I have delayed posting this report for two reasons #1- I didn't attend the meeting it was given at (I only read it in the April, 2003 edition of the IBS Track Record #126 and #2 - as the BFRO has had investigators at the site for some time, I waited hoping to see a post on their website.

Here's a synopsis of a report given at the Apr. 26th meeting of the International Bigfoot Society... unfortunately I was suffering from pnuemonia at the time and was unable to attend. So you get what I got - the report from the Track Record! A video-tape of that meeting is available for $12.00... should I get it and pass it around?

The Hoyt's, April and Allen moved to their property in 1995, and soon after started having problems. The rabbit and chicken enclosures were disturbed. The hutch would be opened, a young rabbit missing and the door would be latched closed, though the breeding pair were left.

Later, when the breeding doe was taken, as if in apology, the dead squashed rabbit appeared in the back yard. When they tried to dispose of it in a clear-cut area, it was returned twice to the backyard.

The chickens would just disappear... on occasion a neatly stacked pile of chicken feathers would be found, often along a trail.

Finally, Allen saw two of the creatures crossing a road at night. About a month later, April and her mother saw one standing by the road, and a second time, Allen saw one cross the road and almost be hit by a car.

In 1999, just after hunting season, April was horseback riding and saw a seven to eight foot tall creature from the waist up... the Hoyt's came to call this dark-brown Bigfoot "Daddy." Of course, there was "Mommy", Grandpa", "Grandma", and two little ones, one of which they nicknamed "Junior." "Daddy" had silver coloring under his arms and during one sighting he squealed like a pig. He was seen eating blackberries, and left 21-inch long tracks.

"Grandpa" was the biggest at an estimated nine feet tall, and also the meanest of the creatures. He would leave 23-inch tracks. The horses were reported to stomp and snort, in apparent reaction to "Grandpa."

An area where multiple tracks of the creatures were found was nicknamed the Dance Hall. Near that site several very large, "beaver den-like tunnels" were found that may (or may not) serve as homes for the creatures.

The Hoyt's farm is in a rural setting, near Chehalis, WA (about half-way between Portland, OR and Seattle, WA), a half-mile off the paved road, at about 1000' in elevation, and is surrounded by creeks, forest, and a clear-cut area.

Once, Mr. Hoyt found an exceptional track... in order to protect it, he lined it with criss-crossed sticks, then out-lines it with sticks. The next day he found his own footprints had been treated in exactly the same manner. This apparently became a game, with many different stick outlines made.

Bait, used to lure the Bigfoot into the open, for photographs, has proved unsuccessful… they avoid the area whenever there is a camera around. Attempts to photograph the creatures, has simply not worked. An outdoor freezer had 400 pounds of pork removed. An attempt to use the freezer as a photographic point failed, when the creatures would not cross an infrared beam, instead walking along the beam.

The Bigfoot make noises imitating coyotes… once when Mrs. Hoyt called for her daughter, Nina, from the porch she heard a mumbled “Nina” come from the brush. On another occasion, the word “ma-ma” was heard from the backside of the house.

Allen has seen the creatures four or five times, Nina has had eight encounters, and April has seen them 12 times. The creatures were always seen in an upright position and seemed to be very fast.

As far as I know there are no plans for a book from these people… although I haven’t read the “Tennessee 50 years” book, the similarities in the reports do pop out, from what details I have read on this Forum.

Habituation may be more common than we think, if the stories can be believed.

part two...

found this article on the BFRO site... which seems to be the one I reported in the first post.

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_article.asp?id=175

Sunday, April 15, 2001

In Search of Bigfoot, with a PC

By Laura Porto
Northwest Digital IQ



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A group of Oregon researchers is using off-the-shelf technology to prove the existence of the legendary sasquatch

It was August of 1999 when Janet Holman* (not her real name) found a bigfoot in her backyard. Riding on her property in rural Chehalis, Wash., with her teenage daughter, Janet thought it was a deer that startled their horses. But a closer look revealed a hand coming out of the briar bushes and a bigfoot—a large, hairy, apelike creature also known as a sasquatch— peeking out. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Janet said. Her horse turned and bolted, and the bigfoot was gone.

