Why can't we find and study Bigfoot?

[SWWASAS]

12 hours ago, Arvedis said:

 

 

I like the idea of confusing them with distractions. It would be ideal to know their positions ahead of time but of course that won't work. Wondering if harmless laser pulses, randomized over an area would rile them up. That would be so much easier to pull off than LiDAR. Just equip the drone with a laser - which are illegal by the way if used to point upwards into the sky. Feds do not take kindly to laser pointers at all. Not kidding. So the suggestion is to point them to the earth in a rotating, random manner to mess with Bigfoot enough that he gives the drone camera some footage.

 

I'll add this to the list of drone recon missions I will never do.

You just gave me an idea on how to take night pictures.    Except for FLIR systems that cost 10s of thousands, the resolution of handheld FLIR systems is so poor, even if you imaged a BF, you could not learn much beyond height and shoulder width compared to trees etc.  No details like facial features,  hair,   etc would be evident.      Night photography using visible or UV light cameras is limited because of the inverse square rule.     A light source light level drops off at a rapid pace related to the inverse square of the distance involved.      However, if you have a camera taking pictures at intervals, like a Plotwater,  and a rapidly spinning laser illuminating an area,   the coherrent laser light light effectively illuminates an object at a much higher level because it has not spread out getting there.    Perhaps the plotwatcher would get enough back scatter light to image something back in the woods.       I have a plot watcher and a couple of laser lights so will run an experiment with a spinning laser.   I need figure out a way to wobble it so it sort of illuminates in horizontal strips like a TV scan pattern.  Mechanical wobble would be best because I can just spin the laser with a motor.     

 

News this morning out of Oklahoma.    A state legislator has introduced a bill,  allowing a Bigfoot hunting season in the state.    The bill only allows trapping and provides a $25,000 bounty.    

Edited January 22, 2021 by SWWASAS

[hiflier]

In a way you've answered my underlying question on the other Oklahoma hunting thread. That being it would seem hunting by trapping would not be just to kill the thing. It would be more perhaps to get one to study, maybe even alive with opens up a world of new possibilities. Unless it's just a trap like the one that was built in the PacNW years ago. If not, then I doubt your everyday bear trap/snare would bring home the bacon...er....Sasquatch.

 

(of course, baiting a trap with a Patty-type could change things)

 

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by hiflier

[Huntster]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:48 AM, SWWASAS said:

......... Another use of an airplane is airdropping supplies to someone in the remote backcountry..........

 

I have friends who have hunted an area of Kodiak Island that is very difficult to access this way. Their taxi operator lands the plane on a braided riverbed several miles upstream (above an unnavigable canyon) from the hunt area, and they walk in with just their rifles and bedroll. The next morning the airplane returns and drops inflatable rafts and gear. Below the canyon, there is no suitable landing area. Because the area is so difficult to access, it is filled with game, precisely the type of area a sasquatch might like.

[Arvedis]

10 hours ago, SWWASAS said:

You just gave me an idea on how to take night pictures.    Except for FLIR systems that cost 10s of thousands, the resolution of handheld FLIR systems is so poor, even if you imaged a BF, you could not learn much beyond height and shoulder width compared to trees etc.  No details like facial features,  hair,   etc would be evident.      Night photography using visible or UV light cameras is limited because of the inverse square rule.     A light source light level drops off at a rapid pace related to the inverse square of the distance involved.      However, if you have a camera taking pictures at intervals, like a Plotwater,  and a rapidly spinning laser illuminating an area,   the coherrent laser light light effectively illuminates an object at a much higher level because it has not spread out getting there.    Perhaps the plotwatcher would get enough back scatter light to image something back in the woods.       I have a plot watcher and a couple of laser lights so will run an experiment with a spinning laser.   I need figure out a way to wobble it so it sort of illuminates in horizontal strips like a TV scan pattern.  Mechanical wobble would be best because I can just spin the laser with a motor.     

