Original subtitles

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

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♪ music building ♪

You've got to be shitting me.

This is like the holy grail or something.

This is gonna change everything

about my dad's film.

Unbelievable.

Hi, I'm Roger Patterson, and I'd like to tell you

how I got started in this exciting adventure

and a few of the things that have happened to me.

Bigfoot believers consider the Patterson film

the best evidence for the existence of Bigfoot.

This film was the most examined

and most shown film in the world

besides the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination.

This image of the figure now known as Patty

has become as legendary

as the footage of the first moon landing.

That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

It's no game, it's one of the biggest scientific discoveries

the world has ever seen.

This film is ingrained so much in American culture.

I think Bigfoot is blurry,

that's the problem.

It's not the photographer's fault.

The actual, like, Patterson footage

for hardcore Bigfoot believers,

that's their footage.

They worship this film.

I believe the film is 100% real.

I don't think it will ever come out

that it was fake.

I believe.

That's what we're debating,

is it real or fake?

It's one of the greatest mysteries

of our lifetime.

It never has been debunked.

The film immediately sparked a white hot debate

between those who claim it's real

and skeptics who call it an elaborate hoax

staged with a man in a suit.

There's no way that whatever that is,

is a man in a suit.

The film is simply one piece

of the entire story.

This is a story about money and greed.

Some real nasty things went on

after the film was made.

There's a curse on this film.

Almost everyone who's been close to it,

it's damaged their lives.

I wish it would've never happened.

If you want to try to say

that this film is a hoax,

you're gonna have to say that Roger Patterson

is the greatest genius of special makeup effects

that has ever existed.

I can't imagine that little cowboy

in Yakima, Washington, coming up with this thing

and having that perfect of a costume

and that perfect film and the perfect timing.

And 57 years later,

here we are, still trying to figure out

how in the hell he did it.

♪ music fading ♪

So, this is...

the Inner Sanctum.

Obviously, after years and years of tenure

here at the university,

it has accumulated a lot of things.

Even an example of the model and make

of the camera that Roger used.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

When it comes to the Patterson film,

I have been preoccupied with its analysis

literally for decades

and have looked at it from many,

many different perspectives.

Whether comparative anatomy,

whether the tracks, whether the nature

of the film itself.

Starting at the head

and going to the feet,

I can go down there and I can point out

individual muscle groups.

You can see the trapezius.

You can see the latissimus dorsi.

You can see this shoulder blade

sliding underneath those muscles.

You can see the erector spinae.

I can pick out the individual heads

of the triceps.

I mean, I can go through and name these muscles

all the way down to the ankle.

I'm as confident

in the credibility of that film

as I could be short of having stood there

on the sandbar that October afternoon.

There's just no compelling counter-argument

that can be made

that holds up under scrutiny.

This is bringing back a lot of memories, you guys.

Growing up here.

My dad carried tranquilizer darts.

And they were gonna dart a Bigfoot,

they were gonna chain it to this

and transport it to the San Diego Zoo.

That area there with the plywood

had a hole in it, I remember.

And he had a pan that would go under there

so if Bigfoot took a shit,

they could keep it clean and stuff.

Oh, here's— Here's some of the signs.

Son of a gun.

"Bigfoot Expedition, 1967."

His goal was to prove that Bigfoot existed.

He read these articles and then he got the bug.

Have you ever read something

or heard a story

and wished you were part of it?

I guess that's the way I felt

when I read an article in "True" magazine in 1959.

It told of huge human-like tracks

that would mysteriously appear on logging roads

in the mountains of Northern California.

The article went on to tell

of giant creatures

that bounded across logging roads in front of the loggers

as they would come down the mountains at night.

A wild story.

And yet, I was intrigued.

People have been seeing Bigfoot creatures

and finding their tracks for centuries.

I've heard my parents and different ones

talk about it.

They have a name for him,

That's what they call him.

Stories and legends of the creature

date back hundreds, if not thousands of years,

among American Indians.

He has many names.

In California's mountainous northern area,

he is known as Bigfoot.

In the wilderness of British Columbia,

he is Sasquatch.

Across the world, in the Himalayas,

he is Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman.

I began talking

to anyone that I thought would listen,

but mostly they laughed and said,

"Roger, what you need is a long vacation.

You're going nuts."

I decided they were right.

So I took that long vacation

right up into the mountains of Northern California.

♪ Run for your life ♪

My sister and my brother,

they didn't want any part of the Bigfoot deal.

So my dad, he'd take me, you know,

to hunt for Bigfoot.

I was 6, 7 years old.

I look back on it,

I could have cared less about Bigfoot.

I just wanted to be with my dad.

He had this Volkswagen van. There was, like,

some little bench chairs in there.

He gutted it, threw everything out,

and decided "this is where I'm gonna put these horses."

I mean, we're driving down the road,

and I could turn around and pet the horses

on the head.

It was like having a dog in there or something,

but we had two horses in there.

We pulled up to this store,

and we opened up the side door,

and people come running over,

going, "We want pictures of this!"

"What are you guys doing?"

And my dad, "Well, we're hunting for Bigfoot."

It was like we were, like, superstars.

♪ upbeat music playing ♪

He had his camera and his recorder,

and he'd interview people that had seen a Bigfoot.

Mrs. Higgins, could you explain to me

a little bit about what you've seen?

They've been traveling around up in the hills here.

And it was just story after story after story.

You could actually holler at certain times of the year,

and this thing would answer with a guttural tone.

I've never been so scared in my life.

Just made the hair crawl in the back of your neck.

As a kid, I was going,

"These people aren't bullshitting."

They've seen something.

Something scared the hell out of them.

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

And he was starting to get obsessed.

It went from interviewing people

that had seen one,

then he'd get calls about footprints,

and he'd travel out

and make plaster of Paris casts of them.

I'm convinced

that these creatures exist,

and I'm going to prove it

if it takes me the rest of my life.

I wanted to be with him

to go hunting for them, but I was terrified

if we ever, you know, encountered one.

One of the trips, I'm making up camp,

getting firewood,

and he's out there setting up this cot.

And this cot had a Styrofoam head,

and he puts this blonde wig on it,

then he makes it look like a person's laying there.

And he's setting up this little scene out there

to draw in Bigfoot.

He told me that all these women

that have had sightings of Bigfoot

were usually on their period.

I'm just a little kid.

I don't even know what a period is.

Next thing I know, he's out there

with a little gallon jar.

Reaches in there and puts these little...

you know, Kotexes down.

He called it "the scent of a woman."

We went and crawled in our little bunks

in the van.

And I hear something crashing through the woods.

I go, "Oh, here...

"Here he comes.

"Here comes Bigfoot.

He's coming in."

And I was scared to death.

Was it a Bigfoot?

I'm not sure.

One thing I am sure of,

it was not a bear, deer, elk, or cougar

that made that sound.

We never did see Bigfoot.

After that, my mom wouldn't let me go

Bigfoot hunting anymore.

He was a little more extreme as a father,

but he was my hero,

and he was a cowboy through and through.

Bull riding is the best feeling in the world.

I didn't care about the danger.

It's the ultimate rush.

He was 20,

and my mom was only 16 when they hooked up.

They were, like, head over heels

when they met each other.

♪ up-tempo bluegrass playing ♪

My dad, in 1958,

won the bare back riding.

He had a little Studebaker car.

They crawled in the back there and celebrated this win.

All of a sudden, here comes Clint Patterson.

When I came out of my mom's vagina,

they put a cowboy hat on me.

I'm dead serious.

They were like, "You're gonna be a cowboy

the rest of your life."

He made me believe I was gonna be

the best cowboy ever.

Roger didn't want to work

as far as having a job or whatever.

His whole goal was

to not have to work for anybody

and be told what to do.

So, he didn't have a steady income.

Like, "Next week, we're gonna have a check."

It was never like that. It was...

you know, whatever he could come up with.

♪ somber music playing ♪

My mom, she was frustrated.

There was a lot of pressure on my dad

to start making some money.

He had a wife and 3 young kids

to take care of.

That's when he went all in on hunting for Bigfoot.

All of a sudden, in that little area

where we were living,

was like a hot spot of, you know, Bigfoot sightings.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

All of these local people went, "We seen something."

Strange things started happening

in the apple orchards.

Crates of apples would be thrown

all over the place.

And there was something tromping on

and squashing all the apples.

And, at that time,

my dad was writing his book.

"Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?"

This is what he thought

a Bigfoot face should look like.

He did all the drawings here.

It says, "To Clint, Love Daddy.

Roger Patterson."

This is—this is

probably the only one that he ever signed.

That book sits on my shelf

to this day.

This was the copy that I purchased

as a youngster, as a 10-year-old.

As you can see, it's well worn.

The spine is broken.

But this, I read and re-read.

It made a lasting impression on me.

I tell you, when I read that book,

it kind of convinced me that I'm on the right track.

My name's Larry Lund.

I'm known as "the Sasquatch Sleuth,"

and I've been hunting Bigfoot for about 60 years.

Unsuccessfully, by the way.

You know, when I started, it was just a few of us

that were out there doing this.

Thinking, maybe tomorrow

we'll see this thing out here walking around.

And I got to know some of the big boys.

People like René Dahinden.

René, how long have you been searching

for Bigfoot? For 40 years.

And in that time, how many sightings

would you guess you've had?

You mean in person?

Yeah. None.

And if you ever came face-to-face

with the beast, René, how would you catch it?

The creature moves like a human.

Right. I would estimate

that it has a top speed of 15 kilometers per hour.

And at that speed, I would be able

to run it down.

You must be in good shape.

Of course. I train. I exercise.

I am prepared.

There was nobody like René Dahinden.

I want to know who publishes what,

when, and where!

I wanted to know who the hell Roger Patterson was!

I spent more goddamn time down Yakima.

I did my fucking homework.

René had been preoccupied

with this search for Bigfoot for years

before Roger came on the scene.

Roger Patterson, as a Sasquatch investigator,

he was good at it.

When it came to Bigfoot,

his investigation and sightings,

footprints he saw...

Yes, I trusted him.

Patterson and all these other yahoos on horseback

wanted to make a movie.

He wanted to make this documentary

so he could sell it and make money

to keep looking for Bigfoot.

And it showed him and his buddies

riding horses on expeditions and stuff.

And this is the cowboys that were in the movie.

This was all his good friends.

I don't—Is Bob in this?

That's Bob, yeah.

Bob Heironimus,

he was the so-called toughest guy in Yakima.

This is me, Bob Heironimus,

sitting on Chico, my horse.

I was a big stout guy back then.

He had a glass eye. He would take it out

and drop it into a pint of beer

just looking for a fight.

They'd look down there

and they'd see that eye looking at 'em.

Next to me is Bob Gimlin

and his Appaloosa horse.

Him and I... We were pretty good friends.

When was the last time

you saw that picture?

Oh, my goodness.

Where in the heck am I here?

He had you in the wig there.

Oh, I was an Indian then.

Bob Gimlin was supposed to be

some kind of an Apache Indian tracker hunting for Bigfoot.

Uh-huh.

Oh, well. It was all in good fun, wasn't it?

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

He was trying to get people to realize

that we were chasing a Bigfoot.

That's why we all had horses

and we all took off through the brush,

whippin' and spurrin'.

We had a couple of dogs, you know.

They were acting out a story.

He was gonna sell it to a big company,

but he ran out of money before he could finish it.

Roger had only one person he could turn to.

Along came Al DeAtley.

I'm Al DeAtley.

Uncle Al, he was married to Roger's sister,

my Aunt Iva.

When I married my wife,

I married her whole family.

And those assholes talked cowboy shit all the time.

He had this company called Superior Asphalt.

Everyone thought I had

all this goddamn money,

but back then, construction was the shits.

They'd see I had a big contract,

but they didn't understand I'd lose money

on some of those jobs.

They needed something to save Superior Asphalt.

And along came Bigfoot.

I never believed in Bigfoot.

So when Roger would start talking about it

and his buddies come around,

and they're all a bunch of radical Bigfoot fuckers,

I laughed at them.

Whether Bigfoot was real or not,

I could care less.

I was money motivated.

I'd like to read you one thing out of Roger's book.

"He who seeketh long enough and hard enough

"will find the truth,

whatever the truth may be."

Roger told me there was a Bigfoot

down in California,

and he was gonna go down there

and take pictures of it for his documentary.

Al financed him, give him some money,

you know, to go down there.

We have an expedition

that we're forming right now.

The Bluff Creek area

is wild as it can get.

It's a big, big, big, big, big bloody country out there.

There was 6 different sets of footprints found

since 1958.

In Bluff Creek, California,

Gerald Crew found 16-inch long footprints.

That's the first cast,

at least in the United States, of a Bigfoot.

And the actual application

of the label Bigfoot was born.

End of August, we got a phone call

that the tracks are all down in Bluff Creek,

so we went down there

and photographed them, you know.

And we told Patterson about it.

So, that's why Patterson went down there.

Every time that we was notified about something,

we'd go check on it.

In 1967,

the 20th of October,

myself and Bob Gimlin

were going into Northern California.

♪ suspenseful music playing ♪

The sun was up

and the leaves were all turning yellow and red

in different colors.

Roger was taking pictures of the scenery

and he took some pictures of me.

I must have took some pictures of him

leading the pack horse.

This particular day,

we had started up Bluff Creek

and had gotten about 4 miles or so

from our camp.

We came around the bend in the creek

and there stood a big, hairy, human-like creature.

I was riding this little horse here

named Peanut.

He shied and jumped backwards and reared up,

and as he did, I tried to pull him down,

and as I did so, I pulled too hard

and we both fell to the ground.

This was all happening fast, fast, fast.

My first thought was,

"They really do exist,

and she's walking away."

And I was able to get into my saddlebag

and start shooting pictures.

Roger had the camera up to his eye, of course,

and he starts running across the creek

trying to get focus,

and he stumbled and fell down.

Then he jumps up and got on that log

with his elbows and stabilized himself.

♪ They're gonna put me in the movies ♪

♪ They're gonna make a big star out of me ♪

After that, Roger said, "Bob, cover me."

I pulled that rifle out and I just held it.

Bob and I, we had agreed

that we will not shoot one of these creatures

unless we would be protecting our lives.

As long as it was walking away from me,

I just stood and looked at it.

There was a strong musky smell.

It seemed somewhat like a dog

that maybe had rolled in something dead

and got into water.

It wasn't out of my sight yet,

and I said, "I want to follow it."

Roger said, "I'm out of film, Bob."

I can remember playing in the yard.

Here they pull up and they said, "We got one on film."

And I went, "Wow! They did it. They did it."

That's all I can say is they did it.

They finally got one.

♪ And all I got to do is act naturally ♪

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

These tapes have been put away for 25 years.

They tell us a lot about Roger Patterson.

There's a lot of people out there, I'm sure,

that would love to have these tapes destroyed.

Hello. - This is Greg Long calling.

I'd like to interview Bob Gimlin.

Hello, Mrs. Patterson. Greg Long.

Hello, I was calling for René Dahinden.

I began writing "The Making of Bigfoot" in 1998.

I'd drive out to Yakima with my wife Pat,

and I would interview people that knew Roger

and knew about his famous film.

My wife would have her camera and take pictures.

She loved it. She loved doing it.

And I loved her to be with me.

This went on for quite a number of years.

The Bigfoot community really galvanized and sustains itself

on the basis of this film because it's the key evidence.

And I was trying to find out the truth of it.

It was like a passion.

You're just driven to uncover something.

You know, a real mystery.

It ended up with 130 cassette audio tapes

at the end of the entire investigation.

There's hours and hours of people just opening up

to me about Patterson and the film.

♪ music building ♪

After Roger and Bob shot the film,

Roger called the paper and told them what had happened.

Next day, it's front page Humboldt Times.

♪ country music playing ♪

They knew it was a female

because they saw mammary glands.

In frame 352,

she turns slightly towards the camera

and her breasts sway over.

That's what convinced me, actually, was frame 352.

If they're going to fake something,

why would they put tits on a creature like that?

At some point, the entity was dubbed Patty

for Roger Patterson.

Now, it's unfortunate

that his wife was named Patricia.

There had never been a film taken of a Bigfoot before.

It exploded on the American scene.

Here's Johnny!

I went from running around in a Volkswagen van

looking for Bigfoot with my dad,

and all of a sudden I see him on Johnny Carson.

Merv Griffin,

Art Linkletter.

Within the next 5, maybe 10 years,

if I don't capture one, somebody's going to.

All these TV shows, I'm like, "Well, man,

my dad's famous."

