Let's Talk Caves and Sasquatch

[gigantor]

From my talk with the powers that be, the Forest Service and other agencies are in panic mode. They apparently found a bat with WNS in Washington State and the fungus is spreading throughout the country. They don't know how and are taking zero chances.

 

Caving on public lands has practically been shut down on the entire East Coast except for private properties, and even then, there is a liability threat to land owners because several species have been declared endangered. So private land owners are also not taking any chances. They are not playing around, we're talking jail time. The equivalent of interfering with Bald Eagle nests.

 

The NSS has now taken the position that since the fungus has spread despite years of blanket cave closures, there must be another contamination path besides humans and they may be correct. But the feds ain't buying it. It's gonna be a lobbying battle...  until they find the culprit.

 

From a BF perspective, I don't think it's a big deal. If BF were using the caves, we would've known about it decades ago.

 

 

[Incorrigible1]

Unless the reason NSS is spreading is due to bigfoot spreading the infection. Inadvertently, but bat fatal, nevertheless.

[JKH]

On 2/4/2017 at 10:18 AM, FarArcher said:

These things won't use easily accessible  caves, caverns, or overhangs.  They'll be non-obvious from normal human trackways, and for humans, somewhat difficult to see or get to. 

 

Yes, somewhere I can't find right now on the BFRO site it's said that they do only occasionally. They do have a few good reports, though, like this one.

 

http://www.bfro.net/news/arizona_cave.asp

 

 

Edited February 9, 2017 by JKH

[FarArcher]

47 minutes ago, JKH said:

 

Yes, somewhere I can't find right now on the BFRO site it's said that they do only occasionally. They do have a few good reports, though, like this one.

 

http://www.bfro.net/news/arizona_cave.asp

 

 

 

Yup.  Found just underneath the cap of an 8,000' elevation - but even then - someone saw one in the immediate area and it was found only after a search.

 

Not the normal caves humans are aware of - easily accessible and many known.  And this one had obviously dug out more, chipped out more to improve it, and even so - it's low and not obvious.

[hiflier]

Creating their own in a remote location also gives the advantage of picking a "room with a view". Something that could have several strategic plusses such as sound that carries both up to the hideout and howls that come out and reverberate across ravines, valleys and echo off opposite cliff faces. Also the advantage of being in the high ground so to speak for observing prey. If it's a successful location it may even be seasonally revisited or completely abandoned without a second thought.

 

The choice of location and elevation may also hinge on whether or not there's a mate involved. It would also make sense that it isn't a drafty place and so small enough to conserve body heat but also allow summer air currents to keep cool.  

[Branco]

Although this thread is specifically  about caves and the probability that Bigfoot might use them as bedding sites, folks are overlooking the fact that Bigfoot is known to use man-made subterranean cavities for that purpose. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of shaft coal mines in many Southeaster states that provided excellent bedding locations for Bigfoot. In Western Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma local residents have seen Bigfoot entering or leaving these shafts during early mornings and at twilight. Bigfoot tracks have been found inside a few of the old mine shafts. These shafts are ventilated by vertical openings to the surface, making then ideal for bedding during both the hot summer months and cold weather. Such abandoned shafts are fairly common in Kentucky, West Virginia, northern Alabama, and parts of Tennessee.

 

During investigations in Morgan County, AL residents reported that a particular coal mine shaft was in fact the bedroom for a large - and grumpy - Bigfoot. Late one afternoon, I walked the old and washed out road down toward the mine adit (almost horizontal opening.). One BF allowed me to pass by him unseen and unheard. When I got within about two hundred of the adit, another BF bellowed near the mine and began breaking small tree or large limbs, when I turn to leave, the one behind me made a loud growling sound. As I walked up the old road toward that one, it ran a hundred feet or so into thick brush and let me pass without incident. (This was within a mile or so of the location in which the largest BF I've every wrote about was seen by two witnesses at different times.)   

 

There are several limestone shaft mines in North Arkansas that are huge, with multiple adits and now abandoned. These mines are located in areas that generate numerous Bigfoot sighting reports.

 

During WWII there were numerous quartz crystal shaft mines in the Ouachita Mountains that produced the quartz needed by the military for the frequency control oscillators in radios. A lot of the mines were worked by hand. One lady that worked her own mine told me of seeing BF a number of times while walking the two miles or so to and from the mine at daybreak and near full darkness. She said at times one or more of the BF would squat near the mine while she was inside just to watch and listen. She said they were not a problem unless she left he lunch sack outside. Then one of them would get a free lunch. 

 

Off the subject a little, but she also told me of her strange encounter while going to the mine one morning. She vowed that she met a strange, red haired animal walking on four legs on the trail. Both stopped and looked at each other several minute. She said that the animal reminded her of huge Irish Setter dog, although with more of a sturdy build, with a very unusual shaped head and with powerful looking jaws. After a few minutes, the animal began walking slowly toward her, but showing no signs of aggression. She began talking calmly to the animal, and slowly removed her lunch bag which was hanging from a strap over one shoulder. Still talking calmly, she removed the food and placed it on the ground on one side of the trail, and walked to the woods along the other side of the trail. She continued walking slowly toward the mine. The animal ignored her and walked to the food pile and began eating.

 

Later that day, and hour or so before dark, she was frightened to see the same animal at the mine entrance. It moved to one side of the open and she heard it moving around until nearly dark. With no light, she said she slept in the mine that night with her heavy pick hammer and a sharp pointed pry bar close by. This was in Montgomery County, Arkansas where I spent a lot of time. One older man claimed to have seen a similar animal along the Ouachita River about the same time. Neither he, her nor I have any idea what kind of animal they saw.

