(Video) Patterson-Gimlin film

Patty filmed at Bluff Creek by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin

Contents

1. Timeline of key events
2. Camera and film

Timeline of key events

Sources for this timeline are Daniel Perez' Bigfoot Times Bigfoot at Bluff Creek and John Green's Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, unless otherwise noted.

Friday, October 20, 1967

• At approximately 1:30PM, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin begin filming a hairy bipedal subject walking away from them, up Bluff Creek.
• 59.5 seconds later (assuming 16 FPS film speed), the role of film runs out.
• Gimlin pursues the film subject up the creek on horseback for approximately 300 yards before returning to Patterson.
• The pair spend about 15 minutes rounding up Patterson's horse.
• Patterson changes the film in his camera under a poncho at the film site.
• They return on horseback to Gimlin's truck (at Louse Camp?) for casting materials.
• Upon returning to the film site, Patterson and Gimlin attempt to track the film subject. Gimlin follows sign for approximately 200' up the mountain before stopping due to the terrain.
• Two casts are made - one of a left foot impression and one of a right foot impression. Patterson chooses the most perfect, foot-shaped imprints he can find.
• Patterson documents the trackway on a second roll of film. This film is subsequently lost.
• Patterson and Gimlin leave Bluff Creek and drive to Eureka, CA, to send the film via airplane to Yakima, WA, to be processed. Note that according to Daniel Perez, John Green's recollection is they drove to Arcata, CA, although all other sources say they went to Eureka. The two towns are only 8 miles apart.
• While in Eureka, they call Patterson's brother-in-law Al DeAtley, Albert Hodgson of Willow Creek, CA, and the British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC, requesting dogs and scientists be sent to the film site. While the museum sends no one, they do call John Green who in turn notifies Rene Dahinden.
• Patterson calls the Yakima Times-Standard and is interviewed by an unknown reporter.
• Patterson and Gimlin return to Willow Creek, CA, and speak to Al Hodgson and Sylvester McCoy before returning to Louse Camp.

• Saturday, October 21, 1967

• At approximately 2:00AM, the pair fall asleep at their camp.
• At approximately 5:00AM, Gimlin is awakened by the sound of rain.
• Gimlin returns to the film site to cover the uncast tracks with bark.
• The intensity of the rain cause Patterson and Gimlin to strike camp and return to Yakima.
• The Yakima Times-Standard runs a front page story under the headline "Mrs. Bigfoot is Filmed!" without a byline.

Sunday, October 22, 1967

• Patterson, Green, Dahinden, and Jim McClarin view the film at DeAtley's home in Yakima. This appears to be the first time anyone other than DeAtley views the film.

Monday, October 23, 1967

• Lyle Laverty, stationed at a camp at Notice Creek as part of a timber preparation crew, comes upon the film site with his marking crew and takes three photographs (slides) of uncast tracks. (From an interview with Roger Knights and an article in Bigfoot Times, June/July 2005, p. 4, col. 2.) Follow-up: Did LL hear of the filming and look for the site or did he happen upon it by chance?

Tuesday, October 24, 1967

• Walt Kurshman, upon hearing of the tracks from Lyle Laverty, goes to the site to see them. (Need reference.)

• Thursday, October 26, 1967

The film is shown to zoologists and anthropologists in a hotel room in Vancouver, BC. They are unimpressed.

• Approximately Sunday, October 29, 1967

Note: This date is based on a letter Bob Titmus wrote to John Green where he discusses first seeing the tracks at the film site "9 or 10" days after they were made.

• Bob Titmus arrives at Bluff Creek to investigate the film site.
• Titmus spends the entire day walking the creek looking for the tracks. He finds ample sign of Patterson and Gimlin's horses, but he does not find the film site.

Monday, October 30, 1967

• Titmus finds the film site on the morning of his second day at Bluff Creek.
• He tracks the film subject to a position 125-150 yards away from the film site, 80-90 feet up the mountainside, where he believes the film subject "sat down" in an area shaded from view but with a clear line of sight to where the film was shot below.
• While he finds indication that the subject went up the mountain after stopping, he decides not to track it further.
• Titmus makes casts of ten consecutive prints that demonstrate, in his words, "vast difference in each imprint, such as toe placement, toe gripping force, pressure ridges and breaks, weight shifts, weight distribution, depth, etc."
• Titmus' sister Allene and brother-in-law Harry arrive in the evening and camp with him that night.

• Tuesday, October 31, 1967

• Titmus departs Bluff Creek.

Camera and film

• Patterson was using a rented Cine-Kodak K-100 camera loaded with 16 mm Kodachrome II film.