Bob Gimlin speaks out about Bigfoot footage

It was 1967 and having completed two tours in the Korean War, Gimlin was living near the Yakima Reservation in Washington with his second wife, Judy.

The then-35-year-old was driving a truck, roofing and taming wild horses in order to make a living when his old rodeo friend, Roger Patterson, spoke to him at a service station.

“He said, ‘Let me show you something’,” Gimlin toldOutside Online.

“He went over to the truck and brought out a plaster cast of a big foot.”

Obviously excited by the prospect, Patterson asked Gimlin if he would be interested in joining him on a horseback expedition in search of Bigfoot.

“I said, ‘Roger, I just don’t have time’.”

In the years that followed, Patterson and Gimlin became close, riding horses through Washington’s back-country.

During these rides, Patterson would continue to try and lure Gimlin into the search for Bigfoot, with real-life recorded testimonies of encounters and related books.

This constant bombardment of material would eventually spike Gimlin’s attention, with the cowboy self-publishing a book in 1966 called Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?

The following year Patterson told Gimlin of a road construction crew claiming to have spotted tracks deep in the Six Rivers National Forest.

Despite his hesitations, Gimlin finally decided to try and track down the mythical creature, so he and Patterson drove to Northern California.

“I wanted to see these footprints that these people talked about,” he said.

The **** would ultimately pay off with the duo capturing the infamous footage of Bigfoot during that trip, yet Gimlin wishes he had never agreed to partake in the expedition.

“It ruined me,” he said.