Sorry about the long, off the topic post. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by Branco

[hiflier]

Thank you Branco. Your post is anything but off topic and I appreciate the supporting comments. May I ask you a question that may be a bit sensitive in nature? Might you have an opinion as to why any us of caves has been generally marginalized over the years to the point that the subject is rarely if ever brought up? And when it has been the response in the past was that Sasquatch doesn't use them. The next question then would be, other than the safety of bat colonies, do "mainstream Sasquatch proponents" have an agenda for steering folks away from the thinking about Sasquatch cave use? Thank you again for your input here.    

[FarArcher]

1 hour ago, hiflier said:

Thank you Branco. Your post is anything but off topic and I appreciate the supporting comments. May I ask you a question that may be a bit sensitive in nature? Might you have an opinion as to why any us of caves has been generally marginalized over the years to the point that the subject is rarely if ever brought up? And when it has been the response in the past was that Sasquatch doesn't use them. The next question then would be, other than the safety of bat colonies, do "mainstream Sasquatch proponents" have an agenda for steering folks away from the thinking about Sasquatch cave use? Thank you again for your input here.    

 

Good questions.

[Branco]

I really don't know the answer to that question as asked. I can say that they do often bed under limestone/sandstone overhangs along creeks and rivers. Generally the floors below the overhangs are flattened and smoothed by old floods and previous water levels. When used as bedding areas by BF, they usually make a "mattress" of straw, leaves or, in one case I know of, cornstalks. Those cornstalks were pulled up in large bundles when the corn was in the "roasting ear" stage by two different BF on one trip to a cornfield, and carried over a mile to to the bedding area. The corn was eaten under the overhang, the cobs broken off the husks and apparently thrown into the large creek, and the stalks and husks used as the mattress. (As most field investigators have concluded, BF are "neatness freaks". In this case, all the soil was gone from the roots of the stalks - maybe just from their transport through the bottom land's thickets - and the stalks aligned so that the roots were against the back sidewall of the overhang.) Several other documented cases of BF using those overhangs for bedding spots in AL, northern Arkansas, and West Virginia.

 

I would think that to a BF, overhang ledges with a very good view of the stream and its valley, plus the security of not being seen from above, would be much more appealing than bedding in a cave. In the previous post I mentioned "a huge limestone mine" in north AR. That limestone was mined in layers using heavy equipment and explosives. It was mined in a "checker board" pattern, leaving square support columns and straight line "roads" in between the piers in two directions. Each layer mined was, as best I remember, about 20' thick. When the crew were well into the second layer, and after the large, heavily laden truck had been using one of the inside roads a long time, the rear wheels under one side of a truck broke through the limestone floor into a large cave. Mining shut down, the load from the truck, and then the truck itself was removed, and the deep cave could be seen with lights. The geologist in charge contacted a state university, and an experienced team of "spelunkers" went down to map the cave.

 

The cave was so long, with so many forks and drop-off they didn't find but one end of it. In the far reaches of the cave they did discover the remains of a Native American male and his hunting tools, all near the skeletal remains of a raccoon. 

 

Maybe BF just isn't cut out to be a spelunker. I've been in several caves in several states, but you can bet your boots I never went past more than one fork. All I was looking for was BF sign.

  

 

 

I suppose everyone has seen and read this report.

 

http://www.bfro.net/news/arizona_cave.asp

[hiflier]

Interesting factoid: Last cave count by National Spelunker's Society? 58,752 caves just in the U.S. alone. If that figure was evenly distributed among all fifty states the average would be 1,175 caves per state. Folks, either way one slices it that a lot of caves.

Edited March 16, 2017 by hiflier

[gigantor]

All I know for sure is that in MD, VA and WV you go to jail for entering a cave without permission from the proper authorities, and they ain't handing those out easily.

 

It's that simple.

 

[hiflier]

Yep, another closed door on the mystery of BF. I wonder how restricted the NSS themselves are. Probably the same as the public? It may depend on whether or not the caves are established on a registry of sorts or newly discovered. Hmmm.....do I sound suspicious? Because let's face it, not every cave has a bat colony in it. The registered ones with known bats are certainly and easily understandable but the rest? Surely the NSS by now knows which ones to stay out of- or they should- but a blanket difficulty on gaining a permit doesn't make total sense. So a person with ten acres of farm with two caves on the property can't go in them?

[gigantor]

 

34 minutes ago, hiflier said:

So a person with ten acres of farm with two caves on the property can't go in them?

 

If it has bats in them, no (in MD, VA and WV). But even if they could, the owners have been informed and don't want to hurt the bats, why would they?

 

The NSS does in fact have caves that you can access without bats, in other states... and those are mapped with Lidar. Every square inch is being mapped and there ain't no BF in them.

 

[SWWASAS]

Well the good thing is if BF uses caves and does not eat bats, then they have to leave the cave to eat.      Hidden cameras around cave entrances of thought to be active BF caves,   might just be the way to catch some pictures.       Sure beats hanging cameras on trees and hoping a BF blunders by.     And you do not need to enter the cave to look and risk government reprisal.    If your cameras are discovered, you could claim to be a friend of bats, and trying to catch humans violating the law.          If I knew a BF was in a cave I would not enter it.    I have experienced what they do if cornered.    Throw in a juvenile and some BF mom could rip your head off to protect junior.  

[hiflier]

Hi SWWSAS, from what gigantor has said there is a quarter to half mile buffer zone from a cave's entrance. It probably means hanging a camera with the same hope as what you said- catching the chance BF going by.