I ain't sayin' it was actually a Bigfoot...

[7.62]

2 hours ago, Pdub said:

I just read this on msn and was going to post it here but I was obviously beaten to the punch. Odd story, don’t think a “friendly bear” is a real possibility. If it wasn’t a bear or large dog I’m at a loss for what kept the boy safe for two days. I didn’t see anything on local over night temps the kid survived. Lot of cold temps nation wide at the moment. 

I talked to someone in one of  fire departments involved in the search on another board . He said after the first night they thought it was a body recovery now. Rained and temps went down to 22. The whole dept agreed he said  something  helped  him survive 2 nights out there in that weather .On another note the sheriff said the SAR had to wade in waist deep water to get to him.

[Pdub]

Thanks 7.62, of course none of the answers to the common sense questions are included in news stories. Makes it harder to believe this kid survived all by his lonesome, 22 degrees is chilly and the whole short days/long nights it takes a while for temps to rise in the morning. Very lucky family. 

[OldMort]

Its a very interesting story!

 

The 411 stuff is fascinating.

 

I am looking forward to hearing  Paulides' assessment  of this event...

Edited January 27, 2019 by OldMort

[7.62]

1 minute ago, Pdub said:

Thanks 7.62, of course none of the answers to the common sense questions are included in news stories. Makes it harder to believe this kid survived all by his lonesome, 22 degrees is chilly and the whole short days/long nights it takes a while for temps to rise in the morning. Very lucky family. 

A grown man not dressed for that kind of weather ,which the child wasn't would have a hard time once your clothes soaked through with the pouring hard  rain they had .

Unless you build a fire you won't make two nights wet like that in those temps

[hiflier]

Next question: Was the boy's clothing at all wet? There was a doctor hiking in NH one time in 55 degrees and died of hypothermia because his clothing got wet. He had gloves and dry socks in his pack and for some reason (hypothermia obviously) he never thought to put them on. So. Caught in shrubbery in the rain, was the boy wet when they found him? Icy or frozen clothing?

Edited January 27, 2019 by hiflier

[7.62]

36 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Next question: Was the boy's clothing at all wet? There was a doctor hiking in NH one time in 55 degrees and died of hypothermia because his clothing got wet. He had gloves and dry socks in his pack and for some reason (hypothermia obviously) he never thought to put them on. So. Caught in shrubbery in the rain, was the boy wet when they found him? Icy or frozen clothing?

 

 

No hypothermia reported by the hospital who had him So now the question is what exactly transpired those 48 hours?

[Huntster]

I'm not familiar with bear behavior along the eadtern seaboard at that latitude, but in Alaska, black bears are dead asleep at this tme of the year, and unlike grizzlies, they don't wake up mid-winter. So my question is, are black bears seen this time of year and in those kinds of temps frolicking about?

[VAfooter]

Here in VA, bears are hibernating this time of year. Most are gone by mid-December or so (so I have been told). Not sure what their timetable is farther south.

 

 

Just found this:

 

"What about bears in North Carolina?  Based on hundreds of radio-collared black bears studied across the state, we know that the vast majority of our bears hibernate. Females typically hibernate longer than males.  North Carolina’s bears just do it for shorter time periods than their northern cousins.  Bears studied in eastern North Carolina by radio-telemetry entered dens as early as November and as late as January.  These same bears exited dens as early as February and as late as April. This results in the possibility of bear sightings and roadkills in all months and the misconception that coastal bears do not hibernate.  Only human disturbance interrupts these periods of hibernation in North Carolina’s bears."

 

 

https://www.ncwildlife.org/Learning/Species/Mammals/Black-Bear/Black-Bear-Hibernation

 

 

So I guess it is possible that it could have been a bear, but seriously doubt it. Maybe a large dog? Unless I missed it, I have seen no reports that said the bear walked on two legs. Correct?

 

Certainly at this point, a lot more questions than answers....

[Rockape]

From what little I know about bears, I believe a bear that comes out of hibernation usually does so because it's hungry. This guy and his wife live in ANWAR and he talks about what he calls "winter bears". "They'll eat ya'".

 

 

[Rockape]

3 hours ago, VAfooter said:

So I guess it is possible that it could have been a bear, but seriously doubt it. Maybe a large dog? Unless I missed it, I have seen no reports that said the bear walked on two legs. Correct?

 

Certainly at this point, a lot more questions than answers....

 

Well, animals can do strange things. Maybe is was a female bear and her motherly instincts overwhelmed her carnivore instincts. Maybe she saw the child as a bear cub and looked to protect it. It has happened before, here with a Lioness and an Oryx. I believe that's what's going on here, the lioness saw the baby Oryx as a lion cub to protect.

