Capturing Bigfoot tells the story of the infamous Patterson film one person at a time

I’ve now seen Capturing Bigfoot – the new documentary inflaming and disorienting Bigfoot believers. My reaction was not what I expected.

Perhaps that was because I already knew what was revealed in this film – the footage of another scene with an obvious suit that was remarkably similar in detail to that in the iconic Patterson-Gimlin Film (PGF). Many of my cryptid-enthusiast friends were impressed with the new evidence and the story. In a way, it ended up being disappointing because the reveal was, ultimately, no longer impressive. I had known about Greg Long’s findings and had accepted the informed opinion of those who had already seen the reveal. But, that’s my personal opinion. I would not question anyone else’s reaction… except for those who are hollering all over social media about how the reveal of the hoax is itself a hoax. The concepts in the film were so jarring to their worldview that their brain’s security system went on lock-down, throwing up barbed wire fences and system alerts to reject any intrusive critical thoughts. Capturing Bigfoot (CB) revealed more than a hoax; it revealed their serious lack of objectivity and integrity.

The main characters

Clint Patterson, son of Roger, had real-life problems. His Dad, his hero, died too young. He had to live with an albatross of the PGF hanging on him. Then, some nasty family secrets revealed themselves. His Mom disowned him and said things, in writing, that no reasonable person should ever say to their child, in response to Clint wanting to be honest to the world. I saw him as cheated; his parents failed him. How did he turn out to be such a good-natured, thoughtful person, as portrayed in CB, when his parents appeared to lack principles? One of the best parts of this film was Clint emerging as the notable protagonist by ushering the new evidence into the open, with necessary context. There were others who played conspicuous parts and were vindicated – Bob Heironimus (the person who wore the suit in the PGF) and Greg Long (the author that documented Patterson’s scheme decades ago in a book). It is satisfying that the dark clouds have been cleared around them.

There is a villain – but it’s not Roger Patterson. It’s Al DeAtley, the husband of Roger’s sister Iva. Al is portrayed as a greedy bastard, insinuated to be a potential wife-beater, and was the grease for the mechanisms of the crazy stunt. Oh boy, did the stunt work!

Others involved are of ambiguous character. Even Roger. Though his reputation is tarnished, he comes off as a talented guy who didn’t seem to deliberately aim to hurt anyone, but he wasn’t much about the truth. The nephews who ran the film around the country raking in money discovered they were just Al’s “help” to be exploited. Rene Dahinden dedicated his life to hunting Bigfoot and helped promote the PGF reality while always harboring doubt about Roger and the PGF. Ultimately, Rene died with his quest entirely unresolved. Jeffrey Meldrum, the Bigfoot academic who proselytized for the creature in scientific language, was convinced the PGF showed a real creature. This newly revealed footage certainly caused him some distress, as is shown. However, he also died before the post-PGF landscape was revealed. Larry Lund, long time researcher, also promoted belief in the creature and the PGF but Larry is shown accepting the obvious, as a good researcher should. Going by the commenters in the Bigfoot peanut galleries, this is atypical behavior.

What about Bob?

And then there is Bob Gimlin. Roger’s infamous partner in the PGF. His actions portrayed in CB confused me the most and were the parts where questions arose in my mind. After decades of staying out of the Bigfoot scene, Bob appeared at a public event in 2003. Did he go to this Bigfooters’ convention undecided about how to present himself? By this point, there was a considerable pro-Bigfoot community and interest was rising. The PGF was inarguably they most important bit of evidence and it seems unlikely that any further evidence would be revealed about its veracity. Did he think it was a safe space? Was he going to tell all at that time? Only Bob knows. He received a kingly welcome at these fan-cons. What if this environment was so ego-boosting and lucrative that he jumped on and rode it like a prized horse to many paid events for years?

When Clint, Bob Heironymus, and the film crew approached Bob at the autograph table at the convention, does Bob really understand what Clint is asking? We can’t tell if he’s just being polite and agreeable or if he really meant he was ready to admit he was in on the hoax. After this scene, it was made clear he no longer talked to the filmmakers. But there were several scenes where he was interviewed and shown the secret footage, which he appeared not to recognize. His reaction to this, seeing it on a laptop screen, was short and incomplete. I wanted to know more about this. The new footage shows Bob on a horse but I did not see that it connected to the scene where the Bigfoot was filmed. Maybe I missed it. I would have liked more clarification on that.

The Story

The double story line in CB is excellent. First, it’s the story of the PGF as a successful hoax that ended up bringing ongoing trouble to a family. Second, the PGF was a foundation for a seemingly unhealthy and blind belief in a mystery creature and now the hammer has finally fallen upon it. The various old footage of all the players in the story is awesome. I enjoyed these clips most of all. It was hard to tell sometimes what was original or what might have been manufactured filler. However, I accept that any filler that might have been used was used in good faith, not deceptive.