'This guy's famous."

Going into this for the past 8 years,

I've—Cut it off.

Now he was having national exposure to the film,

which helped propel it further into fame and glory.

I don't think Roger,

Al, or anybody knew

that it was going to take off like it did.

This footage went viral

before the word "viral" even existed.

They now had a movie,

which incorporated

the 60-second film of Bigfoot,

and footage from Roger's documentary

about hunting for Bigfoot.

And it didn't take many weeks thereafter

that it was in movie theaters around the country.

Al DeAtley was the central promoter

to get the film into theaters.

He traveled across the country when it was the off-season

from construction,

and he hired some people to do it.

All of a sudden,

they're going, "We got this movie."

I go, "Oh, man, that's crazy."

And he goes, "Are you in?" I go, "Well, yeah, I'm in."

So me and my brother Terry, we took off.

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

Uncle Al, I worked for him.

The work season was winding down,

and there was a chance to go show that movie,

so that's what I did.

We started in Oregon.

I advertised for a week, then we premiered it

in a high school auditorium.

3 showings,

and every one of them was sold out.

We had like 80% of the population

of the area show up.

They gave me a job.

I'm standing there handing out brochures

to everybody that walked

through the little gate area there.

When I attended

the showing of the Patterson-Gimlin film

at the Spokane Coliseum,

it would have been 1969.

I was in fifth grade at the time.

I can remember distinctly convincing my dad

that he just had to take me.

There was an excitement

and enthusiasm that charged the air.

And then out onto the stage walks

Roger Patterson, introduces what we're about to witness.

It was quite impressive to see this larger-than-life image

walking across that sandbar.

I was really quite enthralled by it.

There's no question

that my experience as a youngster,

you know, as a 10-year-old there

in the third row seat,

had a profound impact.

Just before intermission,

Roger Patterson imitated the holler

of a Bigfoot noise it'd make.

I'd always darken the lights way down.

They'd always get their hair standing up.

And everybody's like, "Goddamn, look at this shit."

People would always go,

"What about you, do you believe it?

And I'd go, "Hell yeah." It's real.

That's why we're here.

I know when I seen it, I went,

"Wow, this is the real deal."

In that period,

the film started traveling all over the country.

But Roger got really sick several times,

coughing up some blood and stuff.

♪ somber music playing ♪

He was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.

They gave him two years to live.

He went from a strong person

to frail.

It was just absolutely devastating on Pat,

trying to keep the little kids happy.

The kids loved their dad like you wouldn't believe.

There was a cobalt machine

in his little shed behind the house.

He would go in there and clean out

his whole system.

And we'd go in there and hold hands

with him and talk to him.

Roger was just so sick,

we all knew he was dying.

And he doesn't even know

how big the film's getting.

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

We went over to Denver, Colorado,

and hit that TV market.

Fabulous!

Nebraska. Fabulous!

Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio.

Wichita, Kansas, Bedford, Oregon,

Green Bay, Wisconsin,

Missoula, Montana,

Laramie, Wyoming,

Kansas City, Kansas,

Twin Falls, Idaho.

We had like 16 different places

we'd be showing this movie on a given night.

And they'd have down the road,

around the corner, people lined up.

When you had 600 people there,

two bucks a ticket,

you got a lot of cash.

They'd make a killing for the full house

and then they would leave town and go to the next theater.

We took it to Utah,

but the movie theaters blocked us out.

So we went to the Salt Palace.

We didn't realize Mormons can't go to movies on Sunday.

So we get a bargain basement deal

because they thought it was gonna die.

That was the most nerve-wracking day of my life!

They didn't staff it for ticket sales.

They had, like, two people there

because the palace people said,

"Nobody's gonna come."

It's Sunday.

About 10 minutes before the show was gonna

start, they totally swarmed that place.

♪ up-tempo music playing ♪

I was standing in $20 bills up to my knees

in the ticket booth selling tickets

with my uncle, Uncle Al.

We played two weeks after Simon and Garfunkel

and took more money out of the building

in one day than they did.

People 40 foot deep throwing money at you

to get into there.

♪ 5, 10-spot, Jackson ♪

♪ Fifty, Bennys ♪

♪ Money, money, money! ♪

We did $84,000 out of that building

In pillow cases.

Took it back to our room,

Scotty's motel,

dumped it all on a bed

and just acted like it was confetti.

Unbelievable.

One of the best days of my life!

Interestingly,

Bob Gimlin is cut out of profit making from the film.

So originally Al DeAtley and Bob Gimlin

and Roger Patterson owned the rights to the film.

Yeah.

Bob Gimlin didn't stand up for his one third.

I never realized the impact

it would have on my life.

I'd have been better off if nothing ever came of it.

Bob and his wife Judi were the brunt

of a lot of ridicule and mockery,

especially his wife.

He was particularly sensitive about her poor treatment

by co-workers.

My wife worked at the Yakima Federal

and she would come home crying

and saying, "Bob,

I wish you never got involved with that."

And I said, "Honey, me too."

Gimlin had gone bye-bye.

He just all of a sudden wasn't around anymore.

He distanced himself from going on the road

to promote the film.

They'd get some dude that looked like me.

He'd say he was Bob Gimlin.

Well, nobody knew the difference.

Did you have any royalties?

No money at all.

None. None.

I felt cheated.

When he found out

that he wasn't gonna get anything out of it,

well, the proverbial shit hit the fan, you know.

I talked to Gimlin over and over

through the years, right?

Mm-hmm. And every time

I talked to him, he was bitching,

complaining about Patterson and Al DeAtley.

There was times when I would have kicked

those guys right in the face.

One time I think he was gonna shoot ol’ Roger.

They were friends and then they ended up being the enemy.

Bob Gimlin refused to be interviewed

by me several times.

This is Greg Long.

I'd like to interview Bob Gimlin.

The more people I interview, the more the truth and facts

of Roger Patterson come out.

I think the public deserves to hear the truth from you.

Give me a call. Greg Long.

The person who made most of the money

out of this film was Al DeAtley.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That's a lot of money in 1967-68.

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

Uncle Al,

After working my ass off for all week for him,

I would go up to his house on a Saturday.

Nice house, swimming pool there.

Drink a bunch of beer, talk about things.

And he would go like, "Well, you know

how you get ahead in business or life?"

I'd go, "Well, not really."

He'd go, "You screw your help."

I'd go, "Well, I am your help."

He'd go, "You know what the biggest thrill

"I ever get out of everything?

Is fucking people out of their money."

Well, he fucked my family out of a bunch of money.

That to me is pretty sick.

You take advantage of a dying person.

And Al's married to Roger's sister.

He wasn't just some Joe off the street.

The majority of the money that was made from the film

went into Al's pocket to save

Superior Asphalt.

After Bigfoot showed up, all of a sudden

he started buying new paving equipment,

new trucks and new pavers.

Boy, he just blossomed.

Al DeAtley made a lot of money off it.

A lot of money.

They were the biggest contractors in the state.

He was able to build a $20, $30 million house,

which is disgusting.

Everyone's going, "Why would anyone build

such a huge, ugly looking there?"

And I'd go, "Because he's showing you

he's the king of the hill and you're not."

He's the king.

The guy is a crook.

And I wouldn't give him the time of day

If we were running out of time.

Amen.

♪ Campfires ♪

♪ Coffee ♪

♪ A tin cup in my hand ♪

♪ Sure warms the fingers when it's cold ♪

One morning, I got up out of bed,

and here's my grandma sleeping on the couch.

I go, "What the heck is she doing here?"

Next thing I know,

she got us all 3 of us kids together

and they say, "Your dad died last night."

And I went, "You're so full of shit."

♪ somber music playing ♪

I went and saddled up and took off.

I hated God.

There's no God anywhere

that would do this to me.

My hero, my teacher,

I was never gonna see him again.

It was the worst day I've ever had in my life.

His brothers called me and said,

"Bob, would you go see Roger?

He's asked about you."

I kind of got over the bitterness of him and Al

screwing me over so bad.

So I went to see Roger.

You know when a guy's about on his end,

he just said, "Hey, Bob."

"I know I'm on my way out."

But he said, "I'm glad you're here."

And I said, "I am too, Roger."

We talked a lot that day.

And he passed away the next day.

I'm pretty lucky I had you as a daddy.

I love you.

And I hope you're up there in heaven with God.

I'm gonna come see you someday.

