The Stealth Of Bigfoot

[Guest]

Great thread and links hiflier. I know a fellow who was a Green Beret sniper and 24 years in SF and he told me BF could make the Rangers look like girl scouts! They have superior stealth capabilities to anything he knew of and not to be underestimated because they are very intelligent and subtle. Subtle because they will leave small clues or gifts to let you know they know you know. BTW is there any critter that can pick up a volleyball size cabbage(3 lbs.)in its mouth in South Carolina and carry it away to eat? Black bear? Hog? Seems like they would eat on spot?

[David NC]

Hellbilly a bear could carry a cabbage away but it is not their style they usually carry everything in their stomach. A bear might move something a little distance to get better cover or a little privacy if they are other bears around, you could look in about a 20 yard circle around were the cabbage was. If you do not find anything then I would say it had to have had hands to carry it off. Human or BF eliminate the one that does not fit with the scenario and you have the best answer you are going to get without seeing it.

[salubrious]

I've taken a number of classes at the Tracker School, conducted by Tom Brown Jr.

 

In them we are frequently taught stealth tactics. One of the bigger problems humans have in the wild is that we rarely wear the right clothing for silence. Brain tanned leather is the best and synthetics suck. BF, OTOH has an ideal set up for silence- no need for clothing.

 

An additional factor is also taught at the Tracker School. You may think a particular thicket is impenetrable, but in an exercise known as the 'drum stalk', we were shown the meaning of the phrase 'the landscape plays the animal like an instrument'. If you blaze through, even well dressed you get scratched up, but if you move with the landscape, even if in shorts you may have no scratches at all, and you will move with a lot less noise. The Drum Stalk had us about 1/2 mile from the drum, off of any paths and blindfolded. We could wear anything we wanted. The trick was to sense which way the landscape was going to allow us through. Seems odd, but sometimes you can do this better blindfolded

 

Now imagine being trained that way from birth, combined with the ideally adapted skin and now you have a really stealthy creature. So I am of the opinion that they don't need parallel paths at all. They are experts, we are a joke in the woods by comparison.

[Sunflower]

I plussed you and others when they give them the credit they deserve. 

 

They are truly "Boss of the Woods" and if you doubt that please get up off the couch and sit in the woods of high activity (reports) and come back and tell us how that went.

 

Ninja is not a strong enough word to describe them IMO. One of them got to within 3 feet of me and my niece and we never heard a thing, not one noise, not anything but a hair raising growl.  It was Grrrrrrrr AHRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

 

I honestly thought she was going to lose it.

[salubrious]

Dang! That's close!!

 

Tom Brown Jr. has some classes that he calls 'Scout' where stealth and invisibility tactics are taught. Some of the skills are astonishing!! But I have to assume that BF knows all of them too. 'Ninja' seems like a very good word for it.

[sheri]

Oh my gosh Sunflower. I thought forty feet was close !

[Guest]

salubrious - I've read several of Brown's books and have a tracking box I've studied from.  Would love to go to one of his schools, but circumstances never worked out right. 

 

Sunflower - what did you see in that experience?  Can you describe it?

[Sunflower]

It was pitch dark and no moon out, couldn't see a thing.  I was shining a maglight into the trees and my niece was listening for sounds of movement and directing me to those sounds.  When she would say go right, I would scan right and so on.  It was not that long a time and then we heard the growl.  She was actually sitting in a chair and she came flying out of it at me and literally tried to jump in my arms or stumbled because she couldn't see me, really not sure.  The sound was something I have never ever heard before and still to this day it haunts me.

 

She had tears in her eyes and was jumping up and down.  Both of us were jolted from a calm and cool state into something that is not expected, so if you experienced something similar, you know what I'm saying here.

 

It was after midnight in Tennessee (private property) and won't give out locations for safety of the people who live there. Plus I don't have permission to do that.

[Guest]

These wider trails often led into very thick brush, actually an invasive species of trees that blot out the conifers and are difficult to walk thru.  Inside one area I found a 15' circle of dirt, freshly dug up with apparently a stick (I did photograph) and it seemed the "nut grasses"(my slang name..not sure the variety) had been popped up using the stick as the end had impacted dirt.  Not enough of the bunches remained to indicate grubs or something were the goal, and it seemed they had been eaten..I couldn't figure it out..

I'm wondering if you're describing lilies, I've found lilies dug up apparently with a stick several times, I think the actual bulbs are the object, they are edible. This stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylily

 is what seems to grow wild everywhere around here, and clumps of it look a bit like some kind of fat leafed grass.