Capturing Bigfoot Documentary Says the Patterson Gimlin Film Was a Hoax

A new documentary called Capturing Bigfoot sets out to prove that the Patterson Gimlin film, arguably the holy grail of Bigfoot evidence, was a hoax. I've seen it, and based on what it lays out, for me personally the case is closed.

Normally I cover UFOs, but every once in a while I cover other parts of the supernatural world, and Bigfoot is back in the news. The documentary was released on October 20, the 59th anniversary of the original film. It allegedly includes newly unearthed film of a rehearsal shot a year earlier, along with new testimony from Roger Patterson's wife and son.

The Patterson Gimlin film became one of the most famous films ever made

The Patterson Gimlin film was shot on October 20, 1967, in Northern California by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin. It depicts an unidentified subject that the filmmaker stated was a Bigfoot. Since then it has been subjected to many attempts to authenticate or debunk it.

I'd put it alongside the Zapruder film of the JFK assassination and the moon landing as one of the most famous pieces of film ever put out. It has gone everywhere globally. It matters so much to the Bigfoot world because no Bigfoot had been caught on film before that point. There are tons of clips out there now, but this was the first, and that's why it's the holy grail.

Capturing Bigfoot allegedly reveals a rehearsal shot a year earlier

So why bring it up again, when we've all seen it? Apparently there are some different things about it now. In Capturing Bigfoot, the filmmakers show for the first time unearthed film that was allegedly shot one year before the Patterson Gimlin film. It allegedly shows a rehearsal for it. The argument is that it was a hoax and they practiced it beforehand.

There's also a lot of new testimony. Patterson's wife and son have come out in the documentary to say it was all a hoax and it was fake. I highly recommend it whether you believe in Bigfoot or not. I think it's a great story, it lays everything out, and it's up to you to believe what you want about it.

I'm sure people are going to be talking about this for the next 10 or 20 years, essentially forever. But I don't think this one film falling means all of Bigfoot goes away. You can still believe in Bigfoot and think this film is fake. They don't go hand in hand. So "I really don't understand the mental gymnastics of people just forcefully trying to make it real." If you're neutral, you don't know, and I don't know either. But this documentary is pretty damning, because the people who made the film are the ones saying it's fake. I don't know what more you'd want.

Bob Heironimus says he was the man in the suit, and Patty Patterson now backs him

The figure in that famous image might be a man named Bob Heironimus. He has said previously that he was the man in the suit, and that he was offered $1,000 to put on a Bigfoot suit and walk. He admitted that and people shunned him. Now he feels vindicated.

Patterson's son, who is a main part of the documentary, says he didn't believe Bob either and thought his dad's film was real. He has since come to realize it isn't. That's because Roger Patterson's wife, Patty, held the secret for so long. In Capturing Bigfoot she gives her first interview about the film. Confusingly, the Bigfoot in the film is also called Patty.

She says Bob was in the suit and it was fake. The reason she didn't say anything, as the documentary explores, is that she was able to sell the rights to the film and live off that for decades. She didn't want the money to stop. She essentially disowned her son, who wanted to come out and reveal it was fake, because that would ruin her ability to take care of herself. Now she's tired of the film and fed up, and she's laying it out. She is also shown the rehearsal film for the first time. She was in on it and she knew it was fake, though I don't know. I'm not going to reveal everything, but the relationship between the son and the mother is a wild story.

Roger Patterson was a believer, and his brother-in-law allegedly came up with the idea

Roger Patterson, as the documentary explores, was a believer in Bigfoot. It's not like he wanted to fake it from the start. He traveled around on horseback trying to capture Bigfoot and started making his own documentary. Then he ran out of money and went to his brother-in-law, who had a construction company and some money. The brother-in-law funded him to keep going, and then all of a sudden they captured Bigfoot on film, something no one had done.

What the documentary explores is that the brother-in-law came up with the whole idea with Roger. Because Roger was such a perfectionist, as the film shows, he had to make sure it was right, and that's why they rehearsed it. The documentary also says the brother-in-law potentially is the one in the newly found film, practicing it. They realized he wasn't going to work and needed someone else, and that's when they got Bob.

Norma, the creature in the rehearsal film, may explain why Patty is female

The filmmakers posted an image on Twitter introducing "Norma, the counterpart to Patty in the legendary 1967 Patterson Gimlin film." They describe Norma as the creature seen in the newly discovered 1966 film revealed exclusively in Capturing Bigfoot. It's high quality film in the documentary, which is why the screen capture looks so good.

So you have Patty, who Bob claims was him, and then Norma. It's alluded to in the documentary that Norma is Patterson's brother-in-law, but they said he was too tall and they needed a shorter guy. He didn't have the gait, so it didn't look like Bigfoot, and they switched to Bob.

People have pointed to the breasts on the creature as a sign it couldn't be a man. According to the documentary, they gave it breasts because female Bigfoots are considered shorter than males. They couldn't pull off a male Bigfoot, so they made a female one. Side by side comparisons in the documentary go some way to proving it's essentially the same suit with different people in it, and the rehearsal looks identical to how they filmed the famous one.

Clint Patterson's discovery and Bob Gimlin's position

A short clip from the new material gives an idea of the story. A voice in it says: "I never knew exactly what was on that show reel. I always thought the film in the safe was the famous Patterson film just from the stories I had heard growing up. What I saw created so many questions."

The documentary focuses on the son, Clint Patterson, who went out filming with Roger to try to capture Bigfoot, so he's heavily involved. In the documentary he claims he went into one of his dad's sheds on the property and found many old fur coats, which he thought was weird. That's how they think the suit was made.

The only holdout in the documentary is Bob Gimlin. Even so, there's a part where he's sort of saying it's fake but doesn't want to say anything. Capturing Bigfoot runs about an hour and a half and is available exclusively on Amazon. It was an enthralling documentary, so well put together, and congrats to the filmmakers. I don't know how you'd ever prove it otherwise when everyone involved is saying it's fake. For me, it's case closed on one of the most famous pieces of film ever, and arguably the holy grail of Bigfoot evidence.