These days, the family is more comfortable with their visitors, who are the focus of a new project launched by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, an international group founded in 1995 that is attempting to verify the elusive creature’s existence. The couple’s insistence on anonymity, for fear of attracting fanatics and bigfoot hunters, makes their situation a perfect test case for the BFRO, said Thom Powell, the BFRO’s curator handling the case and an 8th grade science teacher at Robert Gray Middle School in Portland.

In the past, bigfoot hunters have used tripwires, microphones, cameras—in 1967 in Bluff Creek, California, a bigfoot was supposedly filmed with a 16mm movie camera crossing a stream—and good old-fashioned tracking methods in an attempt to pull the mythological veil off the creature. But now, an organized group is stepping up the effort with computers and software. The group’s founder is Matt Moneymaker, a San Juan Capistrano, Calif. ecommerce developer.

“The eventual goal,” Moneymaker said, “is to be able to show what these things look like, to have a window onto their world via technology inserted into their world.”

Toward this goal, the BFRO began installing a surveillance system at the Holmans in December last year using inexpensive, consumer-grade equipment. The system’s architect is Vaughn Hughes, a senior software engineer at Intel in Portland.

Webcams in the Woods

The system centers around an old Pentium MMX PC and a combination TV/VCR set up in a back room of the Holmans’ house. The PC runs Eyes&Ears video capture software and has an Intel Create & Share Camera Pack PCI Modem card hooked to a $70 Ramsey Electronics Mini-Peeper CCD Video Camera about 50 feet away: a tiny webcam, chosen because of its sensitivity to near-infrared light. Just in case, it’s supplemented with two Ramsey Electronics illuminator kits using LEDs for illumination. The VCR records all footage to VHS videotape, which the Holmans must change every eight hours.

While all the tapes must be reviewed manually later, Eyes&Ears simultaneously waits to detect a change in the baseline picture. When it does, it saves a still frame to disk and a script sends it—via good old FTP—to a password-protected Web site for remote viewing every four hours.
This setup is not without problems. The webcam, with the circuit board exposed, was never meant to be in the outdoors and had to be weatherproofed using wax as a sealant. In addition, the illuminators only light the area for 10 feet.

The BRFO already has a higher quality camera on order and expects its arrival in late March. The $500 Extreme CCTV UF 100 [infrared illuminator], encased in a weatherproof housing, [together with a $450 Extreme CCTV EX25 camera have] a 120-foot range of infrared viewing. It also includes a video transmitter that will allow Hughes to position the camera further away from the house. “It should get really interesting once this is in place,” Hughes said.


Portland science teacher and bigfoot researcher Thom Powell stands behind a "deercam," a 35mm camera mounted inside an insulated, camouflaged container with an infrared sensor that the BFRO is using to try to photograph sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest. Their group is using other, more high-tech cameras and recording equipment as well.

Photo by Matt Hagen


The challenges for choosing technology were many, according to Powell. The first attempt to photograph a bigfoot on the property involved a motion-activated still camera with weatherproof housing, the kind often used by deer hunters to monitor activity in an area. Powell tempted the bigfoot into the area with treats such as fruit and candy. Powell was convinced that they successfully got the animal to take their bait, in the form of treats, but it wasn’t triggering the camera, he said, theorizing that the bigfoot’s thick hair may not allow enough heat to escape to activate the camera.

To remedy the situation, they upgraded to an X-10 Night Watch Surveillance Camera, only to find that it used CMOS [imager] instead of CCD [imager], which didn’t pick up any near-infrared light and required visible light. To illuminate the monitored area, Hughes pointed the Holmans’ porch light in the direction of the camera, but the lighting was poor, and the camera didn’t capture clear images. It was replaced in early February.

“The sooner we can get some good images, the more compelling this will be to the skeptics,” said Powell.

I Want to Believe

Up until a couple of years ago, Powell was a skeptic himself. It wasn’t until moving to rural Oregon and talking to neighbors with similar experiences that he began to seriously consider the existence of bigfoot.

