N A W A C - Field Study Discussion

[Guest]

I still think that a potentially rewarding strategy would be to cover the entire perimeter of the structure with game-cams. I would pull enough cameras to cover all sides of the structure, positioned so that they have overlap in their fields of view. If they won't approach the cabin because of the cameras, at least you can sleep a bit more peacefully knowing that they won't be creeping on you while you're asleep. I know I have mentioned this before, but I was curious if this has ever been considered.

 

Yes. We invested in an digital security system with nine IR cameras that feed into a DVR located inside the cabin. All approaches to the cabin are covered. Along with this, we installed a new power system consisting of a bank of batteries and a small solar panel array. We struggled with the power system for several weeks trying to make it generate enough power to keep the system operating all night long. When the system is operating, we can see everything happening around the cabin from the screen inside. 

 

The IR on the cameras is visible to humans as a dim red light. We believe that it may be much brighter to the apes (not saying they can see IR, but we feel their visual acuity is much better in low light situations so what appears like dim red spots to us may look like a bright red lamp to them). Viewed through a night vision unit, it's lit up like Times Square.

 

We have identified a correlation to when the system is on and when they interact with the cabin and us. They do not come close when it's activated. They do when it's not. It may be the case that they would eventually become comfortable with the system and their curiosity would overcome their natural inclination to stay hidden, but we're not there yet. Ironically, as soon as we sorted out the power issues and had a system that would allow everything to run all night, we discovered the lights on/no apes correlation. Since another of our objects is to collect a specimen, we are not using the system at the moment. 

 

We had high hopes for this. We will continue to experiment with the system. 

 

Overall, do you feel that tree-stands have been a successful tactic as far as trying to avoid being noticed?

 

No. At least not around the cabin. We believe we're almost always being observed by the apes and every time we've deployed a tree stand, they have been aware of it. One member had rocks and sticks thrown at him while in one. He could see the sticks fly by in his night vision. If one could get to a location and deploy a stand unnoticed by the apes, it could work (it did for the guy I mentioned above), but we feel we don't have freedom of unobserved movement. 

 

I suspect that some well trained hounds may be the best bet towards actually trying to find them, as opposed to baiting them in. 

 

WSA got that one. "Merry chase," indeed. 

If they won't approach the cabin because of the cameras, at least you can sleep a bit more peacefully knowing that they won't be creeping on you while you're asleep.

 

Forgot to mention that we do that very thing. We had an investigator on-site by himself for several days and one or two nights, he activated the system and slept soundly. I've likened it to raising shields on Star Trek.

[slabdog]

Any consideration to trying to acclimate them to the red lights?

Maybe some small red solar powered LEDs stationed around the perimeter of the cabin 365 days a year?

Or small red solar LEDs proximate to a natural or man made food plot?

We invested in an digital security system with nine IR cameras that feed into a DVR located inside the cabin. All approaches to the cabin are covered. Along with this, we installed a new power system consisting of a bank of batteries and a small solar panel array. We struggled with the power system for several weeks trying to make it generate enough power to keep the system operating all night long. When the system is operating, we can see everything happening around the cabin from the screen inside. 

Wow.

Impressive.

Editorial comment:

If this is true, I can imagine it was not cheap to purchase, nor easy to install.

Regardless of whether people agree or disagree with what is happening down in Area X, before you drop a snarky comment on them -for free- from the comfort of your computer, think about the time, money and effort that has been invested (literally) by these people.

Even if you don't believe in the existence of a undocumented North American ape ( which is totally OK and probably exactly why the NAWAC is doing what they are doing) if you really think about it, you would be hardpressed to not respect their effort.

 

[Guest]

Any consideration to trying to acclimate them to the red lights?

Maybe some small red solar powered LEDs stationed around the perimeter of the cabin 365 days a year?

Or small red solar LEDs proximate to a natural or man made food plot?

 

We've discussed ways of acclimating them to the light, yes. I like the idea of having similar IR emitters running 365 off the batteries. We can't leave the system on when we're not there because the power situation is still too unreliable and the DVR, if not shut down properly, could suffer data corruption, but the draw of simple IR emitters shouldn't be too taxing. 

 

As I said, we're going to be experimenting on this for some time. We're thinking of ways to defeat the IR which is built-in to the cameras. They wouldn't be able to "see" nearly as well, but should be able to record something, especially near dawn. 

 

If this is true, I can imagine it was not cheap to purchase, nor easy to install.

 

Neither. We've gone all-in this year with the SS and thermal acquisitions. As I've said in the past, all our funds are plowed back into the research. Getting it installed took a team of our most technically proficient members. The wiring of the solar and battery array was particularly finicky. 

