OK. I will take your challenge. These pictures are copyrighted but I will post them here for everyone to look at and criticize. They haven't been really analyzed yet. They were taken with a camera trap (Stealth, a very bad system as you can tell, terrible camera, but does have the ability to fire multiple frames when tripped if set so, like these) at about a 70 foot distance, on a river in N. Washington state (my study site), a 20 mile by 20 mile area. I have been monitoring the area for the past 4 years and during that time have recorded bear, deer, bobcat and coyote (with Camtrakkers, 10x better than the Stealth except for the flash and trigger distance) in the area. I have mapped all tractable ground and frequently visit them for any sign. I know where all the berry fields are and their seasons, abandoned apple trees, fish runs, springs, frog ponds, etc. I feel it is only a matter of time that something really good happens here. The area has a history with the First Nation Tribe there, with early pioneers and explorers as well as the more modern.

I am preparing to step up the study by going active soon and building custom camera traps. Go ahead and shoot everyone.

I forgot to mention that in those four years we (my partner and I) have found 125 tracks to date. I am including an example of a track and it's cast, also copyrighted, but you can chew me up and spit it out too if you want.

I'll start with just comments that come to mind. First thanks.
Second, obviously to the naked eye on that last one, its a better image due to size. the first ones I can't make out. Resolution problems. At least for me. I can't make out for sure what it is. I do know what I want it to be. From what I just saw in a quick scan, I do believe it looks like a face. In a gorilla suit. or a possible sas. Although I need to look again, which I will, and extensively, I want to see if it could be a bear.
Or, is it something that looks lke that and is completely different. Like a stump. At this point I certainly don't know. Can't tell. Maybe after a long review but considering its size on the screen of my computer, I doubt much will be REAL obvious.
Some questions for you on this
Obviously some of the Q's may remain unanswered for a multitude of reasons. Here are what quickly come to mind:
1) How far is the approximate distance of this subject to the lens
2) approximately what kind of lens regarding mm size is it
3) knowing where it was, did you get any detail in the substrate regarding possible prints from any part of the body? (That is if its what we want it to be or a bear or one of the guys setting this up for comparison studies)
I could reel off a pile more of thoughts but I want to restudy the images first and come back with at least reasonable comments and queries.
Thanks by the way.

It's "Foxtm" peeking out from behind a bush. He is looking at Janice's neighbor as he drops off a new sack of Calf-mana.

Martin

1) Distance was already mentioned.

2) The camera for the strip of images can be found under MC1 at http://www.bossbuck.com/products/survey/cam-mc1.html. I take it the lens is about 35mm.

3) At the site when this dark object appears, I found two impressions in a crusty moss covered rock substrate over sand. It was an old sand bar. The impression were deep on the heel and ball/toe area and shallow on the instep or arch area. One track was 19 inches long, the other 14. I casted the 19 inch, but because of the substrate, detail was lost with all the 1 to 2 inch in dia. rocks. My 200 lb frame made no dent in the same surface 1 week after the pictures were taken. There had been no rain but ground fog could have settled in.

Thanks Streamrunner

They'll be more and thanks DDA

Now see...
THIS is tha way to go about something of this sort...
Put it up, tell us what is known, and lets just deal with the facts.
Thanks DDA, for the opportunity to look at an interesting set of pictures.
As stream mentiond, sadly, there is not sufficient image quality to make any solid determinations.
It is 1) Big
2) black(or dark)
3) mobile.
That, however, is enough for me to say that additional investigation in the area is HIGHLY hoped for, by me!
The tracks...well, if I were to guess based just on the ones in the picture, I would have to say they look rather like bear tracks. The one in particular appears very similar to an overlap track.
The other one is more interesting.....
The size, however, would seem to at least partialy rule that out.
The thing to really note here...
NO claims were made as to what is in the images....DDA told us as much as he had, nothing more, didn't immediatly claim anything...THAT is the way to do this.
Watch how this gets treated...I suspect, it will be in a most fair manner.

I have not done much with the pictures or negatives yet. These are all fairly good scans from the 3x5 prints.

