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59 Years Ago Today at Bluff Creek: The Patterson-Gimlin Film Arrives in 4K, a Restoration and a Documentary

On Oct. 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a figure crossing a creek bed in Northern California. On the 59th anniversary, the footage is out in a new 4K scan from the original 16 mm reel, a separate restoration lands on Vimeo, and 'Capturing Bigfoot' opens on Prime Video.

BLUFF CREEK, Calif. Updated By Dead of Night Dispatch

Location Bluff Creek, Northern California (the 1967 film)

Illustration: a reel of old film threaded through the bright gate of a vintage film machine in a dark room, a screen behind it showing an autumn creek bed

BLUFF CREEK, Calif. (Oct. 20, 1967 / Oct. 20, 2026): Fifty-nine years ago today, two riders from Washington’s Yakima Valley came around a bend in a creek bed deep in the Northern California woods. Roger Patterson had a 16 mm movie camera. Bob Gimlin was beside him. And, they said, something tall and covered in dark hair was walking away from them across the gravel.

VideoOfficial 4K Scan of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot Film | Capturing BigfootCapturing Bigfoot (@CapturingBigfoot), on YouTube, . Watch on YouTubeThe documentary team's scan, made from the original 16 mm film in the Patterson family collection. Select 4K in the player settings for full resolution.

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Where it started

The original social media post

  1. u/MeButNotReal

    The official capturing bigfoot channel just put this out.

    The first post of the 4K scan on r/bigfoot, about an hour after the video went up.

    137 points · 121 comments as of Oct 17, 2026

    View original on Reddit

    From the conversation

    See the full thread on Reddit →

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It turned to look back. Then it was gone into the trees.

The roughly one minute of film Patterson shot that day became the most analyzed, argued-over and imitated footage in the history of Bigfoot. And today, on its anniversary, more people can see it more clearly than ever before, at the same moment a new documentary asks whether it was ever what it seemed.

What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

  • The 4K scan. On Oct. 16, the team behind the documentary Capturing Bigfoot posted a new 4K scan of the film to YouTube. According to BroadwayWorld, it was made directly from the original 16 mm film in the Patterson family collection. BroadwayWorld calls it “the highest-quality version yet to exist,” and says it will replace the VHS-era transfer the family has long used when licensing the footage.
  • “Without edit.” The video’s description, as quoted on r/bigfoot by the user who shared it, says the reel is presented “without edit” and that “No enhancements, AI or otherwise, have been made to this footage.”
  • The documentary. Capturing Bigfoot, directed by Marq Evans, opens today in theaters and exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. and Canada, according to BroadwayWorld and the film’s website. Its official synopsis: “Fifty-nine years later, a reel of 16mm film discovered in a safe changes everything.”
  • The restoration. Also due today, separately, is Tulsa film restoration specialist Todd Gatewood’s restoration, released on Vimeo inside his documentary Bigfoot Revealed: The Unseen Patterson-Gimlin Film, News On 6 reported in September. Gatewood told the station his goal was “historically preserving what was actually recorded to museum-quality standards.”
  • The tour. The documentary’s website lists screenings with question-and-answer sessions through the end of October, including select Alamo Drafthouse theaters today, the Majestic Theater in the Yakima area on Oct. 24, and the Roxy in Bremerton, Washington, on Oct. 30. Screenings before today, the site said, came with phone checks and a no-recording rule “to protect the integrity of never-before-seen footage.”

What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

As we reported on Oct. 7, Capturing Bigfoot is built around a second reel: about 40 seconds of 16 mm film its director says dates from 1966, a year before Bluff Creek, found in a locked safe that belonged to the late father of an Olympic College film instructor. The documentary presents it as a rehearsal. Patterson’s son and widow have described the 1967 film as a hoax. Bob Heironimus has said since 2004 that he wore the suit. Gimlin has always denied any hoax. And no independent analysis of the 1966 reel has been made public. Our full Oct. 7 report lays out what each side says.

Today, audiences can judge the new reel for themselves. The famous one, they can now study in 4K.

What readers said

On r/bigfoot, the scan didn’t settle anything, but it did impress. “Ok, she moves way faster than expected and if it’s a suit that’s more impressive,” wrote u/boardjock42, using the nickname longtime fans have given the figure, Patty.

u/IcedOutElBarto gave credit either way: “If it does turn out to be fake I gotta say the footage is put together quite artfully. The way the creature comes into frame as the cameraman scrambles to get his shot, the look back and turn away as it meanders off into the woods…”

Others resented the release model. “If you put evidence behind a paywall, you don’t want people to know the truth. You want money,” wrote u/EntinthetentRTHP.

Fifty-nine years after two riders came into that creek bed, the argument over what they filmed is as alive as ever. Today it gets a sharper picture and a new chapter. Whether that chapter ends it, or just starts another 59 years of arguing, is up to the people watching.

Update, October 24, 2026

Capturing Bigfoot is now out on Prime Video, and the two sides have said their piece.

  • The film’s case. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, director Marq Evans describes being brought film by a woman who worked at Olympic College, footage that had been kept in her father’s safe. The Times reports it is footage Roger Patterson shot in 1966 showing a different-looking Bigfoot. In the documentary, Patterson’s son, Clint, and his widow, Patricia, say on camera that the 1967 film was a hoax.
  • In their words. “I was tired of people asking me if it’s real,” Clint Patterson told the Times. Evans told the paper: “My intent is to make an honest and authentic film.”
  • The pushback. Longtime Patterson-Gimlin film researcher Bill Munns has examined the 1966 clip, according to a podcast summary from Paranormal World Productions. He identifies it as Kodachrome II camera original film carrying a 1966 manufacture date code, likely shot on a Kodak K-100 camera, but says the date code doesn’t establish when it was filmed. His conclusion is that the clip is “an after-the-fact replica” rather than a rehearsal before the 1967 film, pointing in part to what he describes as unnaturally white feet.

The documentary and Munns are looking at the same reel and reaching opposite conclusions. We haven’t seen the 1966 footage ourselves.

Sources for this update: the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 20, 2026) and Paranormal World Productions.

Sources

  1. Photos: CAPTURING BIGFOOT Filmmakers Release 4K Scan of Patterson-Gimlin Footage · BroadwayWorld Rachel Stone, Oct. 16, 2026. Source of the scan details and release plan.
  2. Capturing Bigfoot sightings (screening tour) · Capturing Bigfoot (official site) Release and screening schedule, read Oct. 17, 2026.
  3. Tulsa filmmaker restores 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film · News On 6 Sept. 12, 2026. Source of the Gatewood restoration details.
  4. Official 4K Scan of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot Film | Capturing Bigfoot · Capturing Bigfoot, on YouTube Posted Oct. 16, 2026.
  5. Was Bigfoot a hoax? Through evidence and testimonials, 'Capturing Bigfoot' argues yes · Los Angeles Times By Stuart Miller, Oct. 20, 2026. Interview with Marq Evans and Clint Patterson.
  6. PG Film Hoax? Bill Munns on Capturing Bigfoot · Paranormal World Productions Podcast episode summary. Film researcher Bill Munns on the documentary's 1966 reel.