SSR Introduction

[gigantor]

Standardized Sighting Record

 

This project is a community effort to classify sighting reports into a database suitable for data mining. All Premium Members can gain access to it upon request.

 

To this end, it was necessary to develop a Standardized Sighting Record (SSR) to store the classified data. The thread in which the original idea was conceived and the SSR developed can be found here. The effort began in March 2011 and it continues today.

 

A database was then created based on the SSR using mySQL, PhP and Apache.

 

It was initially populated with data from:

 

• Mangani's Bigfoot Maps. We owe him and the BFRO for their hard work and willingness to share it with the community.
• Elevation data obtained from GPS Visualizer which uses NASA's Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission or the U.S. Geological Survey's National Elevation Dataset.

 

This baseline dataset is considered to be "Not Classified", but it is searchable and provides basic information.

 

BFF member volunteers then began the task of classifying the baseline dataset of about 7500 reports. As of  August 2018, over 5400 reports have been classified

by painstakingly reading each one, finding the sighting coordinates, evaluating the integrity of each report  and inputting quality data into the database. The SSR is about quality, not quantity.

 

Most of the credit goes to three incredibly committed members:

 

BobbyO who classified all of Washington State and the Pacific North West.

Redbone who has classified more reports than anyone else by far

Bipedalist who was the Steering Committee Chairman at the time and fought to get the SSR approved

 

The database search tool allow filtering reports by any criteria defined in the SSR. Below is a screen shot of the search tool.

 

 

 

[gigantor]

Search Results

 

The search results lists all of the sighting reports matching the specified criteria. In addition to basic information like date, state, county, gps coordinates, It provides the following:

 

• A link to the original report source.
• A link to a Google Map of the sighting location for each report
• The moon phase and whether it was visible during the time of the sighting
• A Google Earth KML file of all the sightings, color coded by BFRO Class, Season, etc.
• Stats with plotted charts for almost every data point.

Following are screen shots of the results of a search for Class A reports from 2010 to 2016.

 

 

 

[hiflier]

Folks, I don't know about you but this SSR effort is just hands-down a monumental achievement. The concept and subsequent execution of such a task has not been only about classifying the source data- it has also been about working out the bugs in the program and system along the way to which GIGANTOR (and the name SHOULD BE in all caps  ) can take the credit as he patiently took in all of the notifications of glitches in the SSR and worked through them in order to have the data perform as desired. BobbyO, who worked diligently in every spare moment he could muster, and RedBone who has been nothing short of a juggernaut who has been unstoppable on getting report after report pigeon holed into the dataset.

 

We owe these people a immense tip of the hat and I personally thank them for what they have done though my thanks falls way short of what they deserve, Thank you guys for staying with your goals when I fell behind, and for doing it all so incredibly well. 

[Huntster]

With regards to North American grizzly bears, individuals among the extinct California variety were documented to be as large as coastal Alaskan bears. This might have been for the same reason: salmon. Of course, the Alaskan bears didn’t start to see the kind of human hunting pressure that the California bears saw as early as the late 1700’s. Mexicans were capturing bears to fight bulls long before Americans started arriving in search of gold around 1850. 

 

Great Plains wolves & grizzlies, preying on giant bison, were also reported to be huge before they and their prey were extirpated by Americans.

 

The food/size thing for sasquatches might be the same. West Coast sasquatches, benefitting from large, regular runs of protein rich salmon, were likely larger than, say, sasquatches from the Texas/Oklahoma/Arkansas/Louisiana corner. But as we destroyed the salmon and simply overran the coast, the sasquatches (like the bears and wolves before them), have died off or moved north.

 

(Note: I think sasquatches are behaviorally more like pumas than bears/wolves with regard to human pressure; more secretive, quiet, and nocturnal. Both brown bears and wolves are less tolerant of intense human pressure, but recent Alaskan studies are proving that given the huge spaces needed nearby, both species can and will quietly infiltrate even dense cities of humans with remarkable secrecy. I believe sasquatches do likewise...........)

[Huntster]

On 9/10/2018 at 5:53 AM, Huntster said:

.........recent Alaskan studies are proving that given the huge spaces needed nearby, both species can and will quietly infiltrate even dense cities of humans with remarkable secrecy. I believe sasquatches do likewise...........)

 

The work that ADFG has been engaging over the past 15 on “Urban Bears” is utterly fascinating. This is just one of those studies:

 

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm%3Fadfg%3Dlivingwithbears.anchorageurbanbearsstorymap

 

Of particular interest is this of Black Bear #16 (found on the “behaviors” tab in the above link):

 

.......We often think of bears as solitary creatures, except for sows with cubs, but many of these videos show some bears in the study spent considerable time in the company of other bears. Perhaps the most surprising of these was Bear 16, a black bear that crossed Cook Inlet to Fire Island and took up company with a subadult brown bear. There are not many documented cases of brown and black bears as companions; Bear 16 was at first hostile toward the brown bear but later reports from workers on Fire Island reported the two bears as companions and playmates........

 

You can click on each colored dot and get a window pop-up with info on that particular bear and his/her activities at that moment.

[gigantor]

Please join me in showing our gratitude to Redbone who has dedicated himself to classifying reports for the SSR. Redbone has been slaving away for over two years now and has contributed more than anyone else to the quality and amount of data in the SSR. We are talking about 4000+ reports!

 

When Redbone joined the SSR Team, we had about 1500 reports classified. Well folks, look at the stats now:

 

 

 

THANK YOU REDBONE!!!

