Patterson–Gimlin film (Bigfoot)
A short film shot in California purports to show a walking Bigfoot.
1967 CE · 41.00, -123.70 · status: disputed
The account
The 'Patty' footage is the most analysed piece of cryptozoological evidence ever recorded.
The sceptical view
Widely regarded as a man in a suit; no verified physical evidence of Bigfoot exists.
The researched reading
The most debated 60 seconds in cryptozoology. A costume is still the likeliest explanation, given the circumstances and the absence of any physical remains.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Undetermined | 55% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 15% | Roger Patterson had been planning a Bigfoot film and had a financial stake; Bob Heironimus says he wore the suit and costume seller Philip Morris says he sold Patterson a gorilla suit, though their accounts conflict. The figure’s proportions are within human range and no physical evidence of the species has ever been found. |
| An unknown or out-of-place animal | 10% | Anatomist Jeff Meldrum and costume expert Bill Munns argue the gait, muscle movement and limb proportions are hard to fake with 1967 costumes; but no bones, bodies or confirmed DNA of a North American ape exist. |
| A cultural story | 7% | The film became the icon of Bigfoot and is reinterpreted through each new analysis. |
| Something known, misidentified | 5% | A bear walking upright is suggested by some but the figure’s steady bipedal gait argues against it. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 4% | Analysis of a low-resolution film invites seeing what one expects. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 4% | Nothing in the film requires beyond-science explanations. |
Official position: No official investigation; most scientists regard it as a person in a suit.
How the account grew
Fifty-nine seconds of 16 mm film shot at Bluff Creek in 1967 became the defining image of Bigfoot. Over the following decades it was screened to scientists, broadcast to tens of millions, contested in court, claimed as a man in a suit by a costume maker and by the man who said he wore it, and defended in book-length frame analyses.
| Year | Who | Added |
|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Roger Patterson, Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist? | A self-published compilation of clippings, interviews and drawings; in 1967 Patterson starts filming a Bigfoot docudrama with Gimlin playing a tracker. |
| 1967 | Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin | On 20 October a large hairy upright figure walks across a creek bar and looks back at the camera; footprint casts follow; Patterson promotes it on TV talk shows. |
| 1973 | John Napier, Bigfoot: The Sasquatch and Yeti in Myth and Reality | A primatologist sympathetic to the evidence critiques the film's subject. |
| 1974 | CBS, Monsters! Mystery or Myth | A Smithsonian co-produced documentary watched by 50 million; Gimlin sues for his share of proceeds and wins in 1976. |
| 1999 | Bob Heironimus; Gimlin to the BBC | Heironimus says through his lawyer that he wore the suit; Gimlin concedes a hoax was possible if Patterson planned it well. A frame analysis claims to show a zip. |
| 2002 | Philip Morris, Morris Costumes | Says he sold Patterson a gorilla suit by mail order in 1967 for a 'prank'; no suit or record is produced. |
| 2004 | Greg Long, The Making of Bigfoot; National Geographic recreation | Interviews portraying Patterson as a con man; a suit recreation at Rimrock Lake is judged unconvincing by proponents. |
| 2014 | Bill Munns, When Roger Met Patty | A special-effects artist argues in 488 pages that 1967 costume technology could not produce the subject. |
| 2025 | Unicode Consortium | A 'hairy creature' emoji in the film's pose enters the Unicode standard. |
Connections in the atlas
- The Ucumar of Metán
- Philip Morris’s ape-suit claim
- Sasquatch / Bigfoot
- The Collings Mountain Bigfoot trap
- The Making of Bigfoot
- Freeman footage
- When Roger Met Patty
- Bob Heironimus: 'I was the man in the suit'
- Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America
- Skamania County Bigfoot ordinance
- Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality
- Ray Wallace's carved feet revealed