What happened
On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were riding on horseback through the valley of Bluff Creek in northern California, where Bigfoot tracks had been found for years, gathering material for a film about the search for the creature. According to their account, they saw a large, hairy figure on the creek's gravel bank. Patterson's horse shied, and he jumped from the saddle, grabbed a 16 mm camera and ran after the being. He recorded just under a minute of footage; in the most famous frame, number 352, the figure turns toward the camera without breaking stride. The men also made plaster casts of the footprints. The film was shown on television and at scientific meetings, and it remains to this day the most debated “evidence” for Bigfoot's existence.
Witnesses
Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, two horsemen from the Yakima area of Washington State.
Explanations and hypotheses
Skeptics believe the film shows a man in a costume. In 2004, Bob Heironimus, an acquaintance of Patterson's, claimed that he had worn the suit, and costume maker Philip Morris claimed he had sold Patterson a gorilla costume. Neither account, however, has been backed by evidence, and no costume has been found. Proponents, including anthropologists Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum, point to body proportions and a gait that would have been hard to imitate in 1967. The dispute also concerns the filming speed, on which the assessment of the movement depends. Gimlin consistently maintained that he had seen a real animal.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
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