Today, after investigating almost 200 sightings in the past four years with the BFRO, as well as experiencing “something big and spooky” moving around his camp site on the Chehalis property, Powell is a firm believer. It was a move to a rural area outside Portland that finally convinced him.

“There’s a bias that comes from urban living, that we would know by now whether they existed or not,” he said.

Not influenced by that bias, Powell and fellow curator Hughes are dedicated to documenting the creature, so much so that they’ve funded most of the project themselves up to this point. The next step, however, is out of their financial reach. The best equipment, including a customized VCR that captures images using time-lapse technology hooked up to 16 cameras costs upwards of $80,000—money that, as an all-volunteer organization, the BRFO does not have.

Though it wouldn’t be unwelcome, the goal here isn’t to photograph a bigfoot. Instead, the BFRO researchers are hoping to gain enough evidence and generate enough interest to attract a sponsor. Their short list includes Paul Allen, backer of the alien radio signal detection project SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and Joe Firmage, founder of the Web consulting giants Serius and USWeb, who went public with an alien encounter in 1998.

Bigfoot.net

But with or without backing, the BFRO has continued to operate using the Internet as its life force since 1995. There are 25 curators scattered across the United States, in addition to three in Canada and one in England. While Hughes has only met a few of them, he said they work very closely together. “That interaction is enabled by the Internet,” he said.

The BFRO also hosts a mailing list that provides a forum for curators to discuss subjects ranging from investigations going on around the country to operational logistics and report management. The mailing list, which receives about 10-15 messages daily, also brings specialists into the discussion, which, according to Hughes, would not be possible without the Internet.

The group of people who started the BFRO has been communicating “the old-fashioned way,” by phone and by mail, for years, Moneymaker said. “When the Internet came along those people connected with each other...and eventually out of that group we formed the BFRO.”
Moneymaker describes the Internet as a watershed for sightings as well. “The biggest problem that was holding back inquiries was the delay, the amount of time it took for people to find out about sightings,” he said. “Without the medium of the Internet those people would never have found anyone who was seriously interested in this subject.”

“For a lot of people it is a relief that there are hundreds of people each year that have these sort of experiences,” Hughes said. “They’re not the only ones these things are happening to.”

Hughes is now working on entering old sightings into a database [actually an army of dozens of volunteers is doing so] so that researchers can run reports and track patterns. According to Hughes, 15 to 30 sightings come in via the BFRO Web site (http://www.bfro.net) each week, and on average, about 10 of those turn out to be legitimate.

“Many investigations don’t get far before we determine them to be a hoax,” Powell said. One tip-off is when people ask about publicity or money.

Moneymaker also credits the net. “The Internet [has] made the geographic picture more clear,” explaining the relationship between deer and elk populations and bigfoot sightings, he said. Bigfoot are “taking advantage of the overpopulation of these prey species, pulling them into areas where they usually wouldn’t go,” he explained.

The BFRO’s webcam has not yet documented a sighting, but Powell and company aren’t ready to give up. Neither are Janet and Bill Holman. “At first, when I realized what they were doing, I wanted to move the bed,” Janet Holman said, speaking of the noises heard and the footprints found near her bedroom window. “Now it’s like I don't even care.”

The family’s comfort with the creatures only increases the chances of getting some footage, Powell said. The couple’s teenage daughter is so comfortable with the bigfoot that she imitates their howling when she hears it, calling back to them in a sort of dialogue. Powell describes the howl as a combination of laughter and screaming. “It tells you that there’s something with a lot of lung power,” he said.

While Powell said the creatures are very smart and often notice and avoid cameras, he added that he hopes they get used to the onsite equipment over time.

“The more equipment we can get ... the more chance we’ll have at getting solid evidence,” Powell said. “And that’s where we want to go.”

That’s where Janet and Bill want to go too, they said. “A lot of what we want to do is prove they do exist ... and seek protection for them.”

That “throws an enormous monkey wrench into public land,” said Powell, adding that the bigfoot would become the “ultimate endangered species” and bring organized opposition to any type of video documentation they get, he said.