 

We had very high hopes for the SS but always looked at it as an experiment rather than a sure-fire solution. I've hesitated to mention the SS only because I wasn't interested in having a conversation about how convenient it was that our mythical super monkeys wouldn't show themselves when one of the best ways to produce evidence of them was in play, but it is what it is. We observe and report. The most plausible explanation we have WRT to their shyness around the SS is the visible IR. 

Edited July 20, 2013 by bipto

[Guest]

Here's the thermal unit we purchased:

 

 

And here's one of the cameras mounted to a wood shed:

 

[slabdog]

Bip! Awesome.

Thanks for sharing that!

[Guest]

You're very welcome.

[Guest]

Your goal is to harvest a specimen and I understand photos however desired are secondary and moot if the main goal is attained. But from what you have described you are up against a cunning creature to say the least. I'm sure yall have thought of all these ideas, one of mine being to knowingly create diversions to direct their attention where you want it, and gain some control of the area while you secretly insert equipment elsewhere or something. Use counter guerilla warfare. Lots of trouble and effort and work, but your organization doesnt appear to be lazy or unwillingly to work toward its goal. Think of everything as if you are in a guerilla war. Because you are.

[southernyahoo]

After listening to Bigfoot Show episode #51, I thought long and hard about what it would be like attempting to track an animal that was not only incredibly stealthy and elusive, but possibly the most intelligent animal besides humans. There was a story last year about a captive Orangutan at a zoo who would was repeatedly escaping its' enclosure. They ended up having installing video cameras to see how he was escaping....

Stones finally managed to catch Fu Manchu in the act. First, the young ape climbed down some air-vent louvers into a dry moat. Then, taking hold of the bottom of the furnace door, he used brute force to pull it back just far enough to slide a wire into the gap, slip a latch and pop the door open. The next day, Stones noticed something shiny sticking out of Fu's mouth. It was the wire lock pick, bent to fit between his lip and gum and stowed there between escapes.

Now imagine animals that are possibly far more intelligent and resourceful than this. Then consider the possibility that they might work in groups to purposefully distract and misdirect intruders. Take that animal and imagine them with all the stealth of a Cougar, but also add a coat of dark hair that is essentially a natural Ghillie suit, perfect camouflage for disappearing into shadowy underbrush. Imagine that animal is also incredibly fast and powerful, with highly developed nocturnal vision.

 

If such an animal truly exists, I doubt even the most adept hunter alive would be capable of stalking one through even sparse cover, let alone dense vegetation with limited visibility.

 

 

 

Nice post, plussed it, though I think there comes a point where you are no longer describing the actions and intelligence of a mere animal, particularly one whose interest in you ,actions are correlated to and influenced by your use of cameras, What is being described in area X is more like a tactical game with a psychic special forces unit. I feel I've had my brushes with this type of thing before, and it leaves you with great respect for their natural or acquired abilities of stealth, distraction, coordination and communication.   

[Guest]

[...] These woods are like the ocean, as an old timer once said to me, and the image stuck in my mind. You have no idea what swims there until something is right in your face (or bites your leg off). Jungle is not too strong a description.[...]

 

Love that analogy!

 

The Cross Timbers ecological region is directly adjacent (west) to where Area X is. It is an area that is nearly impenetrable on foot. It is not Area X, but it gives one an idea how diffecult the terrain out here can be.

 

Here are some quotes from travelers in the region from 1835 and 1845 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Timbers ):

 

The thick growth formed an almost impenetrable barrier for early American explorers and travelers. Washington Irving, in 1835, described it as "like struggling through forests of cast iron."[17] Josiah Gregg described the Cross Timbers in 1845 as varying in width from five to thirty miles and attributed their denseness to the continual burning of the prairies.[18]

The Cross Timbers vary in width from five to thirty miles, and entirely cut off the communication betwixt the interior prairies and those of the great plains. They may be considered as the "fringe" of the great prairies, being a continuous brushy strip, composed of various kinds of undergrowth; such as black-jack, post-oaks, and in some places hickory, elm, etc., intermixed with a very diminutive dwarf oak, called by the hunters, "shin-oak." Most of the timber appears to be kept small by the continual inroads of the "burning prairies;" for, being killed almost annually, it is constantly replaced by scions of undergrowth; so that it becomes more and more dense every reproduction. In some places, however, the oaks are of considerable size, and able to withstand the conflagrations. The Underwood is so matted in many places with grapevines, green-briars, etc., as to form almost impenetrable "roughs," which serve as hiding-places for wild beasts, as well as wild Indians; and would, in savage warfare, prove almost as formidable as the hammocks of Florida.

—Josiah Gregg

I don't think we have ever described Area X as having been ever "completely cleared"...in fact, I would argue the opposite.  Area X has old growth trees present as well as a lot of other uneven aged trees. There is no evidence that the land was ever clear cut at all.

