During a pivotal moment of the 2026 documentary Capturing Bigfoot, Clint Patterson utters the words “this is gonna change everything.”

Perhaps second only to the Zapruder film (that captured the assassination of John F. Kennedy), no film footage has been studied, analyzed, and scrutinized more closely than the Patternson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage. Filmed in 1967, the 60 seconds of footage captures the moment Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin literally crossed paths with the elusive sasquatch.

The clip isn’t just footage of Bigfoot — it’s THE footage of Bigfoot. Frame 352, the one seen above, is the frame that appears on millions of Bigfoot t-shirts, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs. It Those 60 seconds are ground zero for the entire Bigfoot culture. The roots of every Bigfoot movie, every Bigfoot conference, and every Bigfoot reality show can be traced back to this footage. In Capturing Bigfoot we meet multiple people including a professor of anthropology, a lifelong Bigfoot hunter, and a special effects artist, all of whom base their reputation on the fact that the Patterson-Gimlin footage is genuine. After giving them plenty of rope with which to hang themselves, each one is asked the same question:

“What would it take to convince you the Patterson-Gimlin footage was a hoax?”

More than a hit piece, Chasing Bigfoot dives into the famous footage. As the origins of the footage are traced we learn not just who made the footage, but all the people who did (and didn’t) profit from it. Literally millions of dollars were made from theater showings of the footage, and the people who got rich are not always the people you would expect.

One of the problems with the authenticity of the film is that it has always been difficult to know who has been telling the truth and who is lying. While Roger Patterson passed away decades ago, his wife swears the footage is real while his son, Clint, claims to know the truth. Bob Gimlin, who was standing next to Patterson that day, swears the footage is real. And then there’s Bob Heironimus, a quack who for years to have been the man inside the suit (even though the Bigfoot captured on film was female). For years people have wondered if Gimlin pulled one over on Patterson, if Patterson was in on a hoax and Gimlin was not, if both of them were in on it, or if someone managed to fool them both.

Or, you know, the footage was real.

About two-thirds through the film, a “smoking gun” of sorts is producted. I won’t spoil exactly what it is, but… it’s pretty damning. One by one, the smoking gun is shown to the believers — the anthropologist, the life-long Bigfoot hunter — and watch their belief system crumble in front of us on screen. Say what you will about the existence of Bigfoot, but watching a man who has spent his entire adult life in the woods based on the Patternson-Gimlin footage having the rug pulled out from under him is sad.

Things escalate as the smoking gun is revealed to all the other players, from the ones who swore it was a hoax to the ones who swore it was real. The old adage “follow the money” holds true here.

And that brings me back to Clint Patterson’s comment that “this is gonna change everything,” because in the end, I don’t think it will. Parallels are drawn between the story of Bigfoot and modern society, in which science and facts are often glossed over. At least one expert, after being confronted with the smoking gun, says it doesn’t change his opinion.

Despite the fact the Alien Autopsy footage turned out to be fake, people still visit the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. (I’ve been there.) And despite the Surgeon’s photo of the Loch Ness Monster turning out to be a wooden carving attached to the top of a toy submarine, millions of people have visited Loch Ness in hopes of catching a glimpse of Nessie. And while, yes, this documentary will break some people’s hearts, in the end the machinery will keep on turning. There will still be Bigfoot festivals, coffee mugs, and bumper stickers. Bigfoot is as business-savvy as he is elusive.