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This is my point. There are a number of possibilities on the table.
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Agreed ... The ambiguities are plentiful enough to provide room for inserting most any interpretation into the incident.
Your references to Gimlin's complicity shift the focus from the sighting itself to the context of the sighting (most particularly, what was going on with their October 1967 mini-expedition in the first place). With respect to this context-rather-than-sighting theme, there are some points that have always bugged me ...
My first contextual sticking point concerns the October 1967 trip overall. It's pretty clear Patterson wanted to be equipped to obtain and bring back some tangible record of whatever they might encounter. Patterson rented a decent 16mm camera, and they'd brought plaster to make footprint casts. These basic facts are consistent with both (a) an open-ended search for Bigfoot and / or evidence of its existence and (b) a mini-project to create new material for the re-enactment film Patterson had been promoting and working on for some time.
One can argue for either (a) or (b) until blue in the face. The key issue here is what Patterson's actual intentions were. My biggest problem with accepting option (a) is figuring out why Patterson would have believed he and Gimlin stood enough of a chance of finding something to undertake the venture. Patterson was persistently strapped for money, and the October 1967 trip involved considerable (relative) expense for him. Patterson's familiarity with Bigfoot incidents and the people involved was sufficient to help him target the area for searching. It should also have been sufficient to give him pause with respect to his chances of encountering anything.