SWWASAS Posted April 8, 2014 BFF Patron Author Posted April 8, 2014 I returned to the March 22 event location yesterday and got hit maybe about 10 times. Results are the same. I have so much clean data now that it will take weeks to analyze it. Duration of the events are just under or over 5 seconds. Frequency analysis shows they start at 2 to 4 hz and increase to about 12 hz. None were strong enough to effect my abdomen this time but I still felt more than heard them. I would think it over with and start to leave the area and get hit again. I tried to flank it and get in behind to try to see it but the deadwood was so heavy there that I could barely move through the area. Since I was alone I was also reluctant to chance cornering it down in the gully it seemed to be in. So I backed out. The events stopped when I was doing this and did not resume until I went back to the trail to about the same location as the March 22 events. I took compass bearings on where the source seemed to be from two different points. With trig I should be able to determine the distance. I got the impression it was much further away from me than the March 22 event. Because of the lack of strong abdominal vibrations and the bearing change when I moved along the trail. In total I was there about three hours hoping the producer of this would move, take a peek at me, and I could get a visual on it. Did not happen that I noticed. I thought it all done so shouted out to it I was leaving and thanked it for playing with me. As soon as I turned my back to leave it hit me again. Sort of like it was enjoying playing with me and did not want me to leave. I got a quote on the Rion sound meter mentioned previously in this post. I will do the job nicely but without accessories it is $6600 dollars. A little steep for my budget.
Sunflower Posted April 8, 2014 Posted April 8, 2014 It could be a nursery area and I would be very careful if I were you.
SWWASAS Posted April 8, 2014 BFF Patron Author Posted April 8, 2014 I am trying to eliminate alternative explanations. Is anyone familiar with a North American animal known to produce infrasound? Unless I have a BF sighting simultaneous with one of these sound events, I can never definitively tie what I am recording to BF. I just don't want to spend a lot of field time chasing something that turns out to be some more common animal. I have enough data now I can analyze it for months and so far it is consistent in duration and frequency, I just don't know for sure what is producing it. Whatever is producing the sound, there has to be something special about the location right now. I just don't know what that is. I have been past there a dozen times previously and never had anything happened. Now the last two times there, I get these events. I know there is a juvenile somewhere in the area. At least there was in July 2012. So nursery might be a possibility.
Drew Posted April 9, 2014 Posted April 9, 2014 Could there be an underground waterfall or a regular waterfall around there? They are known to produce infrasound. Also, be sure to check for Wind Turbines (Windmills) in the area. You can sometimes hear those for miles. The windmill's lower frequency stuff you can hear on certain days.
daveedoe Posted April 9, 2014 Posted April 9, 2014 I am trying to eliminate alternative explanations. Is anyone familiar with a North American animal known to produce infrasound? Again, I'm not an expert by any means, but the way you describe the sounds it does seem consistent with a ruffed grouse. The way it ramps up and the duration. What I have read is the sound produced is a very low frequency and some reports say the sound is described by some people as felt not heard. I do know there are quite a few ruffed grouse in the forest near your research area. Again just a thought. 1
SWWASAS Posted April 9, 2014 BFF Patron Author Posted April 9, 2014 The zapping thing was different on the March event so I think there might be two different things going on in the same area. Later that day in March I heard something more like happened to me last Monday. Anyway when I can get back there I will try to get a visual on the sound producer. Grouse or not I want to know what is making that sound so I can move on and get to other areas. I just cannot imagine a BF hanging around in that small an area close to a trail.
bipedalist Posted April 10, 2014 BFF Patron Posted April 10, 2014 I think I would be measuring wind speed during these events if possible, and direction. Might give you some ability to know where you are with it. Also, grouse drumming is deep bass and vibratory and asymmetrical for sure but I would personally find it hard to confuse with BF infrasound unless you are not experienced in hearing and flushing grouse.
