A large bipedal primate 2 to 3 meters tall, covered in dark brown or black hair, with footprints 30 to 60 centimeters long. The earliest written record is from 1811, when explorer David Thompson noted a huge human-like footprint in the Canadian Rockies. In 1958, a Humboldt County logger named Jerry Crew cast a 41-centimeter footprint, and the Humboldt Times first used the word Bigfoot. The 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film remains the most famous evidence.
Account
A large bipedal primate 2 to 3 meters tall, covered in dark brown or black hair, with footprints 30 to 60 centimeters long. The earliest written record is from 1811, when explorer David Thompson noted a huge human-like footprint in the Canadian Rockies. In 1958, a Humboldt County logger named Jerry Crew cast a 41-centimeter footprint, and the Humboldt Times first used the word Bigfoot. In 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a 59-second black-and-white sequence in Bluff Creek, California, showing a large hairy biped walking through the forest. Over 42,000 sighting reports have been archived by the North American Bigfoot Research Center.
Debunked
Mainstream science has concluded that the figure in the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film was a person in a gorilla suit. Friends of Patterson have admitted the suit was a hoax. The gait and muscle structure of the figure do not match any known large primate. No hair, bone, or fecal sample has ever been verified as belonging to an unknown primate.
Sources
- David Thompson expedition journal (1811)
- Humboldt Times (1958)
- Patterson-Gimlin film (1967)
- North American Bigfoot Research Center sightings database