Bigfoot: The History and Legacy of North America’s Most Controversial Cryptid

by Charles River Editors

In the early 2000s, a man named Bob Heironimus provided a startling confession when he admitted that he had made the Bigfoot suit for Patterson and Gimlin and had played the role of Bigfoot in the movie. Heironimus certainly knew Patterson and had provided some of the horses used on the trip to Bluff Creek, but when National Geographic made a documentary intended to prove the film was a fake, the resulting footage was, once again, nothing like the original. Witnesses were also found who confirmed that Patterson and Gimlin had been alone on their journey and not, as he claimed, accompanied by Heironimus. It is now generally accepted that Heironimus was a publicity seeker who hoped that he could make some money by claiming to have participated in a hoax. Once again, this claim that the footage was a hoax seems to have been a hoax itself. Similarly, Ray Wallace’s claim that he had told Roger Patterson where to film and his implied involvement in the hoax were demonstrated to be false when it became apparent that Wallace didn’t actually know where the footage had been captured.