A new documentary claims a reel of 16mm film, locked in a safe for decades, changes what we know about the most famous creature footage ever shot.
Capturing Bigfoot comes from director Marq Evans, and the full trailer just dropped ahead of its October 20 release. That date is no accident. It is National Bigfoot Day, and it lines up with the anniversary of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, the 59-second clip that gave us “Patty” and launched decades of arguments about the legend of Bigfoot.
What the Film Says It Found
According to Evans, the footage was handed to him in 2022 after sitting in a safe for decades. Once it was developed, he found a clip of about 40 seconds showing a figure walking into the woods in a spot that looks a lot like the 1967 location. Evans says markings on the film show it was shot in 1966, roughly a year before Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin said they filmed their creature. The figure also looks a bit slimmer than the one in the famous clip. Evans told People the footage shows the 1967 film was an “incredible hoax.”
The documentary leans hard on the people who were there. Evans interviewed Bob Gimlin, Bob Heironimus, who has long claimed he wore the suit but has been inconsistent over the years, and researchers Jeff Meldrum, Greg Long, and Bill Munns. Patterson’s son Clint and widow Patricia also appear. Clint says he learned from his mother about ten years before he spoke with Evans that the sighting was a hoax. The official announcement says the discovery “blows the legend wide open.”
How to Watch It
The film opens October 20 in New York and Los Angeles, and it will be available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the United States and Canada the same day. After a sold-out premiere at SXSW in March, the filmmakers held it back from other festivals to protect the new footage. Theater screenings reportedly will not allow recording devices, and a companion podcast is launching on YouTube with extended interviews.
What to Make of It
It is worth keeping a level head here. Until now, nobody had been able to prove the 1967 film was staged, and the conclusions in this documentary come from the filmmakers themselves. A clip from a different reel is interesting, but defenders of the original footage have argued for decades that the creature’s walk and body shape are hard to fake, and a rehearsal-style clip does not automatically settle that. We have not seen the full film yet, so we are passing along what has been reported, not a verdict.
Whether this ends the debate or just adds a new chapter, the timing is perfect for a creature that has never quite gone away. Seen something unexplained? Email Reports@ParaRational.com