I have to ask you this question.

Were you part of a hoax

in which Roger Patterson

may have created this film footage?

My answer is no.

Did I get involved after it was shot

and try to make monetary gain on it?

Yes.

It gnawed at my conscience some.

Because if I was ever interviewed

or talked to anybody,

I had to portray myself as a believer.

And the fun wore off.

He wanted to distance himself

from the Bigfoot film

because he knew he wasn't gonna make

any more money on it.

And he had to live up to being a businessman.

And he didn't want to have no part.

In fact, he just gave the rights to the film to my mom.

It was really hard for Pat when Roger was gone

because she didn't have a lot of money.

And she had 3 kids.

The Discovery Channel, the History Channel,

all these people were doing these documentaries.

My mom was making good money

letting people buy the rights

to this film for, like, 5 to 10 years.

That's the way she's making a living.

And people seen, oh, because it says

on the credits, "Pat Patterson."

A lot of animosity there from Bob Gimlin.

When he seen my mom was making some money,

I think it pissed him off.

At first, he didn't want to have anything to do with it.

But then everything changed.

It was quite a change when he agreed

to make a public appearance

at the China Flats Willow Creek Museum

that marked the opening

of a new wing dedicated to Bigfoot.

I thought, "Well, wow, this is great.

Bob is coming out and doing something

and getting something out of his experience."

Because he deserved it.

My name is Bob Gimlin.

I live in Yakima, Washington.

Do you ever look back and regret the day

you said, "Sure, Roger.

I'll go to California with you"?

I couldn't actually believe

the reception I got down there.

I didn't regret it at the time.

And I definitely won't regret it today

meeting all the folks here.

The 300 people that I met,

they strongly believed in the subject.

The film is authentic. It's real.

It's not a man in a suit

and believed in me.

So that changed things for me all the way around.

Bob Gimlin is now invited all over the country

to speak, and he's kind of a hero.

He really is idolized and loved by Bigfoot believers.

We've all known about him and dreamt about him

since October 20, 1967,

when he changed all of our lives

in some way or another.

The last cowboy standing in this room Mr. Bob Gimlin.

It's gratifying to see

his experience with this subject matter

end on such a positive note.

So that's when you see that face.

Whoo!

In contrast to the ridicule

and harassment that he and his wife

had endured previously.

At a certain point,

probably my teenage years,

I started hearing people saying,

"Oh, you know,

that was Al DeAtley in that suit,"

you know, just making jokes about it.

I go, "I don't think Al was in a Bigfoot suit,"

or whatever.

My dad would never lie to me.

♪ somber music playing ♪

And then I started going, "You know what?

"Maybe these people know something

that I don't know."

And so I said, I want to figure out

what really happened.

I wanted to know the real truth.

It's a really nasty, dirty situation

trying to find the kernel of truth.

I focused on that film total.

I know more about the film

than probably Patterson and Gimlin did, OK?

Yeah. Except I don't know

if that damn film is real!

When it come to the Patterson film and René,

he was real skeptical about a lot of parts of it,

but he loved it, that was his baby.

I mean, that's the only proof he had in life

that Bigfoot really existed.

I was unable to crack the film.

I was unable to find the fur suit.

But more important, where is the guy

who claims he was in the fur suit?

Bob Heironimus acting like the Bigfoot

in Roger Patterson's film. Go ahead.

Bob Heironimus appeared in my research

almost immediately.

One of the first witnesses I interviewed

out in the Yakima area told me,

"Oh, Bob Heironimus

is the guy that wore the Bigfoot suit."

I said, "Who's Bob Heironimus?"

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

Greg Long, I ran him off a couple of times.

He even came into my house.

I told him I wasn't interested,

and I closed the door, you know.

Hello, I was calling for Bob Heironimus.

Yeah, hi, this is Greg Long. Is Bob Heironimus there?

Oh, hello, this is Greg Long calling.

Greg Long calling. Is Bob there?

Man, he was like a whirlwind.

Finally, I called him back.

I said, "I'm looking into this Patterson film,

and your name keeps popping up."

And he told me, "I need to get a lawyer,"

which told me there's something up here.

Finally, I did some full-fledged interviews

in Yakima, many, many, many hours.

He told me his story completely.

This is Bob Heironimus.

You are telling me you were

the man in the Bigfoot suit

in Roger Patterson's film, is that right?

That's right, yes.

OK. You're not lying to me.

Of course not.

I just want the truth known that it was a fake.

It was a hoax.

If I would have got paid the money I was promised,

when I wore the suit in the film,

I would have had no qualms.

♪ suspenseful music playing ♪

Not long after we shot the documentary,

Gimlin said Roger wanted to talk to me.

"Roger, I'm gonna make a film,

and they need somebody to wear this suit."

And when they made money, they would give me $1,000.

And you felt OK with that?

Yeah, yeah. I did for a long time.

Now, that's a lot of money.

I said, "Yeah, I'll do it."

They knew they could trust me to keep this thing quiet.

This is top secret, you know?

I had to go out and try on the suit,

Right.

Walk the way they wanted me to, you know.

They helped me put the suit on,

and Roger said, "Well, start walking."

And when I come back, he said,

"I want you to go faster."

And the third one, he said, "Boy, we got it now!"

Now, in the movie,

this was a female Bigfoot with breasts.

Right.

Do you remember seeing breasts on the suit?

Oh, yeah.

What do they look like?

Like... like boobs.

I said, "I hope there's not a real male around here

when I wear this thing." You know?

They asked me if they could use Chico,

my horse.

So they come by on a Sunday, picked ol’ Chico up.

They said, meet us down here by Bluff Creek,

5 o'clock, Wednesday night.

They said to come in town.

"There's a service station on the left-hand side.

You can't miss it."

And I pulled into this gas station.

I saw them there.

Gimlin come over and said,

"We don't want anybody to see us all together.

"There's a pull-off down the road.

"We'll meet there." And we hid the car.

I followed them up to the camp they had set up.

I was really tired,

so I got up in the doghouse on the truck.

Went to sleep.

We're losing him. You all right? Bob?

Bob?

- Bob? - Bob?

- What?! - Are you all right?

Taking a little catnap?

We got up the next morning.

Saddled up the horses.

Bob had the suit on the back of his horse.

I rode on the back of my horse in back of Roger.

Got to where they had this place picked out

and they helped me put the suit on.

They wanted me to start walking,

and then all of a sudden, look! And there they are.

And then turn and keep right on going.

He claimed that Chico was bucking.

That horse couldn't buck. He didn't know how to buck.

Roger was just standing there

going like this with the camera.

He didn't want it so clear

that they could pick on every detail.

He wanted it just a little bit fuzzy.

My heart was racing.

Worried about getting shot, for one thing.

Seeing if I was doing a good job.

Evidently I did.

Bob Heironimus came on the scene, and, boy,

all hell broke loose.

Dahinden was angry.

.

He went and met Bob.

He said Heironimus did not fit that part,

so he's just basically a faker.

So that's where I stuck with it, you know.

I guess because René said so.

If it would have been a fake,

do you think them two assholes

there would have dared fucking the third guy over?

What if he would be just afraid

to turn against them?

I think there's fear. So he kept quiet about it.

Because when Bob Heironimus met me for the interview,

he told me that there's some prominent people

in this community that I know about.

And I thought, prominent people?

Who could they be?

And immediately I thought, it's Al DeAtley.

And that's why I think Bob Heironimus,

in part, got a lawyer.

Because if he told the story with Al DeAtley

involved in some way,

he probably was afraid of being sued

or something worse happening to him.

You're saying, "I'm gonna fake this footage."

How many people are gonna know about it?

They say the only secret that's ever safe

is with two people if one of them's dead.

Right?

- Ha ha ha! - Right?

He's one of the richest men in Yakima,

let's put it that way.

He had enough power down there in Yakima,

well, he'd have had me bumped off, you know.

OK, it's starting. Tell me when.

I said I'd keep it quiet.

And I did.

In order to demonstrate

what's on the Bluff Creek film,

the body is leaning forward

because that tremendous muscle mass is in weight.

And on top of that,

you swing your arms in a different way.

It had been observed by some

that Bob Heironimus

had a walk that was rather distinctive

and looked like Patty.

Well, my natural gait

is like that they see on Bigfoot,

the arms coming back and one forward.

And the long strides.

