wiiawiwb Posted June 14, 2019 Posted June 14, 2019 The good news, SWWASAS, is that where most of us go, and the more remote we go, capturing anything on thermal peeking out from behind a tree is tantamount to getting the goods on film. Can someone hoax in an easy-to-get-to location? Yes. Is someone going to hoax by shadowing someone who backpacks into an area which is probably unfamiliar to the hoaxer, miles from civilization, and off trail especially when they don't know who they're following and what risk they may be putting themselves into? The chance of that happening I think is pretty close to zero.
SWWASAS Posted June 14, 2019 BFF Patron Posted June 14, 2019 (edited) After hearing about Thom Powell's break in related to BF research, and loosing pictures to some kind of computer hack, I have been very careful about being followed by someone intent on hoaxing or learning where my research area is. I leave my intended field location to be found on my kitchen counter at the last minute to preclude anyone knowing ahead of time I will be in the field and where I am. Like you say the more remote a location and the more you take humans out of the equation, the more comfortable I am judging what I am really experiencing in the field. I avoid field work on weekends because there are too many humans hiking in the woods. The more humans the less likely there are BF in the area. The other factor is that the gear I carry is worth a lot of money should someone met on the trail want to take it. Other than cougars, self protection from other humans, is my main reason to carry. Edited June 14, 2019 by SWWASAS
SWWASAS Posted June 15, 2019 BFF Patron Posted June 15, 2019 On 6/13/2019 at 3:46 PM, wiiawiwb said: What an awesome experience this must have been. A bit unsettling while it was occurring I'm sure. Did you have any sense of fear during this encounter or was it exhilirating throughout? When I was closing on it, and I could hear the movement away from me, it was exciting. Thrill of the hunt with a camera. It was moving towards a ridge and I fully expected it to break cover at any moment and get it on video. My concern during this phase was that I was very slow because of crawling over and under down trees that had blown down recently. One concern being it would move fast enough away that I would only get a fleeting glimpse or none at all. The other being that if it was cornered against the ridge that it would turn on me. When it growled and the one behind broke the tree off, that was raw fear on my part. I knew I had crossed a line. I said something like "I know, I know, I am backing out," I withdrew as fast as I could because with me in the middle, I was a sitting duck if either attacked me.
The Truth Posted June 20, 2019 Posted June 20, 2019 On 6/14/2019 at 1:05 AM, norseman said: That's definitely not a snowmobile. So, is it infra-red which polar bears don't show up on? The article which I cited states, "Infrared is the wavelength of thermal radiation that night-vision goggles detect, as living bodies give off heat. Polar bears are actually so well insulated, they’re invisible to night-vision goggles." Thanks for any info you can provide.
Catmandoo Posted June 20, 2019 Posted June 20, 2019 (edited) Several distinctions have to be made between Night Vision equipment, Near Infrared (NIR) and thermal imagery (longwave/far infrared). Night Vision (NV) works on ambient light. Typically, the NV device has augmentation lighting. NV is not equipment for counting Polar Bears. The infrared region is divided into many zones. Near Infrared is approx. 700---->1,100nm. Just above human vision to the sensitivity limit of IR films and silicon based camera sensors. The NIR region is for photographic type cameras. This is the 'non Polar Bear' imaging equipment zone. Thermal imaging works on surface temperatures in the range of approx. 900--->14,000nm. Heat emissions. This range is called longwave/far infrared depending on the use as in thermography or astral imaging and others. Owners of thermal gear will chime in on this one. Polar Bears show up on thermal imaging equipment as has been shown on the above thermals. Your mileage will vary. Edited June 20, 2019 by Catmandoo spelling
Arvedis Posted August 23, 2019 Posted August 23, 2019 (edited) On 6/14/2019 at 1:52 PM, SWWASAS said: After hearing about Thom Powell's break in related to BF research, and loosing pictures to some kind of computer hack, I have been very careful about being followed by someone intent on hoaxing or learning where my research area is. Are you referring to what is described in The Locals or is there more recent events? I am getting caught up rereading The Locals and have not yet read Edges of Science nor done any web research on Thom's doings over the last decade or more. I am curious about BF researcher hacks. It takes effort to do that. The hacker would need a solid motive and a good reason to expect something useful to be gained. I am skeptical that gov agencies would do this. The teams who can do it easily are real deep level dudes like NSA. I seriously doubt they would go through their checklist and decide they have a need to do it. Could hackers be contracted out by agencies not known for doing such things? That seems far fetched to me. Just wondering what era we are taking about with Thom's incident. I suspect if this did happen it was by rogue, loose screw types thinking Thom is a BF knowledge kingpin. Edited August 23, 2019 by Arvedis
SWWASAS Posted August 23, 2019 BFF Patron Posted August 23, 2019 My computer was hacked not long after Thom's computer was. I lost pictures too. About the same time I was corresponding directly with Thom with email. He had invited me to do some field work with him. Likely coincidence, however I have one email account that has become unusable. When I write something in an email, there is a delay for each character to show up on the screen. Sometimes it is up to 5 minutes. I touch type but make a lot of mistakes. When I have to wait 5 minutes for a sentence to show up on the screen it makes it very difficult to put together an email. I am using a different email account with BIgfoot forum. I believe someone someplace is monitoring the email account I was using to communicate with Thom. There are hack products that intercept emails as they are produced.
