The entire lore of bigfoot appears to be built upon legend, imagination, and the blinding effects of an over-eager faith. Before any "believers" scoff at this statement... hear me out.
People who believe in bigfoot WANT to believe that bigfoot exists, and this desire colors their perceptions... as well as the questions they ask or don't ask.
Consider this: What are the sheer odds that the single greatest evidence for bigfoot's existence should happen to be captured by two guys who DELIBERATELY went looking to find bigfoot? Yet of the hundreds of thousands of people who wander into the woods on camping trips, armed with video recorders in many cases, no other compelling footage has been captured. Patterson wanted to find a bigfoot, and find one he did... but isn't it therefore reasonable to assume there is a VERY good chance he did fake the discovery? Think how many teams and teams of people have gone looking since, with far more sophisticated equipment, and found nothing.
Consider this: Bigfoot "experts" persistently claim the Patterson film is "authenticated" by their inability to explain or recreate the effect by any known method. Yet the vast majority of Hollywood make-up artists who have seen the film INSTANTLY assume it is just a man in a suit, and find nothing "spectacular" about the footage at all. No one has ever managed to confirm the unsubstantiated claim that famed make-up artist John Chambers ("Planet of the Apes" etc.) had a hand in creating the suit, but even if Chambers had nothing to do with it, doesn't it seem odd that all the people who work in the BUSINESS of creating ape-like illusions think that the footage looks decidedly artificial?
Consider this: Every time any footage of an unexplained (and conveniently blurry) shape shows up on film, or an unusual howl is recorded in the woods, it becomes "evidence" to support the existence of bigfoot UNTIL it is discredited (which often happens). But isn't this a backwards logic? Sort of like assuming a person is guilty until proven innocent? Instead of letting the evidence guide investigators to the conclusions, bigfoot devotees tend to force the evidence to fit a conclusion they have already predetermined(that bigfoot DOES exist), and then make it encumbent upon OTHERS to "debunk" their "proof." Any properly trained scientist and any "expert" worth the paper his certification is printed on will instantly recognize this to be an awfully backwards approach to getting at the truth.
Consider this: Why is it that the myth/lore/evidence/nature of sightings/etc. surrounding the whole bigfoot issue is SO INCREDIBLY SIMILAR to other famous myths like the Loch Ness monster and others? Isn't it strange that if the Loch Ness monster, Wendigo, Bigfoot, aliens, UFOs, crop circles, etc. (there are literally hundreds of legends like this... all with accompanying "evidence") are ALWAYS "substantiated" by shaky, blurry video footage, conflicting reports, and rumors of conspiracies and cover-ups designed to hide "the truth"?
Consider this: How can the size, stride, gait, flexibility, musculature, movement, articulation, etc. of the bigfoot be authenticated or rejected without proper consideration as to how these factors might be recreated artificially? In most cases, the "logic" of these claims is actually quite circular and self-negating. For example, the argument goes something like this... "It must be a real bigfoot in the Patterson video because no human can move that smoothly, swiftly, and gracefully while carrying so much bulk and weight around." Well, this kind of argument depends upon making assumptions about what a human can and cannot do WITHOUT considering how the apparatus of a cleverly-contrived suit (or even just some well-used film tricks) might AFFECT OUR PERCEPTION of these movements on video. You can't say "a suit could never move this way" because you don't know what kind of suit may have been used. A much better question to ask would be "what kind of suit would permit and, in fact, encourage this kind of movement?" Most attempts at re-creation have been half-hearted. It's not really a question of budget or expertise or technological sophistication... a suit could be designed with just a few clever tricks, not popularly known, to yield results never seen before. If you simply say, "This couldn't be created because I can't imagine how it could be created"... well, then, you're just using thoroughly irresponsible and circular logic of the sort that would receive an automatic "F" from any proper rhetoric or logic professor.
Remember: Long ago, a person came forward claiming to have originated the first crop circles, and in fact, he showed HOW he made the first ever reported crop circle, using something as simple as a board (a 2 x 6 strapped to his feet) and a rope (used attached to a fixed point as a guide line to keep him moving in a perfect circle). Interestingly, this revelation came after "expert" scientific opinions about how "no human could form such a perfect geometric shape, such a flawless circle" and certainly "no human could bend over the stalks of corn so carefully and perfectly, in a spiral pattern indicative of a great vortex, as if from a large engine or turbine." Well, guess what? It can be done, and you only need to spend about $10 at Lowe's or Home Depot to do it! Crop circles have become more sophisticated since then, which devotees consider "proof" that they are a real phenomenon after all. Never mind the much simpler explanation: that it began as a hoax, and the hoax became more sophisticated. People refuse to accept the obvious because, I admit, it's more fun to believe the incredible and improbable. But a lot of people waste their lives hunting these specters, perpetuating myth in the name of truth... claiming to measure "scientifically" these phenomenon which, by definition, are outside the realm of science's knowledge... hence "mysteries."