Do you have to see one before you can know they exist?

[Redbone]

1 hour ago, OkieFoot said:

This is just a side comment, I don't want to steer things away from the original topic. In the "Sightings by State" chart, something I thought was interesting were the number of sightings for Texas and Illinois; they both ranked higher than I would have guessed. 

Northern Illinois is a mystery to me but I tend to think they use the rivers as travel paths and there may be some South-North (and vice versa) migration patterns there. Southern IL has large forests so no big surprise that there would be encounters. It's the same reason I get encounters in Iowa and Nebraska. The Missouri and Mississippi rivers (and tributaries) provide cover these creatures need. How do they get through Omaha? I have no idea, but there has been sightings there.

 

Texas is skewed high (at the moment) because the SSR contains reports from multiple organizations. I've been adding NAWAC reports the last several weeks. Some of these NAWAC reports are also listed with the BFRO, so there are duplicate entries for the same incident. We will be correcting this issue in the near future.

 

At present there are 226 BFRO reports for Texas and 211 NAWAC reports. I don't have the exact number of how many are duplicates in the SSR system now (more than 39, but less than 106), but I have identified 106 total encounters where NAWAC and BFRO report the same incidents.  When we are done, each incident will only have one SSR entry and both BFRO and NAWAC will get recognition. In many of these, it was NAWAC investigators following up for BFRO.

 

Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are also somewhat skewed for the same reason, although less progress has been made getting those NAWAC reports into SSR.

 

Edit to add BFRO only Sightings by State chart:

[OkieFoot]

Redbone, thanks. The other interesting item I saw on the chart was seeing Illinois at what looks like about 215 and Ohio at about 290. Right in between these two states is Indiana, and it had only about 85. 

It would seem to indicate little east-west movement. I'm not very familiar with Indiana's geography so maybe that's a factor? The map on the BFRO showed the big majority of reports they had were from the southern half of the state. 

 

 

[1980squatch]

The thing is, Ohio has a significant BF culture with the annual conference, and Illinois has the efforts of Stan Courtney...

[bipedalist]

Indiana is heavily wooded in the south so those reports make sense.  However, woodsy riparian zones cut through many of those states.  I am wondering what the association of BF sighitngs in those areas with railroad right of ways might be too.  Stan Courtney is a very aggressive investigator for that Illinois area for sure.  Probably a lot of research groups in Ohio.  There was apparently an incident of BF hopping a train recounted somewhere there in Illinois as I recall.  

[1980squatch]

Indeed, Indiana has a ton of cover center state to the southern border, and as noted by Bipedalist especially in the south.  It has roughly half the population of either Illinois or Ohio.  I live in western Indiana and I suspect Indiana overall is an under reported area in terms of fewer people to see them, less of a reporting culture, and especially compared to Illinois much more cover.

[Whistler]

On 9/11/2018 at 10:58 PM, NCBFr said:

 

Have you ever seen an electron?

Hah! I have not, but I’m a firm believer they’re out there ; )