[16] In 1961 Sanderson published his encyclopedic Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, a worldwide survey of accounts of Bigfoot-type creatures, including recent track finds, etc.

The storyline called for Patterson, his Indian guide (Gimlin in a wig), and the cowboys to recall in flashbacks the stories of Fred Beck (of the 1924 Ape Canyon incident) and others as they tracked the beast on horseback.

The most recent of these reports was the nearby Blue Creek Mountain track find, which was investigated by journalist John Green, Bigfoot hunter René Dahinden, and archaeologist Don Abbott on and after August 28, 1967.

[39] As their stories went, in the early afternoon of Friday, October 20, 1967, Patterson and Gimlin were riding generally northeast (upstream) on horseback along the east bank of Bluff Creek.

The film shows what Patterson and Gimlin claimed was a large, hairy, bipedal, apelike figure with short, "silvery brown"[45] or "dark reddish-brown"[46] or "black"[47] hair covering most of its body, including its prominent breasts.

[57] In a different context, Long argues, these discrepancies would probably be considered minor, but given the extraordinary claims made by Patterson and Gimlin, any apparent disagreements in perception or memory are worth noting.

The film's defenders have responded by saying that commercially motivated hoaxers would have "got their stories straight" beforehand so they would not have disagreed immediately upon being interviewed, and on so many points, and so they wouldn't have created a suit and a creature with foreseeably objectionable features and behaviors.

[62] Chris Murphy wrote, "I have confirmed with Bob Gimlin that Patterson definitely rode a small quarter horse (which he owned), not his Welsh pony 'Peanuts'.

He requested Hodgson to call Donald Abbott,[66] whom Grover Krantz described as "the only scientist of any stature to have demonstrated any serious interest in the [Bigfoot] subject," hoping he would help them search for the creature by bringing a tracking dog.

US Forest Service "Timber Management Assistant"[75] Lyle Laverty said, "I [and his team of three, in a Jeep] passed the site on either Thursday the 19th or Friday the 20th"[76] and noticed no tracks.

[102] One radio interview, with Gimlin, by Vancouver-based Jack Webster in November 1967, was partly recorded by John Green and reprinted in Loren Coleman's Bigfoot!

[120] He later reported that he had avoided publicity after Patterson and promoter Al DeAtley had broken their agreement to pay him a one-third share of any profits generated by the film.

[127][128][129] Krantz reports that "[a] few years after the film was made, Patterson received a letter from a man ["a US airman stationed in Thailand"[130]] who assured him a Sasquatch was being held in a Buddhist monastery.

[134] According to Michael McLeod,[135] Greg Long,[136] and Bill Munns,[137] "A few days before Roger died, he told [Bigfoot-book author Peter] Byrne that in retrospect, ... he [wished he] would have shot the thing and brought out a body instead of a reel of film."

In 1995,[139] almost three decades after the Patterson–Gimlin filming, Greg Long,[115] a technical writer for a technology firm who had a hobby of investigating and writing about Northwest mysteries, started years of interviewing people who knew Patterson, some of whom described him as a liar and a conman.

"[172] As anthropologist David Daegling writes, "[t]he skeptics have not felt compelled to offer much of a detailed argument against the film; the burden of proof, rightly enough, should lie with the advocates."

[176][177][178] He objected to the film subject's hair-flow pattern as being too uniform; to the hair on the breasts as not being like a primate; to its buttocks as being insufficiently separated; and to its too-calm retreat from the pursuing men.

Perhaps it was the first film of a new type of hominid, quite unknown to science, in which case Roger Patterson deserves to rank with Dubois, the discoverer of Pithecanthropus erectus, or Raymond Dart of Johannesburg, the man who introduced the world to its immediate human ancestor, Australopithecus africanus.

"[180] The skeptical views of Grieve and Napier are summarized favorably by Kenneth Wylie (and those of Bayanov and Donskoy negatively) in Appendix A of his 1980 book, Bigfoot: A Personal Inquiry into a Phenomenon.

"[192] Daegling has asserted that the creature's odd walk could be replicated: "Supposed peculiarities of subject speed, stride length, and posture are all reproducible by a human being employing this type of locomotion [a "compliant gait"].

[196] A computerized visual analysis of the video conducted by Cliff Crook, who once devoted rooms to sasquatch memorabilia in his home in Bothell, Washington,[197] and Chris Murphy, a Canadian Bigfoot buff from Vancouver, British Columbia, was released in January 1999 and exposed an object which appeared to be the suit's zip-fastener.

[197] Zooming in on four magnified frames of the 16 mm footage video exposed what appeared to be tracings of a bell-shaped fastener on the creature's waist area, presumably used to hold a person's suit together.

[197] Since both Crook and Murphy were previously staunch supporters of the video's authenticity,[197] Associated Press journalist John W. Humbell noted "Longtime enthusiasts smell a deserter.

One pair of scientists, Jurgen Konczak (Director, Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory, University of Minnesota) and Esteban Sarmiento, attempts and fails to get a mime outfitted with LEDs on his joints to mimic the Patterson Bigfoot's gait.

He says that Fox, MGM, and special effects artist Stuart Freeborn in England, "who had just completed his groundbreaking ape suits for 2001: A Space Odyssey", would have been preferable.

[237] Morris claims he was reluctant to expose the hoax earlier for fear of harming his business: giving away a performer's secrets, he said, would be widely regarded as disreputable.

[242] Morris offered no evidence apart from his own testimony to support his account, the most conspicuous shortcoming being the absence of a gorilla suit or documentation that would match the detail evidenced in the film and could have been produced in 1967.

"[245] Morris would not consent to release the video to National Geographic, the re-creation's sponsor, claiming he had not had adequate time to prepare and that the month was in the middle of his busy season.

A month after watching the December 28, 1998, Fox-television special World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed?, he went public, via a January 30 press release by his lawyer, Barry Woodard, in a Yakima newspaper story.

[citation needed] Additionally, Edward Gelb, the man who administered Heironimus's successful polygraph attempt, was later revealed to have faked his credentials, including his diploma and PhD,[268] causing him to be widely considered to be a fraud.