Capturing Bigfoot

Capturing Bigfoot is a 2026 American documentary film directed by Marq Evans. The film reports new information about the often-cited 1967 film clip purported to show a walking Bigfoot, known as the Patterson–Gimlin film, and the men who filmed it, Roger Patterson and Robert "Bob" Gimlin. Capturing Bigfoot is based on new and revealing film footage given to director Marq Evans in 2024 which had been locked away in a safe for decades as well as interviews with Cliff Patterson and now 80-year-old men associated with the 1967 film.

After the death of her father, Norm Johnson, Olympic College film instructor Teresa Brooks reached out to filmmaker and colleague Marq Evans with a reel of 16 mm film she had found in a locked safe of her father's. Norm Johnson had worked in a Boeing film lab during the years that the Patterson–Gimlin film was made and was connected to Patterson and Gimlin through Johnson's brother Dave.^[2] Evans developed the film and discovered a 40-second clip that was created in 1966, a year before the Patterson–Gimlin film was shot, which shows a dress rehearsal of a skinnier Bigfoot walking through a wooded area similar to the later film. Evans realized what he was looking at and approached Cliff Patterson, son of Roger Patterson and asked if he had any insight into the rehearsal footage. Evans was surprised to discover that the son was willing to talk but found that he had been contemplating a tell-all book when he was approached. Cliff Patterson's father had died when he was twelve of Hodgkin lymphoma and he had lied to his son about the footage. Cliff had learned from his mother about ten years prior that the Bigfoot sighting was a hoax, which weighed on the younger Patterson. He wanted to come clean to the public, but his mother, upset about the loss of income, disowned her son.^[3][2][4]

Evans leaned on interviews with Yakima, Washington residents who had known the filmmakers in that era, "including 80-something-year-old Bob Heironimus, who confessed to being the individual wearing the fake Bigfoot suit in the film."^[2] He also interviewed anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum, who "detects real mammalian musculature" in the film's subject.^[1]

Matt Moneymaker, from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), who, when informed that new footage was to be released showing the Patterson-Gimlin film as a hoax, said "'(T)his sort of chicanery has been going on since at least the '90s, ... The film itself debunks any attempts to debunk it.'"^[3]

The documentary centers on the personalities of Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin who claimed in 1967 to have 59 seconds of footage showing a Bigfoot walking though a wooded area of northern California. Through interviews, Evans "creates rounded profiles of the good ol' boys at the heart of the story, none of whom seem completely trustworthy." Telling a fuller picture of who Roger Patterson was, Evans leans on Cliff Patterson whose relationship with his father was considered "hero worship" but the son also called him a "liar". The end of Capturing Bigfoot Evans shows the recently found footage of Patterson and Gimlin rehearsing.^[3][2][4]

• Teresa Brooks – Instructor at Olympic College who found film owned by her father Norm Johnson, who was connected to Patterson and Gimlin
• Sandy Collier
• Bob Gimlin – Gimlin of Patterson–Gimlin film
• Bob Heironimus – "Chico" claims to have been person wearing the Bigfoot suit in the film
• Greg Long – Patterson-Gimlin film skeptic
• Larry Lund
• Jeffrey Meldrum – American anthropologist and academic
• Bill Munns
• Clint Patterson – Son of Roger Patterson from Patterson–Gimlin film
• Vaile Thompson

The documentary was released March 12, 2026 at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music and film festival in Austin, Texas.^[2][3][1]

According to folklorist Ben Radford the burden of proof has never existed with the scientist skepticism community, but on those that claim Bigfoot is real. Capturing Bigfoot confirms, he notes, that "It was, indeed, a hoax—just as skeptics have said for decades. ... adds a bombshell revelation: A confession." The 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film was filmed while they were searching for Bigfoot, and making a documentary of that search. The pre-footage released in Capturing Bigfoot shows planning "and documentaries shouldn't have rehearsals." Radford concludes that he hasn't yet watched the film and is curious what the reaction will be on the true believers. Will they "double down, accusing Clint Patterson of being a paid shill, a patsy of Big(foot) Skepticism—as if sober skepticism, instead of sensational mystery mongering, is the proven path to profit?"^[5]

People journalist Johnny Dodd calls Capturing Bigfoot a "groundbreaking documentary".^[2]

Richard Whittaker, The Austin Chronicle Culture Desk editor, writes that Evans didn't intend to make a documentary about whether or not Bigfoot exists, but to tell the story of the men around the Patterson–Gimlin film though the "small-town feud between a bunch of guys in their 80s, most of whom feel ill-served by or cut out of its history and profits."^[4]

John Jurgensen, writing for The Wall Street Journal, says that the documentary tells the story of Roger Patterson and his cohorts that felt slighted for their lack of profits. (Note that the documentary paid the $30,000 licensing fee for use of the 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film). And of the betrayal of the son who hero-worshiped his father, but whose mother in later years first confessed the hoax, then disowned him when she learned he was planning on writing a book exposing the truth. And further, "at a time when internet rumors, misinformation bots and AI-powered deception have made viral conspiracies a daily scourge, the shaky film clip seems like a prequel to the confusion that has engulfed our era and eroded confidence in the very idea of truth."^[3]