Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog?
Speaker 1: My dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was?
Speaker 2: Or was it was?
Speaker 1: Standing enough? I'm out here looking through the window now
Speaker 1: and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside.
Speaker 1: Jesus quice you bick Hellohet thebody out here? Plea quin
Speaker 1: on out there? I thought of a bench about Tech
Speaker 1: forty nine? I don't know, easy annount there, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: walking right.
Speaker 2: Hey, before we get into today's episode, I want to
Speaker 2: talk to you about something that's become a powerful extension
Speaker 2: of this show. Last year, I launched a free newsletter
Speaker 2: as a way to stay connected with all of you
Speaker 2: on a deeper level, to share thoughts, updates, and things
Speaker 2: that don't always make it into an episode. Since then,
Speaker 2: several thousand of you have signed up, and I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how much I appreciate that support. If you're
Speaker 2: not signed up yet, you can do it right now
Speaker 2: by going to our website Paranormalworldproductions dot com.
Speaker 3: There's a pop up.
Speaker 2: That'll appear, or you can just scroll down and drop
Speaker 2: in your name and email address. It's completely free, and
Speaker 2: it's one more way for us to stay connected. I've
Speaker 2: done this once or twice before, where I've taken one
Speaker 2: of those newsletters and narrated it here on the show,
Speaker 2: and this latest newsletter installment is way too important not
Speaker 2: to do the same, so I want to share it
Speaker 2: with you here right now. Life has a way of
Speaker 2: pulling you in a dozen directions at once, and between
Speaker 2: producing episodes across all the shows, finishing manuscripts, and juggling
Speaker 2: the day to day demands of running Paranormal World Productions,
Speaker 2: I let the newsletter slip further down the list than
Speaker 2: I should have. For that, I owe you an apology.
Speaker 2: You're the community that keeps all of this going, and
Speaker 2: you deserve to hear from me more often. So here
Speaker 2: I am back at the keyboard, and I've got something
Speaker 2: to say quite a lot. Actually, if you've been anywhere
Speaker 2: near the Bigfoot community in the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 2: and I suspect most of you have, given that you're
Speaker 2: listening to this, you already know that something big happened.
Speaker 2: At the south By Southwest Film Festival on March twelfth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, a documentary called Capturing Bigfoot, directed by
Speaker 2: Mark Evans, premiered in the Documentary Spotlight section, and within
Speaker 2: hours the shockwaves were rolling through every Bigfoot form, Facebook group,
Speaker 2: podcast feed, and conference chat on the planet. The film
Speaker 2: makes the case, with what many are calling newly discovered
Speaker 2: physical evidence, that the legendary Patterson Gimlin film, the single
Speaker 2: most famous and most scrutinized piece of Bigfoot footage in existence,
Speaker 2: was a deliberate hoax, and the confession at the center
Speaker 2: of it doesn't come from some random attention seeker or
Speaker 2: bitter rival. It comes from Clint Patterson, the youngest son
Speaker 2: of Roger Patterson himself. I've spent the better part of
Speaker 2: the last two weeks absorbing everything I can find about
Speaker 2: this film. I've read every review, every analysis, every hot take.
Speaker 2: I've listened to interviews with the director. I followed the
Speaker 2: community reaction in real time. I've also done something that
Speaker 2: I think more people in this community should be doing
Speaker 2: right now. I've picked up the phone. I've reached out
Speaker 2: directly to the people involved, the people who have seen
Speaker 2: the documentary, who have spent their lives studying the Patterson
Speaker 2: Gimlin film. I'm going to share what I've learned from
Speaker 2: those conversations with you today because I think you deserve
Speaker 2: more than secondhand speculation. You deserve the closest thing to
Speaker 2: the full picture that I can give you right now.
Speaker 2: But before I get into any of that, I want
Speaker 2: to be crystal clear about something right up front. I
Speaker 2: have not seen Capturing Bigfoot. As of this writing, the
Speaker 2: documentary has only screened at SXSW and is not yet
Speaker 2: widely available for public viewing. Everything I'm about to describe
Speaker 2: regarding the documentary's content comes from published reviews, interviews with
Speaker 2: the director, the film's Wikipedia entry, detailed analyzes posted by
Speaker 2: people who were in the audience in Austin, and my
Speaker 2: own direct conversations with individuals who have seen the film
Speaker 2: or have intimate knowledge of its subject matter. I am
Speaker 2: not going to sit here and make a determination about
Speaker 2: the authenticity or inauthenticity of the Patterson Gimlin film based
Speaker 2: on second hand and accounts of a documentary I haven't watched.
Speaker 2: That's not how I operate, and it shouldn't be how
Speaker 2: any of us operate. I have reached out to director
Speaker 2: Mark Evans, and I'm currently in the process of trying
Speaker 2: to secure an interview with him. I'm also working on
Speaker 2: getting an advanced copy of the film so that I
Speaker 2: can view it in its entirety before that interview takes place.
Speaker 2: I want to sit down with Evans, having already examined
Speaker 2: the evidence with my own eyes, and ask the hard
Speaker 2: questions that I think need to be asked. I don't
Speaker 2: know yet whether that interview will happen, but I'm pursuing it,
Speaker 2: and if it comes together, you'll hear about it on
Speaker 2: the show. Until I've had the chance to evaluate the
Speaker 2: evidence firsthand, I'm going to report what's being claimed, put
Speaker 2: it in context, share the insights I've gathered from people
Speaker 2: I trust, and encourage every single one of you to
Speaker 2: do the same thing I'm doing withhold final judgment until
Speaker 2: you've had the chance to evaluate the evidence for yourself. Now,
Speaker 2: let me start with the backstory, because if you're going
Speaker 2: to understand why capturing Bigfoot hit the community like a
Speaker 2: freight train. You need to understand just how much weight
Speaker 2: the Patterson Gimlin film has carried for nearly six decades.
Speaker 2: On October twentieth, nineteen sixty seven, Roger Patterson and his
Speaker 2: friend Bob Gimlin rode on horseback into a remote area
Speaker 2: near Bluff Creek in the Six Rivers National Forest in
Speaker 2: northern California. Patterson had rented a sixteen millimeter Kodak camera
Speaker 2: and had been working on a docudrama about a group
Speaker 2: of cowboys tracking Bigfoot through the wilderness. The storyline called
Speaker 2: for Patterson, his Indian guide Gimlin in a wig, and
Speaker 2: a group of cowboys to recall various Bigfoot encounters and
Speaker 2: flashbacks as they tracked the beast on horseback. Patterson had
Speaker 2: used at least nine volunteer acquaintances, including Gimlin and a
Speaker 2: local man named Bob Hieronymus, for three days of shooting
Speaker 2: earlier that year, possibly over the Memorial Day weekend. The
Speaker 2: official story, the one that entered the public consciousness and
Speaker 2: never left, was that Patterson and Gimlin rounded a bend
Speaker 2: in a dry creek bed and came face to face
Speaker 2: with a large, bipedal, hair covered creature walking along a sandbar.
Speaker 2: Patterson's horse reared, he scrambled off, grabbed his camera, and
Speaker 2: ran toward the figure while the film rolled. What he
Speaker 2: captured was fifty nine seconds of shaky but mesmerizing footage
Speaker 2: showing the creature later nicknamed Patty, walking with a distinctive
Speaker 2: fluid gait, swinging its arms, and at one unforgettable moment,
Speaker 2: turning to look back over its shoulder directly at the camera.
Speaker 2: That single frame, known as frame three point fifty two,
Speaker 2: became one of the most iconic and debated images in
Speaker 2: American popular culture. It launched an industry, It defined a
Speaker 2: field of research for believers. It was the holy grail
Speaker 2: for skeptics. It was the most successful amateur hoax ever
Speaker 2: pulled off. For nearly sixty years, that footage has functioned
Speaker 2: as the single most important and most polarizing artifact in
Speaker 2: the history of cryptozoology. Nothing else comes close. Not the
Speaker 2: surgeon's photograph of the loch Ness Monster, which was exposed
Speaker 2: as a hoax decades ago, Not the Mayaca skunk epe
Speaker 2: photographs from Florida, not the thermal imaging footage from various
Speaker 2: television productions.