Powell is dedicated to his mission of capturing a bigfoot on tape. In fact, the following step may be harder, he said. What happens after? “You get ready for a lot of ridicule,” said Powell.

Ridicule or not, Moneymaker dreams of the day when anyone can view a bigfoot via the Internet. “Eventually [there will be] full streaming audio and video that people can have running on large-size HDTV screens,” he said. “To us that is a futuristic thing but not far around the corner, and we want to be the first ones to do it ... the first ones to pump live wildness in to urban spaces and make it accessible.”

“We will achieve that someday,” Moneymaker said, “and when we do, it will be a big deal.”

part three... I must apologize for not checking the BFRO website more exactly... here is their report on the investigation...

http://www.bfro.net/avevid/tp/ww.asp

First 'Wireless Wilderness' Project Ends

By Thom Powell
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A two-year effort by BFRO to obtain photo and video images of sasquatches has ended. We learned a lot about deploying a remote monitoring system though we did not get the video evidence we hoped for. The only photographic evidence we got was a few shadowy images. We are sharing our results and experience now so that others can initiate future projects with greater chances of success.

Our project began with a sighting report received by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) in April of 2000. Residents of a ranch in western Washington were reporting multiple bigfoot sightings on and around their isolated homestead. Considerable effort went into confirming the report of a possible bigfoot family group frequenting the area. As it turned out, not only did the site offer strong evidence of repeated sasquatch visitations, but it also had everything else that we were looking for in a good monitoring site: cooperative and resourceful residents, proximity to extensive forests, and 110 AC power and phone lines on-site. (See the Digital IQ magazine article for more early details.)

The residents still wish to keep the location private, but we may refer to them as Allen and April, or just A&A for short. They raise many types of livestock on their ranch, and keep many pets as well. They often rescue and rehabilitate injured wildlife. They are keen animal trackers and completely at ease with the bigfoot activity which was sometimes quite close to the house. They had multiple sightings and had been aware of the possible bigfoot family group for many months before they contacted the BFRO. They were not at all eager to be invaded by strangers and they were cautious about their involvement with the BFRO. They also insisted that their names and location remain confidential. Besides concern for their own privacy and that of their neighbors, A&A had great concern for the well being of the sasquatches. Nothing that might endanger the bigfoots would be tolerated. All things considered, it was an ideal situation for installing cameras that we hoped would get photos of the local bigfoots.

Many kinds of evidence surfaced on the property, though most of it was subtle. Large footprint tracks were often found. They were seldom distinct. Rarely were these tracks distinct enough to warrant casting them with plaster. Wide game trails were observed that had no hoof prints on them. Most of the members of A&A’s family had sightings from the car or from horseback. The daughter and the mom had the most. Visitors to the homestead sometimes had sightings on the drive in, and other nearby residents had sightings and inexplicable experiences of their own. Livestock such as rabbits and chickens often vanished, and other types of bait left out for the bigfoots routinely disappeared.

Despite the many signs of bigfoot activity at the site, funding the project was a struggle. Financial constraints forced us to start simple. Our initial equipment consisted of a “Buckshot” weatherproof, motion-activated still camera. It was positioned to photograph anything that tried to enter an outdoor freezer that was being mysteriously raided. Among the items that disappeared from the outdoor freezer were a half of a pig and a lot of smelt. We were familiar with reports of freezer raids from a previous situation in southeast Oklahoma. An outdoor freezer in that state was being fleeced of deer meat in conjunction with many direct sightings. In light of this, it was reasonable to test the possibility that the bigfoots were the culprits in the case of A&A’s freezer losses.

The ‘freezer cam” as we called it, was tripped a few times during that first spring and into the summer, but no animal photographs were obtained. In fact, the raids on the freezer ended once the camera was installed. Meanwhile, a close-range sighting by both Allen and April, and many track finds, took place at a shady forest clearing elsewhere on their property. We began leaving candy, bananas, and ears of corn at that location. The bait consistently disappeared and nothing was happening at the freezer, so we eventually moved the camera to the clearing. The camera was tripped a few times at its new location but nothing ever appeared on the photos. Again, the bait stopped disappearing as soon as we stationed the camera at the location and the bigfoot activity there soon ceased altogether. We also discovered to our surprise that some of the game trails leading to the clearing had been barricaded with criss-crossed limbs. Later that summer, Andy noticed that the freezer had once again been opened and some of the meat we left as bait was gone.

