Reg Widewen
In the 1970s, Bigfoot was everywhere. He appeared in episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Incredible Hulk. He was the subject of Leonard Nimoy's film, The Search. There was even a Saturday morning TV show called Bigfoot and the Wild Boy.
The Bigfoot fascination began with the infamous grainy footage of a Sasquatch, shot in 1967 by former rodeo star Roger Patterson and his friend Robert Gimlin. This iconic, shaky 59-second silent film shows a massive, hairy creature, later nicknamed Patty, slowly walking through a wooded area near Bluff Creek, California. It was this film that launched the multi-million dollar Bigfoot industry.
For nearly 60 years, biologists, anthropologists, and even Hollywood costume designers studied this video, attempting to disprove its authenticity. However, no one has been able to definitively prove that the film, shot on 16mm film, was staged. Until now.
Director Mark Evans recently premiered his documentary, "Finding Bigfoot," at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival. The film uses a 40-second clip from film that hasn't been used in over 50 years. Filmed in 1966, at a location similar to the later version, the clip shows a seemingly slimmed-down Bigfoot wandering off into the woods.
«"It took me probably nine months to figure out what we actually had," Evans says. "We eventually figured out [this new footage] was a trial run, a rehearsal that we never abandoned." In the documentary, Evans interviewed Bob Heironimus, an octogenarian who admitted that he wore the suit in the film. He also spoke with Patterson's eldest son, Clint, who admitted that the film was staged and that he "saw his father burn the suit in a big barrel behind the family house.".
Patterson died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1972 and likely knew he was going to die as early as 1967, when he was filming and releasing his movie. Insiders believe he created the film to help his family after his death. This is indeed what happened, and over the past 60 years, the film has earned millions of dollars in licensing fees.
Like the Patterson-Gimlin film, another wild animal film has recently been debunked.
Video footage provided to various insurance companies showed the bear damaging several luxury cars, and the owners of these vehicles filed claims for damages totaling $141,839. Suspicious, the insurance companies contacted the California Department of Insurance to review the footage.
An investigation dubbed "Operation Bearpaw," conducted with the assistance of Glendale police and the California Highway Patrol, determined that the "bear" in the video was a man in a bear suit. A biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, after reviewing the footage, also concluded that the animal in the video was clearly a man in a bear suit. Detectives then executed a search warrant and seized the suit from the suspects' home.
Four suspects were arrested in connection with this conspiracy. The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office entered into plea agreements with three of them. Alfia Zuckerman, Ruben Tamrazyan, and Vahe Muradkhanyan pleaded guilty to felony insurance fraud and were sentenced to 180 days in jail, two years of probation, and ordered to pay restitution. The fourth, Ararat Chirkinyan, is awaiting trial.
«"What might have seemed unbelievable turned out to be just that, and those responsible are now being held accountable," said Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. "Insurance fraud is a serious crime that drives up costs for consumers, and no scheme is too outlandish for us to investigate.".
According to investigators, the accused exercised their right to bear arms, guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
Reg Widewen is a partner at McCarty Law LLP, a law firm in Appleton. He can be reached at pcbusiness@postcrescent.com.
This article originally appeared on the Appleton Post-Crescent website: Discovered footage shows 1967 'Bigfoot' video was indeed staged.