He's quite a long-legged guy,

high-hipped,

and walked with a little bit of a forward stoop

and had a distinctive arm swing.

But Bob's walk only superficially resembled

the very distinctive gait of Patty,

who has a very intentional arm swing,

massive arms.

Like an ape.

They had extensions on the sleeve,

you know, just to make my arms longer.

And Bob adopts this very funny posture

with his hand,

so the palm is facing backward.

I guess everybody says I walk that way anyway.

This hand that cups up like this.

In the most widely publicized still frame,

there's a blemish right over the hand,

which to my chagrin,

you see replicated time, and time, and time again.

They always show Patty with her hand turned back.

And when Bob Heironimus

was asked to walk for the camera,

what does he do?

He turns his hand completely back around

and walks like an Egyptian, as I say,

as I poke fun at it

because it's so transparent what he's doing.

He's trying to imitate what he has seen.

There she goes.

You got the real die-hard skeptics

saying that it's just a costume.

But that costume would be very spendy,

and number one, Roger Patterson had no money.

But even back then, it just wasn't possible.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

Bigfoot believers are attracted to this film

because they believe

that no one could have made a costume

that looks like this Bigfoot.

Keep in mind,

the height of costume technology

at the time is what you would have seen

in "Planet of the Apes."

Cornelius, if you have a moment today...

So to suggest that Roger Patterson

could have accomplished that,

why wasn't there any equivalency

in the industry?

We took this film to Universal Pictures...

had their people study the film.

They do not feel that this film

could be faked in any way, shape, or form.

That looked to me very, very real.

I'm doing this since 1939.

And, if that was a costume,

that was the best I have ever seen.

♪ suspenseful music playing ♪

My name is Bill Munns.

I'm something of an expert on the Patterson-Gimlin film.

I started specializing in makeup

around 1969

when there was an opening at Universal Studios.

When you look at the Patterson film,

you have to look at it and reverse engineer it,

and say, "OK, you believe it's a costume.

How was it built?"

I started looking at the suit,

and the first thing that came to mind,

oddly enough, was the back of the neck.

In the film, I see her neck before she looked.

I see her neck after.

And it's exactly the same.

No change.

We couldn't do that in 1967 with a costume.

Fake fur at the time was all rigid.

They didn't even have stretch fur.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

Then I moved on to the shape of the head.

With a chimpanzee or a gorilla head,

once the head reaches the brow ridge right here,

the head goes backwards.

Human head goes up.

How do you get the head shape to be right from the brow,

straight back?

That's a problem.

You're gonna end up with a head

two to 3 times bigger

than the human head who's inside

because with prosthetics, you can only add.

You cannot subtract.

You can't take an actor and lop his head off.

SAG doesn't allow that.

In the world of makeup effects,

there's no such thing

as the homegrown instant genius,

because all the pros are geniuses themselves,

and they're constantly struggling to innovate.

Roger did not come up with some miracle solution

we don't know about.

Maybe you can't find a hoax after 57 years

because there isn't one.

We got experts saying

it couldn't have been a man in a suit.

The muscles, the movements, and all this.

This is what I've been hearing for years.

That right there, that little shed,

my dad had a lock on it.

And one time he didn't have a lock on it,

and I got in there, and I found old fur coats

that he had bought, you know,

around town at the second-hand stores.

I had no idea what he was doing.

Definitely the work— the work bench

is still in there,

that he had all the stuff on.

This was all a bench.

And he had all of the old football helmets.

There was a horse skull in here.

This is the door that he put a lock on,

something, so the padlock was out here.

So he was trying— trying to keep people

from seeing it, what he was doing in there.

But, I mean, this is all hindsight now.

I'm looking back on it going,

"What the hell's going on here?"

So how could a simple cowboy

in Yakima, Washington, create such a costume?

Well, we know that Patterson was a pretty creative fellow.

I've drawn a life-size illustration

of what a full-grown male would look like.

This drawing is based on hundreds of descriptions

of people throughout the Northwest.

I would watch him draw, sometimes for hours,

'cause I couldn't believe

how he could just, all of a sudden,

have a perfect picture of the bulls and horses,

and bulldogging.

One of his projects

was to create miniature stagecoaches

or carts pulled by ponies.

Kids could get on them and pay 5 cents for a ride.

And he had a very fine eye for detail,

and so everything was meticulously made by hand.

He'd set up these little scenes,

like staging a robbery.

He was such a perfectionist about everything.

He said, "Whatever I'm doing,

"I'm gonna make people believe it.

"Whatever I'm doing,

I'm gonna make people believe it."

Creative, good thinker,

very convincing, and, as I found out,

he conned a lot of people.

Each one of his business deals

has a story behind it.

He was always going to pay you back

when he got rich.

What he done is just blow

a whole lot of smoke up our ass.

He did things

which I wouldn't have told anybody.

Such as mail fraud?

Yeah, I think of that one.

Telling me that the postmaster hauled him in 2 or 3 times.

Told him, "Either you send these people

"the money back or you send them

"what they sent you the money for."

So people were sending him checks

for the book that he published.

So he would just keep the money

and not send them anything at all?

Yeah.

Before Roger went down to Bluff Creek

to look for Bigfoot,

Roger rented a camera

from Sheppard's camera shop, there in Yakima,

and he took it with him.

Later we would find out

that he never returned the camera...

and he was actually arrested.

So he had a record of petty crimes.

♪ intense mysterious music playing ♪

After all the interviews,

especially Heironimus' story

and the character of Patterson,

what I concluded is that the film's a hoax.

All right.

But, no matter what you say,

you're going to have critics.

They're going to ask for hard evidence.

I told Greg Long I had one ace in the hole.

I have a prosthesis eye, right?

Right. Your right eye.

I got this suit on, right?

And I said, "Wait, this ain't gonna work."

When I turn and look,

you're not gonna be able to see

my eyes looking at you.

Yeah. Roger said, "You're right."

So I had an extra one of these eyes.

I said, "Well, if you mold this eye in there,

"you know, right here,

and kind of turn it that way."

When I turned and looked at him,

that eye was pointed right at him.

Oh, Roger thought that was the greatest thing there was.

When you look at the footage of the film,

his left eye has sunk back about this far.

This eye right here is sticking out like that

and looking right at old Roger when I turn my head.

When I was a kid,

I was told to clean out this little garage.

I wonder what's in them boxes over there.

I'm going through all these tubs,

and I find an eyeball.

And I'm like, "What's this?"

I never said nothing about it.

But, looking back on it, this is Bob Heironimus' eye.

Oh, that's a remarkable piece of evidence

if we have the damn suit.

When "The Making of Bigfoot" was published,

immediately it created a sensation

among Bigfoot believers.

You've all heard this story so far.

He's written a book, "The Making of Bigfoot."

When I wrote this book, I applied the rules of science

and the rules of journalism.

I attempted to corroborate any statement

made by anyone else.

But the focus of my book

is the question of Roger Patterson.

Who was he?

Did he have integrity? Was he honest?

Was he truthful?

So Patterson may have been a con artist,

but that's not what I asked, it's nothing to do

whether he's seen a creature or not.

It has nothing to do with that.

Greg Long, he was just digging,

trying to get the dirt.

He was not well liked by the Bigfoot communities.

Bob Gimlin says the book is, quote,

"an ugly character assassination

of a man no longer alive to answer the accusations."

I don't have any qualms saying that Roger Patterson

was simply a petty criminal.

Greg Long, man, he— he's lucky he's still walking.

When the book came out,

he was talking about Roger as a con artist.

My uncles were like,

"Well, we can't have somebody

talking to— about Roger like this."

They wanted to kill him.

I was going, "Fuck you, fucker."

Oh, my—

I want the general public

to know the truth about this hoax.

And then here comes Bob Heironimus.

The show was called "The Lie Detector"

or something like that.

Really Bigfoot or just a big liar?

"The Lie Detector" is soon to find out.

Well, are you ready to face the lie detector?

Yes, I am.

Bigfoot Bob.

Were you the Bigfoot

shown in the 1967 Patterson film?

Yes.

This test is over.

Remain still for 10 seconds, please.

Bob, the lie detector has determined

that you are...

♪ suspenseful music playing ♪

Bob, you're telling the truth.

Well, I always knew it was the truth.

Everybody that I'm associated with,

that I've been around, knew it was the truth.

And now I proved to the world

that I was in the Patterson Bigfoot film.

Somebody said that Gimlin had a lie detector test.

