Has the Patterson/Gimlin Film Been Proven a Hoax?

[From The American Bigfoot Society Clearinghouse. 08/09/2006.]

By: Henry May

A recent book by author Greg Long, The Making of Bigfoot, purports to "expose" the famous Patterson/Gimlin film taken on October 20, 1967 at Bluff Creek in northern California. In the book, Long interviews dozens of witnesses who claim that in one way or another, Roger Patterson was a crook and a thief, a liar and a swindler. Long, not being too particularly bright (and driven by a seeming hatred for Patterson) takes this to mean that if Patterson was all of this, he must have faked the film as well. He interviews two important people to his investigation, the man who claims to have worn the "suit", Bob Heironimus, and the man who claims to have made the suit, Philip Morris. However, there are discrepancies in both men's stories which cast doubt on their versions of the truth. There are apparently no less than two conflicting stories about the alleged "suit"; Heironimus' version describes a 3-piece suit made from skinned red horsehide which stunk, while Morris' version describes a 6-piece suit made from artificial materials. These two stories directly contradict each other, yet Long, his associate Kal Korff and television producer Bob Kiviat don't see anything wrong with that. Now, two more stories as to the origin of the alleged suit have come out in the past 6 months; one comes from the mouth of Bob Heironimus, who claims that the maker of the suits for the film "Planet of The Apes" was the maker of the suit, which contradicts his earlier statement from Long's book; the second new story that has come out is that Heironimus' sister called Mrs. Roger Patterson, the widow of Roger Patterson, to try to get her to go along with a story of a GREY horsehide suit allegedly worn by Heironimus in the film so they could all make money off it. The problem is, Heironimus has been going around Yakima for over 30 years claiming that he had the suit that he claims to have worn in the film in the trunk of his mother's car. I have no doubt that he had such a suit, but it has not been absolutely established that it was the same suit allegedly seen in the film. Certainly his mother saw a gorilla suit in the trunk of her car, but was it a modified gorilla suit as is claimed to have been worn by Heironimus, or just a regular gorilla suit that could be bought in any costume shop? The question is certainly an interesting one, and we may never know the true answer to it. Heironimus claims that both Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were in on the hoax, and were going to pay him $1,000 for the job. He claims he has not seen a dime of that money, yet he's willing to do this TV special for money. But with 4 conflicting stories as to the origin of the suit, shouldn't Long know that he's been duped? Or is he so self-deluded with his hatred of Roger Patterson that he'll swallow the story hook, line and sinker? I think it is the latter myself. Long doesn't seem too particularly bright anyway, and seems to have an unnatural hatred of Roger Patterson as well. In my opinion, Long and company have not convinced me that the film is a hoax; I am 75% convinced the film is real. However, I still don't believe Bob Gimlin was in on the hoax, as Heironimus claims. If he's not an honest man, I don't know who is.

WCSRO, 2006.