 

     

   

 

 

 

[Redbone]

That image is out of date. This one is up to the minute... There are 142 more reports classified than there were on the 8th. There should be 6000 done soon.

[Redbone]

Today... Classified Entry #6000 is done. In honor of this milestone, I have decide to add my own encounter from May of this year into the database. I gave it SSR ID #6000. The sighting that WAS #6000 was moved to another SSR #.

My report was submitted and investigated by BFRO in July, but is not published by them.  I decided I do not need to wait for them any longer. IF BFRO publishes, then this report will get it's own thread.

 

I briefly discussed it in the paranormal section of this forum, not because it was paranormal, but because that's where I was asked about it. That is the link I used for the SSR entry.

An 11 foot stick was used to determine height during the investigation, but I have found a flaw with what we did. I still question the height and have plans when weather allows to get back in there with a pole that will tell me exactly how tall it was. I only saw an arm swinging away. The NA guy who was with me saw it's whole upper body and face, but BFRO did not talk to him. Some day I will get and share his 'official' version of the encounter.

 

I also caught possible vocalization audio from very near this spot the following morning.

 

Here is a link to my first descriptions on the forum: https://bigfootforums.com/topic/59746

Here is the post where I explain why I think it's over 9 feet tall: https://bigfootforums.com/topic/59746

 

SSRID:              6000
Report Score:       7
Sighting Date:      05/25/2018
Sighting Time:      13:30
Moonphase:          Duration (mm:ss):   00:01
Season:             1 - Spring (Mar 20 - Jun 19)
State:              NE
County:             Thurston
Latitude:           42.158357
Longitude:          -96.344494
Altitude:           1060.00 ft
BFRO Class:         A - Class A
Sighting Type:      S - Single Creature
Witness:            2 - Multiple, no evidence
Witness Activity:   B - BFing
Witness Gender:     Male
Witness Age:        
Witness Feeling:    1 - Excited
Witness Occupation: Electronics Engineer
Terrain:            F - Forest
Zoning:             P - Park Land / Refuge
Photo Evidence:     N - None
Footprint Evidence: N - None
Footprint Length:   0 - 0"
Stride Length:      0 ft 0 in
Height (ft):        9
Height (in):        6
Hair/fur Color:     N - Brown
Skin:               U - Unknown
Organization:       Rez Squatching Research
Researcher:         TK Bell
Confidence:         Complete
Report URL:         https://bigfootforums.com/topic/59746-a-question-for-those-who-have-had-telepathic-interactions-with-sasquatch-3/?do=findComment&comment=1013597

 Biological Evidence
 Animal Activity
 Animal Disposition
 Animal Locomotion
 W - Walking
 Weather
 S - Sunny / Clear
 C - Clear Skies
 Other

[BobbyO]

Red i didn't know you saw one this year, you da man, very cool..;)

 

Hope you can clarify that sizing one ay, 9'6' to me just seems crazy, crazy huge.

 

 

[Redbone]

9 minutes ago, BobbyO said:

Red i didn't know you saw one this year, you da man, very cool..;)

 

9'6 ??

 A better recreation will be coming that will provide a fairly accurate height. What was flawed in our first attempt is that the creature was not next to that 11 foot stick, but back behind it.

If ground was level, 9 ft + is good, but it's possible that the ground is slightly higher where the creature was. The 5 foot tall BFRO investigator was unable to see me in the spot, so we didn't get a picture at the right moment.

[Redbone]

As of today, there are only 200 "unclassified" reports in the SSR database. Within a few months, I plan to have that number at ZERO.

There were 858 on December 18th. That's 658 old reports done in 4 months, plus 15 brand new ones.There are 6640 "classified" reports completed.

Here is how they break out:

[BobbyO]

Champion Red !

[WV FOOTER]

Good Job Redbone. Thank You For All You Do.

 

[Redbone]

On 12/23/2018 at 5:29 PM, BobbyO said:

Red i didn't know you saw one this year, you da man, very cool..;)

 

Hope you can clarify that sizing one ay, 9'6' to me just seems crazy, crazy huge.

 

 

I did a re-enactment on Saturday, May 4th 2019. The TOP of what I saw was at 8 ft 4 inches. It made me look tiny. I posted info and images in the BFRO report thread:  

 

I did not see the head or even the top of the shoulder, as it was already ducking down when I saw it. I still think 9'6" could be the height, but I changed the SSR entry to 9 feet anyway.

I'll just have to go see it again to get another measurement

 

We found 15-16 inch tracks on Saturday as well, further into the woods from this spot. They are not well detailed, and possibly months old, but are 15" long, 7 inches wide, with  31" to 35" step. I'm learning the hard way how tough it is to get good pictures of tracks. In this spot, the tracks should remain so I'm going to try again. I may need to bring some spray paint to highlight them. These were deep impressions with no detail, filled with leaves. I'd have never noticed except I parked my car exactly in the spot to have one of them right outside my car door. I didn't have my camera handy so I went back yesterday to snap these pictures. The track were not as "inline" as I would expect. There is a definite left/right pattern. That 99 cent yard stick was sure handy to have on hand.

 

 

[Redbone]

6860 total reports are done as of today, with ZERO unclassified entries. All future entries will require a new report.

As far as I know, there are no duplicates, but if any show up they will be fixed.

 

Time to step away for awhile...

 

PLUS - today is the 1 year anniversary of my sighting