The Legend of Bigfoot: Hunting for Evidence of the Sasquatch

Ahoy mateys! Squatch hunters Whistler and Watson reporting for duty. Today we will be attempting to track down the mysterious Bigfoot, investigating reports, providing alternative theories and taking a deep dive into the most famous Bigfoot footage of all time. With proponents and critics on either side of this cryptid’s case, on which side of the line do you stomp your presumably-not-fake foot?

Bigfoot: The Monster, The Myth, The Legend

Let’s get some background info on the big fella before we go poking around in his territory.

What we refer to as Bigfoot today is one of the heavy hitter cryptids that has existed in a recognisable form throughout history and also in different areas of the world. Lots of cultures have some sort of large, hairy ape-like man or man-like ape in their folklore traditions, with the Himalayan Yeti, Chinese “Hairy Man” and Australian Yowie also seeming to be some sort of distant Bigfoot relatives. Today’s subject hails from North America with another name for it being “Sasquatch”. It might be that technically the being known as a Sasquatch and what is now called a Bigfoot are two different things but for all intents and purposes, as they both refer to large hairy bipedal beings, we’ll use the terms interchangeably - mainly because “Sasquatch” is often shortened to “squatch” which I find quite funny and will pepper liberally throughout the script.

You may wonder where the word “Sasquatch” comes from in the first place - well, it’s apparently an anglicized version of the word “sasq’ets” (sas-kets) meaning something like “Hairy Man” in the language of the Sts’ailes (sta-hay-lis) people from the sovereign Coast Salish First Nation. This is in an area of British Columbia in Canada and they’re still leaning heavily into this today, with their website logo being a stylized version of something that is presumably a Sasquatch. This version of the cryptid has supernatural abilities, including the power to shapeshift, and is generally seen as a peaceable protector of the forest. British Columbia makes up part of the Pacific Northwest, an area that is the traditional hive of squatch activity, and also includes the US states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

While large, hairy, humanoid figures have been captured in tribal artworks and oral histories for centuries, it wasn’t until the 1950s that “Bigfoot” as we know him now really hit the scene. In 1958, a company was chopping down trees in the Six Rivers National Forest in north western California when one of their number, Jerry Crew, noticed some truly massive and deep footprints in the mud. It came out that other men had also noticed large prints recently and they theorized that whatever had made the prints may also have been responsible for the hitherto unexplained movings of a massive oil drum and very large construction vehicle tyre.

Crew was convinced something weird was happening - I was going to say “afoot” but didn’t want to sully the story with a crappy pun - and eventually managed to get a plaster cast made of one of the footprints. It measured 16 inches long, or 40.6cm, which, for context, is bigger than Shaquille O’Neal’s size 23 basketball shoes or, at least according to website The Measure Of Things.com, just over a third of a Danny DeVito. This larger-than-life cast, along with Jerry Crew’s belief in the presence of something around the camp, lead to headlines and photos in a variety of newspapers.

The San Francisco Chronicle punned all over it and stole my joke with the headline “Big Feet Afoot?” while The Province paper titles their piece “New ‘Sasquatch’ found” above a photo of Jerry Crew holding his plaster cast, and underneath it says ”- it’s called Bigfoot” which kind of makes it look like Jerry himself is the creature in question. Things escalated in the Humboldt Standard with “Eye-Witnesses See Bigfoot” and an apparent photo scoop of three men squatching down, sorry, squatting down around a deep foot impression filled with plaster.

While the men of the logging company referred to the being as “Big Foot”, two words, journalists at the time thought that the one worded “Bigfoot” made for snappier copy so the description became the name we all know and love today.

Since the spawn of the 20th century Bigfoot, there have been literally thousands of sightings or encounters with the wild hairy ape man recorded with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization and plotted on the Bigfoot Mapping Project website. Thanks to all the research and witness testimonies, here’s what we know about the mysterious being:

Squatch Facts

Bigfoot is much taller than the average human. Sightings have variously pegged it at anywhere from 7 to 11 feet, or between 2 meters and 3.3 meters tall. If you’re wondering how many Danny Devitoes that is, it’s anywhere from 1.3 to 2.3 Danny Devitoes tall. While none has been affable enough to step on a scale, it’s estimated that the average weight of a squatch would be about 650 lbs or 295 kilos.

I don’t know how many Danny Devitoes this is as it’s not considered polite to talk about peoples’ weight but I’m pretty sure it’s more than one.

Bigfoot is bipedal i.e. it walks upright on two legs. It’s generally agreed to be a non-human primate and is covered in hair, ranging anywhere from black, brown, reddish and gray and some albino Bigfoots have also been recorded.

The North American Bigfoot prefers to live in forested areas but can occasionally be found in swamp or marshlands. It creates nests to sleep in and is an omnivore, with a diet consisting of anything from roadkill to tree shoots. It is capable of killing larger prey such as deer or bears with ease and tends to eat the internal organs, such as the liver, first.

While often thought of as solitary creatures, family groups of Bigfoot have been observed, including males, females and babies. Like other apes, Bigfoots groom each other and beat their chests in shows of aggression or to assert dominance. While there have been no direct attacks on humans, at least in the last century, Bigfoots may attack and kill aggressive animals such as dogs, however they tend to leave livestock or farm animals alone.