Our camera was too crude. Sightings and other signs of bigfoot activity were continuing, so outside interest in the project increased. We were finally able to afford an equipment upgrade. We were also fortunate enough to enlist the help of Vaughn Hughes, a senior engineer at Intel Corporation. He guided us through the acquisition and deployment of CCD video technology, infrared illuminators, and a motion-activated video capture software package known as “Eyes and Ears.” This software enables a computer to capture, store, and upload images to a secure, password-protected website that Vaughn constructed. Image data could then be downloaded and viewed remotely from any home computer.

What sounds like a simple system was anything but simple. Beyond the equipment problems and computer glitches, environmental factors provided frequent hassles. Camera placement could not be based solely on promising locations for sasquatch activity. Much thought had to go into locating the camera so that unwanted video captures were minimized. At times hundreds or even thousands of weekly “hits” were logged due to wind motion of trees, celestial and lunar movements, cloud motion, and weather changes. Video captures showed that cats, dogs, and birds were less bashful about being photographed than the more esoteric local wildlife we were after. Camouflaging of the equipment proved to be exceptionally difficult. The substantial heat output from an infrared illuminator prevents it from being covered by any camouflaging material that might catch fire. Eventually, through persistence and much fine-tuning of software and hardware, we were able to get the system running just as it had been envisioned.

Much like the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) project, it was necessary for our project participants to sift through the hundreds of images that were being captured each week. Dedicated individuals in the U.S. and Great Britain viewed and evaluated the hits in hopes of one day discovering the face of a sasquatch staring back at us through the camera lens.

We never got the clear bigfoot images we were hoping for, but we could certainly see that the ability to download the captured images using one’s home computer was a huge improvement. I was no longer making frequent visits to the site to collect rolls of film, change batteries, then paying for film processing, only to find that wind and tree motion was repeatedly triggering the camera. Some of the more interesting images obtained are available elsewhere on the BFRO site.

As this first monitoring project concludes, I will share these seven tentative conclusions. Like sasquatch research in general, nothing here is provable. In the absence of hard data, one can only observe subtle changes in the landscape and look for patterns in those changes, and then try to make inferences as to why this might occur based on our knowledge of animal behavior in general. It need not be said but the conclusions below are completely my own, and not necessarily shared by my BFRO colleagues. If any of these hunches are correct, then they should fit with observations and patterns being witnessed by other observers at other active sites. I am sharing these tentative conclusions in the hope that we will receive feedback on them from other bigfoot researchers or rural residents who periodically witness bigfoot activity:

Bigfoots seem to choose certain homesteads to frequent based on things like the available sources of food, and maybe even more subtle matters like a ‘live-and-let-live’ spirit of animal accommodation displayed by some rural residents. A&A’s place earns high marks on both counts. They raise many types of livestock, and they have a compassion for animals that is evident through their behavior and the caged animals in various stages of rehabilitation on their property. It is easy for me to accept that bigfoots have the capacity to identify people who display compassion for animals because I have seen indications of this at other rural locations where bigfoot activity was suspected. I also understand that such suggestions are pretty far-fetched. Gathering hard data on extremely rare events like bigfoot sightings is virtually impossible. Gathering data on even rarer and more obscure matters like behavioral preferences or characteristics is beyond the current realm of science. All we can do when it comes to answering such questions is to look for patterns and make educated guesses based on very limited data. It’s not very scientific, but it is the best we can do for now.

Bigfoots consciously and effectively avoid most human contact. In general, they don’t want to be seen or found by people. The more you try and stalk them, the more they retreat and hide until you leave. Trying to stalk bigfoots is not just futile, it may be counterproductive. They likely observe people in the woods. If someone is seen to be searching for footprints and casting them in plaster, they may strive to avoid leaving any more easily identified footprints. This suggests that if you want to see a sasquatch, try not to be too obvious about looking for one. Best to go to the woods with another purpose in mind, whether it is mushroom picking, meditating, playing music, or painting nature scenes. Then keep your eyes open and your ears attuned. Guns and other visible weapons are anathema.