The most uncomfortable parts, for me, were the cringe-worthy comments of Dr. Meldrum prior to seeing the secret footage. He commits a grievous scientific error of hubris. He was in love with his own ideas and this blinded his objectivity. Not only did he stand firm on the PGF but he also defended footprint casts and biological conclusions that are too weak to stand on their own and roundly rejected by his peers. He did not come off well in this film and I felt a bit sad about that. But, that’s a lesson about life choices, I guess. Perhaps he had no regrets.

Marq Evans, the director, noted there might not be a film if not for Clint. All of the characters knew each other with Clint as the through-line, portrayed as the driver who gets us to the denouement. In the end, most of the disputes (between the living, at least) are resolved, with the exception of Gimlin who now stands revealed as someone who played everyone since 2003 when he could have said what he knew. I see no logical basis for suggesting Bob Gimlin is innocent. To continue to defend him is absurd. Will we hear of a deathbed confession when he passes? Perhaps.

Facing reality

Larry Lund remarked in his scene that “we need to know,” even if the truth is uncomfortable. I have heard this from a scant few Bigfooters. However, this is what all of them should be saying, if they can call themselves a researcher at all. Otherwise, they are just indulging in a form of investigation LARPing. From my examination of paranormal researchers, the majority don’t actually want to know anything that doesn’t support their existing frame of belief. There may be some wiggle room but there is a strong tendency to ignore, reject, or work around uncomfortable conflicting evidence. From most of what I have seen so far, the majority of Bigfooters will pivot around this reveal that has destroyed the primary piece of evidence and continue promoting what they see as other convincing evidence. They have done this repeatedly in light of revelatory findings. They remain antagonistic to reason, trending to conspiracy and even paranatural excuses.

Roger himself appears to have committee something akin to a pious fraud. He obsessively believed in Bigfoot’s reality, and so created this captivating display to entice others into this belief as well. He was very determined, and got very lucky. Regardless of the excuses Bigfooters will now use to downplay the importance of the PGF, we would not be in the place we are today, with hundreds of active seekers, thousands of supporters, and Bigfoot as a prime Pop Cryptid, if not for the PGF.

In the past few years, I became ambivalent to Bigfoot seekers. A few particular guys were horribly behaved, but many were not. Those same horrible guys continue to be horrible to anyone who disagree with them.

Legacy Bigfooters fallout and lessons to learn

Many Bigfoot fans, most of whom appear to have not watched CB, are actively stating they reject the evidence presented:

• Secret footage showing a staged attempt with what is obviously a version of the same suit,
• Evidence to show it was a person in a suit and that it was planned by Roger with Bob’s participation, and
• The admission of several people involved, including the person who ultimately was in the suit and Patricia Patterson.

This is, ironically, a lot to reject by the same people who regularly and readily accept unverified stories from random Bigfoot witnesses. They say no such suit could have been made, but now suddenly they assert that Roger made a similar detailed suit immediately after the encounter. That situation and timeline makes no sense whatsoever and fails to account for the fact that Roger and Bob had a falling out and Roger was already very ill. The new footage is undoubtedly a discarded test run. Roger probably never knew it still existed. The suit itself is long gone. Solid arguments, particularly in science, work well by using independent lines of evidence, and facts we already know. Just considering the PGF, the lines of evidence nail this conclusion shut. What people say they are otherwise encountering in terms of “Bigfoot experiences” is still unanswered, but it certainly does not have a single zoological creature (new or known) at its core. I don’t have confidence that today’s Bigfooters are up to the task of enlightening me on that point. They can’t see past their own dogmatic idea of a hairy ape man.

As YouTuber Eric Palacios, an early reviewer of CB, pointed out, the “legacy Bigfooters” will not willingly admit their errors; the sunk cost is too high. But that is to their ruin. This point in time looks to be a critical juncture for those who call themselves Bigfoot/Sasquatch researchers. They must decide if they can legitimately be objective in their efforts, facing the fact that they have been deceived by the PGF all this time, and adopting a more critical attitude. Or, they can continue to be belligerent and ridiculous in denying all reason. Some will likely continue on with the more supernatural hypotheses becoming more mainstream. The latter two paths guarantee that any credibility they might seek from mainstream society will be nil.

To close, I am fully satisfied that the PGF is “Case Closed”. The fallout has also made the Bigfoot scene, for me, less interesting. I am happy for those who had their mind changed (and expanded). Applicable to all of Fortean phenomena, the lesson learned is that there is almost always more to the explanation than you can imagine, and new information can come from the most surprising sources.

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Addition: Worth a watch after seeing CB