SWWASAS Posted April 10, 2014 BFF Patron Author Posted April 10, 2014 There was some wind on March 22 but none on April 7. That is the beauty of recording everything at the time because the recorder shows wind noise . Previous to this I have not experienced either grouse drumming or BF zapping. Again the recorded data shows a difference between two different events so I have to conclude that one was zapping and the other most likely grouse drumming from examining data I find on the internet. When I can confirm my data sets with a visual on a grouse at least I have eliminated that possibility for the BF zapping experience on March 22. The data is significantly different. I suppose I could just proclaim I have been both zapped and drummed and be done with it. But that can always be questioned. I want to get beyond the subjective and be able to view data and determine from the data the difference between the two events. If I can tie one set of data to a grouse then I can eliminate the grouse as source of the first event (March 22) which I believe is BF zapping. There is no way to measure, quantify, or adequately convey what I felt when I was zapped so I cannot use that for any scientific argument even though I agree that the two were very different. Even if I eliminate the grouse for the zapping events on March 22 with the support of my data, I still have no way to tie it to BF without a visual. All I can say at any point in the future that the data shows it was not a grouse. Sadly that is how science works. But, I believe others may have recorded zapping and might be unaware they have evidence on their recorders because they do not have graphic sound software or do not know what to look for. If graphic evidence surfaces we need to be able to view it and differentiate between grouse drumming and likely BF zapping because we cannot measure the physiological effects of zapping on humans. On a graphics trace they are similar. The duration and run up in frequency from beginning to end. But the beginning and end frequencies are significantly different as well as rate of increase. Because of my experience I think that differentiation needs to be done. If I can record zapping then others can or already have too. Should anyone ever acquire sound graphics evidence simultaneously with a BF sighting, then we can type that graphic sound signature and have that in our bag of tools. That is important when we have people who believe zapping is imaginary or is something other than infrasound. I have to admit I never had a clue I would be doing this stuff when I started BF research. It is pretty tedious but gives me something to do on down or weather days when I cannot be in the field. If anyone thinks they have recorded zapping I would love to look at your data or at least tell you what to look for if you do not want to release your data. The software I use is shareware so pretty inexpensive.
bipedalist Posted April 14, 2014 BFF Patron Posted April 14, 2014 Again, I'm not an expert by any means, but the way you describe the sounds it does seem consistent with a ruffed grouse. The way it ramps up and the duration. What I have read is the sound produced is a very low frequency and some reports say the sound is described by some people as felt not heard. I do know there are quite a few ruffed grouse in the forest near your research area. Again just a thought. Along these lines, I picked up a recording with a woodpecker and a group of birds/animals calling across a watershed, sounding like somebody using a tom-tom until I got closer to it. The cadence was five beat almost everytime. I heard these things sound off every few minutes for several hours. Excuse the sound recording it came from a cheap digital hd camcorder this go round. Habitat 1500 ft. elevation, doug fir, western red cedar, western hemlock, various terrains from sunny slopes to deep shade and rain forest. About as low a humidity as you could get in this area this particular day. Any ideas what the deeper sounds are that variously sound like sawing wood to using a rosined bow across some form of sounding board? https://soundcloud.com/bipedalist/drillingdrumming
SWWASAS Posted April 15, 2014 BFF Patron Author Posted April 15, 2014 It does sound very drum like. Not at all similar to grouse with respect to cadence. Could the sawing / bow sounds be some kind of hydraulic equipment? Distant loggers using hydraulic equipment have caused me to stop and listen a few times. When it is far away sometimes hydraulic stuff sounds like a vocalization or a base fiddle being bowed. As you get closer you can hear the mechanical nature. With all the bigfooters out now because of the recent TV shows on the topic, it is getting to the point where you cannot ever be sure who/what is making drumming, wood knocks, or whoops and howls.
Guest Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 The scientists at The Oregon Zoo in Portland discovered elephants used infrasound in the early 80’s by “feeling itâ€. To prove it they used a hi fidelity tape deck and professional microphones (ones that are used to record symphonies) to take samples. Then they played back the recordings at faster speeds and they could "hear" there was something there the elephants were doing. Organic creatures aren’t going to produce pure sine wave sounds (I doubt), so there will be some higher pitch harmonic components of the sounds you recorded that might well be picked up by the Zoom. I’d suggest speeding up the recording and/or just changing the pitch; both of which can be done using Audacity software (available free) to hear if anything interesting is there once it’s “converted†to human range. Remember that scene in "The Hunt for Red October" where Jonesy speeds up the weird organic sound and then they could tell it was a mechanical sound of the Russian sub? Same idea.
bipedalist Posted April 15, 2014 BFF Patron Posted April 15, 2014 (edited) It does sound very drum like. Not at all similar to grouse with respect to cadence. Could the sawing / bow sounds be some kind of hydraulic equipment? Distant loggers using hydraulic equipment have caused me to stop and listen a few times. When it is far away sometimes hydraulic stuff sounds like a vocalization or a base fiddle being bowed. As you get closer you can hear the mechanical nature. With all the bigfooters out now because of the recent TV shows on the topic, it is getting to the point where you cannot ever be sure who/what is making drumming, wood knocks, or whoops and howls. The problem with these being a logging "valley" equipment sound is that the things would sound off behind me in wilderness (sounded like no more than 50 yards at closest), across the valley in wilderness and at one point three of them were sounding off back and forth. I also thought it could be a valley type of equipment at one point and then as I got deeper in the river valley it was obvious this was localized to wilderness. Definitely the ruffed grouse I am familiar with and would not have suspected these sounds were from ruffed grouse. Spruce grouse apparently sound nothing like the file I captured either. Edited April 16, 2014 by bipedalist
daveedoe Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 one more groude video of a blue grouse, they are also in the woods around SW Washington but are usually at higher elevations, they sound strange if you hear them in the woods
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