Infrasound Event Preliminary Report

[Explorer]

Randy,

 

Any updates on the infrasound detection system that you got back in May? 

Last time you posted, it seemed that the software was not very helpful.

 

Do you have a photo of its deployment?  Is it portable?

 

I assumed that you got something other than the RION meter posted above and less expensive.

I liked the features of the portable RION meter (per video link above), but at $6,600 it is hard to justify given the lack of predictability and repeatability of the phenomena.

 

I liked your Dune thumper idea or analogy.  Given the vastness of the wilderness in WA, it is more efficient to attract the creature to you as opposed to waste time looking for it randomly.

Are there any cases in the databases that discuss BF reactions to sound (any sound, natural or manmade, not just infra) and in particular attractions to certain sounds?

 

Some researchers are going to the field and playing back audio recordings of supposedly BF sounds, using woodnocks, etc., but none of these techniques have yielded positive results.

But, I wonder if intentionally emitting infrasound in the frequencies that you have detected would yield any results?

This will require another piece of equipment to generate the IS.

It would be an interesting experiment just to see what happens with the adjacent wildlife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SWWASAS]

The device I got was an Infiltec Infra 20.     It will record directly record infrasound from 20 hz down to .05 hz.    The primary intended purpose of the device is earthquake detection as is the associated software.     It is not portable in that it requires being hooked up to a computer to record data and has a large detection array.      The primary output is a DB9 cable but the maker supplies a DB9 serial to USB adapter.      All together the device with cables and adapters costs close to $300.   Better than $6600 but not portable.    Additionally the detection array is basically upside down metal pie plates 3 or 4 (not furnished)  connected to a common hose which is plugged into the side of the device which is the size of a half loaf of bread.     The device detects pressure waves in the atmosphere or those produced by passing earthquake wave.    The multiple sensors are necessary to null out wind pressure differences or it would be worthless if there was any wind.       Interestingly in addition to earthquakes such a device is used by the nuclear test ban treaty observers which have stations in several places on the globe.      Similar devices can detect an atmospheric test 1000s of miles away.     The software leaves a lot to desire and since it is intended for earthquake recording, it does not lend itself to BF detection very well.    If you are familiar with the helicorder of an earthquake detector that is the form of the recorded data. 

 

Since it is not portable,  all deployment I have planned is in camping situations.     It will readily detect infrasound and BF footsteps because it will detect my own footsteps that are inaudible but produce mini earthquakes when you walk.   The problem is that BF rarely uses infrasound, from what I can determine, and the primary intent of that use is fear and intimidation.     So unless BF has other uses for infrasound, and I do have some evidence of that,   you need to provoke a BF to zap you for the recorder to have anything to record.    I have recorded single pulses of infrasound that I assume were produced by a BF that I knew was nearby,  so I do have data that suggest BF use infrasound for some other purpose than intimidation.    My present theory is that they send out pulses of infrasound that should be detectable by BF some distances away.   They probably feel them in their large chest cavity more than hear them but I suppose that is possible if you have a large head and corresponding large ear drums to hear them directly.   This could be a chest produced equivalent of a tree knock but one that is inaudible to humans.     They consist of a single low frequency pressure wave, that is repeated every 15 or 20 seconds for a couple of minutes then stop. 

 

In a camping situation the device can act as a distant early warning system, and detect BF footsteps that are inaudible.   Perhaps that is the best use to date unless I can provoke a zapping encounter.    My research area has gone cold so I have not had any field time with the device when I know BF are around.      I have had it deployed when there are distant thunderstorms in the area that were inaudible to my ears but the device picked them up quite readily.    I did not know what it was until the thunderstorms  got close enough to hear with my ears.    Additionally you have to check earthquake reports in your area or something interesting could be an earthquake you are not aware of.      So you need to note the time when anything interesting happens and check it with the USGS reports in the area. 

 

So while I do have the equipment, and it does have potential,  lack of portability limits it's use. 

 

Rather than call blasting supposed bigfoot calls, I think some researchers have had better luck playing music.    One reported that a certain minor key produce the most response.    Classical seems to be better received than Pop music.    Maybe we should go visit a dairy farm and see what the cows prefer when they are milked.     They seem to have preferences too.  

 

The sound thing has potential but proving infrasound was produced by a BF is daunting.    You would have to have simultaneous video and infra recording to even begin to prove that BF was the source.     I don't know how you would arrange that unless you could get a BF to chase you into your camp with a video recorder and infrasound recorder running.     If you get one that angry you might not survive the experiment to know that it was successful.     I don't think I want to play that game.  

[SWWASAS]

I have come back to the audio file that I recorded on March 22, 2014 where I was subjected to an infrasound blast. Using new software it is easier to see the nature of the infrasound blast. As I reported then, I got zapped several times but the best data is when I got over being surprised and stood still so the recorder was not picking up as much background noise. Looking at the sound trace it appears to arrive as a series of pressure waves. Compressing the air as it approaches the microphone then as it passes, the pressure turns negative then recovers with a slight overbounce. A gunshot would produce a similar wave.

