Patty and the Cowboys

Roger convinced Bob to drive his truck and pull three horses in a trailer while accompanying him on a hunt for something Roger had been searching for off-and-on for about five years.

What the two young men would claim they found that day would turn the rest of their lives upside down and would result in them being called groundbreakers and heroes, as well as liars and charlatans.

Within the next five years Roger would be dead and Bob would go into virtual seclusion, rarely talking about the incident for the next thirty years.

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According to Roger Patterson, he read an article in the December, 1959 issue of True Magazine.  It was written by Ivan T. Sanderson and was about a mythical creature said to have been seen in wilderness areas in various parts of the world. 

Called Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Abominable Snowman, Yeti, and dozens of other names around the globe, Sanderson’s article, like the book he would publish in 1961, detailed accounts of hairy, man-like creatures and their sign (tracks, hair, etc.).  Among the stories were accounts of recent tracks found by loggers in the Bluff Creek area of Northern California.

Patterson read the evidence and was enthralled.  Like many young men in their twenties, Roger was excited by the idea of adventure.  By 1962, he found his way to Bluff Creek and met several people there who’d had experiences that made them believe in Bigfoot.  He was captivated by their stories and evidence and was able to get back to the area in 1964.  A timber-cruiser named Pat Graves drove him to nearby Laird Meadows, where Roger saw fresh tracks…huge human-like tracks.

Roger was convinced that Bigfoot was real.  He was struck with the idea of capturing proof of the animal’s existence.  He was not opposed to the possibility of that proof making him rich and famous either.

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Roger began trying to raise money to undertake expeditions in search of Bigfoot.  In 1966 he self-published Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist? which was, basically, a collection of newspaper stories, along with several previously unpublished interviews and letters, and some drawings and maps Patterson produced by hand.

While undertaking periodic trips into the wilderness in search of the necessary absolute proof, Roger continued trying to raise funds to support his research.  He started working on what we would today call a docudrama – a fictionalized account of a famous altercation between prospectors and Bigfoot.

Among Roger’s close friends was another young former-rodeo rider and amateur boxer by the name of Bob Gimlin.

Patterson and Gimlin didn’t know it, but their names would soon be inextricably interwoven for many years to come.

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Roger heard of investigations recently done in Northern California into sightings and footprints.  Some of the more recent ones were found or seen near Bluff Creek. 

In October 1967, Patterson convinced Gimlin to help make a horseback trip into the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California to explore the area around Bluff Creek.  Roger kept a rented 16mm camera handy in his saddlebags to get film footage for his docudrama. 

On Friday, October 20, the two were taking their two saddle horses and a pack horse carrying their supplies along the east bank of Bluff Creek.  Early in the afternoon they came to a logjam left by a flood a few years earlier.  As they passed around it, they both suddenly spotted a large, bulky figure partly hidden by the pile of trees and brush. 

Bigfoot!

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His horse shied from the creature as Roger tried to untangle himself from the stirrups and get the camera out.  While he was doing all that Roger shouted for Bob to, “Cover me!” with his rifle, in case the animal attacked. 

Patterson made his way across the creek and tried to find a position from which he could get some film of the creature.  He pursued the animal for a short distance, eventually capturing almost a minute of the most famous film ever shot of a purported Bigfoot.

When his roll of film ran out, Roger returned to his saddle horse.  Bob Gimlin mounted his own horse and took off in pursuit, but Roger called him back, saying he was concerned that the Bigfoot’s mate could attack him while he was unarmed.

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The two men left so they could ship the film off to be developed.  Then they returned to their campsite that night before going back to the place on Bluff Creek to make casts of the Bigfoot’s tracks. 

A few days later, when it returned from the developer, they saw what they had actually captured on their film.  As I mentioned earlier, there was about a minute of footage showing a large, hair-covered female creature (judging from the presence of noticeable breasts).  She seemed in no hurry to get away from the two men, but appeared a bit irritated by their intrusion.  She made no attempt to attack or threaten the men in any way, but walked steadily away.

