This is a brief review of Greg Long’s Making of Bigfoot. I don’t have the extra time or feel it’s worth the effort at this point to write much in detail. But in a nutshell, Long goes in search of the truth about Roger Patterson and his famous Patterson-Gimlin film of 1967 that he contended showed a female adult Bigfoot/Sasquatch striding across a creek bed.
I liked, disliked, and was ambivalent about this book.
It took me a while to get to it (published 2004) because it make a wave at the time but not a blockbuster wave enough to prodd me into reading it. And I’m sure I was busy with raising two young kids at the time.
The book was mostly an array of interviews with major and minor characters in the saga of Patterson’s Bigfoot explosion. My first observation is that it would have been better (and shorter) if not for the extraneous travel log details about popping open diet sodas and eating burritos and chocolate donuts. In places it sounded like old Nancy Drew books – the pair checking into a hotel and talking over the evidence, one reinforcing the other.
I STILL don’t know what the side stories about Merritt’s western town and the various rockabilly band tales were about or what relevance that had. There was a good bit of what seemed like superfluous details. Maybe I just missed the point.
The hard-hitting part of the story was the various statements made by witnesses like Merritt, Heironimus, DeAtley and Radford that shed light on Patterson and his life. Was he a cheat and a crook? Yes, that seems perfectly clear. He skimmed off other people and didn’t feel very guilty about it. Was he talented? Yes. In many ways. I think he was perfectly capable of pulling off a hoax.
The story of the film is laid out as a contrived money-making venture. I see the case that way too. Bob Heironimus’ story sounds plausible. No story is air-tight. It’s been a long time and memory is fallible. The kicker for me is the William Roe story. This was first brought to my attention in Abominable Science but Long mentions it as “the script” to the Patterson film. And, indeed it is.
There are a few pickup truck loads of circumstantial evidence here that paints Patterson and Gimlin in a poor light. There are also inconsistencies and loose ends and tangents. In the end, the book falls short because the true bottom line is not clear. There is no Bigfoot suit.
Ten years later and there is nothing new come to light. The film is still THE PG FILM and is disputed same as before. There is NO better evidence of Bigfoot at all. The BEST explanation right now is that it’s a guy in a suit and this was staged by Patterson.
Would this book make an objective reader more convinced that Patty the Bigfoot in the film was a hoax? Yes. It would. Is it definitive? No. I’m not sure it could ever be because the witnesses are dying and the physical evidence is lacking. Worst of all, the history and facts are all wrapped up in egos and belief which means a selective reading of the evidence and some cognitive dissonance.
Worth a read but annoying in many parts. I want to see the damn suit.