On this day in history, a little camera captured a massive enigma.
Friends Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin rode up the bank of Bluff Creek in 1967, intending to capture a glimpse of the elusive Sasquatch, whose alleged existence had drawn droves of people to Six Rivers National Forest in Orleans, California.
Patterson had invested in the hunt since 1959, when he first learned of the creature from a magazine article. Against the odds of ridicule, lack of funds, and thousands of hours wasted tracking dead ends, Patterson was determined to find definitive proof of Bigfoot. Gimlin, despite being a skeptic, only agreed to accompany him as long as they didn’t shoot the creature. The pair rounded a turn in the creek where there was a logjam, and it was then that they saw a dark figure standing on the opposite bank, nearly 25 feet away.
Gimlin later described having been frozen in a state of shock at the sight. Patterson reported that the ape-like creature stood nearly seven feet tall, was covered in black or dark red hair, and walked on two legs– all details that matched previous descriptions by those who claimed to have seen Bigfoot. Almost immediately, Patterson retrieved his 16-mm Cinne Kodak camera and began rolling, filming the creature lumber away before famously turning back to look at them.
To this day, the frame of “Patty” – as they referred to it – looking back at Patterson and Gimlin remains the most iconic image of Bigfoot ever taken. Gimlin briefly followed the creature on horseback until it vanished into the forest, after which Patterson called him off, fearing its aggressiveness due to neither of them being armed. The entire encounter lasted less than three minutes. Patterson and Gimlin later showed the film at numerous scientific organizations, where they were met with mixed emotions regarding its authenticity. Nevertheless, the film became widely known.
Since then, the Patterson-Gimlin film has become a popular subject of parody in film and television, often with the tagline “I Believe,” as well as the cryptidzoological community, where it is tirelessly analyzed and studied to determine its legitimacy. While many claim the footage was faked, both Patterson and Gimlin maintained that the creature was real; Patterson died of cancer in 1972, but consistently rebuked any accusations of a hoax. The whereabouts of the original footage is currently unknown.
While the film’s authenticity will likely never be definitively known, it endures as infamously and mysteriously as its subject.
