DeAtley said he didn't want to reveal the lab because "it might cost the young man his job." Since DeAtley was a very wealthy man, it's not unreasonable to think he might have slipped somebody a Benjamin to get it done after hours.

Ultimately, it's the lack of any hard to hoax evidence like scat, hair, skeletal remains or DNA vs something like a shaky film that can be hoaxed. At least if we're talking about a flesh and blood Bigfoot.
We do have hair and scat DNA samples, but the only thing that can be said about them is that they don't match any known animal. That's not really helpful. Hairs have been identified as primate hairs but with a different medulla than humans, but again it's just an unknown without a type sample to compare it to. What needs to happen is for the genome to be fully sequenced, which is cost-prohibitive. If Elon Musk wants to take on a side project this would be right up his alley.

Unexpected DNA Results
Content from External Source
 
Last edited:
Even more suspicious imo...after FINALLY finding a bigfoot, he never returned to that location ever again for further "study." Instead, he continued to search for bigfoot proof everywhere except the one place he knew he could find a bigfoot. Makes absolutely no sense.
This is wrong. Witnesses have corroborated that when Patterson got back to Willow Creek he tried to find some hunting dogs to go back but he was unable because it was too late in the day. He returned to the site many times and took researchers like John Green, Bob Titmus, and Rene Dahinden there to do their own analysis. This is well-documented with photos and video.

 
There has been some push back on these parts of Long's theory. Like with the original, it becomes stories vs. stories with no real evidence. Although one could say the film is evidence.

Indeed. Long's work is actually little more than an ad hominem attack on Patterson without addressing the actual film at all, which makes it entirely circumstantial and it offers no actual proof of Long's most sensational claims.

It is the story, in the words of one key witness, of “a cheat, a liar, and a thief.” Patterson was many things: an artist, woodworker, acrobat, rodeo-rider, filmmaker, author, and, above all, a con man. Long’s portrait is that of a small-time, back roads scam artist with dreams of the big score... “Roger Patterson’s character fails the smell test,” writes Long. “Sum up all the information about Roger Patterson, and it comes down to two simple points. One, he had the ability to conceive of and create a Bigfoot suit, and two, he was a crook.”[link]
Content from External Source
That doesn't cut it in my view. The fact that Patterson was a scoundrel is relevant for context, but it doesn't preclude the possibility that he did find a real Sasquatch. It's nowhere near proof of fakery, which is how Long's book is portrayed. It's more like a biography of Roger Patterson, not an analysis of the film.

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.

It's even worse than that. Most of the people repeating this claim have never seen the actual suit in question. It's ridiculous. The latex and dynel gorilla suit that Morris was selling at the time can be seen in a lot of television programs of the day, and it's incredibly cheap looking by modern standards and bears no reasonable resemblance to the figure in the film. It would never pass for a real animal. Here is a photo of Morris standing next to the suit he says he sold Patterson. Anybody recognize this suit from Gilligan's Island?

uuhPCTxl.jpg

Moreover, when Morris was asked to produce another suit like the one he sold Patterson, the result looked nothing like either the costume above or the figure in the film. You'll note the much longer hair on Morris's costume, which is required to hide the wrinkles and seams around the neck, wrists, and other flex points. The figure in the film has very short hair all over, and yet no seams are visible in these places. It also doesn't have the pendulous breasts or the sagittal crest seen in the film.

lbkykfake_bigfoot.jpg

Long argues that the suit Morris says he sold to Patterson was the same suit Heironimus claims to have worn in the Patterson film. However, Long quotes Heironimus and Morris describing different ape suits in many respects.

Again, it's worse than that. Heironymous changed his story multiple times.

Quotes from Bob Hieronimus, in 2001:

"Roger skinned out a dead red horse ... [The costume] stunk ... It weighed maybe twenty, twenty five pounds. It was a little bit heavy ... Horsehide would be heavy." "It was made of three parts. It had legs. It had a corset or middle piece between the neck and waist. And it had a head."[link]
Content from External Source
After Morris made his claims to Long in 2004, Heironymous changed his story to match Morris's that it was a latex and dynel gorilla suit. Long let ALL of this go without so much as a question.

Long speculates...

That's the problem. All he does is speculate.