 

News this morning out of Oklahoma.    A state legislator has introduced a bill,  allowing a Bigfoot hunting season in the state.    The bill only allows trapping and provides a $25,000 bounty.    

 

That is a great idea if it is cost effective and not inconvenient to implement.

 

I have been doing more research on LiDAR and wondering if I am missing something. It seems even with the rapid firing of lasers to map an area, it is not suited to capture images of moving targets on the ground.  I see now there are consumer LiDAR tools coming out, even for smartphones so it is mainstream now or soon will be.

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2021 by Arvedis

[wiiawiwb]

18 hours ago, SWWASAS said:

You just gave me an idea on how to take night pictures.    Except for FLIR systems that cost 10s of thousands, the resolution of handheld FLIR systems is so poor, even if you imaged a BF, you could not learn much beyond height and shoulder width compared to trees etc.  No details like facial features,  hair,   etc would be evident.      Night photography using visible or UV light cameras is limited because of the inverse square rule.     A light source light level drops off at a rapid pace related to the inverse square of the distance involved.      However, if you have a camera taking pictures at intervals, like a Plotwater,  and a rapidly spinning laser illuminating an area,   the coherrent laser light light effectively illuminates an object at a much higher level because it has not spread out getting there.    Perhaps the plotwatcher would get enough back scatter light to image something back in the woods.       I have a plot watcher and a couple of laser lights so will run an experiment with a spinning laser.   I need figure out a way to wobble it so it sort of illuminates in horizontal strips like a TV scan pattern.  Mechanical wobble would be best because I can just spin the laser with a motor.     

 

 

Wow SWWASAS.  Your mind is thinking on levels unreachable by mine. I really enjoy how you can think outside the box. Kudos and best of luck if you try using that approach!

[SWWASAS]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:55 AM, wiiawiwb said:

 

Wow SWWASAS.  Your mind is thinking on levels unreachable by mine. I really enjoy how you can think outside the box. Kudos and best of luck if you try using that approach!

My thinking might be considered genious bordering on insantiy by some.    I have been thinking more about it and I think I will start looking for a UV laser.    There seems to be so much evidence that BF sees into the IR range.   UV is shorter wavelength and that may have less side scatter.    Additionally it causes biologicals to floursesce.  BF or parts of him,  may glow in the dark under a UV laser.     One concern I have is that the Plotwatcher lens is not very large so has a limited light gathering ability.    Once I get the laser I will run some tests in my wooded back yard.    Perhaps a camera wth better light gathering capabilites could be used also.   WIth the laser running I could see what my DSLR does taking pictures at intervals.   I would not leave it out in the woods but certainly it could be used in a camp or stakeout situation.     The Plotwatcher is passive.   Does not emit anything other than some electronic field generated by its workings.      If the laser is activated by a human switch in camp or a remote tripwire,   it would be the center of attention and likely the Plotwatcher or Plotwatchers would not even be noticed.    The BF would of course do what it does and flee the light source.   They do make mistakes and perhaps in the confusion  it might blunder right into a camera.   Still working out the details of the laser spinner.    It needs to rock the laser up and down as it spins to cover a vertical scan.      Actually such a device is a primative LIDAR,   it would not do any measuring ot ranging but simply build an image from the backscattered light on objects.  

Edited January 24, 2021 by SWWASAS

[BlackRockBigfoot]

On 1/22/2021 at 1:08 PM, SWWASAS said:

You just gave me an idea on how to take night pictures.    Except for FLIR systems that cost 10s of thousands, the resolution of handheld FLIR systems is so poor, even if you imaged a BF, you could not learn much beyond height and shoulder width compared to trees etc.  No details like facial features,  hair,   etc would be evident.      Night photography using visible or UV light cameras is limited because of the inverse square rule.     A light source light level drops off at a rapid pace related to the inverse square of the distance involved.      However, if you have a camera taking pictures at intervals, like a Plotwater,  and a rapidly spinning laser illuminating an area,   the coherrent laser light light effectively illuminates an object at a much higher level because it has not spread out getting there.    Perhaps the plotwatcher would get enough back scatter light to image something back in the woods.       I have a plot watcher and a couple of laser lights so will run an experiment with a spinning laser.   I need figure out a way to wobble it so it sort of illuminates in horizontal strips like a TV scan pattern.  Mechanical wobble would be best because I can just spin the laser with a motor.     

