2015 The State Of Sasquatch Science

[ShadowBorn]

 

It was enough to impress some individuals in that at least they followed scientific protocols. Back to the recording, I only record in continuous mode, and I suggest you do likewise, SWWASP is right in that much of what I have picked up would not have been activated by that mode. I know Stan Courtney and others use parabolic dishes to amplify distant regions and a microphone that is multi directional with a furry wind sock, that is the wildlife recorders standard so to speak. I like the idea of using an external battery, like a motorcycle battery. I will have to see if that is possible with the Tascam DR07mkii that I am using. On a local note I am certain that the humming I get when recording at home is the cell tower very near by, that really sucks. It is perfectly quiet when I am indoors or elsewhere. About to go through my last six hours of off property recording from Gander Mountain (hardly a mountain), though it makes for a good short work out for a 51 year old. I got about 20 hours of continuous recording out of the ultimate lithium energizers with a cold night near frost. Better than the average of 13 with rechargeable batteries I use for home recording. But I am shooting for about 200 hours which would eat up my 32 gig card. I generally record in Mp3 mode with the highest definition, it uses about a gig for every 7 hours of recording. To go back through the recording I use the NCH wavepad editing software, the newer version has a scrub feature which allows for panning over the file listening for anomalies, a seven hour file can be loaded and panned in 15 minutes or so, depending on the amount of interesting moments. I am not just recording to capture Sasquatch, I want to know what is using the area, deer, owls, coyotes, fox, and whatever else shows up, it is all educational and helps me see the bigger picture. Most nights I have captured anomalies I might suggest were sasquatch related, I had coyote activity in the area, that is just my observation.

MP3 mode has such a low sample rate that unless you are recording for personal entertainment and to share your recordings, they would be of little use to scientific analysis. Depends on your purpose for doing it. Here is a picture of a dish I made. Two feet in diameter. If you get tired of listening at night you can roast hotdogs on it in the daytime. Or burn a hole in your car set like I did. Lucky I did not burn up the car. If you aim it at a fluttering leaf at 100 yards you can hear the leaf flutter. Be careful with the voltages when using a motor cycle battery. A lot of recorders use 5 or 6 volts. If you look around you can find car converters that will convert 12 volts to 5 or 6 volts. You might have to change out the plug to match your recording device.

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LCB and SWW

If you learn how to climb trees with rope and a belt and place those mics high you can get better reception. It is just a thought and may give you better data.

[SWWASAS]

To me that is like suggesting taking up skydiving. I was an ambulance attendant when I was in college. One of my pickups was logger that fell about a 100 feet out of a Douglas Fir tree he was cutting limbs off. They used to do that before they got modern equipment that picks up the log and delimbs it. He cut his leather climbing belt with his chain saw and fell. He was dead and very limp. We figured most of his large bones were broken. Another call we got was a parachute jumper whose chute did not open. He was even more limp. So to me climbing that high in trees and parachute jumping have similar risks. No thanks.

I am not into audio that much as far as proof. Certainly not enough to climb large trees. I think it is a dead end as far as existence. Because even more so than photographs, if you record a howl in the woods, all you can ever hope to prove from a scientific standpoint is that something unknown to science, or never previously heard and accepted by science made a howl. You have nothing at all to tie that howl to BF. Certainly when BF is accepted by science then recorded howls and other vocalizations will be part of what data we do know about their behavior. That is not unimportant by any means but not something that you need to rush into doing. But when I am in the field, I have a pack mounted audio recorder running all the time. Vocalizations are always a surprise and may be in reaction to something you are doing. That adds to the body of data about BF behavior. Just get close to a BF and in plain view urinate. That has provoked a very noisy response twice now. I mentioned this to Bindernagel at the Sasquatch Summit. He had not heard of that behavior. A man standing next to me said he had it happen also. Another man in a camp situation on another BF Forum mentioned he had gotten up on a very dark night and went into the bushes to relieve himself. He nearly did it on the leg of a BF standing there. The result was a roar of outrage.