Many people report extreme feelings of fear, apprehension and anxiety during a Bigfoot encounter, whether or not they actually see the creature. Over 10% of reports also make mention of a powerful smell coming off the Bigfoot which is similar to the ability of male gorillas who can control the type of smell they give off under some circumstances.

Bigfoots are known for their strength, easily tossing large rocks at intruders, uprooting small trees and messing with large and heavy items in places like construction or logging sites. At night, they are known to shake trees, snap twigs and branches and make knocking noises on logs or trees. It’s not known whether this is to communicate with other Bigfoots or to freak out the poor campers huddled in their flimsy tents.

Even more creepily, they are capable of a wide range of vocalizations, anywhere from whistling to deep growls and roars to piercing screams. Some people have even reported hearing almost humanlike language.

Famous Bigfoot Examples

OK, now we know all about the big fella, let’s take a look at some of the most famous examples of sightings. We’ve already mentioned Jerry Crew’s OG experience so let’s fast forward to the most widely recognized and possibly only Bigfoot footage of all time - the Patterson-Gimlin film of 1967. You’ve probably seen the footage, a clip of it, a screenshot or at least some sort of meme. The whole thing is just under a minute long and allegedly shows a female Bigfoot walking away from Roger Patterson, looking back a few times before walking into the forest.

Roger Patterson and his friend Bob Gimlin had been actively seeking out Bigfoots after Patterson had become interested in them several years earlier. They headed to Bluff Creek in the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California as there had been recent sightings and Patterson had visited the area before. This was also the same forest where Jerry Crew had discovered large footprints some 9 years prior.

Riding along the creek bank on horseback, Patterson and Gimlin all of a sudden came across a large, bipedal creature on the other side of the creek or “crick” if you watch an interview with Gimlin. Realizing that they had happened upon a sasquatch, Patterson spent several seconds getting his camera out of his saddlebag while instructing Gimlin to get his gun out just in case, although they weren’t there to hunt or kill the Bigfoot. You can see that some of the film’s footage has been taken on the move, with Patterson stumbling and trying to keep the creature in sight, being mere metres away at his closest points.

He was using a 16mm camera and frame 352 of the short reel where the creature turned to look at him, captured the now iconic image of a Bigfoot in motion and was the jumping off point for Bigfoot mania.

After just under a minute of tracking the creature along the creek and into the trees, Patterson ran out of film. After reuniting with Bob Gimlin, they managed to follow the tracks of the Bigfoot for about a mile before making plaster casts of them. This was also filmed but the footage has since been lost.

Patterson wasted no time in getting his film developed and while it was difficult to get many scientists interested in the footage, he did find success showing it on talk shows where it garnered national attention, leading to many interviews and articles for Patterson, with Bob Gimlin preferring to stay out of the spotlight. Patterson died from cancer only a few years later in 1972 at the age of 38. The Bigfoot in the footage, referred to as “Patty”, has been a major talking point in the field of cryptozoology ever since, with advocates on both sides either stating that it’s a man in a suit or it couldn’t possibly be a man in a suit.

We’ll talk about the naysayers later but we’re in the “pro Bigfoot” part at the moment so let’s go into this with an open mind. I’ll just put in here that I assumed the name “Patty” was short for “Patterson” but Patterson’s wife’s name was Patricia, or Patty, so I guess he named the squatch after his wife. Is this flattering?

I think not.

Anyway, the Patterson-Gimlin film is arguably the most famous piece of evidence confirming the existence of an elusive, huge, hairy ape-like being living in the depths of the forest. It is also one of the most scrutinized pieces of film ever shot. It was made in 1967 and, while filmmaking, monster movies and special effects were very much in existence, nobody has doubted that the film shows something that was physically there in the woods, i.e. no camera trickery was involved. So what are our eyes telling us?

Patty the Bigfoot quite casually walks into the woods, taking a few backward glances at our man Patterson. In case you were wondering why it’s been designated a female Bigfoot, it’s because you can see some big old hairy boobies when it turns around. The obvious answer to the mystery is that it’s just a man in an ape suit, however, investigations at the time and more recently seem to suggest that it isn’t.

For one, no zipper or other fasteners have ever been seen on the Bigfoot. That’s not to say they aren’t there, the footage is pretty grainy after all, but if it is a suit, it’s a pretty good one. In fact, it’s a damn good one.

Patty moves naturally, not like anyone in a cumbersome costume and her mouth and features appear to move when she turns her head, not like if she was just a costume and mask. The footage has been digitally enhanced over the years and, if anything, it decreases the likelihood that this is just an ape suit. Muscle movement can be seen under the hair, and researchers have been able to clearly pinpoint various muscle groups, impossible if it were just a suit.

Dr. Jürgen Konczak, the associate director of the Human Sensory Model Lab at the University of Minnesota did an experiment to see whether a human really could match the walking gait of the so-called Bigfoot. In 2004, using a big, strong sporty type and an optical electronic camera system, he compared the human trying to recreate the walk to the motion of Patty in the film. For another angle, he was joined by paleo-anthropologist Esteban Sarmiento, an expert in large wild apes, who worked at the American Museum of Natural History.

