The Paper Chase, Browsing The Reports Options

[NWSquatcher]

MOREGON Would it be possible to update this on a yearly basis. So it will be current.

MODS Would it be possible to pin this above. So that this will not be lost back in the archives.

:new_thumbsupsmileyanim: Thank you for the statistics and the time and effort put into providing this information!!!!! This is probably the most useful information I've read lately and without you (Moregone) doing the leg work to break it down I'd still be reading reports and putting together correlations :new_weirdsmiley: This statistical data and Mangani's maps are very useful. Thanks again!!!!! I agree with billkirbywofb.

[GrandCherokee]

Somewhere else I noticed that the sightings really peaked in August and into September. I'll bet that's mating season.

Or..that is the time of year that most people take their holidays and are in an area where they are able to see one...

[StoneyRocks]

the 6 reports of Mr. BF being closer than 5 feet interest me..if only because they certainly couldnt be mistaking it for a bear or a dude in a suit... :icon_stressed:

[jonhowe]

Who was the one person who found bigfoot while looking for it?

[scotto]

Oh man, how did I ever miss this wealth of info?!?!?!?!?

Great job Moregon!!! :new_thumbsupsmileyanim:

[LAL]

Somewhere else I noticed that the sightings really peaked in August and into September. I'll bet that's mating season.

It's also camping season, followed by hunting season, and, in the east, leaf season. I've been doing a lot of atlas reading recently and noticed that in some areas of interest in NC, the roads are closed in winter. In some areas in Washington, there weren't many roads to begin with.

[LAL]

Oh man, how did I ever miss this wealth of info?!?!?!?!?

Great job Moregon!!! :new_thumbsupsmileyanim:

:yeahthat:

[Data]

Wow, Moregon. Your statistics are amacing. Thanks thausend times for that!!!!!!

Yours respectfully

DATA

[Hominid,WA]

moregon, when you list generic trees, are you meaning those that were not described in the report?

Also, I sent windigeo a link. (assuming he hasn't viewed it yet) His work on the BFRO reports using GIS analysis might give us a comparison. I'd be interested in hearing what he had to say on this.

Very interesting thread, I don't think it received the proper duration it deserved, and I can't believe I was unaware of the stats posted here!

A very belated well done!

[moregon]

Yes when I used the term Generic the reports simply said things like "wooded", "forest land" etc.. but didn't specifically say if the trees were hardwoods, firs, pines, fruit trees, a mix of both kinds etc. One might assume that depending on the location of the sighting, what the most likely type of trees found there might be, but here in the midwest it's not that easy. You might have a hardwood forest on one side of the highway, and a pine forest directly across the road, and most likely you'd find a mixture of both types.

This post has been edited by moregon: Dec 18 2007, 08:32 PM

[Scooby]

I think these are great stats! Thanks Moregon! Is there a map based on these sightings? Could we look at elevation and terrain and possibly get a more detailed picture?

[Hominid,WA]

I think these are great stats! Thanks Moregon! Is there a map based on these sightings? Could we look at elevation and terrain and possibly get a more detailed picture?

That's where I'm hoping windigeo can eventually assist.

[moregon]

No, I didn't track them on a map for that specific study.

Another member here Mangani has mapped out, and continues to map numerous sighting reports using Google Earth, the majority of sightings I looked at are included in his version, as well as many other sightings from databases I didn't use. If you haven't seen the thread, here's the link. http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=14228

However, one thing I did find while looking at these reports and others, including the points that Mangani shows on his Google Earth Project, is there are some specific commonalities to a majority of the sighting locations. Some of those specific details are left out of the reports, and until I did the best I could to find their locations on topo maps I didn't know they existed at or near those locations. The reason why they were left out is either the person making the report or the investigator didn't go into enough detail about the location, or just didn't think it was important. That first came to light for me when I investigated the location of a recent sighting north of Butte Falls Oregon while I lived in that area. With the details of the location of that sighting I was able to find the exact location where the bigfoot was seen. Nowhere in that report was there any mention of water, yet when I visited the site there was a fairly good sized stream less than 100 feet from the sighting spot. Now the witness was in a car and the sighting was at night, no visible bridge over the stream so he probably simply didn't realize it was there. The investigator either didn't visit the sight, or didn't see the stream for the same reasons, or because it was hidden behind a fairly dense row of underbrush along it's banks, but it is there.

