Page 20 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Jan-Feb 2018, Vol 27, No 1

20 The Man Who Created Bigfoot

The Man Who Created

Bigfoot

Continued from Page 18

Life, for Gimlin, continued on a normal
course: he married, had children, divorced, then
married “the sassiest thing I’d ever met”—his
wife of 52 years, Judy. In 1967, Gimlin, then 35,
was scraping together a living driving trucks,
roofing, and riding and taming horses. There
was nothing significant about the day he pulled
into a Union Gap service station and ran into his
old rodeo pal, Roger Patterson.
Patterson was recovering from a bout
with cancer. As they spoke, Patterson told
Gimlin of his interest in supposed Bigfoot
sightings. “He said, ‘Let me show you
something,’” Gimlin recalls. “He went over to
the truck and brought out a plaster cast of a big
picks, and Band Aids. There’s a Patty-shaped
foot.” Patterson asked Gimlin if he would be Chia Pet. Bigfoot even has a home on reality REL-MAR McConnell Media Company
interested in searching Mount St. Helens on TV: Animal Planet launched Finding Bigfoot in Is Pleased To Announce The
horseback with him for evidence of a Bigfoot. “I 2011, starring Washington’s Bigfoot Field Appointment of
said, ‘Roger, I just don’t have time.’” Researchers Organization (BFRO). BFRO MR. KAL KORFF
By the late 1960s, Bigfoot had been members lead guided backwoods expeditions— As
tromping through Northwestern lore for with a price tag of up to $500—throughout the EUROPEAN & ASIAN BUREAU
hundreds of years. Several Native American CHIEF
U.S. where participants scour the forests for a
tribes tell of looming, furry beasts reeking of
look at the fabled beast.
scorched hair who stole trout from fishermen. In
But looking back on the trip today,
the early 20th century, newspaper articles Gimlin wishes he’d said no. That he’d turned
reporting sightings read like spooky stories to away from Patterson that day at the service
tell around a campfire. In one such report, from station and never looked back.
1924, a clan of rock-throwing ape-men That trip to California changed him.
ambushed a group of miners on Mt. St. Helens. “It ruined me.”
The place is now called Ape Canyon. (Skeptics By 1972, Patterson had died. Gimlin
said the beasts were just YMCA campers
alone faced the scourge of detractors that were
playing a prank.) Ivan Sanderson’s 1961 book,
emerging around the country—some even
Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life,
confronted he and his wife in their hometown.
read like the stuff of a B movie. Yakima was the place where Gimlin had
But there were few opportunities for become known for his fearlessness and strength,
Patterson to commune with other believers. So and suddenly he was a seen as crazy. His word,
he talked to Gimlin: the men formed a bond, his handshake—currency around this part of the
riding horses through Washington’s state—was in doubt.
backcountry. Patterson continued to regale “My wife was a teller at a savings and Kal has been an Analyst, Broadcaster,
Gimlin with Bigfoot lore, playing him recorded
loan institution. Of course, she was sitting right Commentator and Investigative Journalist
testimonies of real-life encounters and lending
there and the public would come in and make on or for such popular TV networks as ABC,
him books on the topic, despite Gimlin’s
smart remarks,” Gimlin says. “This went on and CNN, Discovery Channel, FOX, History
insistence that he did not care. (Patterson self- on and on until she come home crying. She’d Channel, MSNBC, NBC, National
published a book in 1966, titled Do Abominable say, ‘I’m not tough enough.’ A couple times we Geographic and has appeared on countless
Snowmen of America Really Exist?) were going to split up over this.” radio shows and in the newspapers,
Then, in August 1967, Patterson told (Continued on Page 21) including National Public Radio’s Science
Gimlin about a logging road construction crew Fridays, Art Bell’s Coast-to-Coast AM, Dr.
spotting tracks and having their equipment Seth Shostak of SETI, Jeff Rense’s
If you would like
inexplicably disassembled deep in the Six Sightings, Laura Lee Show, Rob
Rivers National Forest. He begged Gimlin to to have your radio McConnell’s X-Zone Radio Show, Chip
drive the two men and their horses to Northern show or podcast Presher’s Mind Cemetery, San Francisco
California to search. Gimlin was skeptical that on a broadcast Examiner, Prague Post, Metropolitni
anything existed, but he was intrigued, and he network that Expres, Washington Post, U.S. News and
wasn’t the sort of man to turn away from a good reaches millions of World Report, Phoenix New Times, Daily
adventure. “I wanted to see these footprints that people around the Review, Argus, Stanford Daily, San Jose
these people talked about,” he says. Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Ohlone
world and cross
The film the men produced gave the Monitor, Omni, Skeptical Inquirer, Skepsis,
marketed thoug a
murky myth shape: suddenly, Bigfoot was True, Saga UFO Report, Beyond Reality,
multimedia
manifested in flesh and blood. It had a loping Fortean Times, San Francisco Chronicle,
company with Frontiers of Science, LBC Radio, RTL,
gait and, with the twist of its torso, it looked
over its shoulder before disappearing again into over 31 years of DW2, TV Nova, Radio Praha, Radio Free
the wilderness. It even had a name: Patty. success in the Europe, YouTube, Scribd, Facebook and
Patty, arguably, created the Bigfoot broadcast / media countless others. Here is a small sample of
industry. Today, the apelike figure—frozen in its business contact - his unprecedented, unique portfolio over the
signature turn—adorns car air fresheners and decades. No other journalist doing the kind
infant onesies that read, “Believe.” It looks back programming@xzbn.net - or - of reporting and writing that Kal does, has
from coffee cups, Christmas ornaments, guitar programming@xzonetvchannel.com this distinctive and diverse background.