Coverage of the 40th Anniversary of the P-G Film
Road to Bluff Creek
With the faithful on the Sasquatch stations of the cross
Story and photo
by Steven Streufert
Conference presenter Daniel Perez critiques the professional skeptics at Fortean Times magazine.
“Roger and Bob rode out that day/Their lives changed in every way/So did ours ’cause we got to see/A living Bigfoot, walking tall and free,” sang Tom Yamarone, belting out the verses of one of his Bigfoot folk-historical ballads.
Yamarone’s lyrics rang true inside the Willow Creek VFW Hall a couple of weekends ago, where 50 or so members of the Sasquatch community gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the fabled “Patterson-Gimlin film.” The film, shot by the “Roger and Bob” of Yamarone’s song, is the most solid Bigfoot evidence ever presented. (See “Bigfoot Trapped By Norcal Fanatic!” Oct. 18.)
Believers from near and far made the pilgrimage on Oct. 20 — first to Willow Creek, and then out to the remote site where the film was shot, there to pay their respects to the historic event and to share the latest research.
A shimmer of possibility filled the VFW Hall. Bigfooting, it seems, is as much about the community of ’Squatchers as it is about the Giant Hairy Ape itself.Something had changed these folks who, despite otherwise ordinary lives, were ready to pursue to the ends of the Earth a creature most consider a phantasm. Curiosity and the spirit of rational inquiry were readily apparent, noted in thorough documentation covering the walls. Noting no sign of lunacy, it occurred to me that the crazy ones were the journalists sitting in their barren offices cranking out the same old dismissals.
Daniel Perez, authority on logistics of the making of the Patterson-Gimlin film, argued that the subject could not have been faked. That muscle mass moving with each huge stride, the height and inhuman proportions — could that have been produced with padding and fake fur? The strides through the film site of a 6’4” man reveal his tiny homo sapiens form beside a creature that could smash him with one stomp. (“If the suit doesn’t fit, he must exist.”)
No one has been able to replicate the film, even with a $75,000 BBC budget. Perez presented a 16mm Kodak Cine-100 home movie camera, the model that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin used. I felt its awkward bulk and saw the creature on the projection screen through its tiny, dim viewfinder. How anything was captured by this camera with its tiny 16 mm cartridge is miracle enough.
Legendary Al Hodgson, for decades the operator of the general store, also spoke. He was a contact not only for the Patterson-Gimlin film but also the 1958 activity in the area, when tractor driver Jerry Crew brought giant footprint casts down from the Bluff Creek road construction zone and made front page news in the Times-Standard and papers globally. This was the birth of “Bigfoot” as a media phenomenon. Presenting the recent North Coast Journal with its cover’s tabloid parody, Hodgson said: “You may have seen this — don’t like it.” Chuckles and groans emerged. Bigfoot was not a joke to this crowd.
Hodgson presented tales told to him by locals, without even a hint of the tall tale in the telling from this 83-year-old church-going business and family man. Of one of his informants, Al said, “He is not lying — know him too well.” Hodgson saw sightings as ordinary. The Sasquatch is a consistently documented though elusive primate, the origin of old frontier tales and centuries-old Native cultural representations. Without seeking it out, people see it, hear its howls and vocalizations, find footprints or feel its wild, cunning eyes gazing from hillsides that could hide just about anything.
Cliff Barackman spoke lovingly of his “foot fetish,” with evidence that footprints found in 1958 appear to have been made by the same individual in the 1967 film (as confirmed by Idaho State anatomist and physical anthropologist Jeff Meldrum). Scott McClean traced the history of newspaper reporting going back to the 1840s, predating the birth of hoaxer claimants like Bluff Creek road contractor Ray Wallace by nearly a century. David Murphy outlined the biography of Roger Patterson — author, filmmaker, cowboy, acrobat and inventor. Humboldt’s James “Bobo” Fay completed the round with tales of early 1940s Bluff Creek bigfooter Irwin Supple. The event concluded with a convivial champagne toast to Roger and Bob. Then plans for a convoy into the mysterious hills to the north were made.
