Analytical Research - Sightings Database

[BobbyO]

I thought i'd get something going with regards to our wonderful Database (SSR) we're building and have been doing now for the best part of five years now.

 

I wanted to share with you and give you an insight in to how i view the numbers, which is formed by my day job as a Sports Performance Analyst dealing with numbers and translating them in to plain English each and every day.

 

Anyway, if anybody has any specific they want me to look in to and share, either geographical or regarding creature behaviour/description, just shout and i'll do my best to answer soon enough.

 

Here's some tidbits anyway and i will add numbers that are relevant by month/season etc as we go along.

 

Hope you enjoy, here's some random numbers that i thought were interesting.

 

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The State of Illinois makes up 16% of all Actual Visual Sightings in the Database from the Fall over the last five years across the entire North American Continent (62).

Of those Reports from IL, only one is from a part of the night when the Moon is visible. Where the last 10 years are concerned, the percentage of Reports from IL jumps to from 16% to 19% (a 19% increase) of all Actual Visual Sightings in the Database from the Fall over the last five years across the entire North American Continent (129) with an even number of Reports from parts of the nights when the moon is and isn't visible.

 

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Not one Actual Visual Sighting Report from WA State in the last 10 years in the Fall has been from the time of a night when the Moon has been visible. In the 10 years prior to that, every single night report in Fall that was an Actual Visual Sighting was on a night when the moon was visible.

 

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52% of all #Missouri Non Visual Vocalization Reports are from Fall. Of those Reports, 91% come from hours of darkness.

 

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For all you WA State year round field researchers, it should be noted that from the near 600 total reports we have for the State, 83% of all Knock Reports in the Fall at night have come at times of night when the moon is not visible. This compares to 44% in the Winter, 71% in the Spring and 51% in the Summer.

 

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32% of all Actual Visual Sighting Reports from across the North American Continent in November and December (241) have been from witnesses when driving.

For WA State, that numbers rises to 46%

For IL, that number drops to 21%.

For MI that number rises to 38%.

 

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November in Washington State. Of the eight Moon Phases, the Full Moon gives a 200% higher chance of a report than any other Moon Phase in the month of November where night time reports are concerned, based on the 44 reports we have in the database. The Full Moon Phase for this coming November is the 14th.

 

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The Olympic Peninsula in WA. 70% of all Actual Visual Reports in the last 10 years are from Fall and Winter.

 

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From the 42 Reports we have from Missouri in the last 10 years, 43% (18) have been in the Fall, with 92% coming in the hours of darkness and 83% of those night reports coming at times of the night when the Moon isn't visible.

 

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In the last 5 years in WA State's South Cascades Geographical Zone, Pierce County has given us a total of 76% of all Fall Reports. The prior 5 years to that, Pierce County made up just 13% of all Fall Reports from the same Geographical Zone. That's a 485% (four hundred and eighty five) increase in Reports in the last 5 years.

 

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We are currently averaging 4 Reports each Fall from Illinois in the last 10 years (39 in Total), and it should be noted that 67% of Fall reports from the last 3 years have come on nights with a Full Moon. Next Full Moon is November 14th.

 

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In the month of October over the last 10 years in the State of WA, 93% of all hours of darkness Reports have come at times of the night when the Moon has not been visible. Interesting to note that even though that % is so high, no reports are from nights of the New Moon, the phase when the Moon would generally not be visible at all in hours of darkness.

 

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WA State's stunning North Cascade Geographical Zone makes up a total of 19% of all of the State's 232 Actual Visual Reports throughout the Year. That number jumps to 25% for Fall Reports (a 32% increase), and 32% for Fall Reports in the last 10 years (a 68% increase).

 

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Ohio :

141 Actual Visual Reports :

18 Reports of White/Grey/Yellow Animals (13%)
21 Reports of Black Animals (15%)
35 Reports of Brown Animals (25%)
14 Reports of Dark Brown Animals (10%)
19 Reports of Dark Animals (13%)
3 Reports of Cinnamon Animals (2%)
21% of all reports with no colour determined.

 

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Focus on Illinois Actual Visual Sightings.

Fall makes up 42% of all reports.
October alone makes up 21% of all reports.
When the Moon is visible, the consecutive Moon Phases of the First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon and Waning Gibbous make up 83% of all reports in the hours of darkness throughout Fall.
That number with the same parameters as the above, rises to 86% for the month of October alone.

 

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95 Fall Reports in from WA State since the turn of the Century :
35% coming from WA's South Cascades Geographical Zone. 
34% coming from the Olympic Peninsula and Willapa Hills. 
17% from the North Cascades.
14% from Eastern WA.

