1969 - Magazine Article - Reader's Digest Mentions the P-G Film

[Trogluddite]

The January 1969 edition of Reader's Digest condensed an article entitled Does an "Abominable Snowman" Lurk in the Rockies? written by James B. Shuman for West Magazine.  This article includes a lot of historical information which is likely known to Forums members and was not focused on the Patterson-Gimlin Film or that encounter.  It offers limited information on the P-G film, likely taken by the original author from other magazines and newspaper articles. 

 

I have requested a reprint from Reader's Digest, but have not received it to date.  Therefore, I'll use the following extract from Bobbi Short's (RIP) Bigfoot Encounters website at http://www.bigfootencounters.com/, which includes what appears to be a full copy of the article under the Newspaper and Magazine Articles tab. 

 

"Perhaps the most intriguing evidence is a 16-mm color movie made in 1967 by Roger Patterson, a 34-year-old Yakima, Washington rancher. Long interested in Sasquatch-Bigfoot, Patterson had become convinced that the only w, ay to prove its existence was to get clear photographs. In October 1967, he heard of fresh tracks along Bluff Creek in northern California. Patterson and Bob Gimlin, an experienced animal tracker, set out to investigate.

 

They scouted the area on horseback for a week and a half. Early in the afternoon of October 20, they came to a bend in the creek where a gigantic stump, overturned by a flood, obscured the view ahead. Patterson's horse stopped and snorted, then reared and fell on its side. Moments later, Patterson saw what had startled his mount. "This creature was on my left, about ~ 95 feet across the creek," he recalls. "Its head was very human, though considerably more slanted, and with a large forehead and wide nostrils. Its arms hung almost to its knees when it walked. Its hair was two to four inches long, brown underneath, lighter at the top, and covering the entire body except for the face. And it was a female; it had big, pendulous breasts."

 

Patterson reached into his saddlebag and grabbed his movie camera. The creature, meanwhile, was walking across a sandbar toward the hillside. Patterson began trotting after it, shooting pictures. At one point, the creature turned and stared curiously at the camera. Then it went into the woods and out of sight. Gimlin began to give chase, but Patterson, who had used up all his film, told him to stop. "I didn't want to be there alone, without a weapon," he says."