Konczak reports: “If you look at this gait, we can clearly say it is not the walk of a large ape that we know today.” Sarmiento says: “It’s that he doesn’t walk like a human and he doesn’t walk like an ape.” The athlete was unable to replicate the Bigfoot walk and it seemed that the movements seen on the film just couldn’t be made by a guy in a potentially bulky and cumbersome suit. Konczak concluded that it was not possible for a human or even a giant ape to be able to walk like the Bigfoot in the Patterson-Gimlin film.

The plaster casts made by Patterson and Gimlin also pointed to the existence of a very large, bipedal creature. From the depth of the footprint casts they made, it was estimated that Patty weighed around 700 pounds or 317 kilos. There was also evidence of a “midfoot pressure ridge”, indicating flexibility in the midfoot which corresponds to the gait of Patty and the terrain she lives in and is not a feature of a modern day human footprint.

So apart from this short film, what other evidence do we have? As usual, humans have just muddied the waters for ourselves now. After the Patterson-Gimlin footage was released, so the idea of Bigfoot was introduced to the public consciousness and they started popping up all over the place, including in the world of entertainment. My personal introduction was the film “Bigfoot and the Hendersons” which I believe was called “Harry and the Hendersons” in the US.

It’s one of those films I must have seen at a very impressionable age as I remember a lot about it despite not having watched it for probably at least 30 years. I also remember being in floods of tears at the end which led to my dad grumbling about taking his daughters out for a nice treat to the cinema only to now have to deal with my emotional breakdown. Sorry, dad.

Anyway, anybody can say they’ve seen a Bigfoot or felt a weird presence when they were out camping in the woods but it’s the sheer number of recorded encounters, thousands of witness statements, that has catapulted Bigfoot from the realms of “are you insane?” to “hang on a minute, maybe there’s something out there after all.” And it’s this knife edge that the squatch is balancing on that makes it so irresistible to this day.

There has been no conclusive proof that it exists. But there has also been no conclusive proof that it doesn’t. A look at The Bigfoot Mapping Project website confirms that sightings are alive and well and, interestingly, not confined to the Pacific NorthWest, traditionally thought of to be the squatch’s chief stomping grounds.

In fact, there look to be as many if not more sightings in Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Despite all these encounters, we still don’t have verifiable proof in the way of physical evidence, such as confirmed Sasquatch hair, the remains of a dead squatch or even a decent photo. So why do so many people believe it’s real and are we any closer to unraveling the mystery?

Well, the fact is, you can’t convince people of what they did or did not see. Some people have based their belief in real live Bigfoots because of stories told to them by older family members who had kept it on the hush hush for fear of being ridiculed. The fact that they chose to keep the story to themselves somehow makes it more believable to the few people they do tell it to.

There are many, many examples of experienced campers, hikers, wilderness experts, animal experts, scientists, you name it, who have had some sort of brush with a Bigfoot or at least some entity that they just couldn’t understand or explain. While most of the evidence for the existence of Bigfoot is purely anecdotal, the Patterson-Gimlin film still confounds skeptics who cannot write it off as a hoax to the satisfaction of the believer contingent.

Bigfoot in the 21st Century

Bigfoot is still big news today and squatch & co regularly make the rounds in kids’ movies and tv shows but have there been any recent Bigfoot updates? I want to talk about the BFRO for a moment. This is the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization which was established in 1995 and, according to their website, works with “scientists, journalists and specialists from diverse backgrounds…The overall mission of the BFRO is multifaceted, but the organization essentially seeks to resolve the mystery surrounding the bigfoot phenomenon, that is, to derive conclusive documentation of the species’ existence. This goal is pursued through the proactive collection of empirical data and physical evidence from the field and by means of activities designed to promote an awareness and understanding of the nature and origin of the evidence.”

Hmm, big words but have they come up with any goods? Well, yes and no. While there is lots of information about the squatch’s appearance, preferred habitat and behavior on the site, all of it is just compiled from alleged eyewitness accounts. There are no convincing photos, videos, or anything at all, really.

There are some links to audio recordings of supposed Bigfoot vocalizations but none are even from the last couple of decades. One is described as “siren like” and that’s because, well, it just sounds like a siren. All the eyewitness accounts have just been lumped together and averaged out to create a supposed profile of the creature known as Bigfoot. It’s all presented as fact with a huge depth of detail, down to how a Bigfoot poohs.

Here you go:

“Their feces are sausage-shaped, up to 4” inches in diameter and up to three feet long, forming a folded heap. They are replete with numerous intestinal parasites, including hookworms, as well as small bones, hair of prey and ample vegetal matter. A sasquatch has been observed to wipe itself with its hand and lick its fingers briefly, a decidedly simian gesture.” Ew, Bigfoot, that’s gross.

I also don’t believe that one. And anyway, primates will eat poop if there’s anything worth salvaging in there, but they don’t wipe their butts with their hands and then lick them clean so don’t tar other simians with your pooey brush.