 

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Deep in to Fall now, we take a look at some of the more top heavy States where Reports are concerned and look at how Fall represents the Sighting %'s across North America.

Washington : Total of 584 Reports
Florida : Total of 130 Reports
Michigan : Total of 189 Reports
Illinois : Total of 209 Reports

Interesting to note that where the Illinois Actual Visual Reports are concerned, the Full Moon Phase gives a 133% more probability of a Sighting than any other Moon Phase.

Where Michigan Actual Visual Sighting Reports are concerned, it's a complete role reversal, with the New Moon Phase giving a 300% more probability of a Sighting than any other Moon Phase.

Both States have October as their most common Month for Reports with these search parameters.

 

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[hiflier]

BobbyO, it takes a great amount of time to compile the reports into the SSR, generate the stats you've issued, and compose the post in order to bring hose stats to us here. These are not easy things to do. I for one have always been in awe of not only your own diligence but tht of everyone whom has worked on this amazing database.

 

I have questions not yet formed but will bring them here as I fine tune them. One thing that comes immediately to the forefront and which is something we should all keep in mind as we absorb this information is WHY? What do these numbers and percentages signify? I have always thought that the key lies in the data but at the same time other factors need to be present in order to give some of the data coherence in the real world. When looking at trending one must also look at forcing of the trends by events and activities in the different regions. Coupling outside events and activities is some kind of chronological order may shed some light on why and where these percentages present themselves.

 

I say this because I see obvious shifts is sightings locations which may or may not demonstrate movement due to environmental disruptions of some kind. Having a parallel line of regional events may present a fair picture of any relocation or changes in a region's sightings frequency either showing more BF activity or less. More in undisturbed areas after outside events in reduced sightings regions have been researched.

 

You continue to do an outstanding job in the effort to understand these creatures and what might motivate them. It's up to us to worlk on the motivation part to see just how sensitive the BF populations are to changes in their habitat. It's all good. And thank you.

[BobbyO]

H, as always, i appreciate your kind words.

 

As someone who saw one of these things as a Kid so long ago now, the last 15-20 years of my life i've had a burning desire to learn more about what i saw and no disrespect to anyone, but current research practices just simply weren't doing it for me and years on, for me personally, .

 

This entire project's main question is "WHY?".

 

Not why are we doing it, but why are we seeing what we are seeing and how do we define it.

 

The numbers i have laid out here are completely random, i can get numbers like this for different States and different Creature behaviour, different Moon Phases and various different key indicators all day long.

 

My belief is that these numbers on the whole and this data analysis can, will and has given field researchers a specific, strategic advantage as opposed to the needle in a haystack stuff that we may possibly find without them.

 

Any help whatsoever we can give a field researcher must be beneficial and whilst my way of thinking remains in this way, i personally will continue to do what i do, whenever time permits.

 

This analysis will be stepped up in 2017 thankfully though as time becomes much more of something that i will have again.

[MIB]

50 minutes ago, hiflier said:

What do these numbers and percentages signify?

 

A well-worded and significant question.   That's the crux of the difference between data and information.   Thanks to the SSR we have better and better data but it has to be turned into information to be useful.   Essentially we have to replicate human understanding, then vary the inputs to see what the outputs are.   The problem is that without an expert to model the transformation after, there's no way to truly automate it.    We're very early in our understanding of bigfoot with no more than guesses about the real world model so it is difficult if not impossible to **accurately** reproduce.   In other words, when you try to create an expert system, you have to have an expert first ... and we don't, there are no bigfoot experts.

 

It remains a worthy goal, however.    It may be that by taking baby steps with a simple model first, allowing it to make predictions, then testing the predictions, we can go through a process of stepwise refinement.   It's essentially what I do myself manually .. look at the data (the more, the better, the more accurate the better) and try to use it to predict, not just track the past, then go out and see how well it did.    It takes a lot of time, seasons in the woods.   I think it will produce answers but they will come slowly.   We're talking about generations, not hours.  

 

MIB

[BobbyO]

Spot on MIB..

[JDL]

Does the information development take human behavior into account?  For example:  was there some change in human behavior; or introduction of a new technology, i.e. a new type of headlight, that altered human capability to see them at moonless times vs moonlit times?

[BobbyO]

JDL we just provide these kind of numbers that we extract from thousands of reports.

 

My personal belief is that if people then want to delve in to why X suggests Y, they can absolutely, but from our perspective, this is our part of the jigsaw.

 

Regarding our moon phase data, we use US (or is it my Royal ?) Navy software which automatically calculates moon rises/sets.

 

Gigantor can confirm.

