Part 3

Al Hodgson

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Al Hodgson, who attended the celebration with his wife Frances, is a central figure in all the bigfoot goings-on in Willow Creek since Jerry Crew first showed the world his giant footprint cast in 1958. Now, he admits that he didn’t buy into the hoopla back then, but he was in the midst of it all as he ran the general store in town. He drove the Eureka-Times Standard columnist Betty Allen to Bluff Creek to see tracks in the early 1960s and they did just that. He returned time and again and found some more in 1963. He phoned Roger Patterson in 1967 to tell of the track discoveries that summer in the Bluff Creek area. And he was visited by Roger and Bob the evening after they had taken the famous film. Al Hodgson was integral in getting the bigfoot wing added to the Willow Creek-China Flat Museum and worked tirelessly to organize and support the 2003 International Bigfoot Symposium. He IS the bigfoot report contact in Willow Creek and he took the podium to share with us many of the more significant sightings in the area over time.

“Sightings are much more common than people think,” he stated to begin his talk. The first he can recall was by a doctor driving the old, windy road to the coast in the 1930s. It was a road crossing over near the scales on the way to Arcata. Then, only a mile from here across the river ten years ago, tracks were found. A woman from town was staying at her family’s hunting cabin below Weitchpec, CA and saw one chasing her son as he road his motorcycle up the road. She came face to face with the creature for quite some time – the son didn’t know it was there. Another friend was driving to Weaverville, CA to visit her son in the hospital and she observed a juvenile sasquatch along the Trinity River “that was the color of a Golden Retriever.” He told us the story of two young guys who were bear hunting and almost shot one. They realized in time that it wasn’t a bear and used an old instamatic camera to shoot some photos – they didn’t turn out well. This was the closest anyone had come to documenting the creatures near town since the P-G film. He had another story from a retired highway patrolman who was getting firewood near Denny, CA. He had to get out to unlock a gate along the road and saw it moving through the brush from the waist down. He told Al that the thighs were “humongous” and that he had “never been so scared in all his life.” Another story involved a young man riding a bike on county road 1 near the junction with highway 36. He hit the creature at high speed and when he came to his senses, his bike was ruined and he had a handful of reddish hair. His stories seemed endless and he was determined to make the point that bigfoot is still around and still seen on a regular basis near Willow Creek.

Al was also a gracious attendee and participated in many of the Q&A sessions throughout the day.
It sure made the event to have him there!

David Murphy

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(sorry, my photos of David at the event are like bigfoot pictures...blurry...here's one of him in 2005)
David Murphy, a Los Angeles area man who is authoring the biography of Roger Patterson, explained his interest in the subject since the 1970s and how for the last ten years he has been interviewing bigfoot witnesses independently. In 2004 he began corresponding with Patricia Patterson to coordinate the opportunity to preserve Roger’s bigfoot bust. A book was published at the time that vilified Roger’s name and reputation and he discussed writing the true story with the permission of Mrs. Patterson. He flew to Yakima in February 2005 and spent a week at the Patterson house going through some of Roger’s bigfoot collection. He has since returned on three occasions to the area and has interviewed over 50 people including all of Roger’s siblings and children. He has amassed close to 200 hours of interviews and an amazing collection of personal photographs.

On this day he shared with us some of his own photographs of the Yakima area as it relates to Roger’s life. He also had some photographs from Roger’s brother, Glen. He took us on a quick tour of Roger’s childhood and his acrobatic talent. David showed us photographs of Roger’s childhood home, the property where he lived in 1967 and Jerry Merritt’s house, a location that involved two sightings noted in Roger’s book. He had a photo of Roger's bigfoot restraint made of steel bars that he hoped to utilize once he had tranquilized one. Also a picture of a hand-crafted scrap book that was a collection of articles and information bound into a volume entitled “Prehistoric Giant Men.” David also located and photographed Bob Gimlin’s old truck that they used in 1967 on the trip to Bluff Creek sitting behind a home in Yakima. He has taken his research the extra step in every instance and we should anticipate a very thorough and interesting biography in late 2008.

David brought along a set of posters exhibiting some of these photographs and several bigfoot statues, including the first few copies of Roger's bigfoot bust.

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