Speaker 3: The PG film stood alone.
Speaker 2: At the top of the mountain, and for millions of
Speaker 2: people around the world, it was Bigfoot.
Speaker 3: It was the image in their mind when they heard
Speaker 3: the word.
Speaker 2: It was the clip that played on every documentary, every
Speaker 2: news segment, every late night talk show appearance. Frame three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty two was printed on t shirts and
Speaker 2: coffee mugs and bumper stickers, and tattooed on human skin.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just evidence, it was an icon. Museums in
Speaker 2: Oregon and California were built around it. Conventions were organized
Speaker 2: in its honor. Bob Gimlin became a living celebrity because
Speaker 2: of it, touring conferences, signing autographs, and posing for photographs
Speaker 2: with fans who treated him like a rock star. Higher
Speaker 2: cottage industry, a media subdivision, really sprouted from those fifty
Speaker 2: nine seconds of shaky coda chrome footage. The film has
Speaker 2: generated millions of dollars in licensing fees over the decades.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal reported that director Mark Evans paid
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars in licensing fees just to use Roger
Speaker 2: Patterson's footage in his documentary thirty thousand dollars for a
Speaker 2: piece of film shot by a rodeo cowboy in the
Speaker 2: woods almost sixty years ago. That should tell you everything
Speaker 2: you need to know about the financial ecosystem that grew
Speaker 2: up around this footage and the stakes involved in either
Speaker 2: defending or debunking it. The film has been analyzed, enhanced, debated,
Speaker 2: and dissected by everyone from Hollywood special effects artists to
Speaker 2: university anatomy professors. Jeffrey Meldrum, the late professor of anatomy
Speaker 2: and anthropology at Idaho State University, spent years arguing that
Speaker 2: the creature's musculature, gait, and proportions were consistent with a
Speaker 2: real biological entity and not a man in a costume.
Speaker 2: His students, he said, could identify specific muscle groups, the trapezius,
Speaker 2: the deltoid, the erector spine running down the back, the
Speaker 2: quadruceps contracting at the appropriate moments during locomotion. Bill Munns,
Speaker 2: a Hollywood make up and visual effects specialist with thirty
Speaker 2: five years of experience building creatures for films, museums, and
Speaker 2: wildlife exhibits, conducted extensive analysis and concluded that the technology
Speaker 2: to create such a convincing suit simply did not exist.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty seven, Muns co authored a peer reviewed
Speaker 2: paper with Mildrum arguing that the film subject was consistent
Speaker 2: with real anatomy and not a fabricated costume. On the
Speaker 2: other side of the Ledger, costume maker Philip Morris came forward,
Speaker 2: claiming he sold Patterson a standard guerrilla suit for four
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five dollars from his North Carolina shop
Speaker 2: and provided instructions on how to modify it, extending the arms,
Speaker 2: broadening the shoulders, adding breasts, and concealing the zipper by
Speaker 2: combing down the synthetic dinal fur with a brush. Morris's
Speaker 2: wife confirmed that Patterson called back, requesting extra gorilla fur
Speaker 2: and asking how to fix the eye holes so that
Speaker 2: the white skin of the person inside wouldn't be visible,
Speaker 2: and a Yakama man named Bob Hieronimus claimed publicly in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four in Greg Long's book The Making
Speaker 2: of Bigfoot, that he was the man inside the suit.
Speaker 2: Hieronymus said he'd been recruited by Gimlin and Patterson in
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen sixty seven, promised one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: He was never paid and had kept quiet for decades
Speaker 2: out of a mixture of hope for eventual payment and
Speaker 2: fear of legal consequences. His mother, Opal said she found
Speaker 2: what she initially thought was a dead animal in the
Speaker 2: trunk of her car the morning after her son returned
Speaker 2: from the filming, only to realize upon closer inspection that
Speaker 2: it was some kind of animal suit or costume. Several
Speaker 2: Yakama locals corroborated various elements of Hyeronymus's account, and some
Speaker 2: friends said that recognized his distinctive walk in the Patterson footage.
Speaker 2: The community largely rejected hieronymous claims. Believers pointed out contradictions
Speaker 2: in his story, inconsistencies between his description of the suit
Speaker 2: and Morris's description, and the fact that when National Geographic
Speaker 2: sponsored a recreation in two thousand and four using Morris's
Speaker 2: suit with Hieronymous inside it, the result was so unconvincing
Speaker 2: that even the show's own narrator acknowledged the failure. The
Speaker 2: proportions were wrong, the movement was wrong. The suit looked
Speaker 2: nothing like what appeared in the nineteen sixty seven film.
Speaker 2: Gimlin publicly denied involvement in any hoax. Patricia Patterson Roger's
Speaker 2: Widow maintained the film was authentic. Believers pointed to the
Speaker 2: creature's apparent muscle movement beneath the skin, the proportional differences
Speaker 2: between its limbs and a human skeleton, the mid tarsal
Speaker 2: brake visible in the foot as it lifted off the ground,
Speaker 2: and the overall level of detail as things that couldn't
Speaker 2: be faked with nineteen sixty seven technology. The debate ground
Speaker 2: on year after year, decade after decade, with no definitive resolution,
Speaker 2: The PG film became the single most studied piece of
Speaker 2: amateur footage in history, with the possible exception of the
Speaker 2: Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. And much like the
Speaker 2: Zapruder film, the closer people looked, the more they found
Speaker 2: to argue about. Until now or so, the makers of
Speaker 2: Capturing Bigfoot would have you believe, here's what is being reported.
Speaker 2: In June of twenty twenty four, Mark Evans, a documentary
Speaker 2: filmmaker who teaches at Olympic College in Washington State, received
Speaker 2: an email from a colleague named Teresa Brooks. Brooks was
Speaker 2: a part time instructor at the same college. Her father,
Speaker 2: a man named Norm Johnson, had recently passed away. Johnson
Speaker 2: had spent years running a film lab for Boeing in Seattle,
Speaker 2: and he had been connected to Patterson and Gimlin through
Speaker 2: his brother Dave. After Johnson's death, Foks found a canister
Speaker 2: of sixteen millimeter film that had been sealed inside a
Speaker 2: locked safe in her father's possession. Her mother had insisted
Speaker 2: that the film be hidden away, apparently because she feared
Speaker 2: that her husband's connection to what she believed was a
Speaker 2: hoax could get him into legal trouble. Johnson's wife told
Speaker 2: him to put it away and never speak about it again.
Speaker 2: The film had sat in that safe for over half
Speaker 2: a century. Brooks brought the canister to Evans, who had
Speaker 2: it developed. What he found was a forty second clip
Speaker 2: shot on Coda Chrome's sixteen millimeter film stock, showing what
Speaker 2: appears to be a figure in a bigfoot costume walking
Speaker 2: through a wooded area that bears a striking resemblance to
Speaker 2: the landscape scene in the nineteen sixty seven footage. The figure,
Speaker 2: according to those who have seen the documentary, appears slightly
Speaker 2: thinner and less polished than Patty from the Patterson Gimlin film,
Speaker 2: leading Evans and others to interpret it as a practice run,
Speaker 2: a dress rehearsal filmed in nineteen sixty six, a full
Speaker 2: year before the famous Bluff Creek footage was sh stay
Speaker 2: tuned for mor sasquatch Ott to see We'll be right
Speaker 2: back after these messages. The logic is straightforward. If the
Speaker 2: PG film was a genuine chance encounter with a real creature,
Speaker 2: there shouldn't be rehearsal footage. You don't rehearse a documentary.
Speaker 2: You don't do a dry run of a chance encounter.
