Tree Manipulation/ Wood Structures: What Is The Evidence?

[salubrious]

 

 

I found this one to be rather odd. It contained two Oak branches of considerable girth and weight that had been torn from the tree. It would have taken me a considerable amount of effort to move them, let alone place them. There was no oak in the area- this was not the result of wind, nor the result of any activities by the landowner. We have heard wood knocks and rock clacks on several occasions not far from where we found this.

[Guest WesT]

I ran into a friend of mine who said he found what he thought was a hunting blind of unknown origin on his families land. I asked him what made him think it was a hunting blind. He then showed me a pic on his cell phone of a dead yearling with a fatal wound located directly behind it's left front leg. It was found near a structure of unknown origin he discovered after following a game trail near the dead yearling. Anyways,  he said it was a stick wound and when he zoomed in on the wound you could see splinters of wood in and around the wound. I asked him if he took a pic of the structure but he said when he want back to do that it had been dismantled and only about 1/4th of what was there was still there.

 

I asked if I could take a look at what remained of the structure. He agreed.

 

Time frame: June, 2012. very dry spring and early summer.

 

 Here are different shots of the structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest WesT]

First words out of my mouth when I saw this was " does the river ever get up this high?" The answer is no but I had to ask.

 

We speculated what it's purpose was. Is it a shelter? Or something else?

 

My friend said when he found it, it was about 7-8ft tall and had sprigs of green in it and almost completely enclosed except for the back. I could see there were piles of dead brush scattered about the area. They were rectangular is shape and all about the same size. I speculated that the log on top (center) of the structure was placed there to weigh it down to facilitate it's degradation.

 

It has a diamond shaped opening in the front of it so I ruled out a shelter. Besides, what's the deal with tree bow? How does that figure in? So we explored the possibility of it being used as a means to hunt. If it's a means to hunt then the opening in the front must have a purpose. Remembering the yearling with the stick wound I speculated the opening in the front is intended for a weapon. A long spear to be exact.

 

So on a hunch we searched the area and about 20 ft. away we found about 5 young maple trees scattered on the ground that were all about 10-12 feet long. One still had it's branches, the others were without branches. All were broken on both ends, not sawed. So we picked one out and loaded it in the structure like this thinking it might have been the tree bows purpose.

 

 

So we looked at and thought about it. My friend said, "I don't know, the game trail passes between the tree bow and the front of the structure and the spear would block the trail". I said "well if was used in this manner there would be signs of wear on top of the tree bow. There was no signs of wear.

 

Then my friend said "what if the tree bow was used as a brace so the spear could penetrate the prey?" I said "well if that's the case we should see signs of wear where the top of the tree is pinned down by the log."

 

 

[Guest WesT]

I then wondered if the original spear was still around. I found this about 15ft. away.

 

 

When I first found/noticed it, it had 2 round softball sized objects, one on each end, that were made from very tiny stcks. They looked like miniature tumbleweeds. I wish I could have got a pic of them but my camera was dead and when I returned a few days we had had a storm since then and they were gone.

 

Anyways, I stepped it off at 12ft. long.

 

I'm far from done but it's getting late and I'm about to pooped to peep. I'll be back.....

[WSA]

Now that is pretty fascinating, on many levels.   A couple of question/ musings on this>>>>

 

-The yearling deer your friend found...very puzzling why a hunter would go to all that effort and leave the quarry lying to rot. The puncture wound is an amazing piece of evidence, and wish there was a photo of it. Is there? 

 

-I do see the wear on the top of the treebow, yes. Good eye on your part.

 

-Lack of sawn wood is the biggest indicator that this is not a human hunter's blind. It could  easily have been, for turkey or deer, but it also lacks the symmetry and horizontal lines you'd expect from a human.

 

-I think you've opened up a very compelling thesis here. I don't know of any eyewitness accounts of primitive spear use, but I'll keep my eyes open for it.  Do you know of any? 

 

-The basket work (for lack of a better description) on the ends of that pole. THAT is the most intriguing. Any theories at all? I must confess, I'm stumped for any plausible explanation.

 

Thanks for sharing this. All any of us can do with it (and not to minimize its value at all) is to go, "Hmmmmm..." Thus the pieces of a puzzle can be considered. I think you demonstrate a keen eye for detail and have a good base of woodcraft knowledge under you, which are crucial skills for this kind of investigation. 

[Guest WesT]

Thanks WSA. It was quite an experience to say the least. I'll be back after work today to answer your questions on this.

[salubrious]

 

 

 

Cool! thanks for posting that! That 'X' in the center of your photo above is a commonly reported phenomena.

[Guest WesT]

Now that is pretty fascinating, on many levels.   A couple of question/ musings on this>>>>

 

-The yearling deer your friend found...very puzzling why a hunter would go to all that effort and leave the quarry lying to rot. The puncture wound is an amazing piece of evidence, and wish there was a photo of it. Is there?

 

As far as I know he still has it and can't dl it from his phone to his computer. I don't have a cell phone, but it may be possible for him to send the to another cell phone. I was told that the dead yearling was significant so I'll work on that.