The miles upon miles of real wilderness in the Six Rivers National Forest, accessed by hellish boulder-strewn and mud-laden dirt roads to the middle of nowhere, embody the wild mystery. The high-speed night trip led by Bobo, who seems to treat these mountains like his local neighborhood, was a soul-wrenching experience in itself. My little VW started bottom-grinding in thick snow at about 4,000 feet. After two hours of nasty tree-dodging, slippery hell, we crossed the 1958 bridge and entered Louse Camp, down on Bluff Creek. This was a place of history, where the 1959-1962 Pacific Northwest Expedition had set up digs. Bustling with activity and a roaring campfire, a keg of Bluff Creek Ale (note the Bigfoot on the label) was already tapped. A call-blasting speaker system and high-tech thermal imaging gear was out.
Later I walked with Bobo down the road illuminated by the white thermal viewer’s glow as we sought forms in the dark. His group had seen Sasquatch activity in the last few months just a few yards away. With sentries staked out in turns on the hillside, the campfire devolved into folk songs and Bigfoot tales. I was up until 4 a.m. discussing the paranormal and psychic aspects of the phenomenon, multi-dimensionality and string theory with sometime paranormalist author and field researcher Thom Powell. A schoolteacher and logical man, he brought up Occam’s Razor — the idea that the simplest answer is often the best one. Actually, the existence of a Bigfoot creature explains it all with more facility than hoaxing or hallucination.
The next day, descending about 2,000 near-vertical feet to the creek below, we made our way to the film site. Soon we found ourselves gazing upon what looked like footprints only 30 yards from our vehicles. Stunned, I immediately felt the energy of conversion starting to overcome me. One print in shallow moss and mud measured 22 inches. Toe shapes were visible. Preceding this in a patch of moss was another browned and deadened area, foot-shaped. The step between them was six feet, about double that of the average human.
Researcher Scott McClean calmly got out his ruler and measured the particulars, took a quick photo, and moved on. I stood stunned. Could it be real? It’s inconclusive, he said; a “blobsquatch,” is all. That’s just squatch-on-the-brain, he said. What we need is real, provable evidence.
With the Weekly World News defunct, can Bigfoot at last roam freely into our unbiased awareness? There is more evidence for Sasquatch, tangible and scientific, than there is for God, the Devil, reincarnation or the soul. One doesn’t catch fleeting glimpses of Babe the Blue Ox. Sasquatchers are in search of the last mystery of the wild American land, the living embodiment of the fact that humans are not the central meaning of the earth, nor in complete knowledge or domination of it.
Asking about my angle on this story, McClean said, “Just don’t use that word, ‘believe.’” It is not, he said, a matter of faith, but of fact — it is out there. Hoaxes and hallucinations do occur, but the time has come for us to consider that perhaps there is more to the natural world than dreamed of in our philosophies. These guys are living it.
Full disclosure — Steven Streufert is the owner of Willow Creek’s Bigfoot Books.
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NEWS-bigfoot-exposed.jpg Eureka, California Times-Standard Article
Willow Creek honors legendary Bigfoot filmmakers with 40th Anniversary Celebration
Beti Trauth/For the Times-Standard
Article Launched: 10/18/2007 04:27:25 AM PDT
Amazing reality or cleverly manipulated fiction? That's been the paradoxical question posed over the past 40 years since a grainy, black and white 16 mm film captured the startling image of what appeared to be a towering man/ape creature lumbering through the woods of Bluff Creek in Northern California.
Christened “Bigfoot” in honor of the enormous footprints discovered in the area of the film's visual record of the extraordinary sighting, the two men on the site that historic day north of Willow Creek back in 1967 startled the world with their documented discovery.
Armed with both their film and plaster casts made from the huge footprints, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin make global headlines and started a controversy that continues to this day: Does a species of Bigfoots actually exist in the remote, wooded and mountainous areas where the 60-second film was made? Or, as skeptics decry, has it all been an elaborate hoax?