For me, the BFRO occupies a weird space of trying to prove the existence of Bigfoot but providing people with enough of a platform that it all ends up just sounds pretty ridiculous. It doesn’t help that the founder of the BFRO is a man called Matt Moneymaker although that is his real name so I suppose we shouldn’t hold it against him. Guess what his dad’s name is? Richard Moneymaker, also known as “Rich” Moneymaker. And he’s a lawyer, how on the nose can you get?

The BFRO holds regular field expeditions to sites of recent squatch activity and in one such trip that was filmed for a show called “Animal X”, they set up a mud trap with a load of fruit in it to see if they could get any evidence of squatchy activity. The next morning there was an impression in the mud of which a plaster cast was made and this became known as the “Skookum cast” after the Skookum Meadows area of Washington State where the group was. Apparently this is an impression made by a Bigfoot as it tried to get the fruit.

To be honest, it’s hardly a clear print and it’s pretty impossible to know what you’re supposed to be looking at. The best reconstruction the crew could come up with was showing a squatch kind of lying propped up on its side in the mud, forlornly reaching for some mucky berries in the middle. Of course, I’m no squatch expert but it didn’t really seem to be a natural thing for a Bigfoot to be doing.

I was expecting some big footprints in the mud, not some weird wallowing shape as the creature inexplicably decided to lie down and pull itself towards some food. Was any Bigfoot hair found? Nope.

Were any large footprints found or a three foot long heaped pooh? Ummm, nope. Could this imprint have been made by, say, another animal such as an elk as they are known to create similar shapes while lying down?

That’s a yes from me. Also, there were elk tracks nearby. Surely the obvious thing to have done was to have a flipping camera set up near the mud trap but I guess that wouldn’t have helped the BFRO out very much.

I suppose another blow to the credibility of the BFRO is that it spawned a spin off tv show on Animal Planet called Finding Bigfoot that lasted for 100 episodes. Did they find Bigfoot? I’ll let you take a wild guess.

It is also rated a dismal 4 out of 10 on IMDb meaning that there doesn’t even seem to be any entertainment value to it at all. I watched a bit of an episode in which the team are trying to work out if someone’s managed to capture a photo of a Bigfoot on their trail camera and thankfully they have a dedicated skeptic on the team who spends the whole time asserting it’s just a bear. Matt Moneymaker is also a team member, as is the most stoned looking guy on television, James Fay, who is nicknamed “Bobo.”

The whole thing is probably not worth watching now as if any evidence of Bigfoot were found, it’s unlikely to exist only on this show and not be big news all around the world. But maybe watch it just for Bobo.

Decoding Bigfoot

Alright, let’s get on to the part where we delve even deeper into the story of the Sasquatch. There is no denying that the idea of the Sasquatch has existed in first nations and native American culture for hundreds of years. This has led people to believe that there must be something to this story of a large hairy wild man or half-man half-ape, or giant ape. That’s not necessarily true.

I suppose it’s easier to believe this must have roots in reality as the figure itself is bipedal and human-like, so basically something that we can all easily recognize and something that could potentially exist.

If you take a look at other legends, there are plenty of absolutely bonkers demons and concepts out there that could in no way exist in the real world and nobody has ever really claimed they do. I’m thinking, for instance, of the Kasha yokai or Japanese demon that was covered in the “Kasha House of Kaimuki” episode. The origin of that demon was that it was a fiery or burning cart that popped up at people’s funerals if they weren’t particularly nice people and then drove them to hell. Nobody’s suggesting that they’ve ever seen this happening or was ever a real thing so why should we believe in Bigfoot just because it’s presented as something a bit more familiar?

I’m going to go back to our examples of pro-Bigfoot evidence now and see what the whole story was. Yes, this may be seen as spoiling the fun and some people complain that stories are ruined when we actually investigate a bit further but hello, this is Decoding the Unknown. The clue is in the name. We need to look at both sides of this hairy coin. Although in reality, this is a hairy coin that just keeps spinning as no matter how much debunking is done, the debunking is then apparently debunked etc. etc. etc.

The origin of the name “Bigfoot” came from media reports of the footprints found by Jerry Crew and chums around the site of their logging operation. How do we account for these massive, one-third of a Danny Devito sized prints? Well, if you go straight to the debunking without passing go, these prints were nothing more than a not particularly sophisticated prank carried out by a guy on the same team using a wooden foot imprint.

Ray Wallace allegedly made a deathbed confession in 2002 admitting to the prank, although it wasn’t exactly a secret to his family and friends. He was well known as a prankster and in 1958 apparently decided the time was right for North America to have its own version of the Yeti or at least to increase the interest in it. Some people thought there was no way it could just have been a man with a wooden footprint as there was supposedly not enough time for people to do this sort of malarky with all the work they had to do but come on, how long does it take to press a foot on a pole into some mud?

Not very long. And the other large, heavy things that apparently were mysteriously moved around the camp might have been moved by machinery without other people’s knowledge, they might have been on unstable ground and slid over or maybe it was just a made up fact to get your name in the local paper.

