Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[Dfoot]

Dfoot the movie The Legend Of Bigfoot, I've seen the movie I believe. I was making the rounds in the mid late 1970's. I recall it was a somewhat spooforic affair some zanny characters a few dumb songs etc. But this was in 1977 or 78 so when was the film made? Patterson was long dead by the time I saw it. Now it the film strip there a rider with black hair and a beard. Do you know who he is? I ask because I have a hard time imagining how they would have gotten Gimlin to wear a wig. But there's a clip of Gimlin from the late 70's that shows him with a full beard. Looks more like the guy with beard than the guy with the wig.

Lastly the drawing of the Roe creature was done by his daughter as he described the details. Notice its a way less fierce and savage rendition that the things Patterson did himself.

It really is hard to keep up with all the versions of the stories and various films... but I'm trying to keep score...

In 1975 is when Olson made his version of the film Patterson had originally hoped to make. Joe Morgella is the actor who played the Indian tracker in that flick. Same plot and characters as Patterson's original idea.

Olson hooked up with Patterson once DeAtley had toured with the film and made a ton of money. When Frank Hansen admitted to a reporter that the Iceman thing was a hoax, DeAtley figured he'd better work out a deal and let Olson take over the movie thing so he could get back to his business.

From 1970 until his death Roger worked with Olson on projects. However, as Dahinden, Olson and others would later learn, Roger had been selling the same rights to various parties the entire time and hiding the money away. Had he lived he might have gone to jail.


That's Patterson on the far left and Heironimus on the far right. Gimlin is in the wig playing the part of the Indian tracker in Roger's original movie that came to be called a "documentary" and later just the PG film - without all those pesky cowboys wanting a piece of the pie.

Later, DeAtley would spend more money for plane tickets and cowboy and Indian clothes for Patterson and Gimlin when they all traveled to New York with manager Pat Mason and publicist Jack Oliphant to promote the PG film. Gimlin stayed in Indian character the whole time (complete with wig). It's the same wig he's seen wearing for their Argosy magazine cover article.

Mrs. Gimlin didn't think attempting to keep up this charade was such a good idea. I think she was right.


They made some good plaster casts of those fake prints in that flick. Almost too good. Looks like evidence to me.

Like they say...Something made them...

 

[RayG]

The rate of reportage mostly and no remains.

.
The lack of any remains, whether by road-kill, accident, old-age, or disease, is certainly curious, but the rate of reportage for bigfoot seems to have increased not decreased. Both John Green and Grover Krantz thought there must be thousands of them.
.

"First, there is no shortage of wild sasquatches. They cover such a tremendous area that there must be many thousands of them, and there is nothing to indicate that their number are declining. On the contrary, their appearance in more and more places where they were not previously known suggests that they are steadily becoming more numerous." -- John Green, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, page 463

"Current estimates of sasquatch numbers would place them in the low thousands. How many thousands depends mainly on how large a part of North America is considered to be inhabited by them... If the sasquatch is actually as widespread over the continent as current reports would have it, we could easily postulate that there are anywhere from ten to twenty thousand of them." -- Grover Krantz, Big Footprints, pages 161-162
.
"A rather excitable and vocal segment of the public considers the sasquatch to be an endangered species. There is no evidence to support this view, but then there's not much to contradict it either... Most of us who have studied the problem would estimate their population to number at least two thousand individuals, and quite likely several times that figure... One could read the history of sighting reports to indicate that the sasquatch had become extinct in most of the eastern United States, and only in the last fifty years has been making a limited comeback... there certainly are plenty of reports from there in recent decades." -- Grover Krantz, Big Footprints, page 174

.
As Krantz points out, there is neither evidence to support or contradict the idea that bigfoot is going extinct. It seems as hard to prove bigfoot is facing extinction as it is to prove he exists in the first place.
.

There were millions of Bison records exist to confirm this. Mountains of bones too.

.
One of the reasons for the decline of the Bison was man's ability to hunt and kill them easily. Bison aren't exactly highly intelligent, bipedal, forest-dwelling, mountain-climbing, salmon-stealing, tree-climbing, ninja-like critters.
.

There aren't a lot of Mountain Gorillas, a hasty survey could miss them. Relic populations of animals tend to be small.

.
No, there aren't a lot of Mountain Gorillas, but they aren't found nearly everywhere on the globe, from Florida to British Columbia, to Australia to the former USSR. Bisons and Gorillas, live or otherwise, have been found, catalogued, identified, and classified. No such claim can be made for bigfoot.

RayG

 

[Crowlogic]

It really is hard to keep up with all the versions of the stories and various films... but I'm trying to keep score...