Bigfoots are very smart and very shy. They modify their behavior in response to our behavior. The more you try to trick them, the trickier they become in avoiding your tricks and traps. So, if you are trying to get a bigfoot on camera, make sure that your first attempt is your best attempt. Once you flash a bulb or aim a video camera at them, you will never get another chance with the same group of bigfoots. Whether they understand it is a camera or not is a point of considerable debate. Regardless, they have an aversion to things being pointed at them, particularly things that look like weapons or big eyes.

Remotely monitored video systems seem promising for getting a sasquatch on film, but they are still crude and heavily reliant on luck. Based on our experience at A&A’s, getting lucky probably means catching a less cautious and more curious juvenile that carelessly wanders in front of the camera. At our experiment site we thought we were seeing evidence that the juvenile was sometimes far away from any supervising adult. One possible reason for bigfoots blocking trails could be as a reminder to juveniles not to wander too close to suspicious items like the cameras that we had placed in their woods.

The only photographic evidence we are likely to get from mounted video cameras would be fleeting images that are lacking in detail, and therefore inconclusive. On the other hand, the only photographic evidence that could have any real scientific merit must be close-range, extended video or film footage. This seems unlikely to happen with stationary remote monitoring equipment. A more promising approach that has not been tried to my knowledge would be to first habituate a family group over a period of years. Only after the bigfoots are completely comfortable with the researcher’s presence should a camera be deployed. Even then, it would be necessary to avoid big lenses and obvious cameras. I would suggest wearing a hands-free, button-sized miniature camera that is recording images on a belt-mounted digital recorder.

Habituating not just one, but a group of sasquatches to human presence is a critical step. Bigfoots are not necessarily solitary by nature. Even when it appears that there is only one around, there may well be a family group that keeps very much out of sight. (which may well occur more often than is commonly believed) Gaining their trust takes an amount of time that is measured in years, not months. Based on sighting report patterns, children and human females, being more inherently vulnerable, seem to be trusted by bigfoots much more readily than human males.

Forget about proving they exist by shooting one with a gun. There are practical problems of caliber and shot-placement that make the chances of success improbable in the extreme. Beyond that, you just can’t get close enough to one to shoot it. Unless you have habituated it to your presence, it will take years to overcome their distrust of humans. If gaining their trust were actually accomplished, empathy for the creatures on your part would be so great that betraying them with a gun would feel like murdering a relative. If you doubt this, it is only from a position of no particular experience. Even if someone did succeed in killing one, it is highly doubtful that this bigfoot executioner could avoid the swift and lethal retribution from the rest of the family group. This is why, when people ask me what to do if they did manage to shoot a bigfoot, my answer is, “Reload.” If obtaining a carcass is your goal, chances are it will be a road kill or other accidental mortality, not a hunting mortality.

Habituating bigfoots to humans is the critical step, which has not been achieved to my knowledge. Yet, the world is a big place and someone, somewhere is probably well on the way. Many people seem to have figured out that, while bigfoots may be dangerous, they are not hostile toward unarmed people. While undeniably rare, bigfoots are sighted in or near forested areas in virtually every state except Hawaii.

Whoever wishes to be the next Jane Goodall certainly does not need to contact the BFRO to get started. A large forest tract in virtually any state ought to eventually yield a bigfoot sighting to a sufficiently patient person. The more remote the location, the better, only because bigfoots seem to be bolder and more conspicuous the farther they are from civilization. Living in a remote place, as opposed to just visiting there often, is also a huge advantage. Either way, it is largely a test of personal endurance to remain in the woods so long that the local bigfoots finally become accustomed to you and then allow themselves to be seen. Along the way, one is certain to experience varied and sometimes intense displays of intimidation. If one can hang tough in the face of that, then trust and habituation may eventually be accomplished.