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Roger may have thought that his film would be met with excitement by the scientific community, as proof of the Bigfoot’s existence, but the enthusiasm was sparse.  In fact, most scientists refused to even view the film.  Some actually said that the film had to be fake, since Bigfoot doesn’t exist.

Patterson allowed the film to be distributed to movie theaters, then sold theatrical rights and turned the little profit he realized back into the search for proof that would be taken seriously by the scientific community.

He never found the iron-clad proof he was looking for.  Roger passed away from cancer in 1972.

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Soon after the film was produced, Bob Gimlin faded from the limelight, passing up opportunities to be interviewed.  He said he had gone with Roger by request but that he hadn’t given much credence to the possibility of the creature’s existence until, that is, he saw the creature.  For many years Bob insisted that the animal the two encountered that day was a real, live creature, not a man in a costume.

Could he have been an unwitting accomplice in Patterson’s scheme to defraud scientists and the American public?  Bob insists he couldn’t have been fooled.  He could see muscles moving under the creature’s skin and said that it was no man’s face in a mask looking back at him.

Speaking of a costume and mask…

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From the perspective of modern filmmaking, with our computer-generated graphics (CGI), or even a few years ago with Harry and the Hendersons type costuming, and enough money, it could be done.  Well, there was no CGI in 1967.  Nor was there the ability to erase cables and wires needed to bring the creature to life in Harry and the Hendersons. 

The original Planet of the Apes was released in 1968, the year after the Patterson-Gimlin film was shot and, despite having a substantial budget and winning several awards for its ground-breaking special effects and costuming breakthroughs it, well, it falls well short of the realism of the P-G film.

When investigators were searching to see what Hollywood moviemakers could have contributed to the making of the P-G film, they checked with people like John Chambers, who created the prize-winning costumes for 1968’s Planet of the Apes.  Chambers said, if the P-G creature (called Patty by fans) was fake, it was made with skills far surpassing his own.  Walt Disney’s technicians refused to believe that the P-G creature was something accomplished artificially. 

That sounds to me like they didn’t believe it was fake. 

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How long did Roger Patterson take to lay the groundwork for his 59 seconds of filming?  Tracks had been found near Bluff Creek since the 1950s.  When Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, professor of Anatomy & Anthropology at Idaho State University, looked at track casts, he found casts from as early as 1960 that matched the tracks supposedly left by Patty as she was being filmed.

Remember, Roger first visited Bluff Creek in 1962.

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OK, lest I risk beating the point to death, I’ll jump right to what some of you might be asking yourselves…do I believe in Bigfoot, or that the P-G film is real?

In short, not really…but I believe it could be possible…just.

I find it hard to believe that a reproducing population of Bigfoot-type creatures could exist without leaving considerable irrefutable evidence.  We’re talking road-kills, bones, fur, poop, etc.  Yes, many people claim to have found it but, with few notable exceptions, that evidence has been proven false at least, fake at most.

There are also some questions brought up by Patty herself.  For one, it has been pointed that human and ape females don’t have hair covering their breasts like Patty seems to.  For another, the gluteal crease (butt crack) seems hidden by hair…or the material of the costume.

OK, there are those questions, but are they deal-breakers?  Not really.

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Roger Patterson suffered a lingering death, yet went to his grave professing the reality of the creature in his film.  Bob Gimlin is still alive, although getting up in years, and he still says what he saw was real.  Over the years he has softened his stance and now admits that it is possible that he could have been fooled by Roger Patterson, but he doesn’t think so…and he strongly denies taking part in any kind of fakery as far as producing the film that bears his name.

Bob stayed out of the limelight for most of the first thirty years after the film was shot, only appearing at some Bigfoot conference and giving a few interviews after the turn of the century.

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Basically, we are left with a couple questions.  Is it possible that Bigfoot is real, or is it more likely that a couple 20-something cowboys somehow managed to fake the most convincing piece of evidence that the Bigfoot community has ever seen, and that even Hollywood experts could not produce?

OK, maybe there are more than that, but two is a nice, round number, don’t you think?

Think about it, watch the video, and come to your own conclusion.

You didn’t really think I was going to give you a definite answer, did you?

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