I've always found the fact that Patterson was trying to make a Bigfoot film prior to the encounter a little suspicious. He had been shooting and working out a story line and using people like Heironimus 4-5 months before heading to NorCal.

It may seem suspicious to some, but it makes sense when viewed in the larger context. Patterson had been obsessed with the subject for years and had published a book the year before, and the film was going to be a follow-up to the book. It's a common misconception that they were just wandering around the woods when they stumbled across a Sasquatch. Patterson was investigating a series of sightings and footprints nearby and shooting some B-roll footage of the area for use in the film. It's worth pointing out that movies are shot at 24 frames per second and Patterson appears to have been filming that day at 16 or 18 fps, so that's something I've always wondered about. The first 2 minutes of the film is entirely this B-roll footage. Here is the complete film reel shot that day.



Critics claim that too much happened between the filming (at 1:15 at the earliest) and the filmmakers' arrival in Willow Creek (at 6:30 at the latest). Daegling wrote, "All of the problems with the timeline disappear if the film is shot a few days or hours beforehand. If that is the case, one has to wonder what other details of this story are wrong." The film's defenders retort that although the time window was tight, it was do-able.

I've never understood this argument. The timeline doesn't seem all that tight to me. Listen to Bob Gimlin describe the events and tell me if anything sounds amiss to you.



To my knowledge, the leader of the original film containing the date it was developed and possibly the lab that did it has never been shown. Why?

However, with Roger Patterson’s death in January, 1972 (less than 5 years after the event), and the camera original at that time in the possession of a film production company, American National Enterprises (ANE) the family trauma of his passing took all attention away from the question of reclaiming the camera original film. The ANE maintained possession of the camera original. The subsequent bankruptcy of ANE caused the film to be inadvertently acquired by another party in a bankruptcy liquidation sale of the assets of ANE. The new owner placed the film with a film storage service in Los Angeles, but in 1980, researcher Rene Dahinden convinced the film storage staff that he had rights to the film and thus had authority to check it out for further examination. There is no record of the film being returned, and so it is classified as missing, whereabouts unknown, at this time. However, before the original was lost, many copies were made and a systematic analysis of these varied copies and the processes used allows us to determine the condition of the original.[link]
Content from External Source
Dahinden was a cantankerous sort who didn't play well with others, especially other researchers like John Green. He died without anyone knowing the whereabouts of the film. His estate has been contacted but they haven't found it. Maybe it will turn up someday.

Ultimately, it's the lack of any hard to hoax evidence like scat, hair, skeletal remains or DNA vs something like a shaky film that can be hoaxed.

There are samples of hair and scat, but the problem with analysis is that without a type sample to compare it against, all anyone can say is that it doesn't match a known animal. That's not really helpful. People always say "just analyze the DNA," but it's not that simple. You still have the same problem.

"But what I found very interesting was that, yes, we have detected human DNA in these areas, but we’re still seeing different primate DNA. There wasn’t just one human primate, there are several different primates, some sort of primate relative that exists in the data. Pan troglodyte is a species of chimpanzee, which you would not see in the areas you’re at. It’s a real head scratcher. It’s important to note that the higher the detection, the more confidence we can say that whatever organism, whatever taxonomy we’re looking at was apparent in the area. And in this case, we’re looking at the Pan genus, or the chimpanzee genus…. there’s 3000 reads."[link]
Content from External Source
What really needs to happen is to fully sequence the genome, but that's cost-prohibitive unless Elon Musk wants to take up a side project.
 
There are samples of hair and scat, but the problem with analysis is that without a type sample to compare it against, all anyone can say is that it doesn't match a known animal.
I'm not aware of any Bigfoot hair and scat samples that have ever held up to scrutiny. Just because a sample may be classified as "unknown" it doesn't make it a Bigfoot. Enthusiasts and reality TV producers like to take the term "unknown", which in this context often means there simply was not enough recoverable DNA to say what the sample came from, and turn it into an "unknown" genome. Unknown genome means "Bigfoot" or "alien/human" hybrid, depending the context.

