by John Green, Used with Permission
1) He and his attorney tried to sell the story in the late 1990’s
2) He initially told Greg Long he had nothing to do with Patterson’s attempted Bigfoot documentary.
“I can tell you all I know about Patterson in about five minutes.” p 145
“I didn’t, you know, run around with him, I just knew him.” p 146
“Were you part of that movie? No,” he answered flatly. p 147
“Yeah, I knew who he was, and I rode horses with him a couple of times, you know, and you know, this is just riding in the mountains. That wasn’t any film documentary or anything.” p 148
“So are you saying you weren’t in that movie he was producing? Well, I’m not going to say that. No.” p 149
“How many hours do you think you spent with Patterson?...My whole life?...I don’t know, maybe two days.” p 151-2
Long comments: “He had denied anything to do with movie on the South Fork.” Long knew that was a lie because he had a picture showing Heironimus among a group of cowboys photographed during Patterson’s failed attempt to make a documentary. p 154
3) After studying his first taped interview Greg Long states, “When I finished, I concluded that I didn’t believe Bob Heironimus.” Mrs. Long’s reaction, “He’s lying.” p 152.
But after Heironimus changes his story to what Long wants to hear: “I can’t find any evidence of Bob’s being a liar.” p 425. He could have found the evidence in his own words in his own book.
4) Heironimus claims there was an ape suit in his car trunk (in this case in his mother’s car and at her home) for just a single day after he got back from California. In Long’s book five independent witnesses tell of him having such a suit in his car at other times and places. None saw it at his mother’s place.
The first time Long heard of Heironimus he was told about the suit, and that it was in Heironimus’ car for a long time. Les Johnson -- “There was an ape suit. Bob Heironimus wore it.”….”I was in the Idle Hour Tavern in Wiley City.” ….”Bob Heironimus said that in the back of his Buick—he had a blue Buick—was an ape suit, or a suit. They were talkin’ about this suit. …”Everybody in town talked about it.”… “They were making fun about this suit, like, ‘We’re going to fool everybody’.”…”The Idle Hour Tavern’s where we’d go to congregate, lie to each other, and tell these big stories and try to make out like we was somethin’.”.
Long asks, “Do you remember any discussion about Bigfoot, or Bigfoot pranks?”
“All the time.”…..”He apparently carried this thing in his car for a long time.” p 47-48
Gary Johnson – “That suit Bob wore was observed in the trunk of a car right outside that famous water hole down there in Wiley City.” p 51
John Ballard – Long asks him, ‘Was Heironimus capable of running around like a Bigfoot in the Yakima Valley?” Ballard, “Not beyond him. I think he did it to scare people.”…”I’ve heard rumors, yeah. Just like the rumor of Bob Heironimus having the Bigfoot suit, which was made out of horsehide.”… I never saw it, but what I heard was it was gray horsehide. I heard it was in Bob Heironimus’ car.”p 232
Merle Warehime – “Bob Heironimus was the guy who wore the monkey suit. It was always a joke.” When Long suggests Heironimus might have put on a costume to help Patterson convince the public of the existence of Bigfoot, Warehime responds: “I don’t think it was that complicated….It was kind of fun, go get drunk, put the suit on and run out in front of somebody, you know.” Long says he was told that the suit was in Warehime’s Circle Inn Tavern and Warehime says he has heard that but it was when he was gone for a couple of days. “So you never saw the suit yourself?” “In the back of the car, yeah.” “Oh, you did see it?”…”I believe we were out in the Ahtanum by that old church.” p 331
Bob Hammermeister – “Yep. It was probably at Wiley City. There was a bunch of us…I seen something in the car, a big old pile of fur there was what it was…I think it was in the trunk.”
“Did Bob say it was a Bigfoot suit?” “ Yeah.” p 397
Hammersmeister is the only one who mentions seeing the suit after the Patterson movie was made. The others were talking about the previous year when there was a rash of local reports of Bigfoot sightings, or perhaps even earlier.
These statements set out clearly that Heironimus was the one who had an ape suit and that he was using it to stage Bigfoot ‘sightings’ for the amusement of himself and his friends A connection with Roger Patterson is suggested only by Greg Long, and in one case is specifically denied--although making a fool of Patterson may have been the origin of the game.
5) Heironimus drew a map of his supposed trip to Bluff Creek, indicating that he met Patterson and Gimlin at Willow Creek and they drove west from there before turning onto the Bluff Creek Road. Long, who knew that Willow Creek was many miles west of the Bluff Creek turnoff persuaded him to change his story. p 347-8 and 366-7
6) Heironimus told of seeing a rodeo banner at Happy Camp on his way to Bluff Creek. Long later learned there had never been a rodeo at Happy Camp and decided it must have been a banner for the Bigfoot Jamboree on Labor Day weekend, therefore the film must have been shot in early September—weeks before the leaves would have turned red. p 420
7) Heironimus drew a map of the area where he said the film was made, showing that they went two and a quarter miles up the Bluff Creek road to the place where they were camped, and another half a mile to the film site, a total of two and three quarter miles from the Klamath highway. p 366. The actual distance, on a twisting dirt road, is more than 10 times that.