Based on that finding I took a closer look at other locations and wrote about those results in a piece for the SRI Newsletter. Using the data gleaned from a number of reports in productive states, I looked at sightings in other states that were primarily devoid of those noted structures. What I found was that almost 90% of the sightings in those states where these types of structures are not common, actually occurred in areas that had these structures. We know animals use natural structures for a variety of reasons. If you fish, and your goal is to catch a largemouth bass you don't simply row out into the middle of a lake and drop your line. You might catch one, but there's a way to greatly increase your odds, and that's to know the structures they frequent. We know that Largemouth Bass like to hang around fallen trees, under docks, near underwater drop-offs. So those are the areas you want to concentrate on. It appears that there's a pattern in relationship to bigfoot as well. You can find that article by clicking here. At the end of the article is a link to a page with supporting Topo maps of the locations I studied. When reading through this report use the Page Menu top right, not the NEXT Button at the bottom of the page. There's 6 pages in the report.

This post has been edited by moregon: Dec 18 2007, 09:57 PM

[jasonch1112]

Just a few things.

Light would only be reflected if the angles were right. If the BF was blinded by the light suddenly, it would have looked away and there would have been no refection.

It is possible that the smell is associated by it's diet. You may have noticed people who eat a lot of ginger in thier diet have a peculiar smell as well. I would assume there are other plants that would have a similar effect.

I would have liked it if the people taking the reports had asked what phase the moon was in at the time of night encounters. That might give us a better idea of just how well BF can see in the dark. This would have been good to know considering most sightings happened on clear nights. Maybe they only see moderately well at night and during full moons on clear nights, they range farther????

Not only do they seem to prefer moving water, they prefer SLOW moving water. Creeks were much higher than rivers. When you look at the stats and add in the RR track factor. it would appear that they like to stay close to cover. Creeks, swamps, and RR tracks usually have dense cover within feet of them. Lakes, ponds, and rivers usually have a longer way to cover. Also creeks, swamps, and RR tracks have a lot of edible plants growing near or in them. The sides of RR tracks are basically ditches where cattails are common, along with a host of others. I need to find my notes about the research I did on edible plants and post them. Just seems to support the idea I had that prompted that research.

I know you all are thinking it but I will say it anyway. The by month stats are not surprising in the least. Basically what we all expected to see after that one recent thread where we discussed that.

[Hominid,WA]

Another question arises when looking at this data. In regard to creeks, how traversable would they be? It would be beneficial, IMO, to get data on the creeks found in these reports; elevation, depth, length, direction, distance, etc.. We've all heard the argument put forth that a creature this size would no doubt leave much in the way of disturbance to the environment, therefore, we should be seeing more in the way of signs, revealing more information that an animal this size is existing in our forests.

However, creeks aren't good substrate. They act as natural pathways, that connect great distances. Are researchers putting gamecams on creeks? It might also assist in explaining smells reported. A somewhat wet Sasquatch would most likely give off more scent. Creeks that are deeper, would if traversed, get an animal wet over more of the body, while shallower creeks would do little to make one damp enough to strongly smell. Only theories of course, yet all of this subject is in one form or another.

[Hominid,WA]

I also wanted to add that I think it's interesting how this thread has been around for 3 plus years, giving us a glimpse of stats extremely pertinent to this field of research, yet has less views by users of the forum, then say the war of researchers thread, which has only been up for a very short time in comparison.

It seems many would rather read about the drama, than the search.

[windigeo]

Sorry I missed this thread, it is interesting. HominidWA asked me to post some of my findings from
GIS (geographic information systems) analysis, so I'll add several posts showing some screenshots from
my TBRC presentation. These maps and graphs are based on 650 encounter locations from Washington,
Oregon, and California, that I compiled into a database and assigned coordinates based on maps, atlases,
and Topozone. Here are the locations of the encounters plotted on a map to show general location:



Here are the encounter locations plotted on top of a Digital Elevation Model, or DEM:



Here's a breakdown of elevation by month. You can see that encounters are generally
lower in winter, higher in summer, as would be expected:



Here's a density map of all encounters, which span the last 60 years. Darker areas
indicate higher density of encounters:



Here's a slope aspect map of the area, with different colors indicating different
slope aspects (the way a slope is facing):

[dogu4]

Very interesting. Thanks for that. By the way, I think the term "slope aspect" might be better described as the degree of slop on the land, rather than the "way it is sloping". So flat land with no slope is red,like in CA's central valley, and extremely steep stuff which has a lot of slope like along the crest of the Sierras, is blue, or am I misunderstanding this map?