"But what I found very interesting was that, yes, we have detected human DNA in these areas, but we’re still seeing different primate DNA. There wasn’t just one human primate, there are several different primates, some sort of primate relative that exists in the data. Pan troglodyte is a species of chimpanzee, which you would not see in the areas you’re at. It’s a real head scratcher. It’s important to note that the higher the detection, the more confidence we can say that whatever organism, whatever taxonomy we’re looking at was apparent in the area. And in this case, we’re looking at the Pan genus, or the chimpanzee genus…. there’s 3000 reads."[link]
Speaking of reality TV producers, this quote is pulled from The Travel Channels Expedition Bigfoot blog.
https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/expedition-bigfoot/articles/expedition-bigfoot-exciting-dna-find

Per the Expedition Bigfoot blog, this is in reference to samples from some dirt near, what the "stars" of the show thought was a tree fort built by Bigfoots. It is NOT a sample of hair or scat:

During filming deep in the wilderness of Kentucky’s Appalachian highlands, eDNA collected from soil under a massive tree structure found by Dr. Mayor and LeBlanc produced surprising and exciting results. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is the genetic material naturally left behind by animals in the environment.
Content from External Source
Next, I would like to here from Miroslava Munguia Ramos, the person making these comments. I'm sure she's a wonderful person, but she's not a PhD level geneticist. From her LinkedIn profile she has BS in Environmental Science and Management from UCD.

The Expadition Bigfoot blog you quoted is dated March of 2021. According to Ms. Ramos' Linkedin, at that time she was a full time Project Director for a program dealing with biodiversity in the LA River and a part-time Project Manager for the CALeDNA project. In both cases she seems to have done some DNA research, but all of it related to California. I'd be curious how she ended up working with the Bigfoot hunters:

1656795106418.png
She is currently a guide with the National Park Service:

1656795164690.png

If I read her comments correctly, it appears she is saying she found Chimp (pan) and maybe other non-human primates DNA traces in the sample from the dirt in Kentucky. I think before concluding that chimps and other non-human primates are running around rural Kentucky, we would want a little more peer-review of the data and some more confirmation.

It's also very likely that she is simply being miss-quoted by the producers to hype the show. We are talking about the Discovery Networks.
 
I'm sure any zoo could provide enough mixed DNA samples for anyone inclined to gain notoriety with a "bigfoot" find.
 
And again, what are we (or Elon) sequencing? If the unknown is just something that couldn't be identified because there isn't enough recoverable DNA, no sequence can be obtained from it right?

I'm sure any zoo could provide enough mixed DNA samples for anyone inclined to gain notoriety with a "bigfoot" find.
That was my thought as well. I don't like to say particular people are doing things like that, but...

10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty was a show on Spike tv back in 2014. It featured Dr. Todd Disotell, a geneticist at NYU. Someone, who is willing to test "Bigfoot" samples, IF, he thinks they have been properly collected. I would think this is known in the Bigfoot community, and amongst the Bigfoot reality TV producers.

I wouldn't be surprised if the producers of Expedition Bigfoot, bypassed someone like Disotell, and found a much younger and newer DNA analyst to work with, that they could send contaminated samples to and them mis-quote afterwards.

The MonsterTalk pod cast talked with Disotell in episode #76 and a follow up that I can't seem to find on their website:
https://www.monstertalk.org/the-monstertalk-library/

Disotell's CV sorta:
https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/a...tired-and-emeritus-faculty/todd-disotell.html
 
Regarding DNA recoverability, it is not uncommon for DNA results to be inconclusive, even in high-pressure and precise forensic investigations.
Here's the National Institute of Justice's information on DNA results, including their statement on inconclusive results:
Results may be interpreted as inconclusive for several reasons. These include situations where no results or only partial results are obtained from the sample due to the limited amount of suitable human DNA or where results are obtained from an unknown crime scene sample but there are no samples from known individuals available for comparison. In the latter case, the results would be suitable for comparison once an appropriate sample for comparison is tested.
There aren't any bigfoots doing paternity tests on Maury or buying 23andMe kits, so we don't exactly have a great pool to draw from when it comes to comparing a supposed bigfoot hair to a known bigfoot sample. Inconclusive results, therefore, can mean a metric crapton of mundane things that are far more likely than a bigfoot DNA sample.

Likewise, we should consider that it is super hard to get DNA out of hair that doesn't have a root attached (but not impossible: as of 2019, one researcher was using rootless hair to ID murder victims with the use of forensic genealogy). Given the effects of sun and other elements on the hair, that "inconclusive" result starts to look a lot more like the expected norm, doesn't it?
 
