Harry, I know you have recently mentioned the History Channel's show on Bigfoot.  I too saw that.

I've been around long enough to have gone through the Patterson footage as being-real-fake-real-fake-real.  I know that Patterson swore on his deathbed it was footage of a Bigfoot.  His partner, still living and who, if memory serves, appeared on the aforementioned show, corrected some fallacies that had been going on for decades.

It was always said that Patterson's horse reared up upon seeing the creature and that he fell off, quickly grabbed his camera and starting shooting.  But his buddy said that he had filmed that bit, and had gone into a small stream towards the animal, which then turned its head at the sound of him in the water, giving us that famous head turn.

If indeed the muscle movement analysis is correct, then this would lend credence to the theory that it is not human in origin but an actual unknown animal.  All the body proportions, stride analyses etc. seem to also point to a non-human primate.   On the negative side, the creature seems to have female breasts, but also a crest on the head; the latter associated with male primates. 

I haven't read the Long book, but am anxious to do so.  If the author has researched as stated, then this bit of film must be dubbed a hoax.  Just for the record, I never believed that guy and his family about his being the guy in the suit.  No offense intended, but they didn't seem, well, intelligent enough to pull something so sophisticated that has kept people guessing to this day.

I often speculate that perhaps we do have some type of Gigantopithecus roaming our planet.  That beast was huge, but enough time has passed to where it might have evolved into a smaller version, along with other changes.  Description wise, though, it seems to match more closely to the Yeti then to the Bigfoot on this side of the world.  The 300,000 years since its extinction really is not that far removed from our modern world, geologically speaking.

Hoaxers get under my skin for a variety of reasons, but mostly because if and when actual evidence is discovered, the discoverers would have to provide proof way beyond the usual, while also having to survive the ridicule that would invariably accompany the presentation of their findings.