I’m hoping to someday learn of a successful effort to habituate a group of sasquatches to human presence. If anyone has already habituated sasquatches successfully, it would likely be members of Native American tribes in the U.S. or Canada. This opinion is based on several conversations I’ve had with Native Americans. They inform me that tribal elders from certain tribes, such as the tribes on the Colville Reservation in northeastern Washington, know a great deal about habituating sasquatches. They would not want to use the term ‘habituating’ and they may not want share their knowledge of sasquatches for two reasons.

First, science has never valued Native American lore as a reliable source of information especially when it comes to the sasquatch, and Native American elders feel pretty much the same way about science. Second, Native Americans are very aware of the bigfoots’ strong desire to remain undisturbed. Native American ethics on this matter illustrate a basic paradox that is working against our ever hearing about anyone’s successful efforts to habituate sasquatches, on or off a reservation.

It seems that anyone who achieves success at habituating bigfoots also develops considerable empathy for the creatures along the way. As a result, it is very unlikely that the observer would be willing to betray the confidence of the animals by sharing with others the secret window they have gained into the hidden world of the sasquatch.

*Beyond that, you just can’t get close enough to one to shoot it. Unless you have habituated it to your presence, it will take years to overcome their distrust of humans. If gaining their trust were actually accomplished, empathy for the creatures on your part would be so great that betraying them with a gun would feel like murdering a relative. If you doubt this, it is only from a position of no particular experience. Even if someone did succeed in killing one, it is highly doubtful that this bigfoot executioner could avoid the swift and lethal retribution from the rest of the family group. This is why, when people ask me what to do if they did manage to shoot a bigfoot, my answer is, “Reload.” If obtaining a carcass is your goal, chances are it will be a road kill or other accidental mortality, not a hunting mortality.* Thom Powell

I couldnt have said it better myself Thom

Thanks Tug Excellent read,
peg

Yeah, Rob, I certainly agree; it was well said. Exactly the point I was trying to make in the GCBRO DNA Sample thread about what caliber to use for a squatch and the ramifications (read NIGHTMARE) of killing one. I'm not at all certain that reloading would make much of a difference on the outcome. I got to thinking after I posted that item. Person A shoots and kills a squatch on the side of a mountain, but manages to get back to his vehicle and high tail it before the squatch family/clan can exact its revenge. Person B is walking though the same woods, loving life and the scenery. What would the squatch family/clan do? I would certainly hope that they are as smart and intelligent as they appear to be and, perhaps, differentiate, for Person B's sake...

In mho anyone who would wanna shoot one is just money snatchers and not interested in proving anything,just to have their wallet filled.I'm sorry thats just wrong..I have asked people why they would wanna shoot one and they said just so that they would be believed. I would not care if anyone believed that I saw one or not because I would know what I had seen.After your true to yourself,what does it matter what everyone else thinks?..

Great info, Tug. I was corresponding back and forth a little with Thom way back when he was just starting to get this project off the ground, and this is the first real, comprehensive report I've seen regarding the outcome. Sounds promising if he stays on it!

Stacy, its been scrubbed. Last i heard from Thom, its doubtful he will attempt it again at that location. But he learned alot about deploying cameras and stuff, got some kewl pics of birds flying in front of the lens

Ahhh, well. That's too bad! I haven't had any contact with him in probably at least 2 years....since just before the Skookum Cast was really made public. It was fairly minimal then so he probably wouldn't remember me now anyway.

Gotta politely disagree Tennessee. Given the right circumstances I
would indeed shoot one. That is standard practice in the biologic
sciences, collecting a holotype. If it can be done by capturing a
live specimen, so much the better. I honestly think that would be
more problematic in this case.

This has nothing to do money for some, but everything to do with
basic science.

HM

your diligent researcher... with more...

from the last BFRO article, I found a link to some images they captured using thier remote cameras...

http://www.bfro.net/avevid/remote/interest...lis-Shadows.gif

maybe a Bigfoot... deer... or elk... or simply someone's hand, waving before the camera. Warning - very slow to load!

And here's another video capture - http://www.bfro.net/avevid/remote/interest...ing/mystery.gif -pretty sure this isn't a Bigfoot! They say a slug... pretty sensitive surveilance set-up.

