New Film Shown at South by South West "Capturing Bigfoot"

[jameskrav]

On 5/6/2026 at 10:25 AM, idlehour30 said:

I'm already sick of this film, and I've never even seen it.  It's somewhat fascinating though. Just pops out of nowhere with zero context. Nobody saw the Norm Johnson angle coming.

 

If, as described, this newly discovered footage is taken in late '66 or early '67, at a completely different location, different season, different environmental conditions, different lighting, different subject, different actor, different camera angle, different subject behaviour, different filming style - then what the heck is he supposed to be testing, exactly - that he can successfully film someone walking in the woods?

 

1) We're told by Munns and others that there are specific Patty-esque movements on the found footage. That means they have the exact intricate movements planned many months before, then they wait, and wait - for many months. Given that he took a loan to finish his doc that was due for repayment in early June 67, they apparently had the suit and the camera and everything rehearsed down to the movements way before then - and they wait for something? Until late October, 500 miles away when they've already tested what it looks like, filmed relatively speaking on their doorstep, presumably in Bigfoot HQ in Washington, judging by what is described. 

 

2) I think the earliest we have a record of a K100 and Kodachrome II in Patterson's hands is May 13th 1967. That's not to say he couldn't have had another sometime earlier, just that there is no record or other footage known to have been filmed on a K100 prior to May, as far as I know.

 

3) If, as the Director asserts, it is Al DeAtley in the suit based on his movements, then they have the suit and the actor. It may have been made to measure for Al, as Bob H certainly does not mention being measured up. Why would you want to risk exposing your hoax by dragging some car crash like Bob Heironimus into the inner circle, if you already had someone? That makes no sense from a risk perspective. 

 

4) They have specific movements of the actor all planned and rehearsed in late 66/early 67, then in August they put Bob H in the suit and let him "walk up and down 3 times" in Patterson's back yard (from Long's interview). They never train him on specific movements or show him the film they shot. Then magically, the next time Bob H meets them in October, he dons the suit and out come all the specific moves again that he's never been coached how to do. Doesn't make sense.

 

5) Where are the other takes? They do one take for 40 seconds almost a year earlier, and then.....? 

 

6) They film a rehearsal of a hoax. They then either don't bother to take possession of the developed film, or they let Norm Johnson keep the original, while he palms them off with A COPY. A copy that could be a smoking gun for their hoax, because they can tell it's not the original from the copy markings? Also - zero sense. If Norm is pulling a fast one, then why keep the original? Just give the original back, as they have no way of knowing the original has been copied.

 

7) Norm Johnson's wife is so worried about him being implicated in a hoax, she requests that he 'put the film away' in a safe. If you are that worried, you would just destroy it.

 

To me, many of the above points don't make any sense if the footage was a rehearsal, but they make much more sense if it was a recreation. 

 

 

#6 is a huge issue, there's just no reason for Johnson to have the original if he was asked by Roger (or DeAtley) to develop some footage.  Giving back a copy rather than the original makes no sense - the other way around does make sense if he felt the need to keep a copy.  

You may not be aware, but the Den of Geeks podcast on YT interviewed Evans and his partner.  Evans (perhaps unwittingly) drops a bombshell:  Norm's brother Dave worked with Roger on hoaxes, and wore Bigfoot costumes !.  Yes, Evans is accusing Roger of being a serial hoaxer from 1965 to 1972 in Yakima.  Ignoring that insult, there's an obvious take from that:  Dave did a post-PGF reenactment with his brother Norm in order to mimic what his friend Roger had done.   And that's why Norm has the original, because its 'their' work and has nothing to do with Roger.  Dave could have sensed a challenge to do what Roger did, or was jealous and thought Roger was hoaxing (and a hoaxer would love to match another hoaxer).  That explains why the new footage has so much in common with the PGF.  Munns feels it is just too similar to be a coincidence.  So either Roger did a rehearsal and then waited 5 months to put into play all the things done in the rehearsal, or Dave Johnson studied the PGF and the following Spring tried to mimic the PGF as best he could.  That explains the 'thinner' bigfoot (no ability to convincingly make a massive Bigfoot) and the head that is different than Patty (couldnt match it, did the best he could).  

If Gimlin is in the new footage, maybe he was so upset with Roger not taking him on tour and cutting him out of the proceeds that he went along with this reenactment.  Not a wise decision in retrospect, but perfectly understandable.  And if its not Gimlin (doubtful to me), then it further distances Roger from having anything to do with this new footage.  

[Trogluddite]

On 3/17/2026 at 2:07 PM, Sircalum said:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ChDwHxLzj/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Credit where credit is due to Sircalum (for posting the link) and to Matt Moneymaker (for offering an alternative explanation for this film).  Everyone here seems to be accepting, at face value, that this new film was shot before the P-G film and was a rehearsal for it.

 

For those who can't (or haven't) read MM's Facebook post, he posits that the new film was shot after the P-G film and was an attempt to recreate the encounter.  Why?  One reason suggested by MM is that Al DeAtley wanted to have a longer film to show and - let's face it - the P-G film as originally shot is not all that good.  So perhaps Al DeAtley and Roger Patterson (and Bob Gimlin, if that's him in this film) wanted to have more film to show on the movie circuit and experimented with a quickly bought (or made) costume to see if they could get something useful.  If so, this would have been done within weeks of the P-G film while Roger still had the rented (and misappropriated) camera.  Alternatively, Al DeAtley could have been trying to prove to himself that the P-G film wasn't a hoax by trying to recreate it.

