Forest Goes Silent When Bf Is Around

[Guest budman48]

JDL, I for one would agree with your assumptions. My son as well as myself have experienced the same thing during ops, as well as during recreational activities. Three of those times were accompanied by some intense vocalizations. 

[Guest]

A multifaceted phenomena I think.

 

First thing, dawn chorus, after an hour or so, I think it gets to a point where everything has just had enough of cheeping it's head off, so there will be a lull, probably a literal pause for breath, this might last a while until the forest begins the rest of it's daily routine and ambient birdsong returns to sporadic. At night, you might get a false dawn chorus, caused by vehicle lights, stadium lights on horizon, fires, or just particularly reflective clouds picking up skyglow. They will eventually realise, hey it's not dawn, and shut up... noes, sudden spooky silence. Sometime around oh dark thirty even the crickets have given it up for the night, not so much in the height of summer though.

 

Second thing, Predatory behaviour. This is hard to absolutely define, but when anything starts stalking anything, all the potential prey tends to freeze in place and listen intently. You can trigger it just trying to get a look at things, you can trigger it trying to get a shot with a camera. Your dog can trigger it. Everything is bracing for flight in case it's them. I don't think super super slow stealthy movement triggers it, but stealthy continual movement does. Some of the sense for this may be bio-electro-magnetic, the nerves tighten, focus, concentration on objective, tensing to spring, or just press the shutter, it's similar. Evidently this is different to just "folks mosying along". It is possible that your neckhair prickle feeling and sense of being watched can be a physiological response to faint bio-EM signals of a heightened readiness/focus neurological system nearby.

 

Third thing, silence propogation. You might not have the spine tingle, but if something nearby you shuts up, you tend to shut up and listen too. Crickets are not the most perceptive of critters, you get near one, it shuts up, whether you're predatory or looking for a stump to sit on. I would estimate that if there's another cricket within 6ft of the first cricket, that will also shut up, this will expand outward, dependent on cricket density. Then if your crickets were of a density to be rather noticably loud, the sudden propogating silence of crickets will probably make other critters stop and listen... but as you know if you stand and wait by that cricket, it will often start up again in a minute or two.

 

Fourthly, weather. If it's a hot summer afternoon, maybe everything is just drowsing for a bit. A few minutes to half hour before a storm, a lot of birds will kick up, then after a period of that activity, if the rain hasn't hit yet, there may be a period of silence. During a desultory rain, you might have a little bird and small critter activity, which is both drowned out and literally damped down by a gradual increase in precipitation, which you may also perceive as a silence.

 

So, does BF make the forest silent? Probably. When he's just "folks mosying along" he might be triggering cricket silence ripples by getting near any. If he decides to take an interest in the hairless ones he just smelt on the trail, he's probably going to trigger a "beware predator" silence, even if he's not predating per se... if the hairless ones are downwind and decide to check out that awful smell they're getting, they might trigger "beware predator" ... then of course if hairless and hairy are totally oblivious to each other, he could be picking out a juicy deer for supper, and causing a silence that reaches you, though you are not near the center of it.

 

Is forest silence a highly specific indication of BF presence? Nope.

[JDL]

^Plussed.

[bipedalist]

This is how it happens, when you least expect it :

 

[Guest DWA]

I've experienced this too and written about it here.  I think it is a collective behavior associated with menace and I don't think it is restricted to just bigfoot.  When something is clearly menacing, the smaller things around it seem to go silent, and nearby creatures react to the sudden silence by going silent as well.  It spreads out in a radial pattern.

 

I'm just saying that this seems to be how it happens.  I imagine that there are a few theories about why it happens.

Happens with any predator, shoot, happens with you, whenever you get close to the sound of a bird in a bush or insect/frog in a tree.  Garden variety.  Most of the things that people go "oh no way...." are things that, yes, way, they happen all the time.

Animals use other animals as alarms all the time, which is what JDL is talking about.  It's not "ooohhhhh bigfoot gonna eat meeeeeeeeee..." it's:  that's an alarm call.  Whoa  [silence]

yeah what Flashman said...

[Terry]

It's probably the observer who is making the forest quiet as he walks around thinking it's a bigfoot causing the silence!?!

 

t.

[Guest DWA]

Probably not, from all the ones I have read.  In each case, an observer very familiar with the area registered something foreign to his previous experience there.

 

In places where people go regularly - which is where the vast majority of bigfoot sightings logically take place - the local fauna have probably gotten familiar enough with people that they don't get the same reaction that something else might.

[MIB]

I would agree with DWA's conclusion but for a different reason.  

 

Those instances when I was particularly aware of the forest going silent in an odd way, it generally did not seem to be centered / symmetrical around my location, it was off a ways.   Most times, I was not in the part that was silent at all, a few times, merely on the periphery.   In other words, I was near the edge or entirely outside the "circle."    The circle was **moving**.  I was not.  

 

IMHO that requires a different, not so dismissive, explanation.   

 

The one time I'm sure it was BF it was somewhat different.   It was a much more oppressive silence.  No birds, bugs, etc.  I could still hear wind moving leaves and I could occasionally hear my buddy in the next tent over roll over, snore, etc.   I wasn't specifically aware of the silence 'til I re-awakened later after the "event" had ended and noticed how very loud it had gotten ... bugs, birds (bright moon), fish splashing, etc.   Auditory exclusion doesn't account for the combination of what was or was not.

 

Again, it requires a different, not so dismissive, explanation.

 

I haven't gotten one yet that doesn't appear to be shrill denial intended to silence me rather than an honest contribution to understanding.

 

MIB

Edited December 4, 2015 by MIB

[VAfooter]

Thanks for story MIB, I was wondering about that. If indeed BF causes silence, then it would seem that the "cone of silence" would be moving in relation to BF. I have never heard a report of that happening until now, MIB.

[gigantor]

Every animal in the woods goes silent when they detect a newcomer in the area. Prey shut-up because they don't want to be eaten, predators are quiet anyway, but also shut-up and listen so they can get some.

 

It has nothing to do with BF, it's just natural instinct.

Edited December 5, 2015 by gigantor

[Guest DWA]

...and, a lot of us would say, just another way that something "incredible" about sasquatch is really garden-variety woods stuff.

[GuyInIndiana]

One will hear and read this commonly when on the subject of BF: The forest went completely dead silent when a BF was sighted.

<snip>

So, what's going on with this 'silent forest' thing? I gotta believe there is more to the story than meets the eye...er, ears.

MNSkeptic

 

I'm sure it 'can' or does happen, but it doesn't mean it's an automatic thing, nor does it equate that it's happening because there's a bigfoot around.

 

We've experienced many episodes where it's not the woods going quiet, but the woods going nuts when there are BF around.

 

Without hard, physical evidence or scientifically obtained and vetted data, everything about this is purely conjecture.

 

Edited to Add: If it's an eyewitness who just had an encounter reporting this happening, then it's even more likely it's an adrenaline induced auditory event experienced by the individual. The temporary loss of auditory perception and logic/reasoning skills is a medically documented phenomenon in a shocking or frightening situation.

Edited December 7, 2015 by GuyInIndiana