No matter what anyone's personal opinion may be concerning the truth of the matter, the subject has spawned thousands of words of pro and con theories. There have been countless expeditions into the elusive creatures' perceived territory to try and prove they are not mythological,
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but flesh, fur and blood.
Other filmmakers have tried to recreate a similar “image” (using a really big man in an “ape suit” to simulate what they insist the Patterson-Gimlin Film did); but they have always failed to do so.
The way that Bigfoot moved and walked in the original -- including the long strides that left those deep imprints of feet in the forest floor -- has never been physically explained, much less disproved on celluloid.
As a matter of fact, similar, fleeting sightings in various places, have been going on for years. In the Asian Himalayas, he's known as Yeti; but in the mountains of Canadian British Colombia, the name is Sasquatch.
In Willow Creek at 10 a.m. Saturday, the community will affectionately welcome both the essence of Bigfoot and his loyal affectionados at the 40th anniversary celebration of the Patterson-Gimlin film.
The program will feature a series of presentations and discussions by a variety of knowledgeable guest speakers, with archival displays, personal testimonials and even some Bigfoot-inspired songs -- all based on what could be described as the most famous piece of wildlife footage ever taken.
According to enthusiasts, due to the improved technology now available, the film as been able to be analyzed “to show extraordinary detail and compelling features that leave little doubt regarding the authenticity of the creature in those frames.”
The celebration's organizer, Bay Area resident Tom Yamorone, said it was the co-idea of himself and Joyce Kearney.
”We met at The Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton (near Santa Cruz) that opened about three years ago -- with displays of artifacts, footprint casts, and a gigantic skull recreation by Dr. Grover Franz.”
Yamorone and Kearney -- along with most of the Californians speaking at the Willow Creek event -- are members of what could be called a Bigfoot Believers Club (formed by the museum), who stay in touch with fellow believers throughout the world.
They do so, Yamorone explained, because now there's even more evidence on which to base their collective beliefs.
Within the group there are a number of people who have actually seen the creatures -- or experienced and possibly recorded -- the sounds of their voices (or found physical evidence of their activities).”
Others, like Yamorone, have simply become fascinated with the ongoing, unanswered mystery that is Bigfoot.
”Growing up in Los Angeles, I was always interested in the topic because my family often came up to Humboldt to camp in the redwoods.”
But, it wasn't until 2000 when he was visiting Willow Creek and saw the footprint cast collection -- “which I considered good, solid evidence” -- that he became a true believer.
”Once I saw the casts -- especially after having spent so much time up in these forests and experiencing things I couldn't explain -- I suddenly realized that these creatures could actually exist.”
He became even more certain after seeing an early thought-provoking television documentary on the famous film, as well as a more recent 20 minute segment exploring the possibility on the History Channel.
Moreover, there have been current books written by respected science-based authors that further validate Krantz's theories. One by Idaho State University's Dr. Jeff Meldrum is titled “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.”
The bok basically outlines “what we know about these creatures, and other of what we call the bipedal hominids (any of the early forms of man, whose descents may include the upright ape).” Every evolutionary possibility continues to be hotly debated within different scientific camps.
According to Yamarone, Meldrum's book “tends to conclude that the behaviors witnessed by people who have seen Sasquatch, falls within those of the great apes -- although those evolutionary elements are always hotly debated.”
Yet another book based on similar research findings was published by a respected wildlife biologist from British Colombia, John Bindernagel, titled “Sasquatch: America's Great Ape.”
Based on thousands of documented sightings by trusted observers, he studied and carefully compared the behavior of man and ape. The biologist then came to a similar conclusion as that reached by Meldrum.
Whenever there are new sightings reported by individuals, there are a number of separate Bigfoot-related organizations (such as The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization of which Yamarone is a member), who follow up these reports and do their own field investigations.
