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PM me on FB or here with your email and I will arrange to walk you through this on the phone for one mutation to get you started.

If it is during the day, where we could be face-to-face at some close distance, it would be a life-changing event. That hasn't happened to me (yet hopefully) but I can imagine there are several stages I'd go through. First, absolute shock. You stand, having difficulty breathing, firmly glued to the ground asking yourself if this is really happening. Then, acceptance of that situation before you. Oh my god, it really is there. Then, assessment of the risk. Is it calm or agitated, confronting or retreating? Finally, what do you plan to do, if anything? My goal has always been to see one in visible light. I'd never harm one unless attacked. If I was able to get a clear picture, it would never see the public's eye other than my family and friends. In the end, I would be fully satisfied if I walked away without garnering a shred of evidence knowing I had been blessed with the gift of seeing one of God's miraculous creatures.

You can sort of gauge an animal's mindset most times. I've heard of several accounts of close encounters with these creatures and people who were armed and had a clean shot didn't take them because they were overcome with emotion. I grew up around large animals having been raised on a small horse ranch and I've been told that I am somewhat of a horse whisperer. I've found that emotional connection with other large creatures. I'm a big, tough, straight-laced conservative guy, so what I'm about to say may seem a bit loony, but I honestly think an encounter with such a creature would be almost a spiritual experience. For me, at least. I remember years ago I was in the Idaho mountains and hunting for elk. I walked around the corner of an old overgrown logging road and encountered a herd of cow moose and their calves. I was a human, with a rifle, and by all appearances, a lethal threat. But, I had no intention of harming them and was instead instantly fascinated by them. What happened next was pretty amazing. I slung my rifle on my back and just slowly approached them, humming softly and speaking quietly. Instead of crashing off into the woods, they just sort of moved cautiously around me. I watched their ears for signs of aggression or alarm. You can tell a lot about a horse's emotional state by their ear movements. The moose soon relaxed and just let me walk through them. I could have reached out and touched them. It was a pretty moving experience. I've had lots of encounters over the years that were similar. Some animals I could tell were aggressive and others I sensed were ambivalent. Just last year I was out scouting for elk and came across a cow moose and her calf. I was able to get really close to them before they got spooked and moved into the trees... So, I imagine if I had an encounter with a Bigfoot, that it would be able sense that I was not a threat. I have no desire to kill one or prove to the world that they are real. I think I would also be able to sense it's intentions towards me. As long as it wasn't a female. I still have no idea what women are thinking and am completely clueless, lol.

I think Pulsar does an excellent job focusing on the recreational user. I spent a lot less than $3,000 and find the quality of the video to be just what I need. Here is a video I took of two chipmunks. I wanted to capture them on video to use as a benchmark knowing how tiny they are. If you can clearly see them, you should be able to clearly see a sasquatch, even if it's only a hand (which is significantly larger than a chipmunk). The two chipmunks can be seen at the beginning of the video. At about 1:03 I recorded a chipmunk a distance away running down a tree. The second video is another chipmunk running up a tree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbca0qjPIFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLtaIbiS9qM Sorry to hear that Explorer especially at that price. That's ridiculous especially given they are the leading name in the industry.

Under-developed self preservation instinct and high curiosity here, if the Sas seems ok with it, I'm shaking hands.

I read that wrong the first time around....

I have often been accused of reading minds. And, like DNA, I experience occurrences in pairs, not threes. I've always poo-pooed the suggestion of being psychic, but as time goes by, and things like our connecting regarding the biblical quote keep happening, I'm wondering if I might have to rethink things. Talk soon.

Precisely the Biblical quote I was thinking of but forgot to post. I am pleased to share information. Hopefully, the next time somebody uses bad data to claim a proof of bigfoot DNA they will be met with a barage of science based rebuttals.

Grateful to have Dr. Hart become a contributing member of our humble little bbs.

Very kind of you, Dr. Hart. I am certainly interested enough to take you up on that offer. If I may paraphrase an old adage, you could give me the fish but I would be grateful for learning how to catch my own.

