Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman defends the (in)famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage–the one of the big ape walking through a clearing in the forest that you’ve seen a million times–as its 40th anniversary approaches next month. Actually, his list of points in its favor is more a defense of the entire sighting than just the film itself, which has me a bit puzzled since if the film is fake, we can assume that accounts of the creature’s effect on the expedition’s horses or its aroma are also bogus. This is all interesting to me because Coleman is extremely hostile to pranks and forgeries, yet still feels that this frequently analyzed, frequently alleged-to-be-phony-by-John-Landis film is the real deal. Then again, since it’s one of the few remaining non-debunked blockbuster bits of evidence for a major cryptid out there (Surgeon’s Photograph, anyone?), its importance to the field, and therefore to the field’s practitioners, may have an effect on analyses thereof.
