Vocabulary

 

 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

 

1967, Bluff Creek, California

Eleven years after news spreads nationwide of a creature called Bigfoot, two outdoorsmen head off to hunt the beast along the Klamath River.

Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “In the summer of 1967, Roger Patterson, who has become fascinated with the legend of Bigfoot, is filming a sort of pseudo-documentary on the subject when he bumps into his old friend Bob Gimlin at a gas station.

He tells Gimlin about his film and that he’s heading to check out some unidentified footprints found in the northern California area, and Gimlin agrees to go with him.”

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Professor of Folklore, Utah State University: “So, Patterson and Gimlin are about halfway through their journey when they’re approaching a river and something spooks Patterson’s horse.

He ends up falling off the horse, but when he sees what it was that his horse saw, he pulls out his camera and begins filming.”

Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “The filmed encounter lasts 59 and a half seconds. To Patterson and Gimlin, it feels like an hour.

Something emerges from the brush — an enormous animal Patterson and Gimlin have never seen before.

They think it might be Bigfoot.”

Christopher Bader, Professor of Sociology, Chapman University: “Once they surprise the creature, it starts walking quickly away from them, and they manage to follow it for quite some time before they lose sight of it in the woods.”

Forest Burgess, Astonishing Legends: “Patterson and Gimlin then hurry back to their campsite to grab some plaster. They know they’re going to need as much proof as possible, so they take casts of the prints left behind by the beast.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

 
That night, the 16mm film was developed.

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “What the film shows is a massive bipedal creature. It’s maybe six and a half to seven feet tall. It’s covered head to toe in this sort of silvery brown fur that reflects the sunlight, and it’s walking with this loping sort of gait through the landscape.”

Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “Compared to previous descriptions, it’s slightly smaller, with wider hips and a rounder silhouette. It also appears to have mammary glands.

Patterson and Gimlin theorize that they are looking at a female Bigfoot. They nickname her ‘Patty’ after Roger Patterson.”

Though the pair were convinced by what they saw, many dismissed the film as a hoax.

Ryan Golembeske, Cryptozoologist: “The Patterson-Gimlin footage has been scrutinized since it came out. Everyone’s had a chance to look at it, try to break it down, try to explain why it would be fake or not.

And to this day, you have people on both sides — real or fake — but nobody can disprove it. Nobody.”

Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “There have been several attempts to classify the animal seen in Patterson and Gimlin’s film.

It’s analyzed by Stanford scientists Jessica Rose and James Gamble in 1994, and they’re experts in physiology and movement.

They analyzed the creature’s gait and can’t find any match to known species.”

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “They concluded that this is not a gait or a movement that could be replicated by a person in a costume.

The relationship of bones to musculature to skin and hair is a unique thing for different animals, and it really wouldn’t be possible for a human being to fake this type of difference in gait and movement.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

 
Ryan Golembeske, Cryptozoologist: “In 1999, a pair of professors from the University of Florida’s anthropology department also analyzed the film, and in 2009, the film was broken down frame by frame by an anthropologist from the New York Museum of Natural History. ”

Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “As for what type of animal this is, they have no idea. These top scientists are at a loss. It’s possible that Patterson and Gimlin have discovered an entirely new species.”

Christopher Bader, Chapman University: “There are many examples of creatures that at first seemed mythical or their descriptions seemed hard to believe, such as the Komodo dragon, a giant lizard that would eat sheep whole; the narwhal, a whale with a horn on its head like a unicorn.

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “And the pelican, an incredibly common bird in contemporary life that was at one time thought to be a mythological creature back in the Middle Ages.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

 
Ryan Golembeske, Cryptozoologist: “Remains have been discovered of a creature that most resembles Bigfoot, and that is the species called Gigantopithecus.”

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “Gigantopithecus is a primate from the Pleistocene era. It was believed to have gone extinct about 300,000 years ago.

An ancestor of modern-day orangutans, Gigantopithecus is thought to be the largest primate to ever live on Earth.”