Unwittingly we can do things that provoke behavior. That may even be a way to promote research. If we try to get along with them, be nice, and be mutually respectful, you may never have contact you are aware of. But if you do something that provokes a response, you know they are there, they may loose it and step into view, and you might get a lot more data than you get playing nice. It might be risky on your part but it is certainly a research technique that might be looked at if it gives results. Northern Washington has an area where there are frequent reports of BF being very aggressive, throwing rocks, and making bluffing charges trying to chase humans of the woods. A bluff charge BF is not only going to be visible but very much exposed to being photographed. Of course taking video over your shoulder while you run for you life might not be an easy thing to pull off. But hey, results are results.

Edited December 12, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Lake County Bigfooot]

I record mainly for the purpose of determining if further inquiry is justified, I will start looking for other signs like prints and breaks, or objects being placed after I get something of interest on a recording. It is just a loose barometer for whether something might be using the area. I do not think it is usable for evidence other than unknowns. I also just like to hear the sounds of the night and what animals are doing, and for that matter humans. I caught humans using an area very early in the morning that is off limits till sunrise, gives me a safety measure to know if someone is using an area for illegal purposes, and that is something I do not want to stumble into.

Shadowborn

I like the parabolic invention, was the dish from a spot light rig?

Edited December 14, 2015 by Lake County Bigfooot

[Guest]

New here. Sorry if this is off topic. Does anyone know what happened to the Georgia Bigfoot society? They seem to have gone inactive.

Where do you generally conduct research? In my state I can only camp overnight at a state park or national forest.

Last question, does anyone here try staying up all night? Does it mess up your sleep schedule?

[Incorrigible1]

"Where do you generally conduct research? In my state I can only camp overnight at a state park or national forest."

 

Seems very silly if one cannot stay several nights.

[Twist]

Sorry,I cannot speak on the subject of the GA BF Society. 

 

Regarding where I conduct research. I do not conduct "research" so much as I am aware of the BF ideology and combine that with the the fact I spend a considerable time camping and outdoors in general.  On average I spend about 30 - 40 days a year camping/living outdoors.  By this I mean rustic camping in a tent with no electricity or common amenities available.  I also spend a few weekends a year "camping" where amenities are commonly available via campers or cabins.  

 

I guess I"m lucky because I live in MI which provides a lot of land that is both "rustic" and non-rustics.  Usually I'm in lands that fall under the following:

 

"If you are looking for a rustic camping experience, with plenty of space between camp sites, Michigan's state forest campgrounds are for you. Located throughout Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula, the state forest campgrounds provide over 3,000 campsites in the state's nearly 4-million acres of state forest. Every state forest campground is located on a river or lake, providing excellent access to fishing, boating and canoeing/kayaking. More than 60 campgrounds have nearby nonmotorized trails for hiking, biking, horseback riding and nature observation"

 

So far,nothing in my camping experience, since being an adult that is open to the idea of BF that qualifies as anything BF related. 

[SWWASAS]

New here. Sorry if this is off topic. Does anyone know what happened to the Georgia Bigfoot society? They seem to have gone inactive.

Where do you generally conduct research? In my state I can only camp overnight at a state park or national forest.

Last question, does anyone here try staying up all night? Does it mess up your sleep schedule?

Are you sure about not being able to camp at other than established campgrounds? Oregon and Washington have some restrictions but do allow camping out side of campgrounds. Check with whatever agency controls such lands. If that were true there would be no backpacking in your state. Because backpackers camp where it is convenient. Even California which has rules for everything allows camping outside established campgrounds. Also if there are large areas in private hands that you might want to check out, check with the owner. Promiss to leave it cleaner than you find it and the owner will welcome you there. Governments cannot restrict camping on private lands.

Edited December 15, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Guest DWA]

I pulled an all-nighter one night road-running through the Big Thicket.  But I'm a night owl.