Aliens!

Money snatcher?

I'm a pro-kill researcher. So Tennessee Hills, I guess that I fall into your wide ranging category too, right?

Money is the last thing on my mind when I go out to hunt one of these creatures. My first concern is getting this creature recoginized by science, my second concern is that I can take this creature and shove it in the face of all the naysayers who have been calling us crazy for the past 75? years, then watch them eat crow. After I'm done with that, the Smithsonian, the British Museum, or the Canadian Museum of Natural History can have the body, what good would it do me to keep it, I'm no Frank Hanson.

Perhaps you shouldn't generalize all pro-kill researchers, we are out there to help solve the mystery too, just in a different way than you.

chill guys:Like I said its just my opinion,no heads being smashed here,I myself would never shoot,because I wouldnt give a damn if the world believed that I saw one or not I would know what I had seen.After, your true to your self what does it matter what everyone else thinks?? tennessee hills

Tenn Hills
Peg

Speaking of the Colville Indian Reservation ... One of the highest placed persons in the political structure of the Colville Tribe, has been a friend of mine for sixty years. I moved to the Colville Indian Reservation town of Nespelem, Washington in 1941, with my parents, as a small boy.

At first I thought the storys about Sasquatch were just that, storys. Storys meant to scare a small white kid. It was long until I realized that the stories were not meant to frighten, but to inform.

If those Indians thought Sasquatch was a real entity, I won't presume to challenge them, because of my experience with the Colvilles.

Secondly, I think some posters are ascribing too much inate intelligence to Sasquatch. An animal may get to recognize humans as an object of fear, but to allude to the animals ability to recognize cameras and firearms is more than a little far fetched.

Would I go armed searching for Sasquatch, yes I would, because Sasquatch has proven to be agressive in the past, if early pioneer's and trapper's storys are to be believed. I have had a Cougar and a Grizzley Bear try to have me for lunch. The Cougar died as he charged me. The old She Grizzly did not like the face full of pepper spray she got. I did not like the scary experiences.

Bill

Hey Lurker!!!

Thanks for the post.....thats very interesting what you have to say about the Coleville Indian legends of sasquatch....

Could you tell us more about them?

Glad you contributed here!

Hi Lurker. Welcome to the BFF.

Isn't it a bit Ironic that all these sightings dry up as soon as the researchers get involved. I mean come on Bigfoot is not Superman with psychic ability, can't fly, doesn't possess esp. It is an animal. An animal wouldn't know or even care about cameras, infra-red lights. I am sorry an animal that intelligent would have fire, build shelter and store food and have a culture. This would qualify as a man. Therefore I find the story fishy.

Wow, Eo . . . You're just full of posts I'm tempted to respond to, aren't'cha?

We all know I can't speak for every sighting locale, every area of ungoing activity . . . Activity continued for around two years at the Chehalis site, with Thom Powell trying to film it. Sound proved way easier and the moving blur is really only enough to prove that the camera could film stuff.

But here's what's really interesting: other animals avoided the IR illuminators. It made coyotes nervous. In fact, a coyote, the only animal to approach a dead bait animal left out, was visibly on-edge about approaching a camera/IR setup. Allen Hoyt relayed watching its approach on the monitor. The family has a macaw that appears to react to IR light. A friend of mine with a big IR spotlight has tried it out on various animals and it startles them.

Animals are afraid of novel stimuli. That's a survival adaptation. If you don't know what something is, you don't know it's not dangerous. Creatures across the board are reacting to IR light, not just sasquatches.


~Ice

Okay . . . My own horrible typing . . .

The word should be "respond" . . .

*sigh* It just wouldn't let me edit . . .


~Ice

My thinking as of late has been Fishbones semi-famous quote : "Don't feed the Trolls." seems appropriate alot in recent threads.

True dat. Guess I ought to listen to that guy sometimes. :rolleyes:

Uhm...IceDragon...what typo?

Hey!... I was thinking the same thing. I didn't notice the typo till he mentioned it!

I know, I know . . . Gimme a break, it was late, and I was bored.


~Ice
aka, Mistress of Invisible Typos