The problem with dismissing it as a hoax always comes down to 'who made the suit'. Philip Morris's suits never looked anything like it. So who made it? The problem with monkey suits is hiding the joins where the arms, legs and head meet the torso. It's one reason why John Chambers elected to give the apes in Planet of the Apes high collars, so it hid the join where the head would've met the torso. It's why Chewbacca was given long fur in Star Wars.

I'm not sure why Patterson would've wasted his time on Bigfoot when apparently he could've had a job working on state-of-the-art costumes in Hollywood. Because the suit is in advance of anything being made at the time. Look at the infamous 'Mugato' ape suit used in an episode of Star Trek, or the terrible suit worn by Andre the Giant in Six Million Dollar Man.

I don't personally believe it's a real creature but the quality of the suit itself, for the late 1960s, has always been endlessly fascinating. The BBC did a 'reconstruction' in the 1990s and it was very poor. It's one of those events that, the more you look into it, the stranger it becomes. Take the toes that bend upwards as the 'creature' walks. Why would you bother faking something so complex? You can see what look like shockwaves passing through the 'creature's' right thigh as it impacts on the ground. The fingers appear to extend outwards as the 'creature' swings its arms, but Bob Hieronimous claimed he used simple hand extensions to lengthen the arms.

Even after all these years, I think it's premature to say that the film has been 'debunked'. And if it was a hoax then it was extremely well done. I'd love to know how Patterson did it.
 
The problem with dismissing it as a hoax always comes down to 'who made the suit'. Philip Morris's suits never looked anything like it. So who made it? The problem with monkey suits is hiding the joins where the arms, legs and head meet the torso. It's one reason why John Chambers elected to give the apes in Planet of the Apes high collars, so it hid the join where the head would've met the torso. It's why Chewbacca was given long fur in Star Wars.

I'm not sure why Patterson would've wasted his time on Bigfoot when apparently he could've had a job working on state-of-the-art costumes in Hollywood. Because the suit is in advance of anything being made at the time. Look at the infamous 'Mugato' ape suit used in an episode of Star Trek, or the terrible suit worn by Andre the Giant in Six Million Dollar Man.

I don't personally believe it's a real creature but the quality of the suit itself, for the late 1960s, has always been endlessly fascinating. The BBC did a 'reconstruction' in the 1990s and it was very poor. It's one of those events that, the more you look into it, the stranger it becomes. Take the toes that bend upwards as the 'creature' walks. Why would you bother faking something so complex? You can see what look like shockwaves passing through the 'creature's' right thigh as it impacts on the ground. The fingers appear to extend outwards as the 'creature' swings its arms, but Bob Hieronimous claimed he used simple hand extensions to lengthen the arms.

Even after all these years, I think it's premature to say that the film has been 'debunked'. And if it was a hoax then it was extremely well done. I'd love to know how Patterson did it.
I don't think it was that well done. Right from the start I thought the fur looked fake. Put on a suit made with raglan sleeves, have someone else brush down the fur over the seams, and it would serve for that film, wouldn't it, considering the distance and the film quality? The requirements of a suit made for viewing at large size on a movie screen can't really be compared. As for the shockwaves on the thighs, I've seen a good many heavy people whose thighs can ripple with the impact of walking, so I don't find that detail particularly compelling either.
 
Last edited:
considering the distance and the film quality?
That, I think, is key. The quality of what we have is very poor. If you are inclined to believe it is real, it is easy to see details that look very real, but are not in fact there, in the blurry vid we have. Similarly, I am not inclined to believe it is real for a variety of reasons unrelated to what is visible in the film, and I see details in there that look vary fake to me -- most notably what appears to be a bad case of "saggy-drawers" hanging empty below the buttocks area. I suspect that I am as inclined to see what confirms my beliefs as the next person, though.

Sadly, at the end of the day the graininess and general low quality make it hard to tell as much from the film as I'd wish.
 
Just as a side note, was up in the burn scare from last summer' Bear Fire in Lassen National forest yesterday. Despite the visibility, no Bigfoot sightings. To be fair, this is about 275 miles from the Paterson-Gimlin film site.