[JDL]

Understood.  Thing is that for every sighting/encounter there has to be a subject and an observer.  If there is no observer, and a bigfoot knocks on a tree in the forest, is there sound?

 

Does the database include the activity of the witness at the time of the encounter?  For example, it would be interesting to determine how many people have sightings when they are engaged in fishing, berry picking, or some other food gathering activity.  Does the presence of human children influence things in any way?  What percentage of sightings are reported by people of various age groups, etc.?

 

Presumably, the presence of and/or activity of the observer has an impact on the behavior of the bigfoot and vice versa.  The two are linked.

Edited November 7, 2016 by JDL

[BobbyO]

Yeah we have witness activity and can split all by each one.

 

Hunting

Fishing

Camping

At Home

Hiking

Driving

BF'ing

 

The above is off the top of my head, there is more.

 

For example, i know that nationwide there is a pretty high % of actual visual reports when people are driving throughout the year, and in WA State i know that Winter see's a high % of reports when people are at home.

 

Regarding age, we are at the mercy of the report itself and as i'm sure you can imagine, so few actually give an age where the witness is concerned. 

[VAfooter]

Bobby, just a clarification of your original comment on the next full moon.

 

14 November will be a supermoon. Not only will it be a full moon, but the closest supermoon in some 70 something years I believe. The next supermoon that will be this large will not be until 2034 .

 

Even if you do not get out in the field that evening, at least get outside and enjoy a fairly rare sight (it being this close).

 

 

http://earthsky.org/?p=190918

[bipedalist]

I like you Vafooter so I am averse to posting this one up.  This supermoon crap has been going on in various invectives for 3 or more years, each more fantastical than the next.  The reality is the human eye even in low horizon is not going to tell much difference.  I wil say this, any hype that gets people outdoors and looking at the stars accomplishes something, so all is not lost.  The rest of the hype is tripe.   

 

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/what-is-a-supermoon/

 

And BobbyO, some of the more compelling WNC sightings and trackings have been the night of huge snows or the morning after, meaning they use the weather to move, move and move more.  This is why it is not idiotic to be recording in the rain, when you hear the wheat from the chaff in those conditions, you have arrived!

 

Edited November 8, 2016 by bipedalist

[Explorer]

22 hours ago, BobbyO said:

 

32% of all Actual Visual Sighting Reports from across the North American Continent in November and December (241) have been from witnesses when driving.

For WA State, that numbers rises to 46%

For IL, that number drops to 21%.

For MI that number rises to 38%.

 

I think reports of BF sightings while crossing roads have further potential for data mining and extraction of useful information.

 

I attempted this before in another post on "why did BF cross the road", but that was just looking at one road in the Olympic peninsula and it was a simple and rough model.

We should dig deeper in road sightings and try to figure out if the creature was crossing the road toward one direction or the other.

 

I understand that many of the BF sightings (while eyewitness is driving) are just of the creature standing by the road and not crossing the road, but maybe we can deduct the direction it was heading?

Once we know the general tendency of direction, we then should compare if the road crossing direction changed with season or year. See if we could find any patterns.

This might give us clues on the migration questions or if the move is permanent.

We can propose hypotheses before we analyze the data, and then see what the data tell us.

 

If one particular road has been getting BF going from North to South in every report and not one movement South to North, then that would be interesting.

On the other hand, if another road gets the same number of road crossings East to West as West to East that would be supporting of another type of hypothesis.

 

In addition, we can build stochastic models of the road traffic per hour/season, probability of BF detection by drivers, and experiment with different distributions of BF movements that would yield the observed reports.

 

 

[BobbyO]

I'm with you Explorer and I remember us talking about this when you mentioned it but again I can only say that we are at the mercy of the reports and in general the reports don't hold the kind of information we need to be able to do this kind of research unfortunately.

[hiflier]

Nonetheless, a road crossing is significant. Much of the following reasons I have brought before in other threads. One is a water supply on one side of the road opposite an area of habitat that has none. Another is of course a food source like a deer yard or a large berry patch or a corn field. The time of year would be also helpful if BF summers in a location different from a winter location. Another would be a new road across historical routs of travel like game trails along which could easily include the above reasons.

 

 

I think there is already enough data to work on these ideas. It might take one person months to do this kind of research but a small dedicated team would make the task go easier and quicker- as well as bouncing ideas off of each other.

Edited November 8, 2016 by hiflier

[JDL]

Nice, Bobby.  A good percentage of my encounters occurred when I was fishing, or when someone was preparing food.  I think any food related activity is likely to draw them in.

 

I also think that they are suspicious of food left out for them and would rather pilfer than simply take an unsolicited offering.

Edited November 8, 2016 by JDL