hoax information from wikipedia

Hoax allegations
[edit] Patterson and/or Gimlin

Patterson and Gimlin claimed that they sought various experts to examine the film. Patterson claimed to have screened the film for unnamed technicians "in the special effects department at Universal Studios in Hollywood ... Their conclusion was: 'We could try (faking it), but we would have to create a completely new system of artificial muscles and find an actor who could be trained to walk like that. It might be done, but we would have to say that it would be almost impossible.'"[46] However, critics[who?] have disputed the accuracy of this claim.

Anthropologist David Daegling writes that the "more cynical skeptics" see Patterson's luck as "more than a little suspicious: He sets out to make a Bigfoot documentary, then almost literally stumbles across a Bigfoot." Daegling, however, offers the benefit of the doubt, noting that Patterson's reasoning is sound: In seeking something elusive, he went to where it had been reported.[47] Bluff Creek was also the site of well-known Bigfoot hoaxer Bill Wallace. In Roger Patterson's book, he mentions meeting with Wallace twice.

Krantz thought Patterson might have perpetrated such a hoax, given the opportunity and resources, but he also argued that Patterson had "nowhere near the knowledge or facilities to do so—nor for that matter, did anyone else ... When I talked about some of the more technical details of biomechanics, he (Patterson) showed the familiar blank look of a student who had lost the drift of the explanation, but was still trying hard to pay attention. Yet he must have known all these details to create a hoax. For instance, he could see the anterior position of the front of the shin, but how that related to foot leverage was quite beyond him".

Similarly, Daegling writes that "Most acquaintances of Patterson volunteered that neither he nor Gimlin were clever enough to put something that detailed together"[27]
[edit] Philip Morris

In 2002, Philip Morris of Morris Costumes (a North Carolina-based company offering costumes, props and stage products) claimed that he made a gorilla costume that was used in the Patterson film. Morris says he discussed his role in the hoax privately in the 1980s but first admitted it publicly on August 16, 2002, on Charlotte, North Carolina, radio station WBT-AM.[48] Morris claims he was reluctant to expose the hoax earlier for fear of harming his business: giving away a performer's secrets, he said, would be widely regarded as disreputable.[49]

Morris said that he sold an ape suit to Patterson via mail-order in 1967, thinking it was going to be used in what Patterson described as a "prank"[50] (ordinarily the gorilla suits he sold were used for a popular side-show routine that depicted an attractive woman changing into a gorilla.) After the initial sale, Morris said that Patterson telephoned him asking how to make the "shoulders more massive"[51] and the "arms longer."[52] Morris says he suggested that whoever wore the suit should wear wide football-type shoulder pads and hold sticks in his hands within the suit. His assertion was also printed in the Charlotte Observer.[53]

As for the creature's walk, Morris said:

The Bigfoot researchers say that no human can walk that way in the film. Oh, yes they can! When you're wearing long clown's feet, you can't place the ball of your foot down first. You have to put your foot down flat. Otherwise, you'll stumble. Another thing, when you put on the gorilla head, you can only turn your head maybe a quarter of the way. And to look behind you, you've got to turn your head and your shoulders and your hips. Plus, the shoulder pads in the suit are in the way of the jaw. That's why the Bigfoot turns and looks the way he does in the film. He has to twist his entire upper body.[54]

Morris' wife and business partner Amy had vouched for her husband and claims to have helped frame the suit.[54] Morris offered no evidence apart from testimony to support his account.
[edit] Bob Heironimus

Bob Heironimus claims to have been the figure depicted in the Patterson film, and his allegations are detailed in Long's book. Heironimus was a tall (6' 2), muscular Yakima, Washington native, age 26, when he says Patterson offered him $1000 to wear an ape suit for a Bigfoot film. Bob Gimlin was on Bob Heironimus's horse, Chico, when the PGF was being filmed. Herionimus is one of numerous people who are claimed to be visible in an unreleased second reel of the film. It is unclear which if any of these claims is authentic.[citation needed]