I watched it. I'm torn .. not sure, with only personal preference about what I'd like the truth to be to draw on. I do not think he is lying .. I don't think a person can keep up the facade that long. I believe that he believes what he is saying whether it is true or not. I would say it is either true as delivered, or some of it is true and has been in some way reinforced / expanded on in such a way he is not aware of untruth in it. A few years back a friend .. my hiking / bigfooting / hunting buddy .. spent a weekend with a volunteer group restoring trails into the area we research. They spike camped Saturday night, the organization that they were volunteering for brought in food, water, etc by pack train. He said that in the middle of the night, when he was in his tent, something was pressing down on his chest squeezing the air out of him. (Sound like Barton's account at all? :)) He said he told "it" that it was killing him and asked it to stop. It did. He could find no evidence of his experience the next morning. Though a bigfoot knower, he rationalizes that experience as sleep paralysis ... and maybe it was. I see a few possibilities regarding his account. 1) It is a hoax. (As above, I do not think this is true.) 2) It is true, word for word. (I sure hope not ... but I do not have complete confidence, only wishful thinking.) 3) Something terrifying happened and was reinforced in a way that he believes the account he shared. That is where sleep paralysis might be the seed and his mind trying to cope with it, subconsciously constructing the rest of the story, could be the reinforcement. Without intending to assassinate his character, we have to consider substance abuse. Does not seem like he is a drinker but by his own words, he stayed absolutely plowed for the rest of his time there. Alcohol poisoning is a thing and at that level, alcohol can trigger hallucinations which can be connected to pre-existing intense fear. There is no way for any of us to investigate to ferret out truth from this. We bring our preconceived notions of what is and what isn't, how people behave and how they don't, to the table and they color our interpretation of information presented to us. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. I think the wise thing is to keep it under consideration, like the Missing 411 accounts, in case the set up / precursor things seem to be happening to you so you can use what he did as a tool for getting yourself out of it, but do not overly dwell on it so that it ruins your time out there. So, y' know, take it under advisement, but know there is no way to either validate or refute it based on anything other than pre-existing personal bias. ... and continue to be careful out there. MIB

Its not that skeptics cannot read. Nor that they haven't read enough. Its that anecdotal reports will never take the place of physical evidence. Not a 1000, not 100000000. And not the whole body of the BFRO report system. Not worth one pinkie bone. It should be seen as a tool to a means of an end. And not the end.

Close enough to get a good shot.

It will take me a while to get up to speed on the methodology you've laid out for answering my questions........but I'm game to learn and will take notes along the way. Thanks for providing some good direction for running this down, "Teach"

Who would I most like to go Squatching with? Why, Wonderhussy, of course.

Be aware that the Ketchum data is questionable. More data is needed. I'm an educator, so I will lead you through this one, hiflier. 1. On http://phylotree.org/resources/rCRS_annotated.htm look up the human mitochondrial genome and locate the mutations found in my book, Table 22. The phylotree table will show you the mtDNA gene involved and the three base codon which was changed by the mutation. They are abbreviated in column 3. Column 4 gives the corresponding AA. 2. View the table of codons as Table A1 (Appendix A) in my book. Locate the particular coden which was mutated and determine which amino acid it changes, if at all since some codons are redundant. 3. Go to the NCBI website https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ and type the accession for rCRS,NC_012920.1, in the search field, with Nucleotide as the database. 4. Click "Protein" on the right column of the page and see all the protein sequences for human mtDNA. 5. Scroll and pick the accession of the protein of interest with the longest sequence (some are partial sequences). CLICK on it. 6. At the bottom of this protein accession you will find the corresponding protein sequence to the gene you picked in 1. 7. Use the short AA abbreviation in Table A1 of my book and the rCRS table in phylotree.org in 1. above to locate the AA affected by the mutation in the overall protein sequence.. 8. Find a reference on this protein structure which indicates the position of the AA found in 1. and see whether it is near the active site and could possibly influence the protein's function. Congratulations, you are now at the forefront of genetic research. Good Luck!!