IMG_3002.jpeg

I was rather proud of my preparations though as I had added "Sasquatch" lights to my rig just in case. That is until my wife pointed out the flaw in my logic. Clearly, she noted, Sasquatch lights will work fine UNTIL there is a 'squatch nearby, in which case the lights will magically and mysteriously turn off, leaving our friend once again shrouded in twilight .
IMG_3005.jpeg
 
I was rather proud of my preparations though as I had added "Sasquatch" lights to my rig just in case. That is until my wife pointed out the flaw in my logic. Clearly, she noted, Sasquatch lights will work fine UNTIL there is a 'squatch nearby, in which case the lights will magically and mysteriously turn off, leaving our friend once again shrouded in twilight .
That's how you'll know you've found a genuine sasquatch! ;)
 
Clearly, she noted, Sasquatch lights will work fine UNTIL there is a 'squatch nearby, in which case the lights will magically and mysteriously turn off, leaving our friend once again shrouded in twilight .
strap a couple piece of bacon to the lights. No human or part human won't be attracted by the smell of cooking bacon. it will take a while (pavlovian), but eventually he'll learn that if he turns off the lights the bacon smell goes away. i would remove the bacon immediately when the lights go off and wrap it up nice and tight so he equates the smell going away with the lights quicker. (or eat it if it's done)
 
I'm not sure why Patterson would've wasted his time on Bigfoot when apparently he could've had a job working on state-of-the-art costumes in Hollywood.
Patterson's whole thing was being the guy who caught Bigfoot on tape, for him it wasn't a waste of time. Keep in mind, the era when the PGF (Patterson-Gimlin Film) was filmed was a time of huge interest for Bigfoot. In the 1950s, a guy named Ray Wallace almost certainly faked the first big-deal Bigfoot tracks. He was the first guy to draw attention to supposed Bigfoots in NorCal, specifically the area where the PGF was filmed. Here's an excerpt from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the forefront of Internet Bigfoot belief (the link in the quote is theirs):
It was reported that a recently deceased man named Ray Wallace had started the whole bigfoot legend by faking the first tracks cast in Northern California in the 1950's. Ray Wallace had never claimed this himself. His family even admitted he never claimed it himself. But they did have boxes of his old junk after he died which included some carved wooden track stompers.
After that, news started hitting and the term "Bigfoot" was coined. Everyone went Bigfoot crazy, and it obviously didn't stop. Patterson wanted to get footage of a Bigfoot for a documentary. That was his goal, not costuming. The goal of UFO hoaxers isn't to go into modelmaking, it's to get famous for a UFO photo. Same thing here.


Because the suit is in advance of anything being made at the time. Look at the infamous 'Mugato' ape suit used in an episode of Star Trek, or the terrible suit worn by Andre the Giant in Six Million Dollar Man.
Let's take a look at the Mugato suit:
Star-Trek-TOS-Mugato.jpg
Yes, it is very silly, but I don't see how different this is from the PGF. Fur can be brushed over seams, and we really don't know how long the fur is on the PGF, because A) the PGF has different colored fur with different lighting and B) the PGF suit, assuming it's a suit, may use different fur with different qualities. Note the feet: they're a different color from the suit., a different material, etc.
Here's another shot, from when the Mugato suit was reused with Lucille Ball:
tumblr_oddiliHkC81u3vseto3_640.jpg
Note how chunky the Mugato is here, and how the fur's movements create the appearance of musculature on the arms. Again, note the head shape, the brow ridge, the unmoving face, the arms, etc. The scale seems about right, considering we are looking at a set. I don't see a seam on the shoulder, and this is white fur that would show that off immediately. The head-neck joint shows a seam, but again: darker fur on the PGF will hide that easy.

Come to think of it, all the Bigfooter folk say that Bigfoot doesn't have a neck. Now I'm wondering if that's because necks are hard to make on an ape suit!
 
you cant see seams from that distance

patty-frame-352-doyle-welborn.jpg

plus her breasts are in the wrong spot. it drives me nuts. she isnt part cat. (or is she?....)

You can't see seams at all, even when the subject is enlarged. What you can see in the stabilized versions though is a certain 'stretchiness' across the shoulder, upper arm, arm pit and chest as the head turns to look at the camera. And the breasts are in the "wrong spot" relative to what? A human female?
 
