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I thought she looked more disgusted than surprised.

If area x wasn't a secret and the location was revealed one could simply pull up all the previous wildlife and plant research and surveys that took place in the proximity. A group of large apes should leave behind some sign that the researchers would pick up on. Unless "insert bigfoot conspiracy". Most wildlife research papers include the area they don't keep it secret to avoid someone ruining their fun. Since the monograph does not include the location other researchers cannot visit to confirm or deny the activity reported in the paper. I used to do something similar to the nawac I belonged to a group that went into the woods. We didn't put on camo and parade around with guns with names like operation forest vigil foxtrot. We would wear armor or robes and carry swords and staves. We would have missions to slay the demon king or necromancers nephew.

Took my dog for a walk down the Mississippi River bank. She could run off-leash and swim there to her hearts content. I look ahead. What is she doing?? My dog was rolling in something intentionally. I walk up to investigate. My dog was rolling herself in the most disgusting smelling, rotting, oozing dead fish. You could not believe the smell...wet dog in combination with putrid dead and decaying flesh. It was overwhelming. Got home, cleaned her up and researched her behavior. Turns out this is common behavior in many predatory mammals, including dogs. If it's dark outside, and you hear sounds in the brush near you while also noticing a horrible smell, chances are it's something very common to the area. Perhaps even my dog! Let's keep checking ourselves people. Bigfoot-on-the-Brain is a real syndrome that we need to continually guard against. MNSkeptic

Problem is that you have never (by your own admission) had a FTF encounter and as such, you are totally ignorant of what "they" look like and so to speculate they look like a great ape is preposterous and disingenious.

Explorer, Good points and great questions. I don't think we're the only ones puzzled by the monograph or the lack of results after all these years. DWA, I appreciate how hard it must be for the participants to camp out or stay in the cabin for a week or two at a time without achieving their desired result. I look to important ongoing work mapping genetic diversity in Ebola decimated wild gorilla populations or to those studying wild mountain gorilla populations while protecting them from poachers/bandits/insurgents and I'm just glad they aren't being forced to deal with conditions similar to those found by NAWAC in OK. I have trouble imagining how anyone could provide repeatable results about wild primates under the brutal conditions NAWAC is being forced to deal with regularly on that 10 acre plot in remote OK. Seriously, who wouldn't choose AK-47 rounds fired by men when compared to facing DNA slathered rocks thrown by wood apes keeping you up at night? Folks need sleep if they are going to avoid testing the DNA slathered rocks waiting on the roof each morning and head out for a shift in the opaque and poorly named overwatch position. I can only imagine how hard it is to recruit someone to stay in a OK cabin with poor cell reception and limited internet access when cushy research jobs are available bagging possible Ebola laden gorilla scat in African jungle. You can stop beating the drum, it's over. Folks know the difference between science and stories dressed up as science.

OhioBill, You make a good point and I had to re-read the report (only the section on visual sightings) and methodically extract the approximate location for the 18 cases they included in pages 128-147 of the NAWAC Ouachita Project monograph. The report says that they had 49 visual sightings and they provided details on 18 of them in the report. The table attached summarizes the 18 cases (date, time, approximate locations, witnesses, and whether the location was near the cabins (supposedly within the 10 acre parcel). Of the 18 reports, 11 (61%) were close to the cabin. The other 7, I could not tell because there was not enough information. Thus, your point is well taken that most of the activity is happening in a small area. The rock throwing (without doing a similar type of case by case analysis) also happened mainly around the cabin. Granted I did not do the same type of analysis on the wood-nocks, vocalizations and other parts of the report. It is odd that while NAWAC is not baiting the creatures with food/goodies (like other habituators) and is trying to kill one (and has shot at them), these creatures keep coming back to this small area (or so they claim). I pointed out in the other thread on NAWAC that a sketch or map of where all these activities happened relative to each other would have been very helpful to understand the range of observation. If the creatures are real (and supposedly smart) why keep coming back to such a small area (where they are going to get shot at) when they have hundreds of thousands of acres to roam? The sum total of the anecdotal experiences and the lack of solid evidence that NAWAC has gotten in 10+ years is bizarre.

I guess it depends on how you define aggression. IMHO no inherently defensive act is aggressive and, since "escorting" appears to be a bluffing behavior meant to cause humans to leave a location without actual conflict (combat), it is inherently defensive no matter how terrifying it may seem in the moment. Aggression, at least to me, implies offense ... attack, no BS, no bluff, attack with intent to harm or kill. Some people do not distinguish between threat of aggression and aggression itself. I do. I've been escorted out of 3 places I can think of, one quite a few times. Eventually I got fed up with it and went back to confront the escorting and escalate if needed. Exactly nothing happened. Nor have there been any repeats there or anywhere else since. (THAT has interesting implications about communication.) There have been clear messages they're present, but those are directed for me, not at me, in other words, they're not even defensive in nature. There's truce on my mountain now, live or let live, and that's all I ever really wanted. MIB