Anyone who grew up loving Fortean topics has the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film – or at least a still shot from it, as reproduced in many books – embedded in their brain. Even with the many doubts that have surrounded it for decades, it has remained one of the touchstones of cryptozoology for almost 60 years now, and the vision of ‘Patty’ turning back to look at the camera sometimes feels like the mysteries are looking back at us, challenging us to solve them.
However, a new documentary that recently screened at SXSW, Capturing Bigfoot, is said to put the final nail in the coffin of the Patterson-Gimlin film, proving that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin created it as a hoax. According to those who saw the screenings at SXSW – including some Bigfoot believers – the documentary contains evidence that the Patterson-Gimlin film was a fake: Newly found footage on a 16mm film reel, which had been locked away for decades in a safe, that contains ‘rehearsals’ for the famous 1967 ‘Bigfoot encounter’.
And in addition to that bombshell, it is said to also contain admissions from some – including Roger Patterson’s son Clint – that the film was a hoax.
Here’s one emotional reaction from a Bigfoot hunter who says he saw the documentary at SXSW:
It has only been a few months since RPJ and I chatted to famed cryptozoologist Loren Coleman on our Daily Grail YouTube channel, during which he stated that he was 98% sure the Patterson-Gimlin film was real. So last week RPJ and I thought we should sit down and chat about the claims of the new documentary (video embedded below), given the earth-shaking ramifications for the cryptozoology scene.
For my part, on the evidence released so far it seems likely that the documentary will disprove the P-G film, and if so for me, that brings with it both excitement that we get the chance to solve a Fortean mystery, and also sadness at losing this nostalgic icon that has generated so much mystery.
As always – whether it’s a Fortean mystery or a skeptical explanation – I do feel the need to withhold judgement until we get more information and can see the evidence for ourselves, as currently we’ve just been relying on others to fill in the gaps. Capturing Bigfoot is currently not available for public consumption, and is searching for a distributor (and given the need for hype at this stage for the producers of the documentary, that should also be a reason for continued skepticism of the claims made) – so at this stage we’re just hearing from reviewers who saw the film at SXSW.
Obviously, also, in this age of AI we should be careful of accepting new footage at face value – whether as proof of a mystery, or a debunking. But as I mention in the clip below, it’s interesting that this revelation is already being dismissed by true believers by using the AI hoax possibility as a defence, which is the opposite use case to how most people worry AI will be used for bad purposes.
(I’m also curious, from both skeptical and Fortean points of view, about the apparent strange coincidence that the film-maker behind Capturing Bigfoot, Marq Evans, says that when he was a kid his father worked for Al DeAtley – Roger Patterson’s brother-in-law, and apparently the man in the Bigfoot suit in the rehearsal footage – and then later, through pure chance and unrelated to that history, this unreleased rehearsal footage was brought to him by a colleague at the college he works at.)
However, if a credible history, chain of custody and or analysis of the original film can reaffirm that is genuine, it seems likely that the Patterson-Gimlin film will be consigned to the dustbin of history with other Fortean hoaxes (although, contrary to how some news headlines have framed it already, it certainly doesn’t ‘kill’ Bigfoot entirely).
Here’s our chat about the new documentary – be sure to subscribe to the Daily Grail YouTube channel to be notified as soon as we post new videos:
