2:00 AM Encounters. What's Up With That ?

[gigantor]

The computer only plots reports with a specified time. Because 6pm is the default, it is not plotted. The rest are skipped.

 

I hope you are.not guessing a time if non is specified. Are you?

[Redbone]

no - 6 pm if not specified

But note that midnight is default on all those hundreds of unclassified entries already linked to reports and all those that I've edited. Every time some value has to be added.

6pm is only for new entries (please don't change it now that I'm almost done)

Edited August 24, 2018 by Redbone

[gigantor]

Great!  I knew that of course.

 

The charts don't plot unclassified reports. Before you came aboard, I took the BFRO database KML file and mined it for the report URLs, GPS coordinates, date time and Class info. The SSR was "primed" with that info and a flag which marks the report as unclassified. When you edit the report, it flags it as classified. That's how it knows which ones to skip. So no worries.

 

[Branco]

Want to mention some facts about BF's movements as they relate to the South/Southeastern states. Typically, when it's normal weather, they will leave their bedding area about an hour before dark, and move as slow as molasses, stopping dead still every few yards looking forward and listening. Numerous witnesses have watched them from elevated hunting stands and say that they remain so motionless in open woods with some under story brush and small trees that they just seem to disappear from view. I personally believe they depend as much on their ears as they do on their eyes for detecting movement of people or other animals. When it gets dark or very close to it, and they intend to join others to hunt, they will start, or respond to the "gathering calls" of others of their kind. Basically clock time to them is immaterial, its the time darkness falls which determines their movements in the evening.

Their movements during the day time hours - and days of the week - may be related to one or many other factors they have no control over. One of the most common conditions that causes them to move more frequently during the day is  the very hot summers and drought years that have plagued the South/ Southeast many times in recent years. It is a dead certainty that during such periods the individuals and family groups establish bedding areas within just a few minutes walking distance of fresh water, when possible, a cold water spring will be their first choice.

Many times the animals have had to move as individuals and family groups because of the commencement of the clear cutting or controlled burns of large tracts of land on private lands or in the National Forests. (Timber companies actually own the land and harvest the timber off of huge tracts inside National Forests.) Such work typically is done Monday through Friday, and Bigfoot families will not remain in those areas, although individuals (most likely males) may slip in to watch the action from cover and from a distance. For some reason, they are known to be interested and curious about the work of humans; from their construction of homes in remote areas, cutting and moving timber, or watching people on tractors making food plots for deer and turkey.

A friend of mine called me by cell phone one day about three years ago to tell me that he was using a tractor, disk and seed spreader along a river in central AR. He said he was being watched from one part of an adjoining pine thicket by a female Bigfoot "with the prettiest red, shiny hair I've ever seen!" He said the animal would partially hide each time he turned the tractor in her direction, so he pulled his cap down low and slightly bowed his head so he could hide his eyes a little and watched her until he finished the small food plot. He has seen more Bigfoot than I, and spent WAY more time than I in those river bottoms. 

 

[WSA]

Roger that Gigantor. The data points are only as good as the information collected from the witnesses, no doubt.  If what we have achieves the objective as you outlined, it is good enough.

 

And absolutely Redbone, if you wanted to refine this data further, you better be prepared to do some grunt work, which is why I preemptively quashed my volunteering to do that!     

[BobbyO]

On 8/24/2018 at 1:01 AM, Redbone said:

 

I was not planning to jump in here but watching this conversation unfold has urged me on.

It's senseless to worry about DST with this data and probably futile to attempt to measure differences hour by hour.

 

The problem here is the accuracy of the thousands of reports that went into this.

BFRO doesn't demand accurate time of day information. Most of the time we'll get 'afternoon' or even 'night time" and we're left to guess what that means when entering the data.

As much as possible, we use an educated guess to portray what we have as accurately as possible.

 

Still, you get what you get. I'd never count on these reports to give an extremely accurate view of 7:20 vs 8:20 pm. Daylight savings time introduces no more error than what is already there.

 

Many report don't even really specify a month. We get "summer" or "fall" at sundown and now we have to guess twice.

 

If you need more accurate information to pursue a hypothesis, you will need a way to weed out all that contain guess work and only view reports that give exact time. Good luck with that...

Don't ask me to go through 5000 reports (again) trying to flag those down for you.

 

 

My thoughts exactly above, we are at the mercy of the report itself and the detail, or lack of them in some cases, that are in it.

 

Just to add, I have full faith and trust in both my own and Redbone's ability to decipher and extract factual and accurate information from x and y report that at times wouldn't have word for word specifics, that gives our database the most accurate data it can possibly have via a lot of what Redbone has written above.

[norseman]

More importantly is that just like hunting or fishing moon phase reports about the “best times” to fish or hunt? These are just broad guidelines.....there is NO magic bullet.

 

Any outdoorsman knows that you have to be out there hitting it hard to make any of it pay off. Even if the reports say its not probable.

 

The number one weapon in your tool bag is dogged determination and a never say quit attitude, with boots on the ground.

[wiiawiwb]

That's exactly it Norse. Boots on the ground. Wearing down the leather gumshoeing.

 

Most people watch the various tv series where they find footprints every time out, howls, wood knocks, encounters, and the like.  You have to kick a lot of tires before you drive out of the parking lot with a car. Dogged determination as you said.

 

Many people go out in the woods excited knowing that just around the bend will be a Bigfoot. They quickly find that instead they find nothing and become cold, wet, hungry, tired, and come up empty in the process. It is easy to tuck your tail between your legs and head home. 

 

You have to love the process and just being out in the woods. Any residual finding, whether it is a return wood knock, a footprint, a scream, or sighting, is icing on the cake.

[norseman]

And I want to stress,  Im not throwing shade on the SSR or the hard work all these guys have put in to it. 

 

It certainly gives a guy or gal a point on the map to start. Its a powerful tool as well.