Bob Gimlin was there the day Roger Patterson filmed the now famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage in 1967. He joined Connie Willis (email) to discuss the sighting and the film, and why after decades of ridicule he now speaks at Bigfoot conferences across the country. Gimlin recalled a 1964 meeting with Patterson, who showed him a Bigfoot footprint cast and told him of his interest in the creature. We started riding together on weekends and he would play recordings of testimonials of people who witnessed Bigfoot related activity, Gimlin said. Eventually Patterson convinced Gimlin to travel to northern California to check out large footprints reported around a piece of construction equipment on Onion Mountain.

We arrived at the site and the tracks had been washed out by rain, Gimlin continued, expressing how disappointed he felt as it was his main reason for agreeing to go on the trip. The two decided to follow a creek farther back into the area and were shocked at what they found. "This bigfoot creature... was standing right alongside the crick," Gimlin revealed. Patterson hopped off his horse, which had become agitated by the sighting, and ran across the creek to start filming, he added. Gimlin described how the creature was making an arc away from them as it walked. Patterson ran out of film because he had been shooting the whole day prior to the sighting, he noted.

We followed in the direction of the creature and found a wet footprint on flat rock, Gimlin reported. He explained how they went back to make plaster casts, tried to preserve the tracks before a rain storm, and how they were almost killed trying to escape the area after heavy rains flooded the creek and caused massive mudslides. Gimlin spoke about how he was not impressed with Patterson's footage because what he saw in person was better. "It's not great film footage because I saw more than that... I could see the movement of the gigantic muscles underneath the fur [of the creature]," he said.

'Forest People' Encounters

In the final hour of the program, Dr. Matthew A. Johnson ('Dr. J'), founder of Team Squatchin USA, talked about his expeditions and paranormal aspects of Bigfoot, or 'Forest People' as he refers to them. Johnson explained why he no longer believes they are flesh and blood descendants of Giganthropithicus, and how using the habituation method (made famous by Jane Goodall) made connecting with the Sasquatch possible. We starting treating them respectfully, instead of as dumb animals, and after a year they began taking food we'd left for them in gifting bowls, Johnson said, noting how they'd place candy corn into formations."I think they communicate with glyphs... we also have really incredible audio recordings of spoken language," he said. Johnson played audio of vocalizations that he attributes to the Forest People, as well as reported on finding a portal in the woods from which they may have originated.