In 1975 is when Olson made his version of the film Patterson had originally hoped to make. Joe Morgella is the actor who played the Indian tracker in that flick. Same plot and characters as Patterson's original idea.

Olson hooked up with Patterson once DeAtley had toured with the film and made a ton of money. When Frank Hansen admitted to a reporter that the Iceman thing was a hoax, DeAtley figured he'd better work out a deal and let Olson take over the movie thing so he could get back to his business.

From 1970 until his death Roger worked with Olson on projects. However, as Dahinden, Olson and others would later learn, Roger had been selling the same rights to various parties the entire time and hiding the money away. Had he lived he might have gone to jail.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_776647a56cb4045be.jpg[/qimg]
That's Patterson on the far left and Heironimus on the far right. Gimlin is in the wig playing the part of the Indian tracker in Roger's original movie that came to be called a "documentary" and later just the PG film - without all those pesky cowboys wanting a piece of the pie.

Later, DeAtley would spend more money for plane tickets and cowboy and Indian clothes for Patterson and Gimlin when they all traveled to New York with manager Pat Mason and publicist Jack Oliphant to promote the PG film. Gimlin stayed in Indian character the whole time (complete with wig). It's the same wig he's seen wearing for their Argosy magazine cover article.

Mrs. Gimlin didn't think attempting to keep up this charade was such a good idea. I think she was right.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/776647a57472389eb.jpg[/qimg][qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/776647a574c74e2a3.jpg[/qimg]
They made some good plaster casts of those fake prints in that flick. Almost too good. Looks like evidence to me.

Like they say...Something made them...

Dfoot you've done good! Keep digging as hard and deep as you can to try and find some more stills of the Olsen Legend OF Bigfoot movie. There are Bigfoot creatures in the film. If I remember at the very end of the film a group of Bigfoot come down one night and harrass the "cowboys" to the point that they pack up and leave in a hurry. But the point is there was a creature suit in the movie. Maybe just maybe in was the PGF suit that was pulled out of mothballs for a reprise of its 1967 role. In any event the apple wouldn't have fallen far from the tree and Olsen's suit would have leaned heavy on Patterson's creature.

 

[Crowlogic]

.
The lack of any remains, whether by road-kill, accident, old-age, or disease, is certainly curious, but the rate of reportage for bigfoot seems to have increased not decreased. Both John Green and Grover Krantz thought there must be thousands of them.
.
.
As Krantz points out, there is neither evidence to support or contradict the idea that bigfoot is going extinct. It seems as hard to prove bigfoot is facing extinction as it is to prove he exists in the first place.
.
.
One of the reasons for the decline of the Bison was man's ability to hunt and kill them easily. Bison aren't exactly highly intelligent, bipedal, forest-dwelling, mountain-climbing, salmon-stealing, tree-climbing, ninja-like critters.
.
.
No, there aren't a lot of Mountain Gorillas, but they aren't found nearly everywhere on the globe, from Florida to British Columbia, to Australia to the former USSR. Bisons and Gorillas, live or otherwise, have been found, catalogued, identified, and classified. No such claim can be made for bigfoot.

RayG

Ray your counter points to mine are noted and well received. I can't speak of having direct experience in the wilds of the entire range that Sasquatch is reported to inhabit in this country but I can and I will related my own personal experiences of time in the wild in at least one area where Sasquatch were once reported.

In upper NY State there is a place named Fort Ticonderoga (sp). In the mid 1700's when soldiers and engineers were sent to construct the fort along the Hudson River they reported seeing large ape like creatures in the area. The local Indians confirmed the creatures in ways that fit what is generally accepted as Sasquatch.

Fast forward to the years 1979-1981 and I'm working on a Federally funded environmental research project designed to study the effects of acid rain on lakes across upper NY State. My job required me to spend most of my time during the warmer months in the field for weeks at a time. I got to spend time in some of the most remote areas of NY and some of those areas are very remote. There were places where there wasn't a single sign of human activity, not scrap of paper, tin can, footprint etc etc. A person could practically walk through the forest and into Canada without ever knowing they'd left the US. I got to see an amazing amount of wildlife both dead and alive. Tracks and spoor prints by the thousands, especially around the water systems I was there to sample. On at least one occasion my camp was paid a nocturnal visit by bear. I kept my 22 Magnum rifle close by most of the time. However in spite of having the idea of Sasquatch still fresh enough in my mind from the flurry of interest of the early 70's I never encountered anything that implied Sasquatch. Not prints, no sounds, no hair/fur, smell or sight. Yet 100 years earlier apparently there were in upper NY State.