I don't know if he did or not.

If he did, how could he pass it?

There was no suit.

Him to say that he was

in a suit...

See, those things are coming off

to see if I'm lying or not.

I didn't do it.

I—I didn't do it.

What kind of impact do you think

this is going to have

on the Pattersons when this comes out

that this was all a fraud?

It'll tell them, it'll show them

that the buck stops here.

I mean, this is— this the end of it.

We were like, "Bullshit.

He don't have no proof."

My mom was still making good money

letting people buy the rights to this film.

I remember, you know, going,

"Oh, we got to protect the film."

And I thought Bob Heironimus

was a total liar...

at first.

♪ somber music playing ♪

After a certain point,

I go, "Mom, I want to hear what really happened."

But she would not tell me anything over the phone.

She thought her— her phone was being bugged

or some damn thing.

I walk in there

and she's sitting there smoking her cigarettes.

She goes, "Bob Heironimus was the one

that was in the Bigfoot suit."

That means my dad lied to me.

Roger was so...

He was my hero.

I wish he just would have let me in on it.

I think, at that point, I started going,

"You need to tell the truth.

You can't live this lie."

It's been a roller coaster

where I'm not admitting it's, you know, fake or nothing.

And people come up to me and ask me,

"What do you think? Was it real?"

And I go, "I wasn't there."

I mean, that's what I say.

And I even hate myself for saying that.

I don't like being a liar.

And I'm ready to come clean.

What do you say to people who are gonna say,

"You're just lying to us right now"?

They can say what they want. I don't...

There's a lot of truth and lies

about this story.

People can make up their own mind.

The ramifications for Bob Heironimus

were immediately

the Bigfoot believers didn't believe him.

He got a lot of insults,

that he was a liar and a drunk.

There is a reason why lie detector test results

are not admissible in court.

There are people who are quite capable

of lying through their teeth

and not betraying that one whit.

He's a fucking liar, OK?

I guarantee you 100 fucking percent.

Phony, fake,

the stuff he pulled.

I have no use for that kind of lies.

Pissed me off.

I haven't had anybody call me a liar to my face,

but they probably could now,

being in a wheelchair.

Bob Heironimus was—

was just trying to get some fames.

And I guess he did.

I can't express...

all the feelings that I feel

about Bob Heironimus.

What is your opinion about Heironimus

and why do you think he decided to say

he was the guy in the suit?

Do you really want that?

What is his opinion of Bob Heironimus?

Nah.

There's ladies present.

Yeah.

My relationship with Bob Gimlin now

is pretty sketchy.

He wasn't—wasn't friendly to me at all.

Well, I see him every time I drive out.

He just lives up the street here from me.

As far as meeting him on the road

or I'm stand out in the middle of the block

and he goes by, he won't wave.

There's some things you take your hat off to

and some things you pull it down over your eyes,

and Bob Heironimus is a guy

that I pull it down over my eyes.

I know he's my neighbor.

And I know I don't believe a thing he said.

Heironimus and Long, this is two characters

I don't care about.

I'll drag them into the ground.

Why don't you do it all at once?

I had become very cynical

about what it would take

to convince people the truth of something.

And that's pretty sad,

especially in today's society

where people can have an opinion

without basing it on fact.

The general consensus of Greg Long's book

was that it did not add

any meaningful, reliable information

to the conversation

and that it was simply an ill-fated attempt

to try to debunk the Patterson-Gimlin film.

And they ended up with egg on their face as a result.

Ultimately, the book, I was hoping

would sell a lot more than it did.

My wife was devastated.

♪ somber music playing ♪

She was ill.

She had many issues to deal with

during this time.

She finally, unfortunately,

became more and more ill and passed away.

We had this experience together

and now she was gone.

And the book had failed.

And so I went into a bit of a depression,

actually.

Probably about 8 years ago,

when I told my mom I was gonna tell the truth,

she didn't want to have nothing to do with it.

She disowned Clint.

That broke my heart.

You know, she'd say things and I said,

"My God, Pat, that's your son."

She thought I was gonna ruin

her nest egg of making money.

She wrote me a letter

that I can't imagine anybody in the world

reading what I had to read

that my mom said to me.

Whatever it was that she said

almost destroyed Clint.

8 years of not one bit of contact.

What would you like to say to her?

That I love her.

This film ain't worth

our relationship.

One of the toughest days was my dad dying.

The second

is my mom disowning me.

And it's over this film.

Is there anything at all

that does or ever has given you

cause for concern related to the film?

You know, I really get this feeling

like you're leading me up to a precipice

and you're just about to push me

over the edge because you've got something

you think...

It would take a resoundingly

convincing demonstration of the ability

to replicate the circumstances and conditions

of the—of the film.

You know, when it comes

to the belief of the Patterson film,

I'm not sure I want to see it proven either way.

I've had too good of a lifetime out of it.

But deep down inside, if I'm sitting by myself,

and especially in this silly room

with all the stuff...

I go, "You know, we need to know.

"We need to know if that's true or not."

Like, so many people were dependent on it being real

and believed it was real.

I’d hate to see it proven wrong.

What information would it take for you

to accept it's a fake?

It would have to be something major

to make me think anything other than the fact

that Roger got a real film.

When I was in elementary school,

the kids were starting to talk about this Bigfoot thing.

I lived in a small town in the woods

and I thought this Bigfoot was going to get us.

When I got home, I was just in tears.

And then, when I told my dad

why I was so scared and upset,

then he just said,

"Teresa, you don't have nothing to be afraid of

"because I started this whole Bigfoot thing

and it was— it was just a hoax."

♪ dramatic music playing ♪

I knew my dad had a secret Bigfoot film

he kept in his safe.

I only saw the box a few times.

It was like, "That's the Bigfoot film."

But I never knew exactly what was on that film 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.

What is this film?

Seems to be a hairy figure

emerging from a woody background here.

Mm-hmm.

Well, that would be the Bigfoot.

One of the things I'm looking for

is latent edge numbers

that might help us

in identifying the type of film.

Here we are.

It says Kodachrome Roman numeral II.

But there's also another code symbol on here,

which is a couple of geometric shapes.

A triangle

followed by a circle.

- OK. - And here we have a guide

that shows us the history of these date codes.

And that date code was used in 1926,

1946, and 1966.

Wow, that's right

when I think this was developed.

This appears to be authentically originated

in the sixties.

Was it exposed and developed in 1966?

Probably, 'cause the image looks really crisp,

and there's no significant fogging or fading.

May I ask what your father's name was?

Norm Johnson.

Was he one of the original people

who presented the film to the world?

Well, he was not.

He was hidden in the background.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

My dad worked at Boeing developing film.

He became manager of the whole film department.

Bigfoot was not discussed in our house,

especially in front of my mom.

My mom told my dad,

"You're not gonna have anything to do with this

'cause you can get in trouble."

So I think my dad just took the film

and put it in the safe to appease my mom

and say this is never gonna get out.

And it's been sitting in that safe

for 50 years.

You should probably know about my dad's brother,

Dave Johnson.

So my uncle Dave,

he was a swindler kind of guy

trying to make fast bucks.

Norm and Dave together,

they would get into some trouble

prior to my mom coming into the picture.

When Dave was in Yakima,

he was working at a print shop.

And that's where he met Patterson.

Patterson came in there to get his book printed.

My dad's best friend, Ray Bricker

he had a lot of information for me.

This story's all about connecting the dots.

Norm and I go back to the fifth grade.

We were talking about the Bigfoot

and he said to me,

"Well, I still got the original film.

I didn't give it back to Patterson."

And he never said anything to Teresa

or anybody about it, you know.

I was the only one he ever talked to about it.

Dave mentioned that Roger came into the print shop

in Yakima and he forgot his briefcase.

And Dave opened the briefcase

and saw the mold of the Bigfoot.

When Roger came in,

he told Dave about it.

Dave told him he wanted to be part of it.

And he introduced Roger to his brother Norm.

Norm, being in the Boeing film lab...

he's the one that put the film together.

Talking to Norm one day, and he told me

that he had the Bigfoot film

and he had it down in Arizona

in their safety deposit box.

My dad always made it this big mystery.

So I'm kind of torn about it.

Part of me wanted to keep the family secret.

But then I just thought,

"Well, there's so much misinformation

"in our world today

"and a lack of credibility."

So I thought, "Let's just go ahead

and find out the mystery of this."