Arvedis Posted August 23, 2019 Posted August 23, 2019 15 minutes ago, SWWASAS said: My computer was hacked not long after Thom's computer was. I lost pictures too. About the same time I was corresponding directly with Thom with email. He had invited me to do some field work with him. Likely coincidence, however I have one email account that has become unusable. When I write something in an email, there is a delay for each character to show up on the screen. Sometimes it is up to 5 minutes. I touch type but make a lot of mistakes. When I have to wait 5 minutes for a sentence to show up on the screen it makes it very difficult to put together an email. I am using a different email account with BIgfoot forum. I believe someone someplace is monitoring the email account I was using to communicate with Thom. There are hack products that intercept emails as they are produced. Sounds like a keystroke logger. Most anti malware products will detect it. I hope this has not been the case since the locals came out. Just sweep your machine, change passwords. Though, it would not just be confined to email. Your whole computer would drag slow. For security nowadays there is encryption and password protected everything. Even stuff you store on cloud sites should be locked down. It's a pain since this adds inconvenience to everything we do, more clicks and taps. But in the event of a breach, the breachers should get nothing.
SWWASAS Posted August 23, 2019 BFF Patron Posted August 23, 2019 I no longer use that email account. It causes other problems too. Some websites do not recognize it as a legitimate email account.
Arvedis Posted August 24, 2019 Posted August 24, 2019 (edited) Sorry, I realize this thread has been hijacked. Feel free to re-hijack it to its original purpose. I think the kook or level of kook has been identified as to who would break into people's homes and computers. My opinion is it has to be Jon-Erik Beckjord. Though the man had no friends and no money, he was resourceful. He managed to overcome a lot of hardship to launch those dumb cryptid museums. Somehow he paid rent until he couldn't. He could have come up with a few hundred to pay some kid to hack or break in to a residence to make his point. He was not above harassing BF researchers at home or their work, including their families. He was singular minded, focused on cryptid research so this was no ordinary criminal. This was an "inside" job. Beckjord was a hothead who did everything he could to intimidate BF researchers. You became an instant target if any of your research came within a hair's breath of an idea he claimed was his own. Edited August 24, 2019 by Arvedis 1
SWWASAS Posted August 24, 2019 BFF Patron Posted August 24, 2019 (edited) 13 hours ago, Arvedis said: Sorry, I realize this thread has been hijacked. Feel free to re-hijack it to its original purpose. I think the kook or level of kook has been identified as to who would break into people's homes and computers. My opinion is it has to be Jon-Erik Beckjord. Though the man had no friends and no money, he was resourceful. He managed to overcome a lot of hardship to launch those dumb cryptid museums. Somehow he paid rent until he couldn't. He could have come up with a few hundred to pay some kid to hack or break in to a residence to make his point. He was not above harassing BF researchers at home or their work, including their families. He was singular minded, focused on cryptid research so this was no ordinary criminal. This was an "inside" job. Beckjord was a hothead who did everything he could to intimidate BF researchers. You became an instant target if any of your research came within a hair's breath of an idea he claimed was his own. In a way, some in bigfootery are into it for their moment of fame. That is motivated some by monetary gain for the same sort of people. Roger Patterson being the first but not the last with these motivations. They can either get in the field and never have much of a chance of achieving it, or be lucky like Roger and blunder into it, or resort to hoaxing, or perhaps even espionage to glean what others know or are not telling. I have been guilty of that myself in locating BFRO expeditions in my area. Easy to do if you have an airplane. Of course the locations normally cause me to wonder why they picked the location. This thread about thermal imagers sort of shows how even proponents, can and will question anything subject to interpretation. Thermal images are at best mediocre in resolution and those that most of us can afford are low resolution and subject to questioning because of that. While a close clear day video or photograph might interest a scientist, there is little chance a thermal image will get anyone but the taker very excited because of the lack of resolution. Even the best gear does not come close to matching resolution of a good daylight camera. Quite frankly because of that, I would not put a second mortgage on the house for the 20K kind of FLIR gear that has better resolution. That resolution simply will not make much difference and will always likely be disputed as to what it is. But lower resolution gear can be used to peer into the dark and get a good idea of what is peering back. That makes it very useful for a night researcher. Edited August 24, 2019 by SWWASAS