Speaker 2: As Folklore's Ben Radford put it in his analysis for
Speaker 2: Skeptical Inquirer, documentaries shouldn't have rehearsals. Evans recognized immediately what
Speaker 2: he believed he was looking at and began the work
Speaker 2: of building a documentary around it. He reached out to
Speaker 2: Clint Patterson, Roger's son, who was sixty six years old
Speaker 2: at the time. Evans expected the family to shut him down,
Speaker 2: as they had shut down every previous attempt to discuss
Speaker 2: the film's origins, but Clint surprised him. It turned out
Speaker 2: that Clint had learned what he says is the truth
Speaker 2: from his own mother roughly ten years earlier. Patricia Patterson
Speaker 2: after decades of publicly defending the film, had privately told
Speaker 2: her son that the footage was staged. The weight of
Speaker 2: that knowledge had been crushing Clint for years. He'd been
Speaker 2: contemplating writing a tell all book when Evans approached him.
Speaker 2: Instead of turning the filmmaker away, Clint agreed to speak
Speaker 2: on camera. What Clint revealed in Capturing Bigfoot is, if accurate, significant.
Speaker 2: According to the documentary, Clint stated that his father orchestrated
Speaker 2: the hoax with the help of Gimlin and Hieronymous. He
Speaker 2: described his father as a complex man, charismatic, creative, deeply driven,
Speaker 2: and also, in Clint's own words, a liar. Roger Patterson
Speaker 2: had been a rodeo writer, an amateur boxer, a self
Speaker 2: published author, and a relentless self promoter who saw in
Speaker 2: the Bigfoot phenomenon an opportunity to make something of himself.
Speaker 2: He had a documented history of financial problems and what
Speaker 2: some have characterized as a pattern of theft of services,
Speaker 2: running up long distance charges on a neighbour's phone, borrowing
Speaker 2: a whipment and money with no intention of returning either,
Speaker 2: none of which proves the film was faked, but it
Speaker 2: paints a picture of a man for whom a lucrative
Speaker 2: hoax would not have been out of character. Clint told
Speaker 2: Evans that he actually watched his father burn what he
Speaker 2: says was the Bigfoot suit behind the family house one night,
Speaker 2: feeding it piece by piece into a barrel fire over
Speaker 2: the course of about thirty minutes. That detail, if true,
Speaker 2: would explain why no one has ever been able to
Speaker 2: produce the original costume, the single piece of physical evidence
Speaker 2: that would have settled the debate decades ago. The documentary
Speaker 2: also captures a remarkable scene filmed at a twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four Bigfoot event. Clint and Hieronymus attended together and waited
Speaker 2: in line to speak with Bob Gimlin, who at this
Speaker 2: point was in his nineties and had become a beloved
Speaker 2: fixture at Bigfoot conferences across the country. They told Gimblin
Speaker 2: they wanted to finally come clean, to tell the truth
Speaker 2: publicly together, and according to the film, Gimlin initially agreed.
Speaker 2: He was willing to go on camera and reveal the hoax,
Speaker 2: but Gimlin's wife intervened and stopped it from happening. Evans
Speaker 2: reportedly captured the entire exchange on film. The implication, at
Speaker 2: least as the documentary presents it is noteworthy. If Gimblin
Speaker 2: truly believed the footage showed a real creature, why would
Speaker 2: he initially agree to confess to a hoax. That's a
Speaker 2: question worth sitting with, even if it's not necessarily conclusive
Speaker 2: on its own. The documentary also features interviews with Yakama
Speaker 2: locals who knew Patterson and Gimlin in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: many of them now in their eighties, and many of
Speaker 2: whom corroborate various elements of the hoax narrative. Greg Long,
Speaker 2: the author whose two thousand and four book laid out
Speaker 2: the case against the film in exhaustive detail, appears in
Speaker 2: the documentary as well, and the film credits Long's earlier
Speaker 2: research and recorded interviews as foundational material. Anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum,
Speaker 2: who passed away in late twenty twenty five, was also
Speaker 2: interviewed for the Doctors documentary, and his reaction to being
Speaker 2: shown the newly discovered footage is reportedly one of the
Speaker 2: most affecting moments in the film. According to The Hollywood
Speaker 2: Reporter's review, a visibly shaken Meldrum acknowledged that the simplest
Speaker 2: explanation is uncomfortable to arrive at now. I said earlier
Speaker 2: that I've been picking up the phone and talking to people,
Speaker 2: and I meant it. So let me share with you
Speaker 2: what I've learned from those conversations, because I think it
Speaker 2: adds important texture to what's being reported in the mainstream press.
Speaker 2: Shortly after Capturing Bigfoot premiered, Eric Pelasios attended a screening
Speaker 2: of the film. For those of you who don't know Eric,
Speaker 2: he's a well known figure in the Bigfoot content space
Speaker 2: and someone whose opinion carries weight with a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Eric posted a reaction video after the screening, and his
Speaker 2: conclusion was unequivocal. He walked away convinced that the Patterson
Speaker 2: Gimlin film is one hundred percent of hoax. He was
Speaker 2: shaken by it. According to Eric, the forty second clip
Speaker 2: that serves as the docum menary centerpiece absolutely shows Bob
Speaker 2: Gimlin sitting atop his horse in the background, while the
Speaker 2: Patty suit is in the foreground being warned by someone
Speaker 2: allegedly al Diatley, Patterson's brother in law, who was walking
Speaker 2: for the camera. Eric felt that what he saw was undeniable,
Speaker 2: that it was clearly a rehearsal and that the game
Speaker 2: was over. Now, I respect Eric, I think he's sincere
Speaker 2: in his reaction. He sat in that theater, he watched
Speaker 2: the footage on a big screen, and he came away convinced.
Speaker 2: That's his honest assessment, and he's entitled to it. But
Speaker 2: an honest reaction is not the same thing as a
Speaker 2: thorough analysis, and I think even Eric would acknowledge that
Speaker 2: there's a difference between the visceral impact of seeing something
Speaker 2: for the first time in a darkened theater and the careful,
Speaker 2: methodical work of examining that same footage frame by frame,
Speaker 2: with the benefit of time, context, and expert consultation. It's
Speaker 2: also worth noting something about the psychology of documentary filmmaking
Speaker 2: that I think is relevant here. A good documentary director,
Speaker 2: and by all accounts, Mark Evans is a very good
Speaker 2: documentary director, controls the emotional experience of the audience. He
Speaker 2: controls the pacing, He controls the order in which information
Speaker 2: is revealed. He controls the music, the editing, the reaction shots,
Speaker 2: the narrative framing. By the time the audience sees the
Speaker 2: forty second clip in the context of capturing Bigfoot. They've
Speaker 2: spent over an hour being led through a carefully constructed
Speaker 2: emotional journey, learning about Roger Patterson's character flaws, hearing Clint
Speaker 2: Patterson's painful testimony, watching aging cowboys wrestle with decades old
Speaker 2: grudges and broken promises. The audience is primed, They're emotionally invested,
Speaker 2: and when the clip finally appears, it lands like a hammer.
Speaker 2: That's not manipulation in a dishonest sense. It's just good filmmaking.
Speaker 2: But it does mean that the in theater experience of
Speaker 2: seeing the footage is fundamentally different from the cold, clinical
Speaker 2: experience of examining the footage in isolation, which is how
Speaker 2: evidence should ultimately be evaluated. I posted my own live
Speaker 2: response on social media after watching Eric's reaction video. I
Speaker 2: wanted to share my initial thoughts with the community and
Speaker 2: make clear where I stood. I wasn't going to rush
Speaker 2: to judgment, but I also wasn't going to pretend the
Speaker 2: claims being made weren't serious. That live response apparently got
Speaker 2: some attention, because shortly afterward, I got a phone call
Speaker 2: from Doug Highcheck. For those of you who might not
Speaker 2: know the name, Doug Highcheck is one of the most
Speaker 2: respected figures in the history of bigfoot media. He's an
Speaker 2: Emmy winning filmmaker and the creator and producer of Monster Quest,
Speaker 2: the History Channel series that brought serious, investigative production values
Speaker 2: to the study of cryptid phenomena. Doug has been around
Speaker 2: this subject for a long time. He knows the players,
Speaker 2: he knows the evidence, he knows the history, and, perhaps
Speaker 2: most importantly for this particular discussion, Doug know's filmmaking. He
Speaker 2: understands how productions work. He understands b roll. He understands
Speaker 2: test footage. He understands the difference between a dress rehearsal
Speaker 2: for a hoax and production material for a legitimate creative project.