It's got the camera shake.

And it's obscured by trees,

just the way Patterson's film was made.

It's got the way the creature's walking

and stomping and looking.

So uncannily like the '67 film.

To me, it's a practice.

The story has always been Roger Patterson,

a one-shot deal.

He's the luckiest guy in the world.

He films a Bigfoot.

And yet here we have Bigfoot,

shot almost like his film in '66, a year before.

It's a smoking gun,

and thank God someone's found it.

Examining the frame of the film,

it was definitely shot on a Kodak K100 camera.

Camera manufacturers would make

some kind of an irregular shape

along the edge of the film

or into the sprocket area

that would expose light.

And that individual shape

would identify the specific camera.

We know for a fact that Roger did use the K100.

The similarities between it and the Patterson film,

I will readily concede, are very fascinating.

It can't be a coincidence.

You got to be shitting me.

You're blowing my mind on this from '66!

This is gonna change everything.

How do you think your mom's gonna react?

We got to show it to her.

If she lets me talk to her,

I don't know if she'll even let me.

♪ somber music playing ♪

When my mom sees this trial footage,

she'll have to come to terms with

the truth coming out.

It's hoaxed, and we both— we all know it.

We know it. This is fake.

It was faked, and Roger did a really good job

of doing it.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Roger was such a perfectionist

he was gonna do it until he got it perfect.

It shocks me that Roger

would ever let

this footage stay out there.

It's like if you murder someone, right?

You can never tell nobody.

You might get away with it.

If no one knows.

What are your immediate reactions?

The first thought is,

"Is this a dry run, a rehearsal?"

The convergences are remarkably

striking and annoying.

Can you show me some frames?

Even down, does it— does it have breasts?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Why would you create a costume with breasts?

Well, the devil's argument would be that the females

are reportedly 6 to 7 feet tall,

whereas the males were up to 8.5 feet tall.

Hard to find an 8.5-foot-tall actor.

Anyway, can you let it run a little bit now?

It does have that same...

contour there.

This is gonna be the topic of discussion

for the coming decade, I'm sure.

The simplest explanation

is uncomfortable to arrive at.

It's a bee in the bonnet.

My brain's just looking at all the dots,

trying to consider the possibilities.

Hmm.

That's the answer we've been looking for

for years.

That's definitely fake

and it's definitely rehearsed.

And see these lines coming down right here?

These vertical?

Mm-hmm.

They're right there too.

Ah.

What are you feeling? I mean...

A loss.

Hmm.

Poor René.

♪ emotional music playing ♪

Somebody said the thing

was either it's the Sasquatch or me.

Well, I choose the Sasquatch.

René had a wonderful wife and a couple of boys.

And he just was so obsessed with this film,

it broke up that family.

And they never did get back together.

I mean, there's no other way of putting it.

He abandoned his family to go look for Bigfoot.

And I'm so sorry he did that.

That was my thing!

I decided that's what I'm gonna do

in my fucking life.

How are you feeling these days?

OK, you know. You OK?

But I'm not going square dancing.

Yeah.

I'll let you go.

Over and out.

René was not doing well,

and he knew he didn't have much time left.

And he called me up

and he says, "Larry, what you doing?"

He had some other words in there

that I won't put in there.

"On Saturday?"

And I said, "Well, nothing much, why?"

He says, "Come on up here."

I can remember sitting there with him.

He says, "You know, Larry,

"I just don't know.

"All the time and things we put into it,

and what do we have?"

He thought we had nothing.

Two weeks later, he passed away.

Do your feelings surprise you?

Yeah, because I would have thought,

"Oh, well, you know, it's just a film

"and the guy faked it."

But yeah, but look what he's done to people.

The lives he's changed.

How did you not talk about this?

Oh, for years, I just,

you know, people,

knowing that it was my mom's only way

of making money.

So I just went along with it. Vaile and I—

How dare you keep that from me?

Yeah, I know it. I should have told you.

I believed this the whole time.

But I always thought you— you already knew.

- No. - No.

When I told her I was gonna tell the truth,

she wrote me a letter, 5 pages,

and told me that she wished I would've—

would have aborted me or whatever.

- Oh, Clint. - Oh, yeah.

That she wished I was never born.

Nobody deserves something like that, Clint.

I don't wish sorrow on anybody,

but I hope she's really regretful

for the way she's treated you.

♪ emotional music playing ♪

You know, there's a lot of things

that I—I really regret.

I feel bad that I called Bob Hieronimus a liar.

I was just trying to go along with the big lie.

He needs to know that he's validated.

Look what you pulled off.

You and your long arms.

More power to you, buddy.

Hello. Hello.

Glenda?

Clint Patterson, Roger's son.

Roger Patterson.

I'll be darned. Oh, yeah.

You're short like your dad, too.

Come on in. Appreciate you coming by.

Bob.

How you doing there, bud?

Been waiting to talk to you for a long time, buddy.

It's been 100 years. How you been?

It's been a long time. You betcha.

I was a little boy when I used to see you.

Yes, you were. You were.

You look just like your dad.

You do. You look just like him.

I often thought about you.

I wondered how you're doing or whatever, you know.

I always wondered, "If I see Clint,

"how he's gonna take this?" You know.

He might want to kick my ass."

I want to apologize for what happened to you.

I know that you've had to live with this all your life.

It's no big deal. I wasn't out to hurt anybody.

I just wanted people to know the truth about it, you know.

That that was me in that film.

Well, you know, and it was a hoax.

You know, after 35 years, I said, what the...

"I don't think Roger's gonna to pay me my $1000," I said.

Well, I'm here—I'm here to make that right.

No, it's not your problem.

No, it's not my problem,

but my dad promised you $1,000.

I want to hand it to you.

- Well. - Would you please take it?

If he insists, on your dad's—

My dad, I want my— I want to—I want this.

- It's for my dad. - Just put it right there.

OK.

You're a— You're a hell of a man.

You're a hell of a cowboy.

Used to be.

Yeah, you still are.

The only time they filmed me

was when we went down to Bluff Creek.

So that isn't you in that suit too?

It wasn't me.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

Man, that really looks like Al walking to me.

They made the suit,

and then they decided to try Al in it

'cause he was big.

Then they went, "Shit.

"He don't look like a Bigfoot."

Doesn't have the walk, you know, the gait.

The walk.

So they said, "No, it won't work."

That is Al DeAtley trying to do the walk.

100%.

If I sit down with my Aunt Iva,

she'll back up everything I just said.

Up, up, up, up, up.

Up, up.

Clinty,

don't pay any attention to her.

She's a l—

Clinty, stay— sit beside me.

OK.

OK.

All right, guys, let's just start packing up.

OK. Yeah.

So, over his.

All right, do we have anything?

Oh, Clint, do you want to grab all your...

I just want to make things straight.

That he... it was a hoax.

♪ somber music playing ♪

Well, I called my Aunt Sandy,

hoping for a miracle.

And I said, "Would you please call my mom?"

Hello, Sandy.

Boy, she was in a good mood.

I told her I needed to talk to her about you.

She said that's fine.

She said she doesn't even remember

what even happened

because she's blocked it out of her mind,

and said you don't need to call her,

that you can just come by, that that's just fine.

Oh, my gosh.

This is a fucking miracle.

Son of a gun.

I just— she's too calm, Clint.

In a way that you don't know

how she...

how she's gonna treat me or what?

Yeah.

She doesn't have any guns in there?

Not to my knowledge, Clint, I swear to God.

OK.

I love you, Sandy. Thank you so much.

I love you, too, but I want you

to really be alert.

Clint, I need you to put on

your Pearl Snap shirt,

and I'm gonna tuck this camera in

with this lens rolling in your shirt pocket.

- Are you OK with that? - Yes.

It's for your own safety, too.

I know it.

Fuck, how come I'm so emotional?

Because it's your mom, buddy.

You're about to walk in

to see your mom for the first time

in 8 years or longer.

Right here.

♪ Somber music playing ♪

You're looking good, Mom.

Oh, I don't think so. I'm—

I'm on my last legs.

You're doing good.

That film is a curse, that's for sure.

A living hell curse.

Just thinking back of things that...

happened and went through and...

I mean, the kids went through hell at school,

on the school bus, uh...

I don't want to talk about that.

It's OK.

I just hate this film.

Al DeAtley, I was scared of him, yeah.