[windigeo]

Here's the way the aspect of encounters breaks down by month:



Aspect really shows a pattern when broken down by east/west, since most of the mountain
ranges in this area run north/south. Obvious preference for the west slope, assuming because
of more moisture and the vegetation and climate that greater moisture provides:



Also, about 90 encounters had descriptions that contained a height estimate, and about 80 had
estimates or measurements of footprint length. These show a normal distrubtion, with slight
negative skewness (indicating a slight bias for observation or estimate of larger individuals):

Height:



Footprint length:

Very interesting. Thanks for that. By the way, I think the term "slope aspect" might be better described as the degree of slop on the land, rather than the "way it is sloping". So flat land with no slope is red,like in CA's central valley, and extremely steep stuff which has a lot of slope like along the crest of the Sierras, is blue, or am I misunderstanding this map?

This is just slope aspect, or the way the slope is facing, rather than steepness, or degree, of slope.

[Elder]

Are these stats taken from the published reports of the BFRO? I understand that they only represent a "fraction" of all the reports submitted. Are members allowed to view all reports? I noticed that the stat showing only one sighting by someone actually looking for BF is 1. What about sightings that occur on BFRO expeditions? I really appreciate the work done here. I wonder if the trends would be the same if ALL reports to the BFRO were taken into account.

[Hominid,WA]

windigeo, thanks so very much for posting some of your work, it is much appreciated.

I'm also interested to read moregon's take.

[moregon]

In regards to the mountains running mainly North and South in that area, the only range I know that runs East and West is the Siskiyous in Northern California/Southern Oregon. In that range there's been sightings on both sides of the range, North and South with probably the count being a tad heavier to the South. It appears your maps display that quite well with a high concentration on the western end of the range in the areas of Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. As you said the western slopes of those ranges, such as the Cascades tend to have more moisture, as well as milder winters.

I'm glad that both data collections show the average height, by quite a good sized margin is in the 6 to 8 foot range. I think it's been shown here a few times with exercises trying to estimate height through photographs, that people are not that accurate for the most part. When I was attending school in NM our tallest basketball player was a guy by the name of Sam Lacey, who went on to play pro. I think at school he was billed as being 7' tall, but as a pro at 6'10". Either way he was BIG and personally if I had tried to guess his height without knowing the data probably would have put him over 7' by a couple of inches. I think a shorter witness is more likely to overestimate height, than a taller witness who's closer to the height of the subject he's viewing. It would be interesting to see if there is some pattern to the height estimates given, compared to the height of the witness. Would it show shorter people estimate taller bigfoots and tall people estimate shorter ones, vice versa, or no difference.

On your month to month date, I'm surprised to see the big dips in May and July of sightings. Have you come up with any possible reason that might be the case? At least from Northern California northward during a good portion of May there's still a lot of snow as well as ice on the roads at higher elevations. I see the dip in sightings also correlates with the jump in altitude the sightings are at in that month according to your chart if I'm reading it corrrectly. Maybe in that part of the year they are following the receding snowline for? Tender shoots as the snow recedes? Or possibly following the smaller mammals as they feed on the new growth as the snow recedes.

Lots of good info and detail..

This post has been edited by moregon: Dec 20 2007, 05:34 AM

[windigeo]

Sorry moregon, I should have explained better...the numbers in the aspect chart are the mean aspect
(compass direction) by month. Here's a graph showing number of encounters by month, which shows
pretty much what you would expect...a peak in mid-summer when all the snow is generally melted
from the high country and people are out hiking, and another smaller peak in October during hunting
season:

[Mon0705]

Fantastic results! Granted, it may seem like the results tell you what you might expect, but that's still a huge step forward. As the interpretation of results sort of lean on the idea of a 'random' distribution of people, are the results skewed slightly if more people frequent a specific slope? My thought being that if a west slope side is more easily accessible to people than the corresponding east facing slope, does that account for the observation that more BF sightings occur on a west facing slope?

