Bigfoot Encounters Radio Interview Transcript With Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin |
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November, 1967 |
"The following is a partial transcript of a radio interview
Now Roger, what took you to that place, and precisely where was it, and why did you go there? Roger: Well first of all, the reason that we were in this place was that I'd been filming a documentary on this thing for the past eight months or so and I'd been going to areas interviewing people that have seen these creatures, other than myself now, and we went to this particular area because a month before this they had found three different sets of tracks up in that area. W: Now come back to yourself, first of all you showed some routine film of your packhorses, didn't you? R: Right. W: Now what were you doing filming at that particular time on the pack horse trip? R: Well, we hadn't taken any and I thought right of that particular area there, before, and it was a beautiful area right in there, there was some of the .... W: You were just taking odd shots, then? R: We were just taking some shots of the scenery and of myself and Bob and .... W: Alright, just jump to what you first saw that made you excited. R: Well we rounded a bend in the road .... W: You were walking? R: No, we were riding .... W: Riding on horses. R: Riding on horses. W: Where was your camera? R: My camera was in my saddle bag, on the left hand side. W: And who was 'we'? R: Bob Gimlin and myself. W: Bob's right here, right? R: and Bob, right..... W: So you're riding on the horses, your camera's in the saddle bag, you came around the bend and then what happened? R: All of a sudden I caught something out of, glimpsed, out of the corner of my eye, and my horse immediately reared on me and I was, I tried to pull him down and at this instant after I seen the object to the side I wasn't able to see it again for a little bit. My horse fell with me, I probably pulled him half over, and as he got up I was able to get up and control him until I went around the other side and got the camera out of the saddle bag and I turned my horse loose, and was able to start shooting and I yelled. W: Now just a minute, you turned your horse - you got off your horse and turned it loose. R: Right. Well, my horse was no where-I was already off my horse, I was on the ground underneath him. W: Okay, you got your camera, turned your horse loose. R: Right. W: Then you looked up and what did you see? R: That's when I seen this.... this creature, about 120 feet away, and she was, at that point, had just turned around and was just going up the bank, this small bank over there and I started running and trying to get a shot of her and I yelled at Bob to cover me. W: Where was Bob? ....where were you then Bob, ....Bob Gimlin from Yakima? Bob: I was directly behind Roger, mounted on the horse that I was riding on and also when this creature ...uh we sighted this creature, my horse frightened kind of too but he was an older seasoned horse and I controlled him quite well because I stayed in the saddle and I did cover Roger the time he told me to cover him and I ... W: What do you mean 'cover him"? B: I took my rifle from the scabbard in the saddle and in the event that this creature would attack I thought that I could protect him somewhat. W: Did you have your eyes on the creature all the time? B: Most of the time, when I didn't have them on the ground where I had to trying to control the horse kind of, it was a little bit unlevel and .... W: What was the creature then doing, when you first saw it? Bob: When I first saw it it was standing, looking straight at me. W: Face on? Bob: Face on. W: Describe it to me, Bob. B: It was a large hairy creature with arms that hang down beside its, you know, far down on its sides, below its knees, and it was quite .. W: Do you agree with that? R: No, I think Bob's a little excited here, I don't believe they were below the knees, they were above the knees. W: But they were well down on the sides, weren't they? B: Way down, right. W: And I could see that on the film tonight, they were well down on the sides. B: And she was heavy, although I had no way of estimating her weight at that time, and only guessed at it since then, but she turned and she stood there for an instant then she turned and started up over this bar . W: Now when you looked at it, describe her physically to me. Was there any shred of clothing of any kind? B: No clothing at all on this creature, it was covered with hair only, except around the face and nose. The nose was bare and around the cheeks were bare. W: What kind of nose did it have? B: It had a broad, flat nose. W: Like a gorilla's nose with the open nostrils? B: No, no, not like that, the nostrils you could not see down. W: Would you agree with that, it had a human type nose? R: That's right. W: What about the lips? B: The lips I never really noticed that much at that particular time, when she was face on to me, because she just stood there for an instant and turned and walked away, started