Last edited:
I don't think it was that well done. Right from the start I thought the fur looked fake. Put on a suit made with raglan sleeves, have someone else brush down the fur over the seams, and it would serve for that film, wouldn't it, considering the distance and the film quality? The requirements of a suit made for viewing at large size on a movie screen can't really be compared. As for the shockwaves on the thighs, I've seen a good many heavy people whose thighs can ripple with the impact of walking, so I don't find that detail particularly compelling either.
The fur looks mangy. You can see what looks like patches of skin underneath, especially where the hands swing past the thighs. It seems like a strange detail to fake. I've never seen a mangy fake monkey suit. Philip Morris certainly never made one [that's ever been made public at least]. I'd recommend tracking down the views of Bill Munns, a Hollywood costume and FX designer. He's written extensively on what Hollywood could and couldn't do re. practical effects in 1967 given the available materials.
 
You can't see seams at all, even when the subject is enlarged.
you can't adequately enlarge something filmed like that. and you have to mind that depending on rendition you are viewing you might be seeing photo artifacts from people messing with it.

And the breasts are in the "wrong spot" relative to what? A human female?
yes. and apes.

full
dc0fba14939d66935861863041e7c858.jpg

less full [of milk]...still alot higher than the bigfoot pic, which appear very full.
Screenshot 2022-07-03 130121.png
 
less full [of milk]...still alot higher than the bigfoot pic, which appear very full.
The bigfoot breasts remind me a lot of what two 1970s gentlemen might put on their monkey suit for laughs. They are comically large, and I don't think they jiggle and sway realistically. Bigfoot here isn't wearing a bra, we'd be seeing a significant level of sway.
 
There's nothing I'd rather spend America's birthday on than Googling "chimpanzee breasts" in a private tab. It's what George Washington would have wanted.

Now, on to more monkey breast research. These are the saggiest/fullest monkey breasts I could find on a quick and furtive search. Note that the big gal in the middle has the fullest breasts, and they have a definite movement to them. The monkey at the upper right is the saggiest/lowest, but those would definitely move when she walked. Otherwise they are small, hairless, and have VERY pronounced nipples, which we don't see on the Bigfoot film.
main-qimg-68f3b99025a8ab313053e24923c290f0-lq.jpg
 
You can't see seams at all, even when the subject is enlarged.
Has anyone ever tried to recreate the scene by filming a person in a suit from a similar vantage point with comparable camera, film stock, lighting etc? I thought that would be an obvious way to at least get an idea of how much effort would need to go into making a suit for a believable result but rather surprisingly my searches were quite fruitless.
 
There has been a lot of discussion about "who made the suit", but (apart from the fact that a known costumer claimed to have made it) there is the fact that any competent home seamstress could have done one, with the addition of a mask. Faux fur has been available in fabric stores for ages, and one could also use things like fur rugs to do it. The patterns of light and dark in the film resemble what one would see if the long fur were unkempt and brushed sideways. Real animals can raise and lower their fur (think of the hairs on your arm when it's cold) but artificial fur goes whichever way it's brushed and stays that way, which would explain why there's marking where the hands swing against the legs.
 
Has anyone ever tried to recreate the scene by filming a person in a suit from a similar vantage point with comparable camera, film stock, lighting etc? I thought that would be an obvious way to at least get an idea of how much effort would need to go into making a suit for a believable result but rather surprisingly my searches were quite fruitless.
I saw, what I believe was an attempt in recreating the scene in some History channel kind of tv show at least 10 years back. I be damned to remember what show it was though. But it was, I think, not very similar as in the PGF.
 
Thanks for deleting my other two posts, mods, for apparently 'lacking context'. I think I'm done here, lol.
 
any competent home seamstress could have done one
or upholsterer, saddle maker, tailor. i only say that because your wording makes it sound like Patterson could not have made the suit himself.

ps. from his 1966 book. amazing similarity since ive never heard anyone describe bigfoot with such a big butt (or breasts actually, in more modern stories). and looking back...maybe that's why the breasts are in the wrong place, he was trying (badly) to imitate saggy breasts?
main-qimg-68ed4b46085416a22a6fb0e09b8e0dd8-lq.jpg
 
Back
Top