"At the site when this dark object appears, I found two impressions in a crusty moss covered rock substrate over sand. It was an old sand bar. The impression were deep on the heel and ball/toe area and shallow on the instep or arch area. One track was 19 inches long, the other 14. I casted the 19 inch, but because of the substrate, detail was lost with all the 1 to 2 inch in dia. rocks. My 200 lb frame made no dent in the same surface 1 week after the pictures were taken. There had been no rain but ground fog could have settled in. "

R, Really curious regarding the width of the l9 in track and the l4 in track.
Regarding the other tracks, just observed after I made my initial post, still reviewing. my first iimpression was bear as well, but the stimuli here is fast so I need to review again. Looked to me like a stepped in bear print as well, but I dont know that for sure, thats just first impression. Whoa.. just caught the two enlargements

ummm...a request to the moderators ? Could we move DDA's pics to a seperate thread ? Its hard to concentrate or think upon it in the midst of the other crap assosiated with this thread.

With regard to the DDA images :

R, I reviewed the set of four base images and came up with the following statements / comments -

1) of the three initial ones, I'd swear I could see a face. It looks that way. the question of course is... 'is it?" I'd like your comments on that of course but certainly willing to wait for them for an even cross-section by other observers.
2) the next two shots seem to be obstructed enough by vegetation that I wouldnt be able to comment constructively on them without further examination and exchanging with others. I do not upon the second review see anything there (middle two pics) that is anything but suggestive.
This may change.
3) The fourth image is larger. Is that because its been blown up or because ?????

It still looks like a face to me but I may even be more intrigued with the initial image. Upon comparing the second series of enlarged pics, the question becomes stronger that this may actually be a stump. I have not compared the vegetation in these images yet.
And it may still be thats a face. I take it that image was enlarged rather than the imagemaker being closer than the 70 yd described in your initial introduction. Not the National Geographic images we need
But intriguing if you found sign after whatever it is made them.
4) Is any imagery available to us regarding any tracks that coordinate with this pic series ?

Jim's got a point but I am flexible. Just feelin like checkin this stuff out closely right now. Understand the banter regarding the earlier exchanges and the conflicts though.

I agree. Working on it...

Now, THATS the style Rick You ROCK dude !!

Presenting questionable photos with no judgements or "telling" what it is. Just throw it out there, and let the discussion begin !! gotta love it.

I find DDAs pics compelling, much more so than a hat in a tree
Can it be eyeshine in the enlargement?? or two sets ?? with a light tan face ?? i dont know, resolution just isnt there, but the tracks make it even more compelling.

I still say the Mich boyz have backed into a fan .. dis-ass-ter

No doubt. Excellent!

Hmmm... It does appear that something is in the pics but it's impossible to tell exactly what it is. Gotta say blob.

I'm assuming that these are crops of larger photos. Is it possible to see the entire pics?

As far as the "before and after" pics go, looks like Darth Vader skulking in the underbrush to me.

The scan is quite large but here is 1/2 crop of original photo. All have been posted at low res. Will look for questions tomorrow.

Here is the second track in that trackway of the other cast posted

And here is the track that cast came from. You can't have one without the other!

Maybe Meldrum is right... they can change the shape of their feet as they walk. Chimps do it, gorillas do it... our feet are just too ridge as maybe our minds are. Just what have you seen in the woods that you couldn't explain or looked strange? Night.

Fortunately, a couple of things. Ok if I borrow that comment for a while as a signature ? I like it. (one by damneddirtyape regarding Meldrum)

DDA, can you post untouched shots? The cropped pics look a little
odd with regard to angle. The background appears to change in the
cropped version (and shouldn't with a stationary cam) but that may
be just an illusion. Easier to tell with the whole pic the way it was
shot originally. Thanks, and intriguing shots BTW...

hey?

this aint another damn ball cap is it?



you know im kiddin of course

I can post uncropped shots but they will have to wait for a couple of weeks. I have to get ready for the symposium and I still have a lot to do for it, along with work and the radio show.

There is more to just going out into the woods and collecting evidence. It has to be stored, documented, organized, analyzed and distributed.

Sure you can use it Streamrunner. I really am beginning to believe in his theory. The LMS special feature on the Patterson film at the end even shows that the foot is not ridged like ours. In some sequences it looks as if it flaps in both a forward and reverse motion during the steps.

These photos are not a trick. They were collected from a camera trap line that is about 50 miles from the nearest town, 25 miles from the nearest habitation, between a couple of large designated wilderness areas. In back of where the dark object appears is a small stream offshoot of the main river. This is where we find 18" steelhead occasionally that have been held by the tail and had the skin pulled all the way over it and all the flesh eaten. No claw marks in the skin, usually four fish at a time. This is also where I caught the steelhead by hand. What you are seeing is what I got.

