Page 61 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Febrary/March 2020 Edition

The Film That Spurred Bigfoot 61

53 Years Ago, A Film

Spurred The Myth Of

The Abominable

Snowman Of America

by David Bressan

“For more than a century, people have been
saying that a huge hairy primitive human roams
the unmapped mountains of the Northwest.
Here’s the first tangible evidence that this
'Bigfoot' or Sasquatch really exists.” So claimed
an article published in the February 1968 issue
of Argosy, a popular American pulp magazine at
the time. The article, which was written by
cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, featured
some remarkable pictures as evidence that the
"Abominable Snowman of America" was real.
The previous year, in the afternoon of
October 20, 1967, two young cowboys, Roger
Patterson and Bob Gimlin, made a strange
encounter at Bluff Creek in northern California.
On a forest clearing along the river, the two
spotted a seven feet tall, ape-like creature. As
soon as she, the creature featured some Gigantopithecus and anomalous primates was ever been found. Bigfoot seems to have no past.
prominent breasts, became aware of the two made first by Belgian-French scientist Bernard Primatologist John Napier summarized the
men, she quickly disappeared into the forest. Heuvelmans in 1952, based on reconstructions problem best when he wrote, that “by
Roger Patterson, jumping from his of Gigantophitecus by German paleontologists postulating that a monster is a relic form - a
horse, managed to snatch a minute long film of Franz Weidenreich and Ralph Von Koenigswald hangover from the past – monster fans feel
"Patty" (the Bigfoot version of Nessie). as a primitive human. Heuvelman writes “this absolved from the necessity of explaining how
Strangely, the supposedly very elusive animal theory, which is utterly hypothetical, provides such an outrageous unsuitable creature has
appears quite calm and unimpressed by the two the only entirely acceptable explanation of the evolved in the light of present-day ecology.”
intruders, striding across the sandbar, just mystery of the Abominable Snowman.” So is the Patterson-Gimlin, the most
looking back once. Since that day, the Patterson- American anthropologist Grover Sanders convincing evidence of Bigfoot, just a hoax?
Gimlin film is hailed by believers as the best Krantz, after reading Green's book, popularized Believers observe anatomical details in the tiny
evidence that a giant ape is really roaming the this idea. Krantz argued that migrating groups of figure in the film, that no costume at the time
American woods. Meanwhile, skeptics dismiss Gigantopithecus evolved into local populations could fake. Skeptics note that the blurry image
it just as a guy in a fur suit. of anomalous primates. In Asia, the local shows not enough details for a conclusive
The first tales of strange creatures living population evolved into the Yeti. Some analysis. Claims, made public in 1998 that it was
in the woods were collected by schoolteacher individuals crossed the Bering-Strait during the all a hoax, remain unverified. The testimony by
and amateur mythologist John W. Burns in the last ice-age, colonizing America. Here, they Gimlin, still alive and pretty sure it was a real
1920s. Sasquatch, another name for Bigfoot, evolved into the classic Bigfoot. animal he encountered that day, stands against
supposedly derives from a word used by the In 1955 a certain William Roe claimed to Bob Heironimus, who claims to be the guy in the
Coast Salish people for such creatures. Such have encountered Bigfoot, describing it fursuit, but supposedly the costume got later
stories were later used to support the claim that appropriately as a “giant ape.” The idea of wild lost. After fifty years still “no one knows
the modern myth of Bigfoot predates the men living in the woods was quickly replaced by whether the film depicts a real Sasquatch or a
Patterson-Gimlin film. However, it's important the idea of giant apes, and people started to talk man in a gorilla suit.” The search continues... []
to note that said myths refer to the creatures as about strange encounters with hairy ape-man
wild men, not apes. beasts. Bigfoot finally got its name in 1958, with
The story of Bigfoot as a living an article about alleged Bigfoot tracks found at
fossil, a missing link or ape-man, started not in Bluff Creek. Patterson, already interested in
America, but in Asia, with the discovery in 1951 Bigfoot before his encounter, followed the story
by alpinist Eric Shipton of large tracks in the into this remote area, hoping to film some of the
Himalayas. British zoologist Wladimir tracks. The supposed tracks were later revealed
Tschernezky was sure that the tracks were made to be faked.
by a large, bipedal and unknown hominid. He A problem with the Gigantopithecus-
proposed that the Abominable Snowman of the hypothesis is its outdated science. Weidenreich
Himalaya, also known as Yeti, was a descendant reconstructed Gigantopithecus, known only
of Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus was an from a fragmentary fossil record, as a sort of
extinct giant ape, living during the Pleistocene missing link between apes and humans. In his
in Asia, known in the fossil record only from imagination, it had the appearance of a hairy
few remains, like teeth and fragments of the ape, but with bipedal locomotion, as seen in
skull. Journalist John W. Green published in humans. However, modern reconstructions
1968 “On the Track of Sasquatch.” In his book, propose that Gigantopithecus is more closely
he didn't claim that Bigfoot was related to the modern orangutan, an unlikely
Gigantopithecus, but he made the argument, that match for our modern Bigfoot or at least the
if in the past large apes existed, it is not image the Patterson-Gimlin introduced into our
impossible that such animals still exist. pop-culture. Also, no fossils or bones of the
The direct connection between supposed Bigfoot population in America has