The BFRO have decided that Wallace did not, in fact, make this confession. I found an article in the Los Angeles Times from December 6th 2002 where Wallace’s son, Michael, confirmed his dad had been behind the mysterious footprints. OK, the BFRO were correct in that Wallace didn’t exactly make a deathbed confession, but apparently he polled his family as he knew his health was failing and they all voted for not holding onto the secret.

As previously mentioned, it wasn’t like he was the only one who knew the whole time. This seems to be a weird thing for a random person to say to a paper, 44 years after the event unless they were actually involved in some way. And it’s not like this example has ever been as remotely famous as the Patterson-Gimlin film so I doubt Michael Wallace was cashing in much on that hairy coin.

Other naysayers of this explanation have said that the alleged “foot stomper” Ray Wallace had did not match with the plaster cast print taken by Jerry Crew. To that I say… whatever. The ground was muddy, Wallace probably didn’t plant it down exactly level each time and maybe the cast wasn’t taken very well.

I’ve also had trouble finding verifiable pictures of what the fake feet look like. The one on the BFRO site looks very different to one on a site called Bigfoot Encounters.com so maybe Wallace had multiple versions or maybe these debunks of the debunk are just wrong. To be honest, I believe that this incident was a hoax as why would you bother confessing to something like this just before you die?

You wouldn’t get any credit or attention for it as you’d be dead and credit and attention is what some people who make false confessions are after. Pretending that your dad perpetrated a long-forgotten hoax is hardly going to do much to increase your profile in the 21st century so personally, I think Wallace and possibly other people in his work team were all just having a laugh.

Alright, let’s get into the nitty gritty of the Patterson-Gimlin film. Sigh. This is going to take a while and again, every point can be met with a counter by die-hard believers so let’s just go for it. First off, the original film has disappeared, only copies remain.

This means that we can’t say for sure when it was filmed and if there was any other footage before the main event that might give us more of an idea of its authenticity. And perhaps the timeline around the making of the film rather than the footage itself is what could prove to be its undoing. Let me explain.

Patterson and Gimlin were trekking through the forest on horseback on the afternoon of October 20th, 1967. Patterson stated that they chanced upon the Bigfoot somewhere between 1.15 and 1.40 pm. Any time stamps that could be found on the original film have, of course, been lost.

After the close encounter which only lasted a couple of minutes, both men had to round up their horses which had been spooked at the presence of Bigfoot and had run off. They then spent some time trying to track Patty through the forest for anywhere between one and three miles. During this time Patterson filmed some of the footprints they’d found but this film has also since been lost.

After losing sight of any more tracks, they headed back to their campsite which was 3 miles or 4.8 km away, picked up some plaster to make casts with, went the 3 miles or 4.8 km back to the footprints, made the casts, waited for said casts to dry, went the 3 miles or 4.8 km back to camp again, packed everything up into their trailer, including the horses and drove to Willow Creek to mail the film off. The film was mailed at about 6.30pm. Does it sound likely that all this could have been done in 5 hours?

I should also mention that from their camp to Willow Creek was about 24 miles or 40 km along many dirt tracks and fire roads. So yeah, once you start looking at it like that, the whole thing seems to be getting more and more unlikely. It didn’t help matters that Patterson changed his story a few times, even saying that the film was flown to Yakima on a charter plane to be developed when it was later proven that no charter planes flew that day because of bad weather.

A plane seems a pretty big thing to suddenly remember and, in fact, it’s this dubious timeline coupled with Patterson’s shifting story that convinces me the footage is just a hoax rather than going into the nitty-gritty of the actual Bigfoot you see. Speaking of which, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the actual Bigfoot you see.

Ol’ Patty, swinging her arms and boobs around like nobody’s business, ambling off between the trees and into infamy. There are two possibilities here.

1. It’s a real Bigfoot
2. It’s a man wearing a costume.

Which of these is most likely? I will say that having watched rather more videos than I wanted to about this, I was starting to think maybe there was something to this Bigfoot thing. The footage has been enhanced over the years and while the original was quite grainy, it’s possible to see muscles moving under the fur, worn patches, a moving face, details that a hoaxer throwing a fake movie together in the 1960s wouldn’t have the time or resources to create. But is it really possible to see that?

Australian Wayne Dowsent made a video showing the 4k version of the film, pointing out the way Patty the Bigfoot moves and saying things like - go on, Simon, try an Aussie accent here to be authentic: “The muscles move and quiver as they act like shock absorbers” but for the life of me I just can’t see what he’s talking about. The footage is clearer and this does actually make it look more like an actual creature than a suited-up guy but I just can’t really see all this detail he and others point out. Dowsent also points out how similar the head is compared to real apes - but isn’t that what you’d expect from an ape costume?

The nose appears to be different but there’s no really clear shot of it and in the enhanced version when Patty turns to the camera, that’s actually when the face looks the least realistic, mainly because of the odd nose. Dowsent also points out wear marks on the creature’s hair, presumably from its arms constantly brushing past its thighs etc. but maybe this is just a patchy costume. Hardly a deathblow to skeptics.

Other people have made much of the way Patty moves as it’s not the way a human or indeed an ape would walk. Is it, though, the way a human in an ape suit would walk? I take major issue with Dr.

