Page 21 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Jan-Feb 2018, Vol 27, No 1

The Man Who Created Bigfoot 21

The Man Who Created

Bigfoot

Continued from Page 18

Some nights, cars would screech by the
Gimlins’ house. “They’d come driving in my
driveway all times of the night and go ‘Bob! We
want to go out Bigfoot hunting!’” he says.
They’d speed away before he could run outside.
The couple felt isolated, and Gimlin
found himself for the first time in the
predicament that came to define his life for
decades: if he acknowledged that he saw
Bigfoot, he was the town loon; if he stayed
quiet, people assumed he was lying.
“I can understand why they don’t believe
in it—because I didn’t believe it either,” Gimlin
recalls telling John Green, a prominent
Canadian Bigfoot researcher, on a phone call
during this period. “But I saw one. And I know
what I saw. And I know it wasn’t a man in a suit.
It couldn’t have been!”
In 1968, the year after Patterson and
Gimlin returned, the Gimlins swore to never
speak of Bigfoot again. But the video was out,
and Gimlin was—and remains—stuck to the
center of the debate, anchored like the sun in a
growing solar system with believers and
skeptics orbiting around him.
Reports of sightings filtered in from all
over the Northwest. Bigfoot was traipsing
through lush coastal woods and rocky
mountainsides in Oregon. Its glowing red eyes
peered from the understory in Olympic National
Forest in Washington. It stalked the Dark
Divide, the massive roadless area between
Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams. It ran
across a road near Vancouver. It left footprints in
the snow outside Walla Walla.
Believers cropped up in Texas and Ohio,
then as far afield as New York, Georgia, and
Florida. In the past 40 years, people have confess?” Long wrote. with kinfolk. Together they can be “out” about
produced supposed Bigfoot hairs, DNA tests, “I’m going to be blunt with you,” Long their beliefs.
footprints, and piles of scat—not to mention the said recently over the phone. “I consider Bob Gimlin first appeared at a convention in
countless photographs and video clips (most of Gimlin a liar. I think he’s a con artist.” California in 2003. Through his years of silence,
which have turned out to be hoaxes)—as But Long’s arguments seem just as Gimlin maintained contact with several
scientific evidence of the creature’s existence. flimsy as believers’ proof. His book is filled with prominent Bigfoot aficionados, including Swiss
To many, the notion of “belief” is irrelevant circumstantial evidence: a costume maker researcher Rene Dahinden and a Russian author
among the myriad stories, sightings, and named Philip Morris in the early 2000s said he named Dmitri Bayonov. After years of urging
artifacts. sold Patterson the suit but couldn’t provide any Gimlin to come to Russia to speak about the
“No, I don't believe in Bigfoot,” says Jeff evidence of the sale; a Yakima man named Bob film, Bayonov arranged to come to America.
Meldrum, an anthropology and anatomy Hieronimus said he was the one that wore it. With Green’s help, the pair convinced Gimlin to
professor at Idaho State University who is one of Neither claim is backed by concrete proof. attend the Willow Creek International Bigfoot
the foremost experts on foot morphology in the “‘They can’t exist, therefore they don’t Symposium: an event that promised to bring all
world. He was 11 years old in 1968 when he exist,’” is the message Meldrum has received the biggest scientific names into one room
watched Patterson-Gimlin’s Bigfoot walk across from skeptics, he says. “That was the actual (including Jane Goodall, a primatologist and
the screen at the Spokane Coliseum in Eastern retort hurled at me by an anthropology Bigfoot believer, who canceled her appearance
Washington. Today, he’s the keeper of the largest colleague.” last minute) in the very same area where
archive of Bigfoot footprint casts and author of With Bigfoot having grown into an Patterson and Gimlin made their film decades
the book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. industry, Long says there’s no reason to believe before.
“Belief usually connotes a position of faith, a anyone invested in the debate is telling the truth. To Gimlin, walking into the conference
conviction held in the absence of evidence,” “They need it to be real,” he says. The people was like entering a church. “It’s not a fairy tale
Meldrum says. “I, for one, am convinced by the who truly believe and search, he adds, “are to them. It’s serious business,” he says. “When I
evidence I have studied at length.” driven emotionally, I believe, to find Bigfoot.” met those people down there, they accepted me
Cynics, however, don’t just question the In the face of skepticism and mockery, a with what you call open arms.”
“evidence,” they question Patterson’s and large community of believers views Gimlin as There, Gimlin spoke of Bigfoot for the
Gimlin’s credibility. In 2004, Greg Long, author the original seer: the man who witnessed the first time in years. “There wasn’t a sound in the
of one of the most oft-cited pieces of skepticism unthinkable, who lived to tell the tale, and who room while I was talking,” he says. “I thought,
about the Patterson-Gimlin Film—a book called has been harassed for what he swore was real. ‘I can’t really believe this. This is almost like
The Making of Bigfoot—taunted Gimlin from These people congregate at Bigfoot conventions seeing Bigfoot.’ God, I felt like I was 10 feet
the final pages of his book: “Will he ever around the world to swap stories, trade tall.”
evidence-gathering techniques and commune (Continued on Page 23)