Still awesome work both moregon and Windigeo compiling all this data! I agree with the statement earlier that this is probably the most information filled/most under appreciated thread in the Forum.

[moregon]

Ok, got it and thanks.

[Hominid,WA]

This is interesting how November elevation increases. I'm thinking maybe because of hunting season, higher elevations may be safer. I'm wondering about other reasons for the increase in November?

[windigeo]

Hard to say. I thought that the May and November peaks may have been caused by
a few statistical outliers, but that is not the case...the histogram looks pretty much
the same when statistical outliers (beyond 90 percent confidence interval) are
thrown out.

[moregon]

Also strange the two peaks are months exactly 6 months apart.

Hmmmm and in the month that falls between the ending of the solstice before the equinox of the next seasonal change.

Possible significant increase during those times of local migration between altitudes? The May one as they move from lower to Higher altitudes and November as they move from the higher to lower altitudes?

Let's say during May they know it's time to move up, so during the cover of darkness they move to the higher elevations they'll spend the summer in. However they've just arrived, and none have an area staked out yet as their own, so there'll be a lot of activity until things settle down. This leaves them in a more visible state at the higher altitude.

In November those who have moved to the highest altitudes will know it's time to move lower before the oncoming winter. Some will hang on until the last minute and that may be a larger than normal group that does that, again making them more visible to anyone in the area. You get one or two bigfoot moving through the forest, that can be easily overlooked as a bear or other large mammal making the noise and disturbance. Get a group of ten bigfoot, and somebody is going to see something with that much being visible.

This post has been edited by moregon: Dec 20 2007, 02:32 PM

[Hominid,WA]

Pete, another question. I was listening to an interview last night given by Australian researcher Tom Healy. He said that he and Paul Cropper had done an analysis on the yowie reports concerning time of day/night. They found in running the numbers that between 6AM-Noon activity was almost nil. Highest concentration occured after high noon and continued till right before dawn.

Has your data given any insights into this?

[windigeo]

Hominid, I haven't tracked time of day, because not many reports accurately specified a time of day,
at least not many that I was able to place geographically with reasonable certainty.

I see that moregon was able to get a count of day vs. night, roughly a ratio of 4:3. This looks
like an indication of validity to the theory that sasquatches are nocturnal, since I doubt there
are 75 percent as many people out at night as during the day. I would guess the number
50 percent or less, making the weighted proportion higher in favor of night encounters.

moregon, your theory of movement making them more likely to be spotted during times
of changing seasons is as good a guess as anything right now.

Mon0705, you're definitely right that you can't take the "people" aspect out of the encounter,
as right now that is the only means we have of deriving location...nobody has been able to
radio collar one. So the fact that more people live on the west side of the Cascades and
Sierras than on the east side may have an influence.

[jasonch1112]

Another possibility is that they know the season is about to change and that they will be losing food resources in the higher elevations. So they move up in elevation to 'strip' resources from those areas before they are lost for the season and thus help preserve the resources in the lower elevations longer. It is like if you know Mount Rainier is going to blow soon, you grab all the food out of your house before you evacuate and not just hope you can find enough at your destination, because you know the sudden influx of people will sap local resources for a while.

Oh, and I just did a bit of research into edible wild plants. There is a good mushroom that likes to grow along receding ice and snow lines. Maybe a clue to a good search place and time?????

[nightscream]

In regards to the mountains running mainly North and South in that area, the only range I know that runs East and West is the Siskiyous in Northern California/Southern Oregon. In that range there's been sightings on both sides of the range, North and South with probably the count being a tad heavier to the South.

The Uintah Mountain range in Utah also runs East to West and I believe is the largest range in the US to do so.

This post has been edited by nightscream: Jan 5 2008, 03:07 PM

[bipedalist]

The Black Mountain Range in Western North Carolina (Highest Range East of the Rockies) also runs East to West contrary to the NE to SW
Blue Ridge and Great Smokies, it is shaped like a sideways fish hook with the point turned under
and pointing West.