The man who shot a Bigfoot video that many believe is the most compelling proof of the creature’s existence says the experience “ruined” him.
Bob Gimlin shot the controversial film footage with Roger Patterson near Bluff Creek in Northern California in the fall of 1967.
Nearly 50 years later, he tells Outside magazine that he wishes he’d never left his home in Oregon to go searching for Bigfoot with Patterson.
The Patterson-Gimlin film, as it is called, depicts a tall hairy animal reportedly 7 feet high walking near the creek, away from the two men and briefly glancing over its shoulder to look at them.
The film, less than a minute, caused years of grief for Gimlin, who felt Patterson edged him out of the three-way deal they shared with Patterson’s brother-in-law to exploit the film.
Gimlin also had to deal with ridicule from his friends and neighbors in Yakima, Washington.
“They’d come driving in my driveway all times of the night and go ‘Bob! We want to go out Bigfoot hunting!’” he told Outside magazine.
Gimlin was torn: If he acknowledged he believed in Bigfoot, he was the town loon while people assumed he was lying if he stayed quiet.
“I can understand why they don’t believe in it — because I didn’t believe it either,” Gimlin recalls telling one interviewer. “But I saw one. And I know what I saw. And I know it wasn’t a man in a suit. It couldn’t have been!”
Although many researchers believe the creature in the film is just a man in an animal suit, the Patterson-Gimlin film has never been completely debunked, according to Animal Planet star Matt Moneymaker, founder and president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO).
“Contrary to what many people assumed, the footage has never been proved to be a hoax,” Moneymaker told HuffPost in 2012. “And every scientific examination and analysis of the footage has either fallen into the category of inconclusive or demonstrating something that can’t be explained by 1967 technology.
“Many imposters have claimed to be the man in the costume and all of them have been debunked by people who were there,” he added.
Maynard w
Is there digital footage of the original? It was shot at 40 frames a second and what we have normally seen is 60 frames a second. To fill in the additional 20 frames the frame before and after were merged. Is that this? I am not criticizing just wondering.
Daniel D
I’m sorry but look at the creature, I mean really look at it. I have watched that film sequence maybe a hundred times and I can see muscle, shape, anatomy and an unmistakable fluidity to the gate. None of which was hoaxable in 1967, hell most of that can’t be done today outside of a few million dollar big budget movie studio giving it their best shot. Patterson and Gimlin had none of that yet here is this sequence and creature that cannot be duplicated even today 50 years later. Have you ever seen the Bigfoot documentaries and the creature suits used in those? I can look at them and right away I can see it’s a man fumbling around in a costume. The Patterson film is real folks, sorry to bust up the skeptics party but these two gents got the one in a million shot and that’s all there is to it.
Jeffrey H
Such a classic piece of film! Mr. Gimlin should be very proud of this movie as we are proud of him. He is truly a living ledgend in the Bigfoot world. To say if this was fake then there wouldn’t be the fumbling of the camera, the subject would have been male, the horses would not have been upset, the authors would have told it was a fake long ago to get away from the abuse they endured, the costume would have looked terrible and there would not have been a nodule on the front right thigh of the female Bigfoot. Among other things. Thank you Mr. Gimlin, you have my respect! 3rd!
Karen C
I met Bob Gimlin at the Sasquatch Summit in Ocean Shores, WA. in November and this man is the Salt of the Earth! Believe me when I say you can believe this Man. It was such an Honor to meet the Grand Daddy of the Mysterious Bigfoot Legend, You are the Man and the True Legend of our time. We all Thank You for everything you have been through…
Spanky
Bob Gymlan is a good Christian man. What else can I say?
Spanky
Gimlin. My mistake
Daniel S
I don’t know if what those Russian kid’s caught is real that bugger was moving, as far as footage goes it’s seems that it’s wasn’t good enough then and ain’t enough now. Bob gimlin took the sticks”not”stones and now we have sites like this, so thanks Bob it wasn’t in vain. P31(35 @nd P31(35 @dd Up
Maynard w
I was asking because so many people I know say its not clear enough. I never doubted it since I saw it on In Search Of. After almost 40 yrs of looking into sasquatch I should know that nothing is going to satisfy the eye rollers. Thank you Mr Gimlin for opening for up my eyes to what is really out there. I have spent a lot of my lifetime in the outdoors and you and Patty are a big part of why. And for that I can never thank you enough.
Doug K
I too truly believe this is the real deal. I watched the video by thinker thunker and he points out that humans do not walk the way this creature does in the video. The back swing of the leg is much higher than a human leg. That video really helped to sew it up for me and prove that it was real. I have listened to all the interviews here on SC and many times the person who experienced this has become very emotional as they speak about it. People will always be skeptical until the fateful day comes when one of these creatures walks up and pounds on their car window and scares them to death. I hope the day comes when they officially acknowledge these creatures exist and then guys like Bob Gimlin will be looked at in a more serious way. Thank you Wes for all the great videos and stories that you post as well as the regular blogtalk radio show.
stephen P
There have been some extensive examinations of this film and the movements of ‘Patty’. If you look around you will find them on you tube and they generally support that the film is genuine and that creature is real. It has also been attested by the guy who did the old ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies that this could not be a suit with the technology available at the time. Even now it would be hard when you consider the muscle movements, the fact that a person could not walk the way Patty does and the fact that she has sagging breasts for god’s sake!!!
As for Bob Gimlin, I have heard him interviewed many times and he is such a lovely,lovely man. He kept a low profile for many,many years because of his treatment and also his wife,I think, got bad stuff said to her at the hospital she worked at. I think it was a hospital anyway?. With the advent of the internet and the increasing interest in the subject Bob has been largely given the respect he deserves by most of the ‘bigfoot community’ and is treated like an elder statesman and seems largely adored. Not easy for a generally devisive, jealous lot of people who make up a lot of this community!.
From what I’ve seen and heard of Bob, he is one of life’s ‘true gentlemen’ and deserves the affection and esteem he should have been getting all along since that fateful day in 1967.