Speaker 2: When Doug Hicheck picks up the phone to call you
Speaker 2: about something, you pay attention. Doug's take on the newly
Speaker 2: discovered footage is different from Eric pelasiosis, and I think
Speaker 2: it's an important counterpoint that deserves serious consideration.
Speaker 3: Doug believes that what the forty.
Speaker 2: Second clip actually shows is b roll footage, supplementary material
Speaker 2: that Patterson shot as part of the documentary film he
Speaker 2: was already in the process of making when he allegedly
Speaker 2: filmed Patty in October of nineteen sixty seven. Remember, Patterson
Speaker 2: had been actively working on a docudrama about a group
Speaker 2: of cowboys hunting bigfoot. He had cast actors, he had
Speaker 2: a storyline, He had been shooting footage for months. He
Speaker 2: had used at least nine volunteer acquaintances for three days
Speaker 2: of filming. That production would have required exactly the kind
Speaker 2: of material that this clip appears to show someone in
Speaker 2: a bigfoot suit walking through the woods, establishing shots, test
Speaker 2: footage to see how the costume looked on camera in
Speaker 2: a natural setting. If Patterson was making a movie about
Speaker 2: hunting bigfoot, he would have needed footage of a bigfoot
Speaker 2: to cut into the film. Every docu drama needs its
Speaker 2: monster shot. The existence of that footage, Doug argues, doesn't
Speaker 2: prove that the Bluff Creek encounter was staged. It proves
Speaker 2: that Patterson was making a movie which we already knew.
Speaker 2: The question is whether the forty second clip is a
Speaker 2: rehearsal for a hoax or simply production footage for a
Speaker 2: separate creative project that happened to involve the same costume
Speaker 2: or a different costume Entirely. For that matter, I want
Speaker 2: to sit with that for a moment, because I think
Speaker 2: it's a crucial point that the mainstream coverage has entirely ignored.
Speaker 2: We know this is not in dispute. That Roger Patterson
Speaker 2: was making a documentary about Bigfoot in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 2: We know he had a storyline, we know he had actors.
Speaker 2: We know he intended to include dramatic recreations of famous
Speaker 2: Bigfoot encounters as part of the film. We know he
Speaker 2: would have needed a Bigfoot costume for those recreations. None
Speaker 2: of this is controversial. It's established historical fact. So the
Speaker 2: existence of footage showing someone in a Bigfoot suit filmed
Speaker 2: on sixteen millimeters coda chrome stock from the same era
Speaker 2: is not, by itself evidence of a hoax. It could
Speaker 2: be evidence of a hoax. It could also be evidence
Speaker 2: of a legitimate film production. The footage itself doesn't tell
Speaker 2: you which one it is. The interpretation depends entirely on context.
Speaker 2: Context that the documentary provides through one lens, but that
Speaker 2: might look very different through another. I think Doug's argument
Speaker 2: is reasonable, and it illustrates exactly why I'm not willing
Speaker 2: to make a final determination based on reviews and reaction videos.
Speaker 2: Context matters, interpretation matters. The difference between this is rehearsal
Speaker 2: footage for a faked encounter and this is b roll
Speaker 2: footage for a documentary that was already in production is
Speaker 2: enormous and it can't be settled by watching a reaction
Speaker 2: video on social media. It requires careful examination of the
Speaker 2: footage itself, the timeline, the chain of custody, the specific
Speaker 2: location where it was filmed, and the corroborating testimony. I
Speaker 2: also sat down and spoke with Bill Muns. If you
Speaker 2: follow the Patterson Gimlin film debate at all, you know
Speaker 2: who Bill is. He is regarded by many, and I
Speaker 2: would say fairly as the leading authority on the Patterson
Speaker 2: Gimblin film. He has spent years conducting frame by frame
Speaker 2: analysis of the footage, examining the proportions, the fur movement,
Speaker 2: the musculature, and the overall construction of the figure in
Speaker 2: the film. He co authored a peer reviewed paper with
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Mildrum arguing that the film subject was consistent with
Speaker 2: a real primate and not a man manufactured costume. His
Speaker 2: work includes detailed measurements demonstrating that the subject's shoulder placement,
Speaker 2: arm length relative to body size and leg proportions fall
Speaker 2: outside the range of normal human anatomy, even accounting for
Speaker 2: padding or prosthetic extensions. He has examined the way the
Speaker 2: firm moves across the creature's back and shoulders, noting that
Speaker 2: it appears to shift in ways consistent with underlying musculature,
Speaker 2: rather than lying flat or bunching the way fabric wood
Speaker 2: on a suit. His analysis has been cited by researchers, documentarians,
Speaker 2: and journalists for over a decade. Bill is not a
Speaker 2: casual observer. He is not a hobbyist who watched the
Speaker 2: film on YouTube and formed an opinion. He has more
Speaker 2: hours invested in studying this particular piece of film than
Speaker 2: probably anyone alive, and he has the professional credentials and
Speaker 2: practical effects and creature fabrication to back up his assessments.
Speaker 2: Bill appears in Capturing Bigfoot. He has seen the so
Speaker 2: called smoking gun footage, the forty second clip that the
Speaker 2: documentary presents as a nineteen sixty six dress rehearsal, and
Speaker 2: his conclusion is markedly different from the narrative the film
Speaker 2: is selling. Bill believes that what the clip shows is
Speaker 2: some sort of replica film, something that could have been
Speaker 2: produced at any point after nineteen sixty seven, not necessarily before.
Speaker 2: He does not accept the documentary's framing that it represents
Speaker 2: a pre production rehearsal for the Bluff Creek footage. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to be careful here because I don't want
Speaker 2: to put words in Bill's mouth or overstate what he
Speaker 2: told me. What I can tell you is that Bill
Speaker 2: was measured and specific in his assessment. He didn't rant,
Speaker 2: he didn't make sweeping pronouncements. He laid out his concerns methodically,
Speaker 2: the way someone with decades of forensic film analysis experience would.
Speaker 2: Bill told me that he was able to physically hold
Speaker 2: the film and examine it with a loop. He confirmed
Speaker 2: that it is indeed Coda Chrome sixteen millimeter film stock,
Speaker 2: and that the film cartridge is date stamped nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2: That much appears to be factual. But here's the thing,
Speaker 2: and this is an important distinction that I think is
Speaker 2: getting lost in the headlines. A date stamp on a
Speaker 2: film cartridge tells you when the film was manufactured. It
Speaker 2: does not necessarily tell you when it was exposed and shot.
Speaker 2: Film stock, particularly in the nineteen sixties and seventies, could
Speaker 2: sit on a shelf for months or even years before
Speaker 2: being used. A cartridge manufactured in nineteen sixty six could
Speaker 2: have been loaded into a camera and shot in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty six, or in nineteen sixty seven, or in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight or later. The date stamp confirms the age
Speaker 2: of the physical medium, it does not by itself confirm
Speaker 2: when the images on that medium were captured. You would
Speaker 2: need additional forensic analysis, chemical testing of the emulsion, examination
Speaker 2: of the process in chemistry, analysis of the environmental conditions
Speaker 2: visible in the footage to make a more definitive determination
Speaker 2: about when the film was actually exposed. Stay tuned for
Speaker 2: more sasquatch ott to see. We'll be right back after
Speaker 2: these messages. As far as I can tell from everything
Speaker 2: I've read and from my conversation with Bill, that level
Speaker 2: of forensic analysis has not been conducted, or at least
Speaker 2: has not been publicly disclosed.
Speaker 3: I've also reached out to those close to Bob Gimlin.
Speaker 2: As of this writing, I am working on getting either
Speaker 2: a direct interview with Bob or at minimum a statement
Speaker 2: from him regarding the documentary, the newly discovered clip, and
Speaker 2: the authenticity of the Patterson Gimlin film itself. Gimlin is
Speaker 2: in his nineties. He has spent the last two decades
Speaker 2: as the face of the PG film at conferences and
Speaker 2: events across the country. He is, by virtually all accounts
Speaker 2: from people who have met him, a genuinely likable man,
Speaker 2: a charming old school cowboy who enjoys the company of
Speaker 2: the people who come to hear his story.