Let’s add one more thing to the reasons why Sasquatch /Bigfoot went extinct. Disease may have wiped them out. Since it was disease brought over by the Europeans to the New World that more than anything else decimated the Native American population perhaps the introduced European diseases infected the Sasquatch populations as well.

 

[kitakaze]

In upper NY State there is a place named Fort Ticonderoga (sp). In the mid 1700's when soldiers and engineers were sent to construct the fort along the Hudson River they reported seeing large ape like creatures in the area. The local Indians confirmed the creatures in ways that fit what is generally accepted as Sasquatch.

Source, please.

However in spite of having the idea of Sasquatch still fresh enough in my mind from the flurry of interest of the early 70's I never encountered anything that implied Sasquatch. Not prints, no sounds, no hair/fur, smell or sight. Yet 100 years earlier apparently there were in upper NY State.

Despite all the reports east of Idaho, you don't believe sasquatch exists there because you spent time in the field doing research in upstate NY without encountering any sign of bigfoot. Conversely, you do believe that bigfoot did exist west of Idaho regardless of all the researchers and professional who have spent countless thousands of man-hours in reported bigfoot territory without ever seeing any sign of bigfoot. Is this correct?

Let’s add one more thing to the reasons why Sasquatch /Bigfoot went extinct. Disease may have wiped them out. Since it was disease brought over by the Europeans to the New World that more than anything else decimated the Native American population perhaps the introduced European diseases infected the Sasquatch populations as well.

Can you give some valid reason to think that bigfoot ever existed regardless of whether or not they went extinct?

 

[kitakaze]

I am a skeptic.

No. No, you are not. Not a little. Not kinda. Not in a manner of speaking. Not a pseudoskeptic. Nor a part-time skeptic. Nor even a fence-sitter.

Both bigfoot skeptics and believers would cock their heads and look at you sideways and in unison say, "You believe bigfoot did exist... but went extinct? What the heck for?"

 

[SweatyYeti]

kitakaze wrote:

Can you give some valid reason to think that bigfoot ever existed regardless of whether or not they went extinct?

Gigantopithecus.....known, and proven, to have existed....fits the description of Bigfoot.

 

[Spektator]

I can order two histories of Fort Ticonderoga (one of them compiled exclusively from contemporary materials) through interlibrary loan. I'll put in a request for them and see if they mention bigfoot.

Edited to add: Our own library has a microfilm of reports on Fort Ticonderoga from the mid-1700s. If I have time between classes tomorrow, I'll take a look at that, too.

 

[kitakaze]

kitakaze wrote:



Gigantopithecus.....known, and proven, to have existed....fits the description of Bigfoot.

Put your fingers on the keyboard right now and type out where it has been shown that Gigantopithecus has been conclusively shown to be bipedal or spare us from ever having to read that fallacious statement again. I'll give you a head start - Russel Ciochon

 

[kitakaze]

I can order two histories of Fort Ticonderoga (one of them compiled exclusively from contemporary materials) through interlibrary loan. I'll put in a request for them and see if they mention bigfoot.

Edited to add: Our own library has a microfilm of reports on Fort Ticonderoga from the mid-1700s. If I have time between classes tomorrow, I'll take a look at that, too.

Spektator, if you come up with something, could you please also post it in my Native American thread?

 

[William Parcher]

I posted those images to show what Roger and Merritt were up to. The LEFT SIDE shows GIMLIN and the guys in Roger's original movie shot in May of '67 just before he got hold of Vilma Radford's cash and went to Hollywood. The RIGHT SIDE shows Ron Olson's production made after Roger died with actors.

Lightbulb moment. I had no idea that Olson made a film that was a quasi-sequel to Patterson's pseudo-documentary. Olson characterized Tekka Blackhawk as Bob Gimlin in the wig. This explains the problem I had yesterday with no good way to state it. The fake Indian on the right does not have Bob Gimlin's nose. I saw that and couldn't figure it out. That guy is Tekka Blackhawk. I never knew he existed. This actor's face is quite similar to Bob Gimlin in that 'actors' image. I was fooled. But the nose freaked me out. Now I understand why. It isn't Bob Gimlin.

The real Bob Gimlin in the good ol' salad days when the PGF cash was green...

DDA (Noll) told me that Olson's movie had nothing to do with Patterson. I disagree.

It has everything to do with Roger Patterson. Rick Noll is obfuscating because he knows.

 

[Spektator]

Spektator, if you come up with something, could you please also post it in my Native American thread?

Sure thing; that's where it belongs, after all. Good work on that thread, by the way!