 

 

 

 

[BobbyO]

19 hours ago, VAfooter said:

OK, found it. It appeared in the book, The Locals, and also in The Track Record #18 (July 1992; where I saw it a number of years ago). It happened in 1989 in Oregon. The summary is as follows (from the Track Record):

 

Joseph Edwin Leffler (3), disappeared from his mobile home, SE of Estacada. He told his mother he was going "fishing" (play fishing) on a creek, only 200 feet from the house. The boy was lightly dressed, wore sneakers, and had with him two adult male, part dingo-part Australian shepherd dogs, Dan and Jack, and a small white puppy.

 

Trackers found tracks of the boy and his dogs a mile west of the boys home, heading downstream through marshy ground on nearby Delph Creek.

 

The search team found a series of barefoot, "four-toed," footprints, and the boys tracks disappeared. The tracks were measured at 27 inches, with a five foot stride. The tracking dog sniffed and ignored the Bigfoot tracks, hunting for the boy’s spoor which had mysteriously disappeared near a roadway.

 

The Air Force had two helicopters with infrared video cameras taping their progress while crisscrossing the area in a search grid.  About that time they noticed a huge object on the FLIR system, something they've never seen before. They wanted the trackers to go and check it out; they did find tracks again, and they were of the same size that they had seen near the creek earlier.

 

About that time little Joey walked up to a different searcher, one of the search team members in a wooded area near the search base camp. "His first comment was, besides that, “he was hungry”, before anybody could talk to him, a big hairy monster came and got him, and the three dogs, kept him safe. Fed him berries and showed him where the creek was (how to drink). They slept in a mining cave. And when the helicopter came up, he (the monster) got scared and left, and he (Joey) took off."

 

I have been able to find no other collaborating data on this incident.

 

Harry Oakes was the search and rescue team if I remember right ?

 

Kid just bowled out of the woods to a member of search and rescue and said something along the lines of “the big monkey looked after me” live on air but it got dismissed kind of thing and laughed off..

[Huntster]

3 hours ago, VAfooter said:

.........So I guess it is possible that it could have been a bear, but seriously doubt it..........

 

Agreed completely. It would almost certainly be a boar and either hungry or pissed off at being disturbed from hibernation, and not likely to be very benevolent towards a tasty mid-winter snack............

 

22 minutes ago, Rockape said:

From what little I know about bears, I believe a bear that comes out of hibernation usually does so because it's hungry. This guy and his wife live in ANWAR and he talks about what he calls "winter bears". "They'll eat ya'".

 

Those are most certainly brown bears (grizzlies). I've found hibernating black bears, and you can darned near manhandle them without them waking up. But brown bears awaken easily, and when they do, they tend to come out of their den extremely pissed off. I know of two cases (both on the Kenai Peninsula) where brown bears were disturbed mid-winter, came out of their dens, and killed somebody.

19 minutes ago, Rockape said:

Well, animals can do strange things. Maybe is was a female bear and her motherly instincts overwhelmed her carnivore instincts. Maybe she saw the child as a bear cub and looked to protect it. It has happened before,........

 

Yes, and it probably happens more often than we suspect, but the seasonal timing and weather makes it even more remarkable.

[NatFoot]

[Rockape]

24 minutes ago, Huntster said:

 

Agreed completely. It would almost certainly be a boar and either hungry or pissed off at being disturbed from hibernation, and not likely to be very benevolent towards a tasty mid-winter snack............

 

 

Those are most certainly brown bears (grizzlies).But brown bears awaken easily, and when they do, they tend to come out of their den extremely pissed off. I know of two cases (both on the Kenai Peninsula) where brown bears were disturbed mid-winter, came out of their dens, and killed somebody.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, there's a big difference in an Alaskan bear and a North Carolina bear, even Black Bears I would think. It would be easier for a Black Bear coming out of hibernation in North Carolina to find food than one that came out of hibernation in Alaska when everything is covered in snow.

 

 

Quote

Yes, and it probably happens more often than we suspect, but the seasonal timing and weather makes it even more remarkable.

 

Well, if this kid did encounter a bear and roamed around with it, the only thing I can figure is the bear had a belly full of food and just didn't need to eat the kid. It might have been heading back to it's den and hearing the kid crying triggered it's mother instinct. To her it sounded like a cub crying and she associated him with a bear cub. I wonder if they'll find out the kid crawled inside her den with her. That would explain how he didn't freeze to death.

 

 

 

Quote

I've found hibernating black bears, and you can darned near manhandle them without them waking up.

 

I was watching one of those game wardens shows from Maine and they were doing winter research on the Black Bear population. A woman game warden would climb into the den with a Black Bear to shoot it with tranquilizers before they pulled it out, weighed it and such.

[norseman]

It wasnt a Bear...