 

Only pointing this out because at this time, we don't know when the film was shot.  We know when the film was manufactured, but we know nothing else about when it was used, or when it was processed.  So if the film Capturing Bigfoot is labeling this as a "trial run" they have not, at this point, laid an adequate foundation for doing so.

[Trogluddite]

Sooooo ... Bob Gimlin was in on creating a fake P-G film with Roger Patterson?  And never said anything to blow up the fraud that Roger had allegedly committed?  I've just posted a long-lost and/or little-known 1978 newspaper article with comments from Bob Gimlin.  Do these comments sound like a man who owes Roger Patterson, Patricia Patterson, or Al DeAtley any silence about the P-G film if it was, as now claimed, a fraud?

 

 

[Backdoc]

The “film” simplified

 

only if the “Film” was shot pre-dating the PGF does the film have any skeptic significance.  
 

if the film (1966 era) was Shot After the PGF there could be many reasons for this.   Some may become known and many theories are possible.  But they do nothing to help the skeptic cause.  If it was shot after the PGF what skeptic would care?

 

they have all their hopes in the dry-run basket.  It’s all or nothing

 

finally I’m curious what the “Boeing development” does to the credibility of this “film” if it turns out Boeing had no on site development possible.  

 

 

[Incorrigible1]

Found on a Facebook site, presented as I found it. Presented for your perusal. I don't know its veracity. It does align with some of my thoughts:

 

Here's what BFRO's founder, Matt Moneymaker said about the new Patterson Gimlin film documentary:                                  BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization) - est. 1995
Matthew John Moneymaker
·
There is a film festival entry at South by Southwest (Austin TX) called “Capturing Bigfoot”. I can save you the time and frustration from watching this clickbait crock.

I was going to ignore this story, but the clickbait potency of the keyword “Bigfoot” has helped the story get into the Hollywood Reporter newspaper (very influential), so I am forced to comment on something that I would prefer to not even dignify.

It was known at the time, and since that time in the late 1960's, that real life cowboy Roger Patterson was trying to make a documentary about the Bigfoot/Sasquatch mystery when he and Bob Gimlin obtained their famous footage in 1967. He shot a lot of footage, but mostly B-roll. They were from Washington State. The famous 1967 footage was shot in northern California. Most of the other stock footage was shot in Washington State, where this old reel was found.

As with EVERY OTHER big documentary and TV series about the Bigfoot subject, Roger wanted to dramatize a few bigfoot encounters, which required using a man in cheap costume. ALL big documentaries and TV series on the Bigfoot subject (until CGI & AI) have had a Bigfoot costume on hand for various re-creation shots — shots which are not presented as actual footage of the creature. It was a necessary part of the visual storytelling for the Bigfoot subject.

Patterson’s wife Patricia recalls the use of a cheap costume for this purpose, though she only saw it one time when it was not being worn. The "long lost reel" that is being touted by these sleazy producers at South by Southwest is just story recreation footage using this hokey dramatization costume which bigfoot researchers have known about for years.

The lost reel from Washington shows an obvious human is an obvious cheap ape costume. It looks nothing like the actual creature they got on camera in California. Because of that stark difference these sleazy producers are trying to spin this cheap costume for dramatizations as a "trial run" for the eventual 1967 costume.

 

The simple fact that no one has ever been able to duplicate the 1967 “costume”, with all its anatomical peculiarites and massive musculature, has shown sensible people for more than 50 years that it is not a costume. There have been several well-funded and well-staffed attempts to similate what you see in the footage. All of those efforts failed.

National Geographic at one time touted the bogus Hieronymous costume story (he claims he was the man in the costume), then years later aired an episode of a different series where the footage was examined with the most modern techniques and computer enhancement and measurement analysis. That subsequent Nat Geo program revealed a foot anatomy on the Patterson creature that is impossible to fake with a man in a costume, so it was determined that the Patterson creature could NOT have been a man in a costume.

This recent film festival entry called "Capturing Bigfoot" is just one in long parade of sleazy deceptive productions since the 1990's that have regurgitated and repackaged long-debunked claims because the ploy will still get some cultural traction, riding on the enduring popularity of the bigfoot mystery. It is just a cinematic form of clickbait, as are the news stories about the film, some of which have a subscription paywall in front of the article … for all you Bigfoot diehards who they assume will pay to read about this film …

Roger’s son Clint is being paid by the producers of the film. He was flown down to the film festival to give interviews. His mother Patricia knows that the 1967 Patterson film is legitimate and there was no hoax. She has said that very firmly her entire life since that time.

 

Clint waited til his mother was around 100 years old before he took money to sell his deceased father down the river. Clint was very young when the 1967 footage was obtained, and not much older when his father died from cancer. He has no direct knowledge about his father’s accomplishment except what he knows from his estranged mother, and what he has heard from his new pal Bob Hieronymus.

Patricia has always said that Roger did not fake the PGF. She would know much better than Clint, though not as well as Roger’s partner Bob Gimlin, who is also still living.

 

Read real-life Bigfoot encounters in my book "Mysterious Creatures: Cryptid Encounters - Bigfoot Special" here 👇
www.bigfootencountersbook.com