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Interesting thoughts. A large portion of the economy, outside the city limits, in my area is tourism and very much of that is from non-residents. A good portion of those people live in-state but reside 4+ hours away to the north, farther away than many out of state residents who only live 1-3 hours to the south. We do indeed have major tourist draws which put people into the outdoors including Crater Lake National Park and the Pacific Crest Trail that draw heavily from out of state. Others tend to draw more regionally like people fishing the Rogue River who, though some are international visitors, many are in-state residents from other parts of the state. Outside of those areas, and often within them, too, most of the reports come from local people doing local people things ... or people PURPORTING to be local people doing local people things. Among the things are driving to/from work, driving to/from kids' sporting events, snowmobiling, cutting Christmas trees, picking berries, or just letting the dog out in the middle of the night. I say "purporting" deliberately though. Examples that come to mind are videos of reports being read on youtube like the "Cascade Bigfoot" entries discussed here on the forum, at least two of which I can "prove" are false ... whoever made the report has not been to the site 'cause they got critical details wrong, looks good if you only go by maps, but the maps are imprecise causing the hoaxer to assume falsely and foul up the hoax. I guess the point is any sort of deliberate leveling / averaging increases error. The only debatable part is how much. You offer no evidence, only opinion, regarding how much. I'm in the same boat. I think it is greater than you are allowing for but it is only a local's seat of the pants feel, I can't give you firm numbers to plug into a formula, only a sense you're getting it wrong. MIB

Nah, MIB is right, just smart enough to outsmart you so far. Not their fault that the average field investigator thinks he's GI Joe but in fact is more reminiscent in his actions of finding evidence of this creature, to the Cookie Monster.

I can accept that. Traditionally Humans have had June weddings even though weddings can occur any time. Spring births in Humans were best for many reasons. Just like most other creatures. No one can be sure if Sasquatch follows this pattern or not to tell the truth but a study of when infants and small BF's have been seen does seem to indicate a general pattern even if there are exceptions to that pattern. Experience in Nature's annual cycle of seasons and when it's better for newborns and pregnancies alike might have some influence on BF's mating cycles though. I mean water is an important draw and focus for creatures in the wild but the big one's actions sure does seem like there was something very important on its mind- more important apparently than stopping to engage you. Saying mating was its focus is only one idea. Your account did bring up the "man on a mission" thought. M two rocks lobbed into the camp.

I don't think there is a "trigger" other than just being available. It is **possible** (not sure of the likelihood) that in at least some locations I've been seen by them often enough to be identified not as "a" person but as "that" person and, through long observation, they've decided closer approach to me might be less risky than it would be with an unknown, or known/problem, person. Perhaps that is a trigger of a vague sort. The alternative is that what happens to me is happening to lots of people, they're just not paying attention, not noticing. That's possible ... an awful lot of people are just plain oblivious ... condition 0 or condition white ... mentally checked-out. I'm not doing anything deliberate to entice a response, just making myself available by going where I think they are most likely to be, then doing what I do when I get there: hunt, fish, backpack, camp, explore, look for wildflowers, etc. I guess with one exception. One time camping with "my research group", which seems to be once every couple years, we were messing around drumming, playing guitars, flutes, etc and things got "heavy". No screams, roars, knocks, or anything like that, but at one point, it felt like being inside a balloon that was being compressed. Firelight didn't go as far out into the dark even though the fire hadn't changed. Heavy, ominous vibe, etc. That didn't seem a reasonable or predictable outcome of the quite light-hearted action we were engaged in. MIB

I know the one/ones in my closest area really doesn't like it when we bring someone new. One likes to let us know by snapping thick hardwood trees in two with the intent that he knows we hear him and that he got his point across. Other than that I've never personally noticed them doing anything on purpose for something we did.

Dunno ... they've been smart enough to outsmart you so far. It's an interesting perspective, huh? I never insult the opposition's intelligence 'til AFTER I beat them 'cause if I call them idiots, then lose, how stupid must I be? MIB

Here's where you lost me. You're basically saying that all reports in Minnesota and Iowa are hoaxes because they fall into group B. I disagree. (I don't care as much but the logic also applies to Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin) While the methods you used might be sound, the data really needs to be adjusted. Here a few reasons I think the conclusions are off. 1. There are many encounters in Iowa that remain out of the public BFRO data base because they'd give up expedition locations. You'll see some of them when Finding Bigfoot Iowa gets aired. I can think of 7 or 8 encounters that happened while I was present, that would all be good enough to make it into the database (knocks, whoops with audio, and class B sightings which as shown in your report cannot really be attributed to black bear). In Minnesota, the BFRO presence has dropped off to form other groups that are taking reports and holding expeditions (one of which I am a part of). Reports that they receive don't make it into the BFRO database. When Finding Bigfoot rolled into Minnesota they looked to at least one of these other groups for potential locations and witnesses. 2. If your conclusions are somehow based on population, it needs some tweaking. The residents of Des Moines and Minneapolis/St Paul make up a large population percentage of both states, but the sightings are (generally) far away from those big cities. If you want to conclude that Des Moines and Minneapolis suburban sightings are hoaxes I can live with that. Take away those big cities and your population density for the rest of the state falls off greatly I'd suspect, and mostly likely changes the conclusions. (same argument for Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin) 3. I think you somehow need to account for percentage of forest each state has. Iowa has more forest than you'd suspect, but I'd guess it's a pretty low percentage of total area compared to come other states. I'd like to know how the sightings per square mile of forest works out for all the states. (I may look into that actually) That might work in Iowa's favor but hurt Minnesota. 4. South Dakota as an A' while Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin are all 'probable hoaxes' is a huge red flag. Sioux Falls must not be large enough. There's probably more and I don't have the know-how to figure out exactly how this all fits in. I just know the initial conclusions don't fit my view of reality. Edit: I left off rain totals, which I'm pretty certain matter greatly...