Looking at the main reliable databases, which states have the most number of Bigfoot sightings per-capita? For example, Alaska may be a large state when it comes to land mass, but its population is rather small. John Green's data base only records 50 sightings /encounters over the last 50 years or so. Maryland, a small state, with a fairly small population has over 250 sightings in 50 years. What would you say would be the key factors that account for this difference?

David Thomas King
NESRA

I would think California, looking at the available data on the BFRO site. That's my guess.

Population plays a major role in the per State idea.

Flawed data on the number of reports for one thing.

Very interesting question. It makes sense the greater the population-the more folks have a chance to see something. I would have to think British Columbia where my sighting took place would be a great place. Rough terrain, caves, streams and rivers, scattered population, and dense forest. Alaska would come to mind also-I have never been there, but with the undeveloped wilderness, it seems this would be a prime territory.

My guess would have to be Washington State, and Oregon for the same reasons you mentioned about BC...

Well, I'm so very glad you asked! Turns out, I was looking into this recently. Working from the BFRO database and using 2000 census info, here's yer winners:

In the per capita division, Washington state scores a completely unsurprising knockout with .00007528732 spc (sightings per capita). The only other state even close was Oregon with an spc of .00006377611. California, despite a large volume of reports, managed a measly .00001048953, which is almost certainly attributable to it's high urban population.

Which segues nicely into:

Sightings per square mile (spsm) numbers. Here we see that, again, Washington is the place to be as it crushes the competition with a spsm rating of .00552701931--fully twice the rating of the number 3 and 4 states...Maryland and New Jersey and easily outdistancing darkhorse Ohio (spsm--.00439528239).

Other notable spc ratings:
Arkansas--.00002455297
Colorado--.00002267291
Idaho--.0000345854
Wyoming--.00004605515

Interesting spsm ratings:
Kentucky--.00105708245
Maryland--.00245524296
Tennesee--.00109170305

Again, I stress that this is BFRO data only, so take it for what it's worth. I was working on John Green's data as well, when I gave it up for a variety of reasons. I'm kinda enthusiastic about it again now, though.

Entusiastic, but sleepy . I'll get back to ya...

Maryland.

If you add ALL the listings from all the data bases, you end up with an enormous amount of sightings.

Mark Opsasnick's classic Bigfoot reference guide includes the extensive chronological sightings list (over 400 !!) and the bibliography of The Bigfoot Digest: A Survey of Maryland Sightings, as well as the overview of Maryland investigators found in The Maryland Bigfoot Reference Guide. This effort was one of the first Bigfoot publications to focus on an area in eastern North America, and is foundational for any future work in this region.

Again, over 400, just on one database. Add JGs 250 and the BFROs , and you get closer to 1,000.

But then again, this was prime BF habitat before Columbus landed, and there have been sightings ever since the Europeans started exploring out from Jamestown Virginia. The PNW has not had the time (of "civilized" occupation) to accumulate that number of sightings.

The local Native tribes of Maryland, all tell of such an animal, some refering to it as a god, or god-like animal.

I would be willing to bet Arkansas' numbers are higher than what is reported. Arkansas is not on the cutting edge on the information super highway. It's mostly rural and I would venture a guess many more sightings occur than are reported. I wouldn't say it's up there with the PNW, but the ArkLaTexOma area is good habitat.

Just my two pennies

Biased opinion!!

Actually a good point. The same could be said for Alabama and a good portion of Ga.

Jim,

When you're talking about flawed data are you referring to a specific database or that most sightings in databases aren't well enough verified to be relied upon?

DTK

Good stuff, Walking Carpet.

You might want to reformat it like the government statistics to make it easier to follow.

e.g.:



Washington: 75 sightings per million people
Oregon: 63 sightings per million people
California: 10 sightings per million people

Actually, FN, I'm working on that very thing while I sort trough a few other databases, except I decided to express the numbers as sightings per thousand. They are pretty much the same either way, it's just a matter of how far you move the decimal point. Thousandths work better for square mileage, too.

Thanks for the suggestion!

btw--One thing I really would like to do is to find a way to combine the the two numbers into a overall rating system, but math is, like, hard an' stuff. I've got an idea or two, but any suggestions are more than welcome.

Interesting data!

What do you think about Ohio? Did BFRO ever get all their Ohio stories into the database, or is there still a backlog?

We just read so many stories from there.

I would think many sightings in the Southeast go unreported because people are afraid to tell or they write it off as a black bear.

Cool! Your post got me to thinking about something a few days ago, but I'm afraid it is interesting but not too significant. It's the correlation of sightings to rainfall patterns. The reason it may not be significant is that rain tends to fall in the mountains and everyone already knows there are more bigfoot sightings in the mountains.

Anyway here's the BFRO map of Washington reports, and my next post will be the rainfall map from http://www.ocs.orst.edu/prism/state_products/index.phtml

Here's the Washington rainfall map....

Actually, you might be onto something. Here's a topo map of Washington.



In the west, the rain falls mostly on the eastern side of the mountains. Superficially, there does seem to be a correlation among all three maps.
Very interesting...

Another stand out is the big basin--forgive my geographical ignorance--in the southeast corner of the state which features a paucity of all three factors: rain, high altitudes, and bigfoot.

Hmmm...

Good information indeed. Patterns are being revealed as the data is examined... I'm inspired to look into this correlation in the Northeast.

DTK

hi everyone i wonder if hurricane katrina will increase the chance of people seeing a sasquatch or footprints or other sasquatch evidence after or dureing the hurricane hits the states most popualar for sasquatch activitys i would definetlty like to see all opinions etc about this ok. thanks bill green p.s. im sure the bfro ,nesra and other sasquatch organizations will keep us posted.

Yet another factor to consider Bill!

Check this one out

BFRO report 9282

Hey Bill... we don't get many hurricane's here in Indiana...

But I'm thinking if Sass is as smart as we think, he'll be on the move already, long before the storms get near.

hi walkingcarpet yes i realy injoy reading that report from florida of sightings of 2 creatures dureing hurricane frances. i hope the bfro is still investigateing that sighting. thanks for posting it . it realy helped me with my research. bill green

I am no math wizard, but it seems to me that if you are studying BF sightings per-capita in a state that has a large city (population of 10 million or so people) people that pretty much stay in that city year round; the numbers aren't representing what is truly happening. Illinois for example.