Jürgen Konczak’s experiment with the optical cameras on the athlete. He concluded that a human could not walk like Bigfoot but what I concluded was THAT particular human could not walk like Bigfoot. They had him angled all weirdly, moving his arms and legs into positions to match the Bigfoot when he wasn’t the same proportions as the creature on the screen.

And everyone walks totally differently depending on any number of factors. If you’re familiar with someone you can sometimes pick them out in a crowd by the way they walk. I personally used to overthink how to swing my arms because I thought everyone was looking at me.

This is when I was young and insecure, now I don’t give a crap. I tried to recreate the Bigfoot walk in my own room and probably did a better job than the test subject. They should have just shown the athlete guy the footage and asked him to try and walk like that.

Or maybe they should have put him in a football helmet and shoulder pads, zipped him into an ape suit and told him to take a stroll through the trees. We are now entering Bob Hieronimous territory.

Because of its notoriety, several slightly odd people throughout the years have outed themselves as being the person inside the Bigfoot suit. The one with the most credibility, however, is Bob Hieronimous. He was a neighbor of Bob Gimlin and, in 1967, was offered a thousand dollars to wear the suit and be in the film. That’s around 9 thousand dollars today, not bad for a minute’s work.

According to Heironimous, he tried on the suit a couple of times, with a football helmet and shoulder pads underneath. Then he went with Patterson and Gimlin to the forest and made the clip. He was never paid any money and instead of outing the whole thing early on, he was scared of the backlash he would receive because the film had attracted so much attention. Heironimous was worried he’d be prosecuted for fraud so he kept his mouth shut until a few decades later.

There’s a youtube video showing Bob walking and if I’d just been convinced by the awkward athlete that Bigfoots were real, it took an old man shuffling across the screen to convince me that Bigfoots aren’t real. Or at least the Patterson-Gimlin film is not real. Sure, it’s not the exact Bigfoot walk, but Bob’s an old man now and wasn’t togged up in an ape suit.

Wearing a full body suit with big feet does totally affect your gait as I can attest, having dressed up as children’s character Poppy Cat to help out a friend who managed a book shop. Man, it was sweaty in that thing. Thankfully there were two of us on duty and I wore the costume first, ha ha.

There’s footage of Bob and a group of pals at a bar laughing about how anyone was fooled and it was common knowledge around town that it was just Bobby H in a suit. He even took a lie detector test on a show called, guess what, “Lie Detector” in 2005 which confirmed that he wasn’t lying when he said he was the guy in the Bigfoot suit. This isn’t really conclusive proof, though, as lie detectors basically measure stress levels, not lies.

And it’s also kind of a niche spot to make this statement, although Heironimous wasn’t coming out with the information with a bang, just confirming what he’d been saying for a while against any doubters. According to the Wikipedia page about the show, the other two people featured on his episode were: “Employee who wants to prove that her pay was legitimate” and “a man who wants to prove he did not murder his girlfriend” so, kind of a mixed bag. As with everything in this story, you either believe Bob or you don’t.

So what’s the next sticking point? How ‘bout that suit? Of course this isn’t just an ape suit or a gorilla suit!

There’s no way a costume could be that good in the 1960s and if it was, it would have cost a bomb, way more than Patterson could afford. Oh yeah? Couldn’t be that good, eh?

One comparison I saw somewhere was that at around the same time this footage came out, the first Planet of the Apes film with Charlton Heston was made. The critic said that there was no way the Bigfoot suit was fake as the best Hollywood could come up with at the time was the not very convincing apes in the Planet of the Apes. Well, I beg to differ.

I looked up clips and stills from the 1968 movie and, while all the apes I saw were wearing clothes, the make up was actually pretty good. The faces moved and with a couple of exceptions, they weren’t too mask-like or really fake looking. The hair looked pretty good and the conclusion I came to is that it was more than possible to create a decent full body Bigfoot suit in the late 60s.

John Chambers actually received an honorary Oscar award for outstanding make-up achievement in this film so there you go. He has denied being behind the Bigfoot suit though.

So who did make it? It’s unlikely it was just an off-the-peg gorilla number. Apparently it was made by Philip and Amy Morris who made gorilla suits mainly used in carnival shows.

While there are no receipts confirming the sale to be found and the suit itself has never surfaced, both Philp and Amy confirm that Patterson commissioned the suit from them and called them up sometime later to ask how it could be modified to appear bigger. Philip Morris also pointed out how wearing the suit could alter a person’s walking gait and that the suit wasn’t designed to be particularly flexible, hence Patty the Bigfoot having to turn her entire upper body to look behind her.

Also, I found a photo on the BBC website showing members of the Sts’ailes (sta-hay-lis) tribe during a Sasquatch festival and someone’s wearing a squatch suit and I don’t know if it came from a real animal hide or not - I presume it did - but it looks like a pretty good quality costume and that was from 1938!

So could the most famous footage be just a man in a suit? I think it’s definitely possible, if not probable. I’ll round out this section by saying that Patterson himself was something of a tricky customer.