I seen him beat Iva up several times.

Pat's relationship with Al

was fear of Al.

He was a big man,

and he was a scary man and a powerful man.

He did. He threatened me

to keep my mouth shut

with a shithouse grin on his face.

Well, I hope one of these days

that this will kind of just die out.

Well, it's not going to.

At least while I...

But maybe the negative feelings about it can.

Yeah, I know.

So this was locked in a safe

for 55 years.

I haven't seen this.

I don't know if anybody has.

I mean, it's amazing to look at it.

So we went from the mystery film version

on the left

to the Patterson film version on the right.

It's getting better, isn't it?

Well, he was a perfectionist, that's for sure.

And that's an Appaloosa.

Is that Bob Gimlin?

My God.

Bob, we wanted to see

if you can help us identify

somebody in this film.

Yeah, take a look at that.

Yeah, see if...

Who was on the horse?

That's a good question.

You know, I don't think

Bob Gimlin lied about anything.

But I'm not sure he wasn't tricked.

He was taken down there

to be a friendly witness, I guess.

And they used somebody like Bob, who's very...

You know, you talked to him before.

He's a very honest man, I think.

♪ mysterious music playing ♪

That's that Appaloosa mare

he was riding.

It was the same horse he was riding

in the documentary that we made.

Yeah, that's Gimlin.

Look at the smile on his face.

He's got a grin from ear to ear.

Like "look at me."

Wow.

We've been lied to by him, too.

By everybody.

Except Heironimus. Oh, God.

Don't tell me he's the good guy.

I really think he wants to come clean, but—

Well, you know, we were— we were good friends there

for a long time.

And you guys are next-door neighbors,

and it's sad because—

It's a...

He's 92. He knows what happened.

Yeah. Why didn't he—why doesn't he want to come clean?

You guys should be shaking hands and—

Certainly, certainly.

I would really love to see that.

You know, it all started out

as a hell of a friendship, you know?

Yeah.

I thought about going

to some of these Bigfoot conventions.

Somebody found out who I was,

they'd shoot me or tar and feather me.

Well, if you want to do it,

I'll walk in with you.

"This is the man right here, boys."

The next convention they have,

let's get together, let's do it.

"This is Bigfoot right here."

That'd be great. That'd be great.

♪ somber music playing ♪

Super Squatch!

So we're gonna see Bob Gimlin later today.

Tell him I said, "Just tell it."

- Just tell the truth? - Yeah.

I'm from Utah. I came to Yakima

because I wanted to see Bob Gimlin.

He's kind of like my hero.

Bob's a likable person.

There's no doubt about that, but...

I just don't have any respect for him at all.

Now, what do you say about the naysayers

that say the film is fake?

I tell them, if they get a chance,

go meet Bob.

There's no way he'd lie.

He threatened me a lot for money

and said he was gonna tell that it was a fake.

And I said, "Go ahead."

Oh, my gosh. Meeting Bob,

that was one of the things on my bucket list.

So meeting him meant everything to me.

Bob Gimlin— he just got caught up in it.

And he seen all of a sudden

he was getting a lot of attention

going to all these conventions.

And now he's had to live this lie.

And this is the lie I'm trying to get off my back.

Let's go find the—

Let's go find the Bob Gimlin line.

All right.

What are you in line for?

Speak to Mr. Gimlin.

OK. I'm at the end of that line.

Did you hear that?

“Speak to Mr. Gimlin,” I said.

We got about 15 people in front of us.

There he is. I can see that little fart now.

We're next. I don't think he sees us yet.

Good. All right. Let's go.

Next! Hey! How you doing?

Hey, Bobby!

What the heck are you doing down here?

Well, I'm keeping track of you.

Bob, how you doing?

I had to come see you.

Well, from one cowboy to the other,

I got to tell you what's going on.

Me and my mom, my whole family,

we're all coming— you know, we're coming clean

and telling everybody that, you know, it was fake.

That Roger did it.

And he did a damn good job of doing it.

You know, he did.

- Yes, he did. - Yeah, he did a hell of a job.

Are you ready to come clean on it?

- Yes. - OK, let's do it.

Let's tell everybody

what an amazing person Roger was.

Yeah, I will.

You know?

Yeah, we need to kind of hurry up.

OK. I'm sorry about that.

How you doing, Bobby?

Pretty good.

Hey, you still got the same grip

you had 20 years ago.

Them old hands are all beat up, tore up.

Arthritised up.

You roped too damn many steers.

We got to move. OK.

Back me out of here

so I don't run over somebody.

OK, you're good.

Clint! Let's have another beer!

That worked out pretty good.

You're damn right. Yeah, it did.

You know what? He shook my hand because he knows.

Yeah. Well, he knows. Yeah.

This is great. This is one of the best things

that's ever happened since I wore the suit.

♪ somber music playing ♪

You know, there's some things that happen in your life...

that you carry it to your grave.

Too much has went underneath the bridge

to ever go back.

You know, this has—

this has been a weight lifted off me,

telling the truth.

Yeah, well, good.

Caused me and you problems.

And I'm glad I'm sitting here with you,

getting the truth out there.

Mm-hmm.

I'm pretty happy.

So, I've got some news for you.

Clint Patterson,

Roger Patterson's son,

has told the truth

and admitted it was all a hoax.

You're kidding me.

One of the Patterson family members

is going to qu— sort of confess

and tell the story?

And it was Bob Heironimus in the suit.

I'll be darned.

This is the most fantastic news

I've heard in the 20 years

since I wrote my book.

Finally, I will be redeemed.

All of my hard work

and the work that my wife put into it with me...

I and my wife have been vindicated.

My dad wasn't a con artist or whatever.

The footage that he had to pull off

was just to keep him going,

to prove that they existed.

Roger, he really believed in it.

He actually believed in it.

It may be that the Patterson-Gimlin film

has run its course after 57 years,

but it does not bear on the ultimate question

of whether Bigfoot exists or not.

It can't be anything else...

But a Sasquatch. Yeah.

There's still gonna be people

that are gonna believe it.

They're not gonna believe this film.

Well, honestly, it still doesn't shake my confidence

that the Patterson film is real.

Everybody wants something to believe in.

I kind of believe in aliens a little bit,

or would like it to be true.

Probably the same thing with this,

because they probably aren't real.

I haven't seen any land.

It's been a long, hard uphill battle,

but one more rewarding

I can't possibly imagine.

I've been part

of one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.

Fuck, yeah!

What a brilliant mind made this film,

and now the truth is out.

I mean, he was pretty much a genius

to pull this off.

I'm proud of him.

I'm the son of the guy that pulled this shit off.

Could you imagine

running into something this big

in the woods?

Damn.

You guys want to start working on the Kennedy assassination

for me now?

♪ Been gone ♪

♪ Back from my old ways ♪

♪ Too long ♪

♪ Draggin’ these doggone days ♪

♪ But each song keeps me rolling along my way ♪

♪ And I pray ♪

♪ I’ve seen people tuggin’ on the reins ♪

♪ Full speed, baby, dust is in my veins ♪

♪ A stampede couldn’t break me in my stride ♪

♪ You wanna know why? ♪

♪ It gets lonesome on the lonesome trail ♪

♪ So keep your head up high ♪

♪ Because, baby, we’ve been up all night ♪

Look at this thing.

Huge big foot.

Unreal. What would you do

if you see one running at you?

Shit your pants.

♪ I’ve been rode hard ♪

♪ And put up wet ♪

♪ Ain’t nothing in this world ♪

We did our very best,

and, if it wasn't good enough,

then we'll try it all over again.

♪ ’Cause legends never die ♪

Cowboys don't lie.

We might stretch the truth once in a while.

♪ Wild heart ♪

♪ Got some hazy memories ♪

The craziest part to me

is they were able to pull it off.

They did it.

They actually thought it up and pulled it off.

♪ Well, once or twice ♪

I just wanted to, you know, be known as an honest guy.

♪ I've got nerves of steel ♪

♪ It's my show ♪

I do think there's something out there

that it does exist. Yes, I do.

Yes, I believe that Bigfoot is real.

♪ Legends never die ♪

♪ They won't die, they won't die ♪

♪ Never die ♪

♪ Yeah! ♪

♪ You and I ♪

Twain and Peck ♪ Legends never die ♪

Legends never die.

♪ Baby, baby ♪ ♪ You tell them ♪

♪ Baby, never die ♪