To date I have read some material online about the French constructing Fort Carillon and the nearby Grenadier Redoubt from 1755-1757. In 1759 the British took the fort and soon afterward built another fortification to the north. Fort Ticonderoga had fallen into disuse and disrepair by the time of the Revolution, when the British reoccupied it. It was taken by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold in 1775 and thereafter occupied by the Americans.

So far the only mention of bigfoot, sasquatch, or apes that I have found in conjunction with Ticonderoga dates from a century or more before the construction of the first fort, when an account of the explorations of Samuel de Champlain unflatteringly compares the Native Americans he meets to "tawny apes."

 

[William Parcher]

Speaking of flipped frames...

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_79347a557eb564cc.jpg[/qimg]

Are these frames flipped in the film/video? Or just in these stills?

Well that is the question that hasn't been definitively answered yet. It brings you right back to the question, "What is the Patterson-Gimlin film?" Which film is anybody talking about when they say "PGF"? Are they talking about what came out of Roger's camera without any manipulations? Are they talking about a copy that is supposed to be a copy of nothing more and nothing less than what came out of the camera?

What intrigues me about the flipped frames/scenes is why we see them at all. I don't see how it could be accidental. But why do it in the first place? Noll points out that when a production company is given a copy of the "PGF", they can manipulate it themselves. Basically he is saying that the producers of something like "Mysterious Monsters" can flip scenes if they want to. He doesn't say anything about why they might do this. It's not like these scenes flipped themselves while the technician went to grab a cup of coffee. He seems to be implying that there are no flipped scenes in first generation copies that were handed out by Patterson.

That same question and intrigue applies as well if it turns out that (at least some, if not all) first generation copies of the film have flipped scenes.

 

[Crowlogic]

No. No, you are not. Not a little. Not kinda. Not in a manner of speaking. Not a pseudoskeptic. Nor a part-time skeptic. Nor even a fence-sitter.

Both bigfoot skeptics and believers would cock their heads and look at you sideways and in unison say, "You believe bigfoot did exist... but went extinct? What the heck for?"

This is amusing. And why does a skeptic have to conform to your idea of what a skeptic is? Why does anyone have to dance to your tune?

Why do I believe that a primate once existed that in some way conforms to the description of Sasquatch. Well I don't think that the cultures that reported or had legends were all populations of abject idiots. Or to put it in simple terms where there's smoke there's fire. But I'll qualify this so you don't fires do burnt out, lines go extinct. What's so hard to believe about that?

 

[Crowlogic]

No. No, you are not. Not a little. Not kinda. Not in a manner of speaking. Not a pseudoskeptic. Nor a part-time skeptic. Nor even a fence-sitter.

Both bigfoot skeptics and believers would cock their heads and look at you sideways and in unison say, "You believe bigfoot did exist... but went extinct? What the heck for?"

This is amusing. And why does a skeptic have to conform to your idea of what a skeptic is? Why does anyone have to dance to your tune?

Why do I believe that a primate once existed that in some way conforms to the description of Sasquatch. Well I don't think that the cultures that reported or had legends were all populations of abject idiots. Or to put it in simple terms where there's smoke there's fire. But fires do burn out, lines go extinct. What's so hard to believe about that?

 

[kitakaze]

Spektator, I have moved the discussion to the Native American thread.

Monsieur de Champlain et le Gougou:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3399143#post3399143

Champlain clearly considered the indigenous peoples as little above beasts.

 

[kitakaze]

This is amusing. And why does a skeptic have to conform to your idea of what a skeptic is? Why does anyone have to dance to your tune?

I've noticed you DP a lot. Anyway... Crowlogic, you are simply wrong. Your self-characterization as a skeptic is a simple and poorly thought fallacy. You personalize what is not personal. A person who believes as you do that bigfoot existed, regardless of whether or not they continue to do so, in the face of a complete lack of reliable evidence to support the notion is simply not a skeptic in any sense of the word. You may wish to believe otherwise but you are no less mistaken in this line of thinking. I doubt my explanation will affect that belief.

Why do I believe that a primate once existed that in some way conforms to the description of Sasquatch. Well I don't think that the cultures that reported or had legends were all populations of abject idiots. Or to put it in simple terms where there's smoke there's fire. But I'll qualify this so you don't fires do burnt out, lines go extinct. What's so hard to believe about that?

That, madam, is a complete and utter logical fallacy. You obviously have not read or paid attention to what many people in this thread have explained on the matter. This discussion does not belong here but rather in the Native American thread where it is central, which is where I will move it.

 

[kitakaze]

"Rumble in the Jnugle" by RP.

