Now it can be told: Bigfoot isn’t real.
So says Bob Heironimus, a retired Pepsi bottler from Yakima, who said he donned a gorilla costume and appeared in the famous grainy film clip that helped fuel the Bigfoot craze in 1967 and is studied by Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti investigators to this day.
"It’s time people knew it was a hoax," Heironimus said. "It’s time to let this thing go. I’ve been burdened with this for 36 years, seeing the film clip on TV numerous times. Somebody’s making lots of money off this, except for me. But that’s not the issue — the issue is that it’s time to finally let people know the truth."
Heironimus, 63, makes his full "confession," as he calls it, in a just-published book by paranormal investigator Greg Long, "The Making of Bigfoot." Long spent four years investigating the 60-second film clip and the people behind it.
He traces the shaggy Bigfoot costume to a North Carolina gorilla suit specialist, Philip Morris, who says he sold it for $435 to an amateur documentary maker named Roger Patterson (who died in 1972). The hoax was staged near Bluff Creek in Northern California, according to Heironimus.
"Patterson was the cameraman," Long said. "They made a gentleman’s agreement that Bob would get in the suit and walk in front of the camera for $1,000."
But, Heironimus said, "I was never paid a dime for that, no sir," and added, "Sure I want to make some money. I feel that after 36 years I should get some of it."
Tom Malone, a lawyer in Minneapolis, called Friday on behalf of Bob Gimlin, associate of the now-dead Bigfoot filmmaker. "I’m authorized to tell you that nobody wore a gorilla suit or monkey suit and that Mr. Gimlin’s position is that it’s absolutely false and untrue."
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