So, there are hundreds of interested groups out there ready to verify these incidents as true, or not. However, someone who has encountered creatures that he believes to be a community living in the wilds of Klamath, will share first-hand accounts of those experiences at the 40th Anniversary Celebration.
He's James “Bobo” Fay, a Southern California native (now living in Arcata) who was initially intrigued by the film during his high school days, “came up to Humboldt with my buddies 20 years ago on a Bigfoot hunt,” and subsequently became a field researcher.
Often accompanied by Grizzly Creek forest ranger, Robert Leiterman, the pair have spent the past four or five years (at least twice a year) on Bigfoot scouting expeditions throughout the Klamath River area, up into the Trinity Alps, and deep into Redwood National Park.
That has included “making special calls, knocking on trees, and blasting out audios of what we believe are Bigfoot recordings to see if we can get a live response.” He says he's sure “there's definitely a population of them around the Klamath River up there in those drainages.
”I've heard them when they come around, and they'll do certain things (like knock on trees, or snap them off); and they'll make a definite primate sound -- kind of like a chimp or a howler monkey making a whooping sound. (We recorded some of these.)
”I've also gotten eye-witness accounts from lots of different people -- such as loggers and hunters -- but mostly from the Indians who live here with their families.” He said, that tribe members know them not as imaginary spirits, but as real creatures who have co-existed there in the wilderness for years.
Interestingly enough, it was Fay himself who made the most recent 2007 Sasquatch sighting in the field. On the evening of May 22 during a camping trip with five other field researchers in Six Rivers National Park near Orleans, Fay said he was walking by the confluence of Bluff and Notice Creeks and saw the 6-foot figure of “one of the smaller ones” hurriedly cross the road, go down the steep wooded embankment and disappear into the dark below.
Although Fay wasn't able to capture visual proof of his encounter on film this time around, he feels he's previously caught enough glimpses of creatures who fit the original film demographic to believe an ever-elusive Bigfoot is exactly what he saw.
Fay said that he thinks that in the next few years, it will be “a real slap in the face of the main stream media who have just made light of it and mocked it all of this time. Because it's actual -- it's a certainty -- and, I've seen it. I've seen it.” And, he's more than ready to tell the audience about his experiences on Saturday.
Keynote speaker, Daniel Perez (author and publisher of Bigfoot Times and “Bigfoot at Bluff Creek”), will kick off the event at 10 a.m. by tracing the effects of the honored film since it was first given coverage 40 years ago in the pages of the Eureka Time-Standard.
In a rare conversation and interview with Gimlin not long ago for his Bigfoot-oriented paper, Perez said that the surviving, feisty 76-year-old filmmaker “couldn't believe that 40 years has gone by, and no one (else) has produced a film of similar quality -- much less captured one of these things.”
And, Perez said Gimlin was actually “beside himself and amazed--in the sense that nothing has ever been resolved. He said he kind of figured that after that film was shot, that sooner or later (within a couple of years) someone would 'get one'--and it just never happened.” Well, not yet. But with persistent folks like Fay out there searching, who knows?
Other featured participants at the celebration include David Murphy, who is currently researching and writing a Patterson biography, and Scott McClean, who will share archival research from his book “Big New Prints.”
Cliff Barackman will also display and discuss footprint casts from the film site and Bluff Creek area; and organizer, Yamarone, will add to the festivivities by performing a musical tribute to Patterson and Gimlin.
So, come to Willow Creek and make your own decision about the reality of Bigfoot as you join the 40th anniversary celebration of the Bigfoot film that keeps making history. Believe it!
Reservations are required for lunch; and seating is limited. Although walk-ups are welcome, call (415) 420-7583 to ensure seats are available before making the drive.
Beti Trauth is a professional actor/director/singer who has been covering the arts in Humboldt County as a freelance photo journalist since 1986. Contact her at northernlights@times-standard.com
If you go:
What: The 40th anniversary celebration of Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filming Bigfoot
Where: The VFW hall in Willow Creek
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday Oct. 20
How Much: $25 admission fee includes a barbecue lunch