 

-I do see the wear on the top of the treebow, yes. Good eye on your part.

 

Thanks!

 

-Lack of sawn wood is the biggest indicator that this is not a human hunter's blind. It could  easily have been, for turkey or deer, but it also lacks the symmetry and horizontal lines you'd expect from a human.

 

My friend did say it when he first found it the only reason he noticed it was because of the opening in the front. He decribed the structure as "sloppy".

 

-I think you've opened up a very compelling thesis here. I don't know of any eyewitness accounts of primitive spear use, but I'll keep my eyes open for it.  Do you know of any? 

 

The only thing I was able to find that was similar was a hunting technique used by a tribe of African bushmen. Other than that it's been a brick wall.

 

-The basket work (for lack of a better description) on the ends of that pole. THAT is the most intriguing. Any theories at all? I must confess, I'm stumped for any 'splausible explanation.

 

I have no idea. It was just bizzare.

 

Thanks for sharing this. All any of us can do with it (and not to minimize its value at all) is to go, "Hmmmmm..." Thus the pieces of a puzzle can be considered. I think you demonstrate a keen eye for detail and have a good base of woodcraft knowledge under you, which are crucial skills for this kind of investigation.

 

Your welcome WSA and thanks for hearing me out. But I'm not quite done yet, there's more.

[Guest WesT]

Hi Salubrious, no problem. This isn't exactly easy for me because I've never heard of such a thing. I only went where the evidence led me and I was like "you've gotta be kidding me" ! You guys are out in the field investigating the unknown so I thought ya'll should know about this.

 

I just noticed you're a mod now. Congrats on that.

[Guest WesT]

One more thing about the treebow.

 

 

I picked up the log that was pinning the tree to the ground to see if there were signs of wear on it. To my surprise, there was no sign of wear on it. So I began to wonder if maybe this isn't the log that pinned it down during operation. So I looked around. About 10ft. away and hiding in plain sight I see this.

 

 

Upon investigation it turned out to not be a tree, but a log that was stuck in the ground.

 

Now comes the interesting part. We followed the game trail from the structure down to the river. This next shot is about 50 yards downhill from the structure.

 

 

At the time I thought it was odd and pondered if it had some kind of purpose. Upon closer inspection, the branch thats leaning uphill against the fallen tree is a part of that fallen tree that had been broken off. If anyone has an explaination as to how this could happen naturally I'm all ears.

 

Standing in the same spot and to my right I see this.

 

 

It's the same pic I showed earlier in the thread. I backed the zoom out all the way on my camera to get it all in the pic. But to give you idea of the scale of it, I'm 6ft tall and could walk under it. Upon closer inspection the top of the tree was lodged into the ground. The dead tree on top of it has moss growing on the trunk. Again, if anyone has an explaination as to how this could happen naturally I'm all ears.

 

more to come.....

[Guest WesT]

Turning around and walking back up to the structure This was on the left about 15ft. from the structure.

 

 

Upon closer inspection there were tiny vines strung in between trees that seemed to obcure the view of the forest behind it. To all investigators, sometimes it's not what you see but what but what you don't see. Keep a sharp eye out for this, it's a good way to stay hidden as you will see in the coming posts.

 

A few months later I took this pic. The configuration had a familiar look about it.   

 

WSA, I just got off the phone with my friend. He still has the pic of the deer with the stick wound on his cell phone. I was thinking, if you have a cell phone and he sends it to you, can you get it off your cell phone and post it here?

[Guest WesT]

Anyway, the hunting blind makes sense in the way that all the operator had to do was stand there and wait. Pop one with a spear as it went by, and then wait for the next. When enough prey was procured, simply go out and gather them up. I think of it as the amount of calories expended to gain said calories. Makes for a nice ratio when this technique is used.

 

We did invite a couple of bf researchers to see it in case they had heard of it. They both agreed it was artificially constructed. When I asked if they had ever heard or seen anything like this he replied "a Bigfoot can run down a deer ya know". I said "no, I don't know, but whatever did this used it's brains instead of it's back". Needless to say he didn't like that.

[WSA]

Curiouser and curiouser WesT. There is a whole lot of something going on around there for sure.

 

That upright, planted stick with the wear pattern on it. Could we assume you compared it to the wear on the end of the treebow, and saw no reason why they weren't a "match."  But even so, that doesn't begin to explain the origins of all of this, does it?

 

I might could do that with the picture, sure. Let me pm you later and we'll see what we can do. I definitely am curious about it.

[Guest WesT]

That would be great WSA. Any help would be very much appreciated. I've had almost 2 years for all of this to digest and try to put into perspective.

 

When I noticed the log stuck in the ground near the structure I left it stuck in the ground because at the time I didn't want to disturb anything. In hindsight, that would have been a good idea to compare the wear marks for an exact match. If I had just a nickle for everytime I should have done this or that I could retire lol.

 

One question I had was why has this never been documented?? Why the brick wall? Is it a local phenomenon? I was reviewing my pics and I believe I got my answer.

 

 

 

 

[Guest WesT]

Notice the wide trail to right. I'll get to that later. Well I wish that were it, but I'd be lying if I said it was.