 

Yes, entirely true. I did some geology fieldwork years ago in the mountains in SE Oklahoma and the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas, and there were long stretches of old growth timber along ridgelines, and in other areas that were too rough/difficult to have ever had timber harvested from them. Even though it is a "truism" that the entire region had been clearcut years ago, it is just not true at all.

[Guest alaskaloner]

Third, you and I go round and round about, from you, how things should be in the wilderness and, from me, how things *are*.

 

 

Here is another example where truth-telling is important to credibility.  By definition, a cabin on a road is not wilderness.  I don't even say I live in the wilderness despite bordering millions of acres of it.   I saw that discussion of "bona-fides" earlier in the thread.  By our standards up here you don't have any wilderness bona fides.  Staying in a cabin?  I do that permanently.  I have a three year old that does more actual camping than you do. 

 

There are three tiny wilderness designations in Oklahoma, the largest of which by far is the Upper Kiamichi, bordered on the North by highway 1 and having NF 6032 running right through the middle of it.  (This is one of those cases where the government declared it a wilderness despite a road running right through the middle of it.)   There are innumerable studies on the wildlife, the geology, the forest, and even the visitors to this area.   A fellow named Kuzmik wrote his dissertation on visitor characteristics, and can be viewed here:  http://books.google.com/books/about/Characteristics_of_Visitors_and_Reacreat.html?id=ntCqXwAACAAJ

 

One of the pretenses that makes this NAWAC "research" non-credible is the pretense that they are in an area that doesn't have much human use and that revealing the location will somehow interfere - when thousands upon thousands of visitors per year are roaming all over the area.   Someone can look this publication up in the library and get visitor use estimates from the 90's in here and see what they are all up to - and none of them are hunting or reporting bigfoot.  Were that the case, this dissertation would become some kind of Bible for believers.  How many vehicles have driven through on highway 1 over the decades? Staggering millions.

 

In terms of how things actually "are", no - that isn't you.   That would be the professional studies and the professional management personnel charged with overseeing Oklahoma lands and wildlife.  A casual occasional visitor staying in a cabin OUTSIDE the wilderness making fantastical claims can't be treated seriously alongside professionals conducting long-term studies INSIDE it.  They are charged with protecting the wildlife, and do that not by pretending they have secret populations of animals in secret locations - but by publishing in professional literature and making sure everyone knows the exact details.  Science of course requires repeatability.  In this case you have one (predisposed) group of casual visitors making fantastic claims and the other thousands upon thousands of visitors, the managers, the professional scientists doing long-term studies saying no such thing. 

Edited July 20, 2013 by alaskaloner

[norseman]

^^^^^^^^^

 

We have almost 100 reports of Sasqutch in Oklahoma just on the BFRO data base alone:

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/state_listing.asp?state=ok

 

You also have the Honobia, Oklahoma Bigfoot festival every year.

 

http://www.bigfootmountain2012.com/

 

So I think your off base with your assessment that the NAWAC is a impressionable group of outsiders that report Sasquatch activity where others do not..........no matter what your thoughts are on the validity of the existence of the creature.

[Airdale]

Bipto, WRT the visible red light emitted by your security cameras, this may offer a cheap solution. You can easily make filters that will block all visible light while passing ir using either processed and developed film or the recording media from floppy discs. I see from the picture that your cameras have protective domes, so it would likely be necessary to remove the dome to ensure the filters blocked only the ir leds and not the optics, but you could always experiment either way. Great work you folks are doing and good luck.

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip. I'll pass it along to Q Branch. 

By definition, a cabin on a road is not wilderness.

 

There is a cabin. There is a long open space through the forest on which we drive to get there. You could call it a road, but it's not a nice one and nobody ever passes by on it. Your idea of what our location is like and what it actually is like are very different. 

There are three tiny wilderness designations in Oklahoma...

 

I was using the word to describe a wild, far from the civilized area of forest and animals. I wasn't using the legal designation. I apologize if that's insufficiently comprehensible. 

How many vehicles have driven through on highway 1 over the decades? Staggering millions.

 

I fail to see how that's in any way relevant. How many cars drive by my house in a day? How many angels fit on the head of a pin? 

Edited July 20, 2013 by bipto

[Guest]

Sad sad sad, people just dont understand.

[Guest]

Science of course requires repeatability.  In this case you have one (predisposed) group of casual visitors making fantastic claims and the other thousands upon thousands of visitors, the managers, the professional scientists doing long-term studies saying no such thing. 

 

Absolutely classical scofftic response. 

In terms of how things actually "are", no - that isn't you.

 

Well, yes, as a matter of fact that *is* me. Me and the other members of my group. You are yet another person who has no direct experience in what I'm describing telling us that what we've said and experienced just can't be true. Sorry, but it is. No matter how much you'd like it to be otherwise. 

What this boils down to is me saying something and our Alaskan friend coming along and saying, "Nu-uh!" Rinse, repeat.