Eventually Long uncovered testimony that corroborates Heironimus's claims: Russ Bohannon, a longtime friend, says that Heironimus revealed the hoax privately in 1968 or 1969.[55] Heironimus says he did not publicly discuss his role in the hoax because he hoped to be repaid eventually and was afraid of being convicted of fraud had he confessed. After speaking with his lawyer he was told that since he had not been paid for his involvement in the hoax that he could not be held accountable. In separate incidents, Bernard Hammermeister and Heironimus's relatives (mother Opal and nephew John Miller) claim to have seen an ape suit in Heironimus' car. The relatives say they saw the suit two days after the film was shot.[56] No date was given by Long for Hammermeister's observation, but it apparently came well after the relatives' observation, as implied by the word "still" in the justification Heironimus gave Hammermeister for requesting his silence: "There was still supposed to be a payola on this thing, and he didn't have it."[57]

Long argues that the suit Morris says he sold to Patterson was the same suit Heironimus claims to have worn in the Patterson film. However, Long quotes Heironimus and Morris describing ape suits that are in many respects quite different from one another; Long speculates that Patterson modified the costume, and offers colloborative evidence and testimony to support this idea. Among the notable differences are:

* Heironimus says he was told by his brother Howard that Patterson claimed he manufactured the suit from a "real dark brown" horse hide.[58]
* Morris reports that the suit was a rather expensive ($450) dark brown model with fur made of Dynel, a synthetic material. Long writes that Morris "used Dynel solely in the sixties--and was using brown Dynel in 1967".[59]
* Heironimus described the suit as having no metal pieces and an upper "torso part" that he donned "like putting on a T-shirt."[60] At Bluff Creek he put on "the top."[61] Asked about the "bottom portion," he guessed it was cinched with a drawstring.
* Morris made a one-piece union suit with a metal zipper up the back, and into which one stepped.[62]
* Heironimus described the suit as having hands and feet that were attached to the arms and legs.
* Morris made a suit whose hands and feet were separate pieces. Long speculates that Patterson riveted or glued these parts to the suit, but offers no evidence to support this idea.

Heironimus' statements about the multiple pieces and upper torso part is promoted by "Bigfoot-Sewing it Up" a video study of M. K. Davis' enhancement about how the costume is put together. He made the comment that he wore football shoulder pads which, according to Heironimus, explains why the shoulders and arms appear to be out of proportion to the rest of the body. The zipper of the suit was in front and could not have been seen from the back. The position of the zipper would raise a question about Morris' participation or his recollection.

Some skeptics say that Heironimus' arms are too short to match that of a bigfoot and that he was about a few inches shorter than the creature on the film but "Bigfoot-Sewing it Up" explains that the relative position of the elbows and hips are those of a human. Some have speculated that bigfoot appeared to be about six foot seven and Heironimus was only six foot two. Heronimous was not as bulky as the creature but a suit would prohibit a reasonable comparison. It should be noted however that one person involved in the PGF denies Heironumus was in any way involved with the filming of the PGF.[63]
[edit] Ray Wallace

After the death of Ray Wallace in 2002, following a request by Loren Coleman to Seattle Times reporter Bob Young to investigate, the family of Wallace went public with claims that he had started the Bigfoot phenomenon with fake footprints (made from a wooden foot-shaped cutout) left in Californian sites in 1958. In addition, David Daegling stated that Wallace "had a degree of involvement" with the Patterson-Gimlin film, and that this gave grounds for suspicion of it.[64]

The evidence for this involvement is Wallace's alleged statement, "I felt sorry for Roger Patterson. He told me he had cancer of the lymph glands and he was desperately broke and he wanted to try to get something where he could have a little income. Well, he went down there exactly where I told him. I told him, 'You go down there and hang around on that bank. Stay up there and watch that spot.'"

Coleman has written that Patterson was an early Bigfoot investigator, and that it was only natural that he sought out and interviewed older Bigfoot event principals, which included Wallace, because of the 1958 Bluff Creek incidents. Coleman has asserted that Wallace had nothing to do with Patterson's footage in 1967, and has argued in an analysis of the media treatment of the death of Wallace that the international media inappropriately confused the Wallace films of the 1970s with the Patterson-Gimlin 1967 film.[65]

Dr. Meldrum has written extensively about Wallace, his allegations (continued by his family after his death), and the significant problems with them in his book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.[66]