Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 20th, 2007
In one month, it will have been 40 years since Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin had their incredible encounter with an apparently female Bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California, on October 20, 1967. The resulting footage is the best piece of evidence we have for a population of unknown, bipedal primates – most often known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot – that lives, allegedly, in the wilderness areas of North America.
Why do I think the encounter’s resulting footage is authentic?
I feel it brings forth many forms of evidence:
1. The event occurred in an area known for Native traditions of these forms of higher primate, locally called Oh-Mah.
2. There are contemporary sightings, from the 1950s, here.
3. In this specific incident, the animal was seen.
4. It was smelled.
5. It was sensed by the horses.
6. A trackway of at least ten prints was found, the tracks casted and preserved – via film and in a physical state – for others to analyze. Such examinations reveal flexible, animate feet for this cryptid, known locally as a Bigfoot (and referred to as Sasquatch farther north, in Canada).
7. And finally, the apparent animal was filmed, and analyses of this footage by Americans, Canadians, Russians, and others verify this was authentic, probable unknown living primate, and not an elaborate or casual hoax.
For me, all of the above combine into the virtual and visible vortex of the best pieces of evidence for the existence of Bigfoot.
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.