[Lake County Bigfooot]

Again, no knowledge of the Georgia Bigfoot Society. Sometimes when you have the creatures potentially living near you, say your immediate vicinity, you cannot but stay up some nights. Look back at my original postings on the Urban Bigfoot, Seriously? thread and see how many were in the middle of the night. I sleep better now days. I have not spent time camping with the idea of Sasquatch in my mind, but many nights I could not sleep simply due to the discomfort of sleeping on the ground. I used to go up to the boundary waters wilderness canoe area, back then Sasquatch was not on my horizon. Knowing what I know now I would like to return and do some night investigations. One night I awoke at midnight to go fishing, it was the opening of the season and I was the only soul fishing for many miles. The northern lights were on my left, a cliff and forest on my right. I casted a number 9 perch rapala and caught one walleye after another, stringing them up to my foot. I was standing at the bottom of a waterfall on the seagull river. Pretty soon I had my limit and had to call it quits. I went back to sleep happy for my catch. Now I look back and wonder why I did not release those fish and just keep on fishing, it was magnificent to be out under the stars and aurora borealis. On that trip I remember something throwing a rock in the water next to me, and I think that has happened several times while fishing up north. I know I moved to another spot on a lake one time due to it. I guess I accounted it to humans not wanting me there, or a beaver tail slap, only the beaver was missing. My old Lake of the Woods fishing guide, who preferred fishing after dark and at dusk, had mentioned Sasquatch a time or two, guess he was testing the waters to see if it was safe to talk about. Suffice it to say I have been in some really good situations to see or hear them, I do not know if you are in complete unbelief if you would know what you saw or heard anyway, unless it was plain as day in front of you.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Lake County Bigfooot

[Guest DWA]

 

Are you sure about not being able to camp at other than established campgrounds? Oregon and Washington have some restrictions but do allow camping out side of campgrounds. Check with whatever agency controls such lands. If that were true there would be no backpacking in your state. Because backpackers camp where it is convenient. Even California which has rules for everything allows camping outside established campgrounds. Also if there are large areas in private hands that you might want to check out, check with the owner. Promiss to leave it cleaner than you find it and the owner will welcome you there. Governments cannot restrict camping on private lands.

 

I encountered the landowners once, while bushwhacking up a stream to get into a national park.  Nightmare scenario:  they were carrying out huge bags of trash left by partying yahoos; we'd been hoping to scoot through the private stretch and get into the park.  They wound up telling us that next time we tried something like this...we should drive up the road, stop at the house, and say hi first, they might have breakfast going and we'd be welcome to it.

 

Another time we asked a homeowner near a climb's starting point:  say, this road is kinda tight; we don't want to block it when we park.  Any advice?  He pointed into his carport, and advised us when dinner would be on Sunday.  (We missed it.)

 

On another occasion, we almost killed an afternoon in the living room of a landowner we passed.

 

They hate people that run past the house, party, and trash the place.  I would always ask.

[Martin]

Self delete

Edited December 15, 2015 by Martin

[BigTreeWalker]

Good advice DWA, it never hurts to ask.

LCB, that was a great explanation and experience. You described it so well I could picture it!

The National Forests in WA allow dispersed camping for up to two weeks. I suppose they would have to find you to tell you to move on though. One big thing that may cause problems with this policy however, is people trashing the areas where they camp. It costs the forest service every time they have to clean up what basically amounts to a garbage dump.

[Guest]

To clarify, the Chatahoochee National Forest, which covers most of the mountainous land in North Georgia, permits camping anywhere for up to 2 weeks. Parking is available at campgrounds and trail heads.

[Lake County Bigfooot]

My journeys take me south this Saturday, stopping in Corbin KY, just outside the Daniel Boon NF. Will be doing a little road investigation, and possible recording there. Then on south to St. Augustine FL. might venture over to Ocala for some looks. Then down to Fort Pierce FL, I know some of those hog littered back roads, also had a large bipedal eye shine cross the road, could not get close enough to identify. Then over to Naples to visit Grand Cypress for a couple of days, and further up the coast to Port Charollette , misspelled, but that gives my access to Myakka State forest, then it is up to Clearwater to visit my inlaws, Lastly to Tallahassee for a little trip up into Quincy just to the north.  I will have those swamp apes surrounded, and undoubtedly on a leash by weeks end, what do you suppose I should do with em, maybe pawn um off as a circus show, What ever, I will most likely aquire the NDA and let them go at their convenience.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Lake County Bigfooot

[Twist]

Safe travels and good luck on your trip !