A 40-second reel filmed in 1966 is at the center of a new documentary’s case that the famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage was staged. Capturing Bigfoot director Marq Evans calls the earlier footage “a trial run, a rehearsal that was never discarded.”
That reel shows a figure moving through woods and glancing over its right shoulder, echoing the look back that helped make the 1967 film famous. Teresa Brooks, whose father kept the earlier reel, says, “This film has been sitting in a safe for 50 years.”
Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin’s film dates to October 20, 1967, at Bluff Creek, California. Recorded on 16mm film and lasting about a minute, it shows a hairy figure crossing a sandbar before turning toward the camera. The famous backward glance appears in frame 352.
Patterson maintained that he’d filmed a real creature until his death in 1972. His son Clint was 12 when he died.
In the documentary, Clint says, “That means my dad lied to me.” He adds, “He was my hero.”
Evans also says Clint told him he “saw his dad burn the suit out behind the family house one night in a big barrel.”
The documentary follows decades of claims about a costume. In 2004, Patterson’s Yakima neighbor Bob Heironimus said he’d been the person wearing it: “It’s time people knew it was a hoax.” Costume seller Philip Morris said he’d advised Patterson, “Just brush the fur down over the zipper.”
Gimlin has never recanted his account. In 2019, he said, “Think whatever you want to think, I know what I saw.”
Capturing Bigfoot opens in theaters and on Prime Video on October 20, 2026, 59 years after the Bluff Creek filming.