Brokeback Mountain 2: The Shag.

 

[Geno]

Who needs the Stuporbowl when we have Thunderdome!

 

[Dfoot]

Crow --- Unfortunately Olson's 1975 film has nothing to do with Chambers or the suit Patterson used. Olson bought Patterson's b.s. hook, line and sinker. Although Olson's family thought it was the dumbest thing they'd ever heard of, Ron Olson was able to make money because people were attracted to the idea of a giant monster roaming the forests in real life. Olson was intent on capturing Bigfoot and he financed Roger to do this using tranquilizer guns, helicopters, and traps.

Olson used standard off the shelf hair suits shot in the dark and hidden most of the time for mystery. The local Oregon wardrobe crew member came up with a gorilla suit for them.

In most ultra low budget Bigfoot movies this is what you'll get. Even today most opt for an expressive face and a big bulky hair suit. No one spends the money on Bigfoot that they spend on the Werewolf suits for UNDERWORLD or the FANTASTIC FOUR's "Thing" suit.

Here's one of the Sas throwing a rock during the recounting of the "Ape Canyon" incident. The old miner says he was friends with Fred Beck and they sit around the campfire having a flashback about the event.


Another funny thing is that in Patterson and Gimlin's original story at the PG film site, Bob Gimlin (the Indian tracker) is supposed to have made calls trying to get dogs over there so he could track Patty. Yet they didn't really stay to track her at all. At 5:30 AM the rains were so bad that they had to flee Bluff Creek. Instead of waiting out the rain and going after Patty, they hit the road back to Yakima and never looked for her at all.

Imagine that.... years of searching and struggling through the primitive areas for the past month or two in search of any Bigfoot sign, yet when a real live Bigfoot walks slowly past, all they can do is leave the area and hunt elsewhere. Very strange way to hunt something. Techa-Blackhawk would not approve of that method.


The guy with the beard I believe is supposed to be a scientist. They had one scientific Krantz type and one New York skeptic type added to the mix. When I saw them film I wondered why they needed to pack up horses and struggle for days to reach the mountain. Why not just fly to it in this helicopter?

Another funny aspect is that during the "Metlow Hoax" Patterson used a helicopter paid for by one of his millionaire backers to search while Dahinden and others fought on the ground using snowmobiles. All thought they would find where Metlow had hidden the dead Bigfoot. Of course, there never was a dead Bigfoot. Metlow still got some cash from the Bigfooters though. Amazing stuff going on back then.


Here are the boys as they appeared during the time of the PG film. "Techa-Gimlin" on top. Bob "Patty" Heironimus. Jerry "Hollywood" Merritt. And Roger "enormous genitals" Patterson.

WILLIAM PARCHER --- Your question on how a Bigfooter might prove Patty is a Bigfoot and not Heironimus got me to thinking about just what a Bigfoot is supposed to be...

According to the people who actually had close contact with them (Indians long ago and Ostman) we can gather this:

1) They are people - not apes. They are merely covered in hair and over 6 feet tall.

2) Their language was something similar to that of the Douglas Band from Canada and could be learned and spoken by others enough to communicate with them.

3) When the 1958 Wallace hoax broke out reporters asked the local Yurok elders about this legend. They said (and this was printed in the early articles) that these hairy giant people used to live high in the mountains in hidden underground caves, but they moved north about 1850 from California on up to Canada when the white man began mining.

So.... though the only people in the world (including Ostman) that ever spent time with Sasquatches all agree they are not apes, but are primitive cave men with a language, John Green, Krantz and others decided on their own that these witnesses were all wrong.

Thus a tribe of hairy people that may well have gone extinct as so many have, has been turned into a giant monster ape wandering the forests that none of them seems to ever get close to finding.

As long as the brush cracks, there is a scrap on the ground, or something thinks a falling pine cone is a night attack, we'll have our Bigfoot just out of reach. Plus, we can always watch the PG film again for reassurance.

Now for the PG CULT NEWS: My Skeptical INFO re: the PG film thread (over at the Bigfoot Forum - not here) has been totally hijacked and turned into something about a suit I never promised anyone. And I am not allowed to even respond or answer since that has been disabled. All I can do is log on and watch other people write what they think I said - not what I said at all.

Jim Jones would have loved this. The guys down at the Celebrity Center sure do.

Just how in the heck is it "scientific analysis" to re-write someones words, then disable his account so he cannot correct what the Patty-hacker has written in his name?

Are they not proving my point over and over again that they are not mentally able to judge what is and isn't a suit? Seems as obvious as Patterson and Gimlin's arrest records to me.