Jeff Meldrum, Profe of Anatomy and Anthropology, Idaho State U: “Gigantopithecus was enormous. Its teeth were of such proportion that we estimate its body mass to be on the order of 800 to 1200 pounds (363 to 544 kilograms). ”

Ryan Golembeske, Cryptozoologist: “We’re talking about a 10-foot (3-meter) animal. When people describe seeing Bigfoot, the sheer mass and size of it leads some people to believe that Gigantopithecus, or a relic version of it, is Bigfoot.

Maybe it’s evolved to be a little bit smaller, a little bit more nimble, or we’re just not seeing the big boys and all we’re seeing are the females.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

 
Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “In the early 1980s, American anthropologist Grover Krantz becomes one of the biggest proponents of the theory that Gigantopithecus could perhaps be a candidate for Bigfoot.”

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “Considering this theory, two problems stand out immediately. One is that Gigantopithecus was thought to be almost entirely exclusive to Asia, and the second problem, of course, is that it’s extinct.”

Christopher Bader, Chapman University: “As far as where Gigantopithecus lives, Krantz believes that a land bridge formed across the Bering Strait that allowed Gigantopithecus to cross over the North American continent during the Ice Age in search of better food and warmer climates. ”

As for their extinction, he believes it never happened.

Christopher Bader, Chapman University: “Scientists believe that given the vastness of the ocean and the wilderness, there are numerous other seemingly extinct species that we may find, in fact, still exist.”

Ryan Golembeske, Cryptozoologist: “Let’s take the pygmy tarsier and the Kashmir musk deer. These are two animals that were supposedly extinct that we have found are not.”

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “What’s amazing is that there was a giant fish, a coelacanth, that existed 60 million years ago and was thought to be long extinct until we caught one in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. And there’s not just one of them; a whole community of them was found to exist.

So clearly, our best understandings of just how extinct an extinct creature might be can be wrong.”

Gigantopithecus may not be the only extinct primate that could fit the bill.

Christopher Bader, Chapman University: “Bigfoot researcher John Napier actually believed that Bigfoot might be a different form of seemingly extinct ape called Paranthropus. ”

Ryan Golembeske, Cryptozoologist: “PThey have large, really big heads, big frames, and really fit the look of when people describe their experiences with Bigfoot.

With Gigantopithecus, it was so massive we really can’t be sure that it even walked on two legs, but Paranthropus did strut its stuff.”

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill, Utah State University: “This theory, the idea that a species assumed to be extinct is not, in fact, extinct, is now the favorite explanation of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

It is possible, perhaps, that at some point one or more of these species came over the land bridge to North America, where their descendants have remained undetected but occasionally sighted.”

Forest Burgess, Co-Host, Astonishing Legends: “Bigfoot might be the most widely spotted cryptid in history. Hopefully, someday we’ll finally get close enough to identify it, and when we do, the scientific community may be in for quite a shock.”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 
 

Questions

 

Bigfoot, Sasquatch. Has Bigfoot been widely known since ancient times?

Yeti, Abominable Snowman. Roger Patterson was a professor of zoology at Oxford University, and Bob Gimlin was an anthropology researcher at Heidelberg University. True or false?

Loch Ness Monster. Did they go into the wilderness with a documentary crew? What happened in 1967?

Bermuda Triangle. Describe what they had allegedly seen.

UFOs. Everyone, including experts, were unanimous as to what the film revealed. Is this right or wrong?

Psychic Phenomena. If Bigfoot exists, is its narrative completely unique in science and history?

Noah’s Ark. Experts believe that Bigfoot might be a type of bear. Is this correct or incorrect?

Atlantis. Might Bigfoot be native to North America?
 
 
 
Nostradamus. Are there any Bigfoot-like creatures in your region, country or continent? Are there legends or myths of fantastic creatures?

Afterlife. Has Bigfoot become a theme, motif, symbol, or logo in art, advertising, cartoons, movies, TV?

Nazca Lines. Do you think Bigfoot is a hoax? What do you think Bigfoot might be?

Easter Island. What might happen in the future?

Pyramids of Egypt. What could or should people do?

Fountain of Youth. What might happen if Bigfoot were captured, “tamed, domesticated, or befriended”?