For lack of understanding, I have labeled this, and acted accordingly, a home range boundary. It is a place where apparently more human influence is tolerated, such as my presence and that of the cameras. If it were closer to the center of a home range, I don't think my camera trap technique would work as well and I would have to modify it.

I don't know what it is, but from my measurements it doesn't appear to be a bear (even though this camera did record a black bear cub in the foreground on the same roll of film, several days before these were taken) and there is no stump there. It appears in-between a foreground and the background vegetation so it isn't just a wind blown see through.

I will also post images from the same camera showing the other animals in that exact same spot that traverse the trail.

My height estimate of the dark object right now is about 7 - 8 feet tall. It is hard because even in just a week, those small trees can grow quite a bit. The object is also standing about 12" higher than the sanding area in the foreground. It is a raised sand bank, so looks taller than it appears I think. At first I thought it was 9 feet tall.

The area has been getting a lot of hot weather, little rain and there is about zero chance this could have been a vagrant or camper in the area. It is just too big of an object and too remote of a site.

seriously

THIS could be something.

yer doin it man

keep it up

Thanks DDA, understand the competition for your time, I'm
a patient guy. Very intrigued by the photos, esp. as a
series, looking forward to finding out more about this.
Did you look for prints in the area after finding the steelhead
remains? Fish guts shouldn't last long, so shouldn't have been
very old, thusly prints should've been relatively fresh if they were
there. Really looking forward to comparison shots of other
animals from the cam.

Good luck with this site...

Note to the goons in MI and UT, this is how business gets done.
Questions are asked, detailed answers are then given (to the best of
a persons ability) and people are allowed to decide ON THEIR OWN
how to interpret the information. Disagreements will most likely
arise, but can handled in a civil manner (i.e. we agree to disagree).

Let me quote Mario Van Peebles here, "Don't go away mad, just
go away..."

Here here, I'll second that!

Thanks Rick
intriguing, I hope to see more of your work and shake your hand someday. Regardless of what these images turn out to be.
I'd have to say hearing that the stump is not there, and that you have taken measurements of the location where the subject is, and arrived at a between 7 and 9 foot height that blackbear is unlikely. If its truly 9 feet that would be ruled out. The behavior you have described with the fish is more than interesting and compares with some of my personal data described by private parties. Thats an interesting indication as well. Certainly nothing here so solid it screams but hey, its a wow so far. Incidentally, have you heard that type of vocal there? And if not,
what? Also, thanks for the go ahead on the Meldrum comment I will have some private comments for you on that in the future.

Good stuff DDA! I actually tried to take my analysis of the pics a step further by showing them to a coworker who has nothing whatsoever to do with bigfoot - at least to my knowledge - I don't discuss it at work.

I told him the pics came from a friend of my brother in Canada, and I never mentioned bigfoot or bear. He was completely stumped, and eventually laughed and actually said "It's bigfoot!" He was completely joking, because he honestly couldn't make out enough detail to see anything concrete. I asked him if it could be a bear and he then thought image 1 might be a bear head, images 2 and 3 of a bear facing the camera noise, and finally, the bear standing to see what the camera noise was coming from in image 4 (this concurred with my own bear theory).

The interesting thing is that until I mentioned bear, my co-worker had no theories whatsoever - except the one unexplained thing that came to his mind - bigfoot.

As usual, the logical side of my brain is trying to say "it's a bear -isn't it obvious?" Then, the other side of my brain says "what about the facts regarding height and distance? How can that be a bear?" If this is in fact the case (and I have no reason to doubt you) I think you might really be on to something. Best of luck!

Thanks for bringing those here, dda...

Sorta hard to make out what it might be... I think if it's Sasquatch, then maybe he/she has head down toward the ground... because the angle from the head to the shoulders is rather sloped... either that, or a Sasquatch with long hair, making the head appear more "pryamid" shaped... the snout might be a bear, maybe shine off a Sas' shiney nose and cheeks, or maybe even reflections off a twig or leaf...

Cool castings! Thanks for the time it took to prepare them for us here... I really appreciate it... what can I say? They are big and deep and made where no sane human would go barefoot, probably...

Awesome stuff, DDA!!! Looks intriguing and presented in a clearheaded and well documented manner. Looking forward with extreme interest to your future efforts on this. The Mary Greens and Utah boys of the BF world could stand to learn a thing or two from your methodology and sober analysis.

DDA,

You get an A+ for grammar, spelling and style. It brought a tear to my eye.

Your methodology is excellent; you have made observations; not drawn any conclusions; are continuing to collect supporting data; and have posted your findings