 

News this morning out of Oklahoma.    A state legislator has introduced a bill,  allowing a Bigfoot hunting season in the state.    The bill only allows trapping and provides a $25,000 bounty.    

Wow.  Fantastic post.  

 

Stuff like this makes the BFF what it is...

[NorthWind]

This kind of thing is fascinating to me, because I am a bit of a geek at heart. Maybe more than a bit.

 

As I understand it, the Plotwatcher isn't made anymore. 

 

BUT, my trailcam (a Browning DarkOps) has the same feature of taking a photo at preset intervals, essentially doing the same thing. No IR used. @SWWASAS I have not checked into this, but I do know there is a website that might help called  https://laserpointerforums.com/forums ...perhaps something can be found there that would be helpful. I bet there are others as well. Might even be something on instructables.com but I haven't checked. 

 

[SWWASAS]

Thanks for the reference.   You can buy lasers strong enough to cut stuff.   I sure do not want that.    I have both a Plotwatcher and a Brinno construction camera.    The Brinno is much smaller than the Plotwatcher and can be hidden in a 3 inch diameter hole.   It is not in the field in the winter because my area of interest is above the snow line.   I deploy it in a stump cutoff where the 3 inch hole has been drilled up from the bottom.    It looks out a small hole on the side.    I have to be very careful where I put it because it is nearly impossible to find if it is in an area that has been logged with a lot of stumps left.  

[Arvedis]

4 hours ago, SWWASAS said:

My thinking might be considered genious bordering on insantiy by some.    I have been thinking more about it and I think I will start looking for a UV laser.    There seems to be so much evidence that BF sees into the IR range.   UV is shorter wavelength and that may have less side scatter.    Additionally it causes biologicals to floursesce.  BF or parts of him,  may glow in the dark under a UV laser.     One concern I have is that the Plotwatcher lens is not very large so has a limited light gathering ability.    Once I get the laser I will run some tests in my wooded back yard.    Perhaps a camera wth better light gathering capabilites could be used also.   WIth the laser running I could see what my DSLR does taking pictures at intervals.   I would not leave it out in the woods but certainly it could be used in a camp or stakeout situation.     The Plotwatcher is passive.   Does not emit anything other than some electronic field generated by its workings.      If the laser is activated by a human switch in camp or a remote tripwire,   it would be the center of attention and likely the Plotwatcher or Plotwatchers would not even be noticed.    The BF would of course do what it does and flee the light source.   They do make mistakes and perhaps in the confusion  it might blunder right into a camera.   Still working out the details of the laser spinner.    It needs to rock the laser up and down as it spins to cover a vertical scan.      Actually such a device is a primative LIDAR,   it would not do any measuring ot ranging but simply build an image from the backscattered light on objects.  

 

 

So this would be on the ground, kind of a chain of cams that sent IR pulses, with the idea that 1 of the cams would pick up something as BF avoided the others?  Wouldn't BF avoid areas it could detect horizonal IR pulses? It seems impractical to do it from the air with a drone sending vertical pulses as well. The more I look into the drone idea, the less likely it really seems to be able to collect useful data unless you had a stationary object to scan with your tech (thermals, video, stills, etc). My research so far says any moving objects are going to tough for photographic mapping to create an image of.  The LiDAR and other tech to do it works best with stationary objects. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Arvedis

[SWWASAS]