8) Heironimus not only does not know where the film site is, he is also not at all familiar with the film, since it shows Patterson and Gimlin with three different horses, and he mentions only two, even claiming that he had to ride double behind Gimlin. p 348
9) To anyone who saw the film site before time altered it, Heironimus’ story makes it immediately obvious that he was never there. He tells of Patterson and Gimlin helping him to put the suit on and to stand up, then, “I started walking. I came to the creek. I walked through the sand.” p 349
He does not know that the creek bottom is not sand, but slippery rocks that are best walked on carefully, or that on the far side he would have encountered a vertical cut in the bank of the sandbar which was more than two feet high (it shows in the film) that would have been an unforgettable obstacle for a man in a suit with legs so stiff he needed help to get to his feet from a sitting position.
10) Heironimus continued, pointing at a map he had drawn, “I walked across here—through a few trees right here, maybe a downed log in here and some brush. Anyway I turned right here and looked at them. I looked back twice. I walked a little ways further towards these trees right here on the right. They said ‘Cut! That’s it!’ Here’s this big blow-over [uprooted tree]. I jumped down in this hole.” … “Why did you jump in the hole?” “I was afraid of getting shot’…. “It was October, you know. They did have hunters down there.” P 349
He is obviously not aware of what is plain on the film, that the creature was always on the same side of the creek, that for a considerable time it disappears from the camera’s view as it walks through the trees, that when it emerges it is much too far away for anyone walking beside a noisy creek (and supposedly wearing a padded headpiece) to have heard anyone say anything. Aside from that, since the sandbar is in the creekbed there could never have been a large tree there to blow over and leave a hole.
Note also that although Heironimus places the event in October, and in hunting season, later he apparently accepts Long’s conclusion that because of the “rodeo banner” the filming must have been in early September. Heironimus’ readiness to change elements of his story whenever someone else proposes a different version suggests that he thinks that the others may be telling the truth and might even be able to prove it, while he knows that he is lying.
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For those who have not read Greg Long’s book, and those like me who failed to appreciate what they were reading, there is on pages 47 and 48 a very clear outline of the actual role played by Bob Heironimus. In recounting an interview with Les Johnson, an Ahtanum Valley rancher, Long writes:
“There was an ape suit. Bob Heironimus wore it.”
I couldn’t speak. Had I found the man who played Bigfoot in Patterson’s film? Was the mystery over?
“Bob Heironimus,” I finally managed to let out.”
“Yep, Bob Heironimus,” he repeated with a big grin. “I was in the Idle Hour Tavern in Wiley City. There were fifteen or twenty guys, some of the guys that hung around with Roger. The guys were drinkin’ and talkin’ about things they had been doin’. Bob Heironimus said that in the back of his Buick—he had a blue Buick—was an ape suit, or a suit. They were talkin’ about this suit. Someone said, ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ And someone said, ‘Go and look in the back of Bob’s Buick.’ The guys were teasing each other about it. Everybody in town talked about it. There were lots of guys who sat around and talked about it.”
I probed deeper into his memories of this event. He recalled that among the onlookers grouped around Heironimus’s car were the Ridge Runners, members of a jeep club. Johnson was either walking toward to (sic) the tavern or leaving it. “I heard them talkin’ when I went by. They were laughin’ and gigglin’. They were makin’ fun about this suit, like ‘We’re going to fool everybody.’ I mean, I got that opinion. But you couldn’t fool us. We all lived here.” He chuckled and then added: “The ‘monkey suit’ is what they called it. There’s four Heironimus boys, Bob, and Bill. Bill worked for me for a while. Then there’s Howard and Mike. The Idle Hour Tavern’s where we’d go to congregatge, lie to each other, ad tell these big stories and try to make out like we was somethin’.’
I asked, “Do you remember any discussion about Bigfoot, or Bigfoot pranks?”
“All the time.”
“Inside the tavern?”
Everywhere. It was just a hoax to me. And the group that we run with were all cowboys. We were up there in the hills runnin’ cows,, and you never seen any of those guys up there. It all took place down at the gab station [the Idle Hour Tavern].”
Farther down the page, Long asks:
“Who is this Bob Heironimus?”
“Well, I think he works for Pepsi-Cola. He must be getting’ old enough to retire. He apparently carried this thing around in his car for a long time.”