wiiawiwb Posted August 25, 2019 Posted August 25, 2019 (edited) I have to respectfully disagree. For an investment of $2,000 you can have a very nice thermal imager. Mine clearly catches chipmunks running up trees and hopping on the forest floor. It will never be as crisp as a 24MP picture but it doesn't need to be. That's not its purpose. You can capture a video in the forest that can then be reconstructed with humans in the same spot/trackway to compare relative height, weight, movement, and maybe even stride length if you're lucky. I think you have a much better chance at getting the good video at night than getting the good picture during the day. Here are two videos from my Pulsar Helion imager. If something stepped out from behind a tree in one of these videos, it wouldn't be that difficult to do a reenactment to determine height. That's what my game plan is all about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbca0qjPIFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLtaIbiS9qM Edited August 25, 2019 by wiiawiwb 1
SWWASAS Posted August 25, 2019 BFF Patron Posted August 25, 2019 (edited) Wiiawiwb "I think you have a much better chance at getting the good video at night than getting the good picture during the day." I cannot disagree more. How many P/G film quality thermal videos have we been arguing over for 50 years? If there was a far better chance of getting them, we would have some to look at for as long as FLIR gear has existed. Night photography of any kind is difficult. Illuminators, if used, have limited range. Flash bulbs do too. FLIR has to deal with poor resolution, masking plants, thermal differences and a creature that peeks out from behind trees even in the dark. Long time forum members have to remember the "flying cow" FLIR images which were argued over for months. Derek Randles is not here because of that episode. The knowledge gained from reenactments was very arguable during those forum exchanges. Night especially, is subject to a lot of interpretation, most of which is trying to determine the location from which the image was taken. Or if a tree or bush is in front of or behind the subject. I have never heard of anyone pounding a stake in the ground where they have taken a video or a picture. If that was done, I might have more faith in the results of the reenactment. The exact camera location is critical to determine anything from sight angles. Edited August 25, 2019 by SWWASAS 1
wiiawiwb Posted August 26, 2019 Posted August 26, 2019 (edited) In the past 50 years, we've had film cameras and movie cameras. We then had, and still have, digital cameras and cell phones that also do movies. There is a concurrent thread going on about the best/clearest picture of a sasquatch. I think most will agree there are limited ones floating around in the public domain. FLIR has been around but out of reach for all but the wealthy or TV-show related. It's only in the past few years that good thermal imagers have been affordable but they're still only in the hands of sasquatchers in limited numbers. In contrast, every sasquatcher has a camera or cellphone. Only a very limited number have a good thermal imager. I know exactly where I was when I shot those thermals above as I marked the spot I took a thermal whenever something looks promising. I think determining the height of the subject in a thermal in a wooded environment will be significantly easier than determining Patty's height traveling in an open area with limited benchmarks to measure against. Look at my two thermals...they are rich in trees. That's the environment I sasquatch in. If the only option any of us will have is something peeking 3" above a downed log, then no technology we readily have at our disposal will work other than a drone. I think as more thermals are out in the field, we'll start seeing more upright movement from tree to tree caught on thermals. I have one video I recorded right out of the gate. I recorded something bipedal moving about then reaching down to pick up something on the ground, and finally moving on. The muscularity was absolutely ridiculous and reminded me of some of the close up shots of Patty showing her triceps and back muscles. That night, I was so thunderstruck with what I was seeing and recording, I didn't think to mark the spot. I learned the hard way from this experience. I have not yet been able to reenact the movement using a friend but will continue with it until, hopefully, I can find the correct spot from which all measurements will flow. Whatever I recorded that night was upright and moving about so I am absolutely convinced there are many others scenarios happening all the time all over the country just like this. Edited August 26, 2019 by wiiawiwb 2
NathanFooter Posted August 26, 2019 Posted August 26, 2019 I am have used standard photography and thermal cameras of all varieties and you can bet your bottom dollar that a thermal will pick out the sasquatch in the brush in ever single situation. Thermal does not have to fight shadow related blob squatches ( false positives for those with vivid imaginations ) and effectively shows what is and is not part of the subject itself, you don't need to guess if the tree trunk is part of the subject ( no blending in ). Thermal cameras define the subject from the background and isolate the subject for instantaneous separation from environment. The video below is something I put together as a demonstration of these key issues, pause the video at the very start and try to pick out the coyote standing over the hill and then compare this to the instant you see any one of the heat signatures appear in view. Night vision and daytime photography is almost worthless for providing information that can prove that the subject is composed of living tissue, you effectively would have a modern day PGF and the general public and even a wide range of the academic community would give you the same old song and dance " could be a dude or a model ". Daytime photography would however provide information on coloration, skin detail, eye composition and area lighting conditions, get good thermal video first and then go for the National Geographic shot, it will go a long way in the world of science.
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