Here I go thinking again but I was just kicking myself for not pursuing passive camera traps when my research area was active.  I had deluded myself into thinking that the BF family in that area were becoming my friend,  because the juvenile was playing games with me,   so I failed to deploy what cameras I had in that area that I knew full well was active.  It was not until I got myself zapped that realized the BF were not at all friendly, at least in certain circumstances.   I had resorted to total reliance on a GoPro I carried with me, mountied on my hiking pole.  Figuring naievly that one of the BF would just step out of the woodline, wave at me,   and give me my photo opportunity of a lifetime.    After all they seemed to be friendly.   There was one secion of trail where I found several footprints in a trail crossing, and the artesian springs that I suspected was the area attraction.   Either place could have yeilded photographs with my Plotwatcher or Brinno setup.      I guess the first rule of thumb should be if you discover an active area, make good use of it.   Beyond that,   although logging most likely drove them out of the area,   I wonder if my constant presence just hurried up their departure to some other area.    It does not do you much good, deploying cameras in an area that is not active.  

[Arvedis]

@SWWASAS, based on the scenario you described, it sounds like the BFs were extending a genuine or pretend offer of socially distanced "friends" but they took exception to the cams. The BFs in general have seen the cams, seen humans setting them up, they know it is intended to target them. So based on your description, maybe they zapped you to send a message. Like a slap on the hand.

[hiflier]

You know? Been thinking about the cam issue. How would a BF know that a cam is being mounted to get a photo of them. Why wouldn't they think it was a device we were installing on the tree simply for the sake of the tree? Like we were doing something to help the tree instead of targeting them? I mean, yes, they are supposed to be intelligent and all, and perhaps, like us, everything is all about them. But no harm has befallen them from being in the vicinity of a cam. I don't get why we think the way we do when it comes to creating reasons, beyond IR emission, for a BF avoiding a camera. Some say it's because they perceive the camera as being, or having, some kind of unblinking eye. Usually when something in the wild has an unblinking eye, it means it's dead. Harmless. Now, I can go with the watching eye thing, but over time, even that could be understood as harmless. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by hiflier

[Gambacha1311]

I don't know alot about the subject but what I've gathered so far is there is an imaginary line in the sand where on one side you have the flesh and blood camp and on the other side you get into the woo (paranormal) camp and each side hates the other side. There is so much animosity in this bigfoot field I feel like the first step for us to get better answers about them is to put pride aside and work together with people from the different camps you can always learn from other people's experiences. I just feel like we would get so much more knowledge out there in the open if we weren't fighting amongst ourselves over things we don't believe in cause at the end of the day we really don't know much. Working together will bring better results, I wish more people weren't so quick to bash another persons experiences or ideas.

[SWWASAS]

19 hours ago, Arvedis said:

@SWWASAS, based on the scenario you described, it sounds like the BFs were extending a genuine or pretend offer of socially distanced "friends" but they took exception to the cams. The BFs in general have seen the cams, seen humans setting them up, they know it is intended to target them. So based on your description, maybe they zapped you to send a message. Like a slap on the hand.

By the time I was zapped,  I did not openly carrry or deploy cameras.   The exception was the cube GoPro on my hiking stick.   That I covered with a monkey sock puppet.     I think the reason I was zapped is that I encountered a BF searching a large log for termites.   If not that,  it had just been to the artesian water hole, and I blundered into it.       From the depression in the vegetation near the the log,  I was about 12 to 15 feet from the BF when it first hit me with infrasound.     It could not withdraw as it was trapped beside the large diameter down log.   The only way out was over the top of the log or past me.     If I was BF,   that would be too close to let an armed human near me without doing something.   It let me walk past the log on the trail then zapped me when I was just beyond the log.    I stopped and looked around but would not have seen the BF just behind the log at that point.  It was about 3 long strides away from me.     In a way I really do not blame it.   I certainly preferred being zapped to it standing up and ripping me apart.    I was most upset because it could have just let me walk past and I would have never known it was there.   The zapping destroyed my illusion that we had becaome friends.    I might have stopped to look at the end of the log where I had seen a stick inserted previously, as if it had been used to get termites.  I just don't remember doing that.    That log had been an item of interest for a few months because of the placement of the stick.