Speaker 3: Whatever role he played.
Speaker 2: In the creation of the PG film, and whatever he
Speaker 2: knew or didn't know about Patterson's intentions, he is a
Speaker 2: human being who has built the last chapter of his
Speaker 2: life around this piece of footage. The documentary reportedly shows
Speaker 2: that he was willing, at least initially, to come forward
Speaker 2: and tell the truth, whatever his truth is, before his
Speaker 2: wife intervened. That moment, captured on camera suggests a man
Speaker 2: who may have been carrying something heavy for a very
Speaker 2: long time and was ready to set it down. Whether
Speaker 2: he's still willing to talk and what he would say
Speaker 2: if he did, I don't know, But his perspective matters.
Speaker 2: It matters to the historical record, it matters to the
Speaker 2: research community, and it matters to the thousands of people
Speaker 2: who have shaken his hand at conferences over the years
Speaker 2: and looked him in the eye and asked him if
Speaker 2: what he filmed was real. Those people deserve to hear
Speaker 2: from him directly, not through the filtered lens of a
Speaker 2: documentary or the speculation of people on the internet. If
Speaker 2: and when I secure that interview or statement, you'll hear
Speaker 2: about it imediately. Now, I want to be fair and
Speaker 2: thorough here, because there are legitimate questions being raised on
Speaker 2: both sides of this debate, and all of them deserve airtime.
Speaker 2: On the side of the documentary's credibility, the existence of
Speaker 2: Clint Patterson's testimony is significant. This is not some distant
Speaker 2: acquaintance or barstool gossiper claiming insider knowledge. This is the
Speaker 2: son of the man who shot the film, speaking on camera,
Speaker 2: describing specific details about the creation and destruction of the suit.
Speaker 2: His account that his mother privately confessed the hoax to
Speaker 2: him and then disowned him when he threatened to go
Speaker 2: public has the messy, painful texture of real family drama,
Speaker 2: not manufactured controversy. The scene at the Bigfoot conference where
Speaker 2: Gimlin allegedly agreed to come clean before his wife stopped
Speaker 2: him is explosive If it played out the way it's described,
Speaker 2: and the fact that Evans reportedly captured it on camera
Speaker 2: means it's not just hearsay, it's documented. On the side
Speaker 2: of skepticism toward the documentary's claims, the chain of custody
Speaker 2: for the newly discovered film reel is not independently verified.
Speaker 2: We are being told that Norm Johnson developed the original
Speaker 2: PG film, that he kept this additional footage locked in
Speaker 2: a safe for decades at his wife's insistence, and that
Speaker 2: his daughter found it after his death and brought it
Speaker 2: to Evans. That's a compelling story, but a compelling story
Speaker 2: is not the same thing as verified providence. Has the
Speaker 2: film stock been independently analyzed by a forensic lab to
Speaker 2: determine when it was actually exposed? Has the location shown
Speaker 2: in the clip been definitively identified and matched to a
Speaker 2: specific site. Has anyone established through independent evidence that Patterson
Speaker 2: was filming in that location in nineteen sixty six. These
Speaker 2: are the kinds of questions that a genuine forensic investigation
Speaker 2: would answer, and based on everything I've read and heard,
Speaker 2: the documentary doesn't appear to address them in a rigorous way.
Speaker 2: The website Northwest Bigfoot published a detailed analysis making many
Speaker 2: of these same points. They argued that the documentary provides
Speaker 2: compelling human drama but falls short as a forensic investigation.
Speaker 2: They noted that the film relies heavily on emotional testimony
Speaker 2: rather than physical proof, and that it uses several techniques
Speaker 2: common in modern revelatory documentaries withholding evidence to create mystery,
Speaker 2: framing speculation is fact through confident narration and presenting a
Speaker 2: single interpretation while ignoring alternatives. Matt Moneymaker, founder of the
Speaker 2: Bigfoot Field Researchers organization, dismissed the documentary before it even screened,
Speaker 2: telling reporters that this sort of chicanery has been going
Speaker 2: on since at least the nineties and insisting that the
Speaker 2: film itself debunks any attempts to debunk it. Now, you
Speaker 2: can agree or disagree with Moneymaker's approach and dismissing something
Speaker 2: sight unseen is precisely the kind of thing I'm arguing
Speaker 2: against in this newsletter, but is underlying point that the
Speaker 2: PG film has weathered previous debunking attempts and emerged with
Speaker 2: its defenders intact is historically accurate. And then there's the
Speaker 2: interpretation question that Doug Hicheck raised the b Roll theory.
Speaker 2: If Patterson was shooting a documentary about hunting Bigfoot, and
Speaker 2: that documentary required footage of a Bigfoot creature, then test
Speaker 2: footage of someone in a suit walking through the woods
Speaker 2: is not a smoking gun. It's a production artifact. The
Speaker 2: question becomes whether this particular clip can be conclusively linked
Speaker 2: to the Bluff Creek location, the specific timeline of the
Speaker 2: alleged hoax, and the specific individuals involved in a way
Speaker 2: that eliminates the b Roll explanation. Based on what's been
Speaker 2: publicly reported so far, I'm not convinced that threshold has
Speaker 2: been met, but I'm also not convinced it hasn't been.
Speaker 2: That's why I need to see the film. Let me
Speaker 2: also address something about the emotional dimension of this story,
Speaker 2: because I think it's getting lost in the rush to
Speaker 2: declare winners and losers, and I think it's actually one
Speaker 2: of the most important aspect of the whole affair. Multiple
Speaker 2: reviewers have pointed out that Capturing Bigfoot is not really
Speaker 2: a debunking film. It's a human story. It's about family,
Speaker 2: about legacy, about the bonds and the rifts that this
Speaker 2: piece of film created in the lives of the people
Speaker 2: who were closest to it. Director Mark Evans, by all accounts,
Speaker 2: did not set out to make a takedown piece. He
Speaker 2: stumbled into the story when Teresa Brooks brought him that
Speaker 2: film canister, and he followed the thread wherever it led.
Speaker 2: The result, according to those who have seen it, is
Speaker 2: less of a forensic investigation and more of an elegy.
Speaker 2: A portrait of a small town in Washington State where
Speaker 2: a sixty year old secret has been slowly eating people alive.
Speaker 2: Clint Patterson lost his father to Hodgkins lymphoma when.
Speaker 3: He was just twelve years old.
Speaker 2: He and his siblings used to keep their dying father
Speaker 2: company in a shed on the family property. A twelve
Speaker 2: year old boy watching his hero die in a shed,
Speaker 2: Clint spent most of his life looking up to a
Speaker 2: man who, by his own account, lied to him about
Speaker 2: one of the defining achievements of his career. His mother
Speaker 2: eventually told him her version of the truth, and then
Speaker 2: when he tried to come forward with it, she disowned him,
Speaker 2: apparently more concerned about the loss of licensing revenue than
Speaker 2: about her son's need to unburden himself. That's a tragedy,
Speaker 2: Regardless of whether the PG film is real or fake,
Speaker 2: A family torn apart by a piece of film, a
Speaker 2: son carrying the weight of his father's secrets for a decade,
Speaker 2: wanting to speak the truth as he understood it, and
Speaker 2: being punished for it by his own mother. Whatever you
Speaker 2: think about the authenticity of the footage, I hope you
Speaker 2: can recognize the human cost of this story. Bob Gimlin,
Speaker 2: now in his nineties, has spent the last twenty years
Speaker 2: of his life as a beloved elder statesman of the
Speaker 2: Bigfoot community, attending conferences, signing autographs, posing for photographs, telling
Speaker 2: the same stories over and over. He withdrew from public
Speaker 2: life for nearly three decades, starting in the late nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: reportedly because the constant speculation about the film's authenticity had
Speaker 2: become too much for him and his.
Speaker 3: Wife to bear.
