I used to live in the middle of the Klamath National Forest about 50 miles east of Bluff Creek, where the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film was shot. I believe Patty (that Bigfoot) was a real Bigfoot. I started researching Bigfoot in the Happy Camp area in 2005. It started because the Chamber of Commerce had a speaker come to town to tell us how to market our town. She suggested we pick one thing our town was known for, and focus on that. She suggested river rafting, but the Chamber of Commerce decided to market it as an artist's community and retreat area.
The president of the Chamber that year was a friend and neighbor. He came to my office across the street from his deli, and I told him it should be Bigfoot. We had Bigfoot statues, businesses named after Bigfoot including his deli - it was JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli - and every year we had a big festival called the Bigfoot Jamboree.
It was apparent to me that our town already had a theme. So, because I was an enterprising webdesigner, I bought two "Bigfoot" web domains, installed a blog, and started my research. I wanted to know why the town had so much Bigfoot stuff yet nobody shared stories of actual Bigfoot encounters.
Well, years later - I've heard plenty of stories, not only around our little town, but from all over the USA and world. My site is
http://bigfootsightings.org - I haven't added to it much in a long time, but it is still on the web. I left Happy Camp in 2013.
My neighbor, JavaBob, became an even more active and well-known Bigfoot researcher. He wrote a book about his Bigfoot research which included travel across the USA.
That said, I have never seen a Bigfoot. I believe I've heard one. I've met some people reporting sightings who lacked credibility, and some with a lot of credibility. It is because of the credible people that I can believe. There are a lot of scammers and hoaxers who try to set up Bigfoot researchers . . . as you can imagine.