walking away. W: Any sound at all? B: No sound that I heard. W: Now what about the physical characteristics, her figure? B: She was kind of slumped, and very heavily through the...well her entire body was heavy, and .. W: Were the breasts visible? B: They were visible. W: Were they covered with hair? B: They were covered with hair. W: Now, the proportions of the body. Was it like a giant human? R: Yes, it seemed to be to me, more like a giant man except it had breasts. This is one thing that that her characteristics and the anthropologists and zoologists this evening brought this out, it seemed to me more like a huge man, she in other words, she didn't have a narrow waist and a big set of hips like we think of as a woman. W: And when it strode away from the camera it walked very much like a huge big man, didn't it? R: Well, it did, however I would make the estimate that, or the judgment I might say, that a female of this kind wouldn't look very femalish under the environment that you maybe would have to... . W: Bob how did you feel when you saw it, did you think someone was pulling a gag on you? B: No, not really, it was, it was surprising, and we talked about these things many times, and actually talked what we would do if we happened to see one .... W: Now before we finish the chase, you had your rifle out of the scabbard, what kind of rifle was it? B: Thirty ought six (30.06) rifle W: You can use a rifle, obviously B: Yes, I can, I've grown up .... W: It would be worth a hundred thousand dollars cash to you if you had raised that rifle and shot this creature. You must have known that. B: I don't believe I could do it. W: Even if you just wounded it. B: Well, I, like Roger said ... R: That would be a mess. W: A mess? R: A mess... Both Bob and I, we had agreed that we will not shoot one of these creatures, and if she would attack us, whether we would be protecting our lives, I think that we would have to fear for our own lives if we were to wound one and, and make a total mess out of something like .... W: Right, so finally, I'm back to Roger Patterson again,. when you got your camera steadied did you stand still and take the pictures I saw, or did you follow it on foot? R: I followed it on foot, because this was the only way that I had, I, I viewed the situation of course at the time and I could see her moving away from me and I knew Bob was there, and I thought if I'm ever going to get any pictures I'll have to do it now and I ran, as best I could, and trotted . W: How close did you come, at the closest? R: Well, I think we were closer when we first seen it than at any other time, don't you, Bob? B: No, I disagree with you there, I believe just immediately after we got across the creek we were probably closer to her at that time than we were when we first sighted her, because she had her back to us at that time and or at least I was closer, because I ran a little further up on the horse, I was moving pretty fast and I got him finally across the creek, so I believe at that time when I crossed the creek I was the closest I ever was to her and I believe it was about ninety feet at that time. W: Now, Roger, how far did you oh, by the way did you notice the colors of the palms of the hands there, were you close enough for that? R: Oh, I was, but I never noticed. W: Now, how far did you follow her? R: I really didn't follow her any much further than when my camera run out of film and I knew that it was out, and Bob got on his horse and went after her then, and from that point he seen her more than I did, I never seen her again . W: How far were you able to follow her? B: I watched her until she went up the road about 300 yards, and she went around a bend in the road and that was the last I seen of her. W: Now, after all this too dreadful excitement what did the pair of you do? Here you've, after all these hundreds of years of rumors and sightings and all the rest of it all up and down the Pacific Northwest and Michigan and Wisconsin and everywhere else, what did you do when you're standing there, you've recovered from the shock, with a camera full of film? I mean just tell me precisely what you did at that time. What did you say to each other? R: Well I, when Bob come back, I yelled to him and I said, "Bob, come back," because at this point my horse was I didn't know where and the pack horse was gone, my scabbard, and my rifle was in the scabbard, on the horse, and the tracks before, down in there that we had heard about, were in a set of three, and there was a bigger one there, and I thought that possibly there was a male in close in .... W: You were getting nervous. R: I was getting nervous. W: You were on foot there without the rifle. R: I was on foot without anything, and I yelled to Bob to come back and we would think the thing over and ... W: Was that just about the time you broke off the chase, you might say? B: Right, that was, when I last seen her go round the curve. And at that time I went back and proceeded to gather up Roger's horses, his horse that he was riding and the pack horse, and after .... W: Then