"The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates" (an excerpt) By Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe

While riding in the Six Rivers National Forest early one afternoon, Roger Patterson, an expert rodeo rider, and Robert Gimlin, a part–Native American outdoorsman, rounded a bend and spotted a large up-right creature on one of the creek's sandbars. The dark, full-figured creature was covered with short hair (even on its large pendulous breasts) and possessed a sagittal crest. This bony ridge on top of the head, which supports heavy jaw muscles, has only been found, in primates, on certain fossil hominoids (especially Paranthropus) and among a few male modern apes, baboons, and other large

You can purchase the book "The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates" by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe here.

Patterson's small Welsh pony smelled the creature and reared, bringing both pony and rider to the ground. But Patterson got up, grabbed his camera from the saddlebag, and while running toward the creature, took 24 feet of color film with the rented 16mm handheld Kodak movie camera. The creature walked steadily away into the forest, turning its head once toward the camera. Gimlin, meanwhile, remained on his horse, a 30.06 rifle in hand, fearing his friend might be attacked. But the Bigfoot soon disappeared into the woods. The men then tracked it for three miles, but lost it in the heavy undergrowth. Immediately after the filming and in the days that followed, casts of the tracks were taken from the many footprints—each 145 inches long by 6 inches wide—the creature had left in the sandy blue-gray clay soil.

Similar footprints found in this area over the years had drawn the two men from Yakima, Washington, to search the area and now they had 952 frames of color film to support the existence of this 6- to 7-foot-tall, 500- to 700-pound creature. While scientists who have examined this footage remain divided on its authenticity to date—claims about men-in-suits from Hollywood notwithstanding—no firm evidence has surfaced to cast serious doubts on the film or the events that produced it. In particular, the apparent movement of the creature's muscles beneath its hair argues strongly against a hoax.

Native Americans, First Nation Canadians, and Alaskan Inuits all have legends going back centuries of giant hairy men and women like the one seen in this film (see book cover).

You can purchase the book "The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates" by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe here.