The first picture is the cleanest part of the recording and shows the blast from beginning to end. The second and third photograph show that expanded both in the horizontal and vertical axis. By looking at the time line at the top broken down to .01 seconds above, you can count the passing waves in period of a second and determine that intitially the blast started at approximately 4 HZ then increases in frequency to just over 12 HZ. Both are well below human hearing and include the experimental frequencies that are known to produce physiological effects on human beings.

The files are stereo but and both channels show the passing waves but the bottom channel shows it best due to the orientation of the stereo microphones. As the frequency goes up the BF seems to have more problem producing a clean sound. The pressure waves become more and more irregular in shape and frequency. The second picture is at 4 HZ. Notice how clean and regular the waveforms are. the last picture is at the 12 HZ end.

Edited November 14, 2014 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[SWWASAS]

By clicking on each picture you can see the timeline at the top. A couple of minutes after this I started talking to the BF that did it. Someday I will provide a transcript of that. I told them I was impressed with the infrasound, tried to encourage it to step out so I could see it, and asked it not to zap me any more.

[David NC]

Swwa. The sound was not a burst correct? Does it look more like a low rumbling growl, hum, or some other pattern to you? Might take your setup to a zoo that has large animals with potential IS and get some recordings, maybe give you some comparison to what you are recording?

Edited November 14, 2014 by David NC

[SWWASAS]

I am not aware of hearing anything audible. I did feel a buzzing in my guts that may have been audible to me through conductance in my body but the recorder did not pick it up. The first time I listened to the whole event I did not hear anything other than me talking back to the BF after it happened. So I initially did not think I had anything recorded. MIB, a forum member, suggested I look for harmonics and that is when I picked up the waves on the graphics trace produced by my audio software. That showed this well enough for me to calculate the frequency in the infrasound range but this new software clearly shows the wave form as well as easily allowing the frequencies to be determined. The wave form is definitely in the form of a pressure wave. The wave front hits the microphone shows positive pressure, drops to negative pressure as the wave passes then recovers with a slight bounce on the positive side. The second picture shows the wave form well.

That is a good idea about going to a zoo. Portland Zoo has a number of elephants as well as large cats that are known to produce infrasound. The difficulty there is with BF it needs to be provoked. The BF in this research area had seen me frequently just before it was logged within a couple of days of me showing up and getting zapped. It is only conjecture, but they might have thought I had something to do with the logging.

Perhaps elephants routinely make infra sounds to each other as a form of communication. After I was zapped there are several occurrences where two pings were produced and recorded. At the time I thought it was like sonar to keep track of me but they knew exactly where I was. Since then am more inclined to think it was something produced by the BF that zapped me to communicate. Infrasound can carry great distances so that BF might have been making some sort of communication, inaudible to me but detectable to nearby BF. With there large chest cavity they would probably feel infrasound pulses like that passing their chest cavity. They would feel it more than hear it like I felt the buzzing in my gut.

Edited November 14, 2014 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[SWWASAS]

As this graphics data shows the infrasound consisted of a series of blasts, each lasting about 5 or 6 seconds. This particular one is typical of what I felt as far as duration. The first two I was walking and my pack and other noises masks the graphics trace in noise. As I recall there were 4 blasts each lasting about 5 or 6 seconds. This particular one lasted almost 6 seconds. You might not be able to see it in the picture but the time line at the top of the software is in minutes, seconds, that is broken down to .01ths of a second.

I want to be perfectly clear, that this was not recorded with the dedicated infrasound recorder I had built after the event. At that time I was skeptical about infrasound. This was recorded with a normal Zoom H2 digital recorder using the .wav format at 44KHZ sample rate. So if you know what to look for, can provoke a BF into zapping you, and use the right software you can detect infrasound without special equipment. My Zoom recorder is pack mounted and always in the record mode when I am in the field. Periodically I stop recording and start it again so my recorded files are only about 60 to 90 minutes long. I had put down my pack about 10 minutes before this event, restarted the recorder, and this event happened about 6 minutes and 10 seconds after that. Perhaps BF thought I had turned it off or thought I turned it on and was expressing itself. I don't know which. Certainly it did not like something I had done.

Edited November 14, 2014 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[David NC]

SWWA, I understood it being below human hearing. I was just wondering what impression you got looking at the sound that could equate to a regular sound. Did it look more like a growl a series of grunts. The graph of the sound  above showed it was not a single burst. I was suggesting taking your same recording setup to a zoo to maybe get something similar, a baseline if you will. You are in very new territory on this type of thing so it will be very hard to get a idea of what you are looking at sometimes. You will be short on the whole descriptive vocabulary for it as well.