Speaker 2: He only re emerged around two thousand and five, ironically,
Speaker 2: in response to Hieronymus's public claims, and reinvented himself as
Speaker 2: a conference celebrity. Whatever the truth of his involvement, the
Speaker 2: personal cost of this revelation is enormous. The Austin Chronicles
Speaker 2: review noted that by the end of the documentary, nobody
Speaker 2: is particularly happy. There's no triumphant, gotcha moment. Even the
Speaker 2: skeptics who feel vindicated have to reckon with the human
Speaker 2: wreckage left behind. One reviewer from The Sight Unseen Films
Speaker 2: wrote that you can't be a feeling person and walk
Speaker 2: out of the screening feeling good because too many people
Speaker 2: have been hurt. The reviewer wrote that the film's strength
Speaker 2: is that Evans doesn't paint the ending as something glorious,
Speaker 2: but allows the moment to be colored by sadness as
Speaker 2: everyone realizes what the last six decades have ultimately called lost.
Speaker 2: Now here's where I need to say something that might
Speaker 2: surprise some of you and that might upset others. I've
Speaker 2: never staked my belief in Sasquatch on the Patterson Gimlin film,
Speaker 2: not once, not ever. Let me say that again, so
Speaker 2: it's absolutely clear my belief in the existence of Sasquatch
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with fifty nine seconds of sixteen
Speaker 2: millimeter film shot by a rodeo cowboy in northern California
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 3: The PG film is.
Speaker 2: A cultural artifact. It's a historical curiosity. It's a remarkable
Speaker 2: piece of Americana that launched a million conversations and built
Speaker 2: an entire industry. But it is not the foundation of
Speaker 2: the sasquatch phenomenon, and it never was.
Speaker 3: And I think this is.
Speaker 2: Where the broader public, the media, and even some people
Speaker 2: within our own community have made a critical error in
Speaker 2: their thinking. They've confused the symbol with the thing itself.
Speaker 2: The PG film became so synonymous with Bigfoot and popular
Speaker 2: culture that people start to believe, consciously or unconsciously, that
Speaker 2: debunking the film was the same as debunking the creature.
Speaker 3: It's not. It never was.
Speaker 2: It's like arguing that because a particular photograph of a
Speaker 2: mountain was proven to be doctored, the mountain must not exist.
Speaker 2: The photograph and the mountain are two different things. One
Speaker 2: is a piece of media, the other is a physical reality.
Speaker 2: The phenomenon predates the film by centuries. Indigenous peoples across
Speaker 2: North America have oral traditions describing large, hair covered bipedal
Speaker 2: beings going back generations beyond count The Shameless people of
Speaker 2: British Columbia have the Sasquatch, the Lummy have the Tissimequays.
Speaker 2: The Stolo have the Sasquatch tradition, from which the English
Speaker 2: word itself derives the Hoopa have stories, the Yakama have stories.
Speaker 2: Tribes across the continent, from the Pacific Northwest to the
Speaker 2: Great Lakes to the Deep South have traditions of large
Speaker 2: wild haircover beings that live in the forests and mountains.
Speaker 2: These are not traditions that were invented in nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: seven in response to Roger Patterson's film. These are traditions
Speaker 2: that are woven into the cultural fabric of peoples who
Speaker 2: have lived on this land for thousands of years. Are
Speaker 2: we really prepared to dismiss all of that because a
Speaker 2: cowboy from Yakima might have put his buddy in a
Speaker 2: guerrilla suit. European settlers reported encounters with similar creatures long
Speaker 2: before Roger Patterson was born. The Ape Canyon incident happened
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty four, more than forty years before the
Speaker 2: PG film existed, when a group of miners in Washington
Speaker 2: State reported being attacked by a group of large ape
Speaker 2: like creatures that hurled rocks at their cabin through the night.
Speaker 2: Albert Osman's alleged abduction story dates to nineteen twenty four
Speaker 2: as well. William Rose detailed encounter report from British Columbia.
Speaker 2: One of the most carefully documented early accounts was filed
Speaker 2: as a sworn affidavit in the nineteen fifties. Fifty eight
Speaker 2: Bluff Creek track discoveries, which notably occurred at the same
Speaker 2: general location where Patterson would later film his footage, put
Speaker 2: the word bigfoot into the American vocabulary nearly a decade
Speaker 2: before the PG film existed. Yes, some of those nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight tracks were later attributed to Ray Wallace's pranking,
Speaker 2: but not all of them, and the sighting reports from
Speaker 2: the area predated Wallace's involvement. Thousands upon thousands of sighting
Speaker 2: reports have been collected from every corner of the North
Speaker 2: American continent, from the deep forests of the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 2: to the swamps of Florida to the hollers of Appalachia
Speaker 2: to the vast wilderness of northern Canada. The Bigfoot Field
Speaker 2: Researchers Organization's database alone contains thousands of reports, and that's
Speaker 2: just one organization. State wildlife agencies receive reports that never
Speaker 2: make it into any public database. Law enforcement agencies take
Speaker 2: reports that are filed and forgotten. Private researchers collect a
Speaker 2: caunts that are shared in confidence and never published. The
Speaker 2: actual number of encounters that have occurred over the past
Speaker 2: century is almost certainly far larger than what's been formally documented,
Speaker 2: and the consistency of those reports, the physical description, the behavior,
Speaker 2: the habitat, the vocalizations, the reactions of witnesses across geographic regions,
Speaker 2: time periods, and demographic groups is striking. These are not
Speaker 2: people reading each other's reports and copying them. These are
Speaker 2: independent witnesses, separated by hundreds or thousands of miles, describing
Speaker 2: the same kind of creature in the same kind of environment,
Speaker 2: exhibiting the same kind of behavior. That pattern means something,
Speaker 2: and it means it whether the PG film is real
Speaker 2: or not. I am one of those witnesses. I've told
Speaker 2: this story before, and I'll tell it again as many
Speaker 2: times as it takes. Something happened to me in the
Speaker 2: woods of North Georgia in nineteen eighty six when I
Speaker 2: was a kid. I didn't go look at for it.
Speaker 2: I wasn't on a Bigfoot expedition. I was a young
Speaker 2: boy in the woods and I experienced something that I
Speaker 2: have never been able to explain. I don't embellish it,
Speaker 2: I don't dress it up with details that aren't there.
Speaker 2: But it happened, and it lit a fire in me
Speaker 2: that has been burning for nearly forty years. It's the
Speaker 2: reason I do what I do. It's the reason I've
Speaker 2: spent decades researching this subject with the same rigor and
Speaker 2: tenacity I brought to sixteen years of law enforcement with
Speaker 2: the Atlanta Police Department. When you've spent that much time
Speaker 2: working cases, interviewing witnesses, separating the credible from the incredible,
Speaker 2: evaluating evidence under pressure, and making decisions based on incomplete information,
Speaker 2: you develop a finely tuned sense for when something is
Speaker 2: real and when it isn't. I've carried that skill set
Speaker 2: into every aspect of my Sasquatch research, and I've applied
Speaker 2: it to every encounter report I've ever investigated. And in
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty twenty four, while I was in
Speaker 2: Washington State filming the documentary Read My big Foot Life,
Speaker 2: I saw one and stay tuned.
Speaker 3: For more Sasquatch ot to see We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: After these messages.
Speaker 2: I stood approximately ten feet away from a Sasquatch. I
Speaker 2: won't rehash the full account here many of you have
Speaker 2: heard it, but I will say this. There is a
Speaker 2: profound difference between believing something exists based on evidence you've
Speaker 2: studied and knowing something exists because you've seen it with
Speaker 2: your own eyes, when you're standing that close, when everything
Speaker 2: in your body is telling you that you are in
Speaker 2: the presence of something that should not exist, but does.
Speaker 2: No piece of film, no documentary, no skeptics blog post,
Speaker 2: no clever debunking can touch that. It's as real as
Speaker 2: the ground under your feet. I know what I saw.
Speaker 2: No documentary about a sixty year old piece of film
Speaker 2: is going to change that. And this is the point
Speaker 2: I really want to drive home, because it's the most
Speaker 2: important thing I'll say in this entire newsletter. The Patterson
Speaker 2: Gimlin film can be fake and Sasquatch can still be real.
Speaker 2: These two things are not mutually exclusive. They never were.