I don't know about my personal minimum but do know from one encounter where I was trying to get a BF to break cover that about 100 yards was that bigfoot's own minimum distance. That is the point that it growled at me, and I decided to back out. I suspect if I saw an adult male at the same distance I would not have attempted to close on it. 9 feet of adult BF has to be scary. In that case, unknown to me, another had flanked me and was closing on me from behind. When the one in front growled, the one behind me broke off a tree. I fully believe that it is not the one you see that will get you, it might be one behind you. Of course accidently getting closer likely led to me getting zapped with infrasound during another encounter. From the depression of vegetation, next to a log, I was within 10 yards of that one. It was probably good that I did not see that one. In two steps it could have grabbed me. That is rule one in bigfoot research; be careful what you wish for. I would really prefer to be looking through a spotting scope at a BF 200 yards away that does not know I am there. For those that expect to bring down a charging BF with a weapon, 800 or 900 lbs of charging bigfoot would chew up more distance to fall than a similar weight bear just because of leg length. Those that have downed a charging bear probably have the best practice for BF.

My hiking / hunting / bigfooting buddy and I just did our annual backpacking trip. Like last year, the 2nd night's camp didn't pan out so we wound up pushing hard and finishing with a 2 day hike in 1 day. This year, his 30-ish year old son came along .. first time. He's also a multiple witness. Though I calculated the time to be prime, there was not a hint of bigfoot activity. They heard ambiguous tree crashes and a critter or two run off in the brush. I don't think it was bigfoot, the area just didn't have that "heavy" vibe it gets when they're around. It was a success in other ways though. Couple years ago my GF gave me a clear lake flyline as a gift. Lee (the son) and I went down to the next lake below where we were camping while Bill (dad) watched camp. Last year Bill and I had seen a school of hundreds of brook trout in the lake but they would not bite, would not even acknowledge a spinner or bait. This year I hoped for something better with flies ... and I got it. I caught 8 brookies between 10 and 11 inches long in about 30-45 minutes before the bite went off. We kept 2 to spice up dinner a bit. All in all a good trip. I was thinking of going again solo but we're starting a 10 day string of 100 degree or above temps. I think I'll wait 'til mid September or even October. MIB

Thanks for responding on this idea. On the science side of you're own book, do you have any info on what proteins those genetic mutations express and perhaps the phenotypes they may represent? Or maybe just what the original genes are responsible for that the mutation originated from? I'm just trying to get a feel for which direction the mutations went and maybe why the mutations may have occurred. Maybe they were a slight adaptation to PacNW environmental conditions?

The point being much of what I've read and heard from folks who have been on Expeditions is that they are NOT a Scientific Organization, they're a business masquerading as a Scientific Organization. While there are capable and honest folks in the group, many hang around for the access to the Database, but if it's a business it's not likely about Research, it's about paid expeditions, more like squatch themed tourism, which is imo, a different animal. As to how do they pay for the research, like so many do, out of pocket including myself. The whole pay 300, plus provide your own gear, transport and food is a rip off without definition as to what any attendees get for their expense imo. Always encounter something so the attendees will pay for the next time. It's the business model.

I am not a member, nor do I have any truck with the BFRO beyond a devotion to reading the sighting reports...and I do that religiously. It might get under emphasized how much that database has contributed to awareness and knowledge. Back in the day, nobody in their wildest dreams ever thought that there could be a compendium of that size and degree of accessibility. I get that we are largely a population of non-readers, boy do I. We've had many epic debates here with some skeptics and scoftics. What those opponents mostly had working against them, I'm convinced (aside from a general lack of outdoor experience) was a noticeable lack of reading comprehension skills, and/or lack of motivation to read at all, along with a deficit in the area of deductive reasoning and critical thought. The BFRO database, and the story it tells, require at least a little bit of those abilities. Once you realize this, the story that is there becomes coherent. To me, if the BFRO and MM disappeared tomorrow, that single legacy would justify all else it might be guilty of perpetrating.