He got financing from a film company called American National Enterprises to make a fake Bigfoot documentary, mainly based on a tiny tome he had self-published called “Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?”. Patterson used the money to buy the ape suit and rent the camera he used to film the encounter. After getting the film developed and selling the clip himself, he cut ties with American National Enterprises who didn’t get anything out of the relationship.

Patterson was also arrested for keeping the camera longer than the rental period, although he eventually gave it back in one piece and charges were dropped. And yes, Patterson did end up raking the money in. Although there were lawsuits further down the line, his wife ended up with 100% of the tv rights and 49% of the rights of the film footage.

Along with his brother in law who had helped Patterson out financially before, it’s estimated they made about $200,000 off the footage in the first year alone. I think that’s in 1967 money, meaning it’s about $1.7 million today but even if it was already adjusted for inflation, that ain’t bad. Patterson may have known he was dying - he had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma - so is it totally out of the question that he just had one last hurrah and struck gold with this escapade?

Or could it be that as a Bigfoot fanboy he miraculously did what no-one has convincingly done before or since and actually had an encounter with the real creature that he managed to capture on film?

What Else Could it Be?

Maybe you’re not convinced Bigfoot is a hoax but you think that there must be something setting off all these reports. Well, a lot of so-called Bigfoot encounters can be explained as encounters with other normal and boring animals like bears. Bears can stand on their hind legs and walk around if they want and some of them are really big, making them an easy target for Bigfoot misidentification. Also, a lot of reported encounters happen at night, in the woods so people tend to stay inside their tents and not go poking around outside i.e. they don’t really see anything useful.

The vocalizations that people hear could be any number of animals or other man-made sounds coming from unexpected directions. In the Portlock Alaska episode, there were references to a wild hairy man in the woods and people reported hearing women’s voices that didn’t seem to be speaking in any language they knew. There are First Nations people in Alaska and Canada and their many languages would be totally unfamiliar to practically everyone else, so maybe they just heard the locals walking past having a bit of a natter.

It’s also possible that Bigfoot hunters are fooling each other, making calls that they think attract Bigfoots that are then replied to by another group, thinking they’ve just heard a Bigfoot. That happened in England a while ago with two men down the ends of their respective gardens, each thinking they were communicating with an owl on a regular basis. There was no owl.

So discounting a squatch and other regular wildlife, could there be something else in the mix? How about some sort of real giant ape that’s managed to survive relatively undisturbed all this time? Gigantopithecus was a real ape, a very large one judging by jawbones and teeth that have been found, but is it likely to still be alive and well and undiscovered hundreds of thousands of years after it supposedly went extinct?

And not only that, there’s got to be enough to keep the breeding going if they still exist today. A more likely explanation might be that actual gorillas or similar apes might be living in the forest, maybe having escaped from zoos or private collections or being dumped there by people who couldn’t look after them any more. Gorillas don’t usually walk on their hind legs though, preferring to knuckle walk on all fours.

In a lot of cases where people can’t identify an animal in a trail photo, though, it usually turns out to be a bear.

Hoaxes

I know we haven’t really mentioned any of the confirmed Bigfoot hoaxes and that’s because - what’s the point? They were found out or the perpetrators admitted to the hoax. Usually the dead squatch or whatever that was discovered was made of latex, rubber, other animal hair etc. and just served to undermine the possibility of Bigfoot being real. People have even died after being shot while dressing up as Bigfoot so it’s not something I really recommend.

And I know there are going to be people in the comments saying they or their dad, uncle or grandfather had weird experiences that they couldn’t explain and I’m not trying to belittle what you went through. I saw Father Christmas in my room as a young child and it always struck me as strange as my parents wouldn’t have bothered getting togged up to put stuff in my stocking if I was already supposed to be asleep. Yet this image is in my mind and while I have since been promoted to the role of Santa myself, I have never been able to fully believe that this is a false memory.

And no, it wasn’t some pervert that had broken in, at least I hope it wasn’t and I’ve actually been repressing something horrible this whole time. I’m pretty sure he was just putting some presents in my stocking. Anyway, my point was that while you might truly believe it was a Bigfoot encounter, chances are, it actually wasn’t.

There have been thousands and thousands of sightings and yet not a single decent picture has come out of it. I’ve seen various youtube videos claiming to be proof of Bigfoots but that are either obviously fake or are really intriguing but then cut out at the crucial moment, or are just plain weird. Nothing has captured the public’s attention and imagination since the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage and even now, 56 years later, it hasn’t been possible to thoroughly prove the film to be a hoax or the real deal. Logically, though, we have found evidence of species thought to be extinct, we’re still discovering new species even now and yet nobody can find a physical trace of a gigantic hairy ape thing in the woods and it’s hardly for want of trying.

It’s kind of weird though, in that the more I look at the original Patterson-Gimlin footage, the more fake it seems, especially the face just looks odd, but when you see the enhanced version, it does appear more genuine. Patterson himself said on his deathbed that he wished he just shot the thing so he’d have a body to show instead of having to deal with critics all the time. Gimlin for his part was totally radio silent for about 30 years but does pop up every now and then, just retelling the story of the day he and his friend filmed a Bigfoot.