Speaker 2: This is a point I've been making for years, long
Speaker 2: before Capturing Bigfoot existed, and I'll continue making it until
Speaker 2: people understand how critical the distinction is. The PG film
Speaker 2: is evidence, one piece of evidence among many. If it
Speaker 2: turns out to be fraudulent, then it's bad evidence, and
Speaker 2: bad evidence should be discarded. That's how rational inquiry works.
Speaker 2: You don't throw out the entire case. Because one piece
Speaker 2: of evidence turns out to be compromised, You throw out
Speaker 2: the compromised evidence, and you look at what's left. And
Speaker 2: what's left in the case of Sasquatch is an enormous
Speaker 2: body of eyewitness testimony from credible witnesses spanning hundreds of years,
Speaker 2: and every imaginable demographic hunters, hikers, law enforcement officers, park rangers,
Speaker 2: wildlife biologists, military veterans, truck drivers, families on camping trips, children, grandparents,
Speaker 2: people who had never thought about Bigfoot for a single
Speaker 2: second of their lives until the moment they found themselves
Speaker 2: face to face with something they couldn't explain. What's left
Speaker 2: is a pattern of track evidence that has been studied
Speaker 2: by qualified scientists. What's left is audio recordings of vocalizations
Speaker 2: that don't match any known animal. What's left is a
Speaker 2: phenomenon that refuses to go away, no matter how many
Speaker 2: times skeptics declare it dead. Even Brian Dunning, the host
Speaker 2: of the Skeptoid podcast, who has been arguing for years
Speaker 2: that the PG film is a hoax, acknowledged this point
Speaker 2: in his analysis of the documentary. He wrote, and I'm
Speaker 2: paraphrasing here, that the Patterson Gimlin film being a hoax
Speaker 2: says nothing about the existence of Bigfoot any more than
Speaker 2: Ray Wallace's family's admission that the footprints he laid across
Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest since nineteen fifty eight were fake. That's
Speaker 2: coming from a committed skin and he's right. A fake
Speaker 2: piece of evidence doesn't disprove the thing it was faking.
Speaker 2: It just means that particular piece of evidence is worthless.
Speaker 2: The underlying question remains open. I understand why the PG
Speaker 2: film became the centerpiece. It was visual, it was dramatic.
Speaker 2: It was tangible in a way that eyewitness testimony isn't.
Speaker 2: You could freeze it on a frame and point to
Speaker 2: it and say, there, right there, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: It gave the community a totem, a rallying point, something
Speaker 2: to organize around. But that dependence on a single piece
Speaker 2: of evidence was always a vulnerability, and some of us
Speaker 2: have been saying so for a long time. When you
Speaker 2: build your house on one pillar and that pillar cracks,
Speaker 2: the house comes down, But Sasquatch doesn't live in that house.
Speaker 2: Sasquatch lives in the forest. I want to talk about
Speaker 2: what this means for the community going forward, because I
Speaker 2: think we're at a crossroads. The reaction to capturing Bigfoot
Speaker 2: is going to follow predictable lines, and in many cases
Speaker 2: it already has. The skeptics are doing their victory lapse,
Speaker 2: and some of them have been waiting a long time
Speaker 2: for this moment. On the other end of the spectrum,
Speaker 2: there will be people who refuse to engage with the
Speaker 2: evidence at all, who will dismiss the documentary Sight Unseen,
Speaker 2: who will accuse Clint Patterson of being a paid shill
Speaker 2: or a grifter looking for attention. Matt Moneymaker's preemptive dismissal
Speaker 2: is a preview of what's to come from that camp.
Speaker 2: Bigfoot researcher Matt Crowley pose the question on social media
Speaker 2: that I think is the most precient thing anyone has
Speaker 2: said about this so far. Will Bigfoot content creators with
Speaker 2: podcasts and YouTube channels rush to interview Clint Patterson or
Speaker 2: will he be sidelined and never spoken of again, Like
Speaker 2: previous debunkings of prominent Bigfoot evidence that have been conspicuously
Speaker 2: ignored by even the most prominent names in the field.
Speaker 2: That's a question that cuts to the heart of whether
Speaker 2: this community is genuinely interested in truth or only interested
Speaker 2: in maintaining the narrative. I'll tell you something else that
Speaker 2: concerns me. We've seen this pattern before in the Bigfoot community.
Speaker 2: A piece of evidence gets challenged, the believers circle the wagons,
Speaker 2: the skeptics gloat. Everybody retreats to their corners, and nothing changes.
Speaker 2: Nobody learns anything, nobody raises their standards, nobody asks harder
Speaker 2: questions of the next piece of evidence that comes along.
Speaker 2: The community absorbs the blow, develops a callous and goes
Speaker 2: right back to doing what it was doing before. If
Speaker 2: that's what happens after capturing Bigfoot, then we will have
Speaker 2: wasted this moment entirely, because here's the uncomfortable truth that
Speaker 2: nobody wants to hear. The Patterson Gimlin film was always
Speaker 2: a weak foundation for the Sasquatch phenomenon, regardless of whether
Speaker 2: it was authentic or not. Even if the PG film
Speaker 2: is one hundred percent genuine footage of a real Sasquatch,
Speaker 2: it was still a single piece of ambiguous evidence from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven, shot by a man with a complicated
Speaker 2: reputation under circumstances that were inherently difficult to verify. Hanging
Speaker 2: the credibility of an entire field of research on that
Speaker 2: kind of evidence was always a strategic error, and it
Speaker 2: was an error that some of us pointed out quietly
Speaker 2: and not so quietly for years. Now the bill is
Speaker 2: coming due. The path forward, in my view, is not
Speaker 2: to mourn the PG film or to defend it to
Speaker 2: the last breath. The path forward is to build a
Speaker 2: body of evidence that doesn't need the PG film. That
Speaker 2: means rigorous field work. That means standardized reporting protocols. That
Speaker 2: means environmental DNA sampling. That means trail camera networks and
Speaker 2: acoustic monitoring stations and thermal imaging surveys conducted with scientific methodology,
Speaker 2: not just with enthusiasm. That means partnering with mainstream scientists
Speaker 2: wherever possible, and being willing to accept negative results with
Speaker 2: the same openness that we accept positive ones. That means frankly,
Speaker 2: growing up as a research community and demanding more of
Speaker 2: ourselves than we have demanded in the past. And in
Speaker 2: the middle of all of this, there will be a
Speaker 2: large number of people who are genuinely shaken, who feel
Speaker 2: like the ground has been pulled out from under them,
Speaker 2: who aren't sure what to believe anymore. I want to
Speaker 2: speak directly to that last group, to you, if you're
Speaker 2: feeling rattled by this, if you're questioning everything you thought
Speaker 2: you knew, I want you to take a breath and
Speaker 2: think about what actually changed. A piece of film from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven has been credibly challenged.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's all that happened. The forest didn't get smaller. The
Speaker 2: eyewitness reports didn't evaporate, The tracks didn't disappear, the vocalizations
Speaker 2: didn't go silent. The indigenous oral traditions didn't rewrite themselves.
Speaker 2: Your own experiences, if you've had them, didn't become less real.
Speaker 2: One piece of evidence, however famous, and however central to
Speaker 2: the popular narrative, is not the phenomenon itself. The map
Speaker 2: is not the territory. I think this moment could ultimately
Speaker 2: be healthy for the Sasquatch research community, painful as it
Speaker 2: might feel right now. For too long, the PG film
Speaker 2: has been treated as sacred ground, an untouchable artifact that
Speaker 2: couldn't be questioned without being accused of betraying the cause.
Speaker 2: That kind of thinking is antithetical to genuine inquiry. It's
Speaker 2: the mindset of religion not research. I've watched people get
Speaker 2: shouted down at conferences for even suggesting that the film
Speaker 2: might not be authentic. I've seen researchers have their credibility
Speaker 2: attacked and their motives questioned simply for applying the same
Speaker 2: standards of skepticism to the PG film that they would
Speaker 2: apply to any other piece of evidence. That's not how
Speaker 2: you build a credible field of research. That's how you
Speaker 2: build a cult. And I say that as someone who
Speaker 2: loves this community and has devoted the better part of
Speaker 2: his adult life to it. If we're serious about understanding
Speaker 2: what's out there in the forests of North America, and
Speaker 2: I am deadly serious about it, then we have to
Speaker 2: be willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even
Speaker 2: when it leads to uncomfortable places. If the evidence ultimately
Speaker 2: shows that the PG film was staged, then we acknowledge that,
Speaker 2: we learn from it, and we move on to the
Speaker 2: evidence that remains. If the evidence shows that the newly
Speaker 2: discovered footage is something other than what the documentary claims,
Speaker 2: b roll, a replica, or something else entirely, then we
Speaker 2: acknowledge that too. We follow the truth, we don't pick
Speaker 2: a side, and then fight to the death defending it.
Speaker 2: That's not research, that's tribalism. I've been in the field.
Speaker 2: I've talked to hundreds of witnesses. I've heard accounts from
Speaker 2: people who had no reason to fabricate their stories, no
Speaker 2: book to sell, no podcast to promote, no social media
Speaker 2: following to build.
Speaker 3: I've talked to hunters.
Speaker 2: Who refused to go back into woods they'd hunted their
Speaker 2: entire lives after what they saw.
Speaker 3: I've talked to.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement officers who kept their mouths shut for decades
Speaker 2: because they were afraid of being laughed out of their careers.
Speaker 2: I've talked to families who packed up their campsites in
Speaker 2: the middle of the night and drove home without speaking
Speaker 2: a word to each other, too shaken to even process
Speaker 2: what had just happened. Those people don't give a damn
Speaker 2: about the Patterson Gimlin film. Most of them have never
Speaker 2: even seen it. Their evidence is their own experience, and
Speaker 2: no documentary is going to erase it. So where does
Speaker 2: this leave us? I'll tell you where it leaves me
Speaker 2: in exactly the same place I was before Capturing Bigfoot premiered,
Speaker 2: but with more work to do and more conversations to have.
Speaker 2: I'm a man who has spent nearly four decades researching
Speaker 2: these creatures. I'm a former law enforcement officer who knows
Speaker 2: how to evaluate evidence and assess the credibility of witnesses.
Speaker 2: I'm a podcaster who has interviewed hundreds of people about
Speaker 2: their encounters and heard the trembling in their voices and
Speaker 2: seen the tears in their eyes as they described experiences
Speaker 2: that changed their lives. Researcher who has spent countless hours
Speaker 2: in the field, in the forests, in the places where
Speaker 2: these things are seen. And I'm a witness who has
Speaker 2: seen one of these beings from ten feet away and knows,
Speaker 2: not believes, not hopes, not wishes, knows that they are real.
Speaker 2: The Patterson Gimlin film was never the reason I believed.
Speaker 2: It was never the foundation of my work. It was
Speaker 2: never the bedrock of the Sasquatch phenomenon, no matter how
Speaker 2: much the media and the popular culture wanted to treat
Speaker 2: it that way. If the evidence in capturing Bigfoot holds up,
Speaker 2: and what's being reported certainly sounds damning, then the research
Speaker 2: community needs to reckon with that, honestly, But I'm not
Speaker 2: going to make that call based on secondhand reports, and
Speaker 2: neither should you. I'm pursuing an interview with Mark Evans.
Speaker 2: I'm working on getting an advanced screening of the film.
Speaker 2: I've spoken with Doug Hichek, who offers a credible alternative
Speaker 2: interpretation of the footage. I've spoken with Bill Munz, who
Speaker 2: has physically examined the film and believes it doesn't prove
Speaker 2: what the documentary claims. I've reached out to those close
Speaker 2: to Bob Gimlin and am working to secure his perspective.
Speaker 2: I'm doing the work, and when I've examined the evidence
Speaker 2: for myself, I'll share my conclusions with you openly, honestly,
Speaker 2: and without agenda. Because the sasquatch phenomenon is bigger than
Speaker 2: one piece of film, bigger than one group of cowboys
Speaker 2: from Yakima, bigger than one family's sixty year secret. It is,
Speaker 2: in my view, one of the most fascinating and important
Speaker 2: zoological questions of our time, and the answer to that
Speaker 2: question will not be found by arguing about whether a
Speaker 2: retired pepsi bottler fit inside a modified guerrilla suit in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven. It will be found in the field
Speaker 2: in the forests by researchers who are willing to do
Speaker 2: the hard, unglamorous, patient work of seeking the truth. It
Speaker 2: will be found by people who go into the woods,
Speaker 2: not with cameras and costumes, but with open minds and
Speaker 2: steady nerves and a willingness to accept what they find,
Speaker 2: whatever that turns out to be. I'm still doing that work.
Speaker 2: I hope you'll keep doing it with me. One more thing.
Speaker 2: I know this newsletter is going to generate some heated discussion,
Speaker 2: and I welcome it. If you want to talk about this,
Speaker 2: really talk about it, not just shout past each other.
Speaker 2: I'm here, reach out on social media, drop a comment,
Speaker 2: send an email Brian at Paranormalworldproductions dot com.
Speaker 3: But I'd ask you to.
Speaker 2: Remember something as you engage with this topic and with
Speaker 2: each other. We're all in this because we care about
Speaker 2: the same thing. Whether you think the PG film is real, fake,
Speaker 2: or somewhere in between, the underlying question that brought most
Speaker 2: of us together hasn't changed. Something is out there. The
Speaker 2: evidence for its existence goes far, far beyond one piece
Speaker 2: of film, and the search continues. I also want to
Speaker 2: say this directly to any skeptics who might be listening.
Speaker 2: If Capturing Bigfoot vindicates your position on the Patterson Gimlin film,
Speaker 2: then fair enough. But I'd encourage you to resist the
Speaker 2: temptation to extrapolate from a single debunked film to the
Speaker 2: entire phenomenon. The hoaxing of one piece of evidence does
Speaker 2: not constitute proof that the subject of that evidence doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: That's a logical fallacy, and you know it. The question
Speaker 2: of whether Sasquatch exists is an empirical one, and it
Speaker 2: will be answered or not on the basis of the
Speaker 2: total body of evidence, not on the basis of what
Speaker 2: Roger Patterson did or didn't do in a California creek
Speaker 2: bed in October of nineteen sixty seven. If your interest
Speaker 2: is in truth, then keep your mind open. If your
Speaker 2: interest is only in being right, well enjoy the moment.
Speaker 2: But the woods are still out there, and they're still
Speaker 2: full of things we don't understand. Stay tuned. I'm not
Speaker 2: done with this story, not by a long shot. When
Speaker 2: I get that screening, when I sit down with Evans,
Speaker 2: when I hear from Gimlin, you'll be the first to know.
Speaker 2: I'll dedicate a full episode to this across.
Speaker 3: One or more of our shows.
Speaker 2: I'll bring on guests who have seen the film and
Speaker 2: guests who haven't. I'll present every side of the argument
Speaker 2: and let you hear the evidence and the interpretations for yourself.
Speaker 2: That's what we do at Paranormal World Productions. We don't
Speaker 2: tell you what to think. We give you the information
Speaker 2: and the analysis, and we trust you to think for
Speaker 2: yourselves in the meantime, watch the documentary when it becomes available,
Speaker 2: examine the evidence for yourself, think critically. Don't let anyone,
Speaker 2: not a filmmaker, not a skeptic, not a true believer,
Speaker 2: and not me, tell you what to think. Look at
Speaker 2: the evidence and make up your own mind. That's all
Speaker 2: any of us can do. And if you come to
Speaker 2: a different conclusion than I do, that's fine. Honest disagreement
Speaker 2: based on genuine examination of the evidence is healthy. It's
Speaker 2: the people who form opinions without examining the evidence who
Speaker 2: worry me. And right now, in the immediate aftermath of
Speaker 2: this documentaries premiere, there are an awful lot of people
Speaker 2: doing exactly that on both sides of the aisle. Until
Speaker 2: next time, stay curious, stay skeptical in the right ways,
Speaker 2: and for the love of everything, stay in the woods.
Speaker 1: Ditto and