what? B: After chasing them up and down the road for a little while and finally catching them, well we talked it over and I said I'd check around and see if maybe that I could find some tracks where she had come into this area and possibly sight the other one, so I took the camera while he gathered up his stuff and .. W: You scouted around for a while did you? Well when did you ..were you able to identify specifically the tracks you had made while you were following her? R: Yes, because immediately after we went across the creek and immediately after I called Bob back we looked at the tracks and they were, the tracks were there . W: These are the tracks we saw in the movie tonight. R: That's right. W: The tracks for which you have the plaster casts tonight. R: Right. W: How come you had plaster casts with you. uh plaster with you? R: We didn't have plaster, 'cause we went, we had to go back to the, to the truck and get plaster and come up and cast them. W: How long would that take you, to leave the scene, go back to the truck and come up again? R: We were at that point about two, what, maybe two miles from that area then? B: Not two miles, I'd say. By the road it was just about an even two miles, across the hill that way it was a little shorter but we went ... W: Now, okay, so you then gave up and you took the plaster tracks. How deep were these tracks by the way, in inches? Inch and a quarter or .... B: Some of them were down as far as three and a half inches deep into the softer soil. These particular ones we took here were, weren't quite so deep because they were flatter tracks. W: Alright now, many of the zoologists that were people you consulted, have they given you any idea of the weight of this creature? The height or the weight? B: They did on the height, measuring by the soles of those feet, in the picture, and they estimated the height to be approximately six foot, nine inches. W: What was the length of the stride? R: Just pardon me, this was estimated on a fourteen and a half inch, excuse me a fourteen inch track and these tracks were fourteen and a half inches, which would, would add quite a considerable bit W: What was the stride cadence? I believe that's the proper technical description. R: She averaged a forty-one inch stride, somewhere thereabouts. She was taking, she took up to a forty-six inch stride. W: So that was three feet five to twelve threes are thirty-six, twelve fours are forty-eight, three feet five to three feet ten. R: Yes. W: My goodness gracious me. Of course this....There must be lots of them around there, I mean, whatever were they doing down by the creek? R: Well there were fish in this creek, we didn't fish it but we seen them jumping and I ... I can only surmise what, she was either drinking or possibly trying to catch a fish in the creek. W: Any sign of feces as a result of that, feces around, any other tracks of the animal? R: No, there was no, no, no droppings at all. W: That's the word I was looking for. Well now what? You going to sell this film to the highest bidder? R: Well, we're just having to, we haven't made any definite plans but I would imagine that we will, will in future probably sell it. W: How can you afford to take all this time off to go down, oh no, well first of all, how long have you been looking for sasquatch, live sasquatch? R: Well, off and on, for about seven and a half years, but the last four years I've made much more of an effort than any other time. W: You're financially independent? R: Well, somewhat. W: In other words you can go out for this kind of caper without suffering too much financially. R: Well, it's been tough. W: Why has nobody ever found any bones of these sasquatch, down in that Bigfoot country where they have been reported so many times? R: Well, not only down in that country but there's been tracks all over the Northwest and Canada, as you well know in Canada, but they seem, I think anyway this maybe doesn't agree with all the fellows that's been involved in this . but they seem to dwell primarily in the rainforest or they can get to the rainforest fairly easy, and bones in this type of climate, in the rainforest climate, don't last very long. W: Do you realize, Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson, that people are going to say you're total nuts? You know that, don't you? You're going to be held up to ridicule by some people. R: Well, I've taken quite a bit of this in the past and it doesn't surprise me. I know they're there, and I know that we're going to get one in the next possibly five to ten years or maybe sooner and when we do I think there's going to have to be many people and also scientists maybe eat a little crow. W: You said they are vegetarians, eh? R: I don't think that they're solely vegetarians. W: Do you think they go for fish, like bears go for fish? R: I think that they, they will eat what they have to, to keep alive and in some areas if they can get enough vegetation they .... Tape ends there. Portions of this website are reprinted and sometimes edited to fit the standards of this website |