So what have we learned? I’ve learned that the Bigfoot in the Patterson-Gimlin film could not possibly be a human in a suit. I’ve also learned that it was a man called Bob in a suit. I’ve learned that there is no confirmed physical proof of the existence of a Bigfoot.

I’ve also learned that there are thousands of reports of people seeing a Bigfoot. The BFRO site has thousands of recorded accounts searchable by state and it may not come as a huge surprise to learn that the highest number of sightings they’ve recorded are from Florida. There’s some crazy stuff that happens in Florida. It’s also locally known as a “skunk ape” there in case you were wondering.

I looked through some reports and there are a huge number where a squatch is just walking along a road or down a hill, in plain view and not hidden at all. So why is the only note of this on a slightly niche website? Could it be that people are just making stuff up?

In an action that went above and beyond my usual efforts, I submitted a Bigfoot sighting in Los Angeles to the Bigfoot Mapping Project website and it published it, no questions asked. I didn’t dare send it to the BFRO though as it looks like they follow up on quite a lot of these and I am a terrible liar. So yeah, I just muddied the waters with a boring tale of seeing a tall figure at the edge of some trees and it made some weird noises.

I hasten to add that this was 100% made up but it just shows how easy it is to submit a fake sighting - it took me about two minutes. Another amazing thing to come out of this episode is the amount of times I typed “Bogfoot” instead of “Bigfoot”. It was a lot.

I think I’m taking the coward’s way out of this and not definitively saying that Bigfoot is real one way or the other, although I do now think the Patterson-Gimlin film is a hoax. I guess I’m like Fox Mulder in that “I want to believe” - show me the proof of Bigfoot and I’ll be as excited as the next person. Until then, sorry, but it don’t really mean squatch.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the origin of the name ‘Sasquatch’?

The name ‘Sasquatch’ is an anglicized version of the word ‘sasq’ets’ (sas-kets) meaning something like ‘Hairy Man’ in the language of the Sts’ailes (sta-hay-lis) people from the sovereign Coast Salish First Nation in British Columbia, Canada.

What are some of the key characteristics of Bigfoot?

Bigfoot is described as a much taller than the average human, bipedal, non-human primate covered in hair. It is estimated to be between 7 to 11 feet tall and weigh about 650 lbs. Bigfoot prefers forested areas but can also be found in swamp or marshlands. It is an omnivore and is known for its strength and vocalizations.

What is the significance of the Patterson-Gimlin film?

The Patterson-Gimlin film, shot in 1967, is arguably the most famous piece of evidence confirming the existence of Bigfoot. It shows a female Bigfoot walking away from Roger Patterson, looking back a few times before walking into the forest. The footage has been scrutinized extensively, with advocates on both sides debating its authenticity.

What are some of the alternative explanations for Bigfoot sightings?

Some alternative explanations for Bigfoot sightings include misidentifications of other animals like bears, misinterpretations of natural sounds, and hoaxes. Bears can stand on their hind legs and walk around, making them an easy target for Bigfoot misidentification. Vocalizations reported as Bigfoot could be from various animals or man-made sounds.

What is the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO)?

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) was established in 1995 and works with scientists, journalists, and specialists to resolve the mystery surrounding the Bigfoot phenomenon. They collect empirical data and physical evidence from the field and promote awareness and understanding of the nature and origin of the evidence.

What is the Skookum cast?

The Skookum cast is a plaster impression made from a mud trap set up by the BFRO in the Skookum Meadows area of Washington State. The cast was supposed to show evidence of a Bigfoot trying to get fruit, but its authenticity is debated. Some suggest it could have been made by another animal, such as an elk.

What is the significance of the Jerry Crew footprints?

In 1958, Jerry Crew discovered massive footprints in the mud at a logging site in the Six Rivers National Forest. These footprints, measuring 16 inches long, were the first widely reported evidence of Bigfoot. The media picked up the story, and the term ‘Bigfoot’ was coined, leading to widespread interest in the creature.

What are some of the criticisms of the Patterson-Gimlin film?

Critics of the Patterson-Gimlin film point to inconsistencies in Patterson’s timeline, the disappearance of the original film, and the possibility that the footage was staged. Some argue that the movements and features of the Bigfoot in the film are inconsistent with those of a real creature, suggesting it could be a man in a suit.

What is the role of the Sts’ailes people in the Bigfoot legend?

The Sts’ailes people from the Coast Salish First Nation in British Columbia have a long-standing tradition of the Sasquatch, which they refer to as ‘sasq’ets’ or ‘Hairy Man.’ Their folklore includes supernatural abilities for the Sasquatch, such as shapeshifting, and it is generally seen as a peaceable protector of the forest.

What is the BFRO’s stance on the Ray Wallace confession?

The BFRO disputes the confession made by Ray Wallace, who allegedly admitted to creating the Bigfoot footprints in 1958. The BFRO argues that Wallace did not make a deathbed confession and that the evidence suggests the footprints were genuine.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Legend of Bigfoot: Hunting for Evidence of the Sasquatch
• Hero image source by Mitchazenia / openverse, by-sa.