[SWWASAS]

David. From the data each utterance seems to last about 6 seconds and they did 4 to me in a period of 2 or three minutes. It has to be some sort of resonance thing they do with their chest cavity and airway. So to answer your question it is similar to a growl in form although it is below the human hearing range. I have also been growled at in the same area and perhaps the only difference in how they produce it is that one is audible and one is infrasound and more powerful and utilizes some sort of resonance. I hypothesize that because of the energies involved they could not do it very long because it would be tiring. It might be similar to us yelling. Also it would probably be limited to larger adults, or even just large males. I say that because the nearest it could have been to me with sufficient cover was behind a large down log and that was about 20 yards away. To hit me with a sound that strong that caused my insides to vibrate would require being fairly close and putting out a lot of energy.

[SWWASAS]

These are better pictures that show the time line better.      To determine the frequency,  divide the number of wave peaks by the sound duration in seconds.     Additionally I noticed that while at the lower frequencies the lower stereo channel produced the best trace, at the higher frequency the top channel produced the better trace.   This could be because I turned around to look and see if I could see the BF producing it.    At the time I did not have any sense of the direction it was coming from, but since I was at the edge of a wood line, I assumed that the BF producing it was in the wood line and recall turning and looking in that direction. 

 

The Zoom H2 is not a particularly expensive digital recorder with any special features.     I would suggest, if you suddenly feel very apprehensive, want to leave the area, you might be experiencing infrasound that could be recorded as I did.     The best software I have found to date to look at it is Sonic Visualizer.   It is shareware and fairly inexpensive.   It allows manipulation of the digital representation to expand the X and Y axis of the pressure waves.    That allows the frequency to be determined fairly easily.    In spite of your urge to flee, it is important to not move as that introduces a lot of background noise, particularly with a pack mounted recorder, that will mask the pressure waves.      The H2 is not designed to record in that portion of the audio spectrum,  so it detects the passing waves much like it detects wind noise.     The wave form on the last picture at 6:15.575 is interesting in that it is abnormal in form but at least two subsequent ones are normal.     It seems at the higher frequencies it might be more difficult for the BF to produce the resonance required.   

Edited November 16, 2014 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[SWWASAS]

I have been doing more analysis on the infrasound blast with the new software.     Since it allows more accurate determination of measurements of the frequency that was previously done with the old software by counting and averaging,  I have to report that some of my previously stated numbers are incorrect when I can directly measure the wave to wave peaks more accurately.     The blast starts at 3.412 HZ increases to a peak of 17.24 HZ at the 3 second mark then decreases to about 7.69 HZ.   While 17 HZ is approaching a range hearable by humans, most of the infrasound blast is well into the infrasound range.     I had thought it steadily increased before using the old software.    I still stick with my wave form profile assessment.     It is not sinusoidal but arrives as a series of pressure waves.    A pressure wave is produced by something like a gun shot.    A compression wave spreads out, moves past the observer,  (in this case the recorder microphones),  passes at the peak, then a negative pressure area follows that drives the microphones in the opposite direction, then in this case there is a positive pressure trailing wave that passes and the pressures recover to normal.      The form probably points to the method of production.     I had thought it might be produced by some sort of chest cavity / vocal cord resonance but the wave form does not support resonance which I believe would be sinusoidal in nature.      Perhaps it is some kind of controlled belch through the vocal cords.    Certainly with a duration less that 4 seconds that is possible.  

 

Tuesday I returned to the location of the encounter.     I had seen some indication that there might be collapsed lava tubes in the area.    So I followed what appeared to be a collapsed lava tube as far as I could, hoping that I would find an opening.     When I ventured into this area previously I was growled at.     Since the area seems to have gone non active, I correctly assumed that that would not be a problem now.     The deadwood and underbrush is very thick and it was hard going.      While I did find some evidence of movement through the area,  it did not appear recent, and was perhaps months old.      A couple of areas might have been used for bed down sites,  as they were deep depressions, surrounded by down logs,  and in one case had fur boughs in the bottom of the depression.     That did not look recent.     For sure it would be a  safe location to sleep in the daytime as it took me a better part of an hour with hard scrambling, making a lot of noise, getting into the area to look around.    Anyone moving into the area would be heard long before they could see anything.  

 

My other purpose for looking around was to try to determine where the BF was when it zapped me.       I think I have found where it might have been and I probably was literally on the other side of a log.    I have wondered what I did to provoke the zapping.   Perhaps I nearly caught it out in the open and it felt no choice but to zap me to get me to move away.     Cover was towards me and I would have seen it moving in that direction.     Beyond me in my direction of travel was a clear cut area where it would have little or no cover.      When I was zapped I did move towards the clear cut and that would have allowed the BF to move to the South West into the cover of dense forest.  

 

Here is a picture of the zapping location and some large down logs that I think the BF was hiding behind when I stopped to restart my digital recorder.    Those logs with vegetation growing out of them are as tall as I am.     The zapping happened 6 minutes after I restarted the recorder.    Just messing with the recorder could also have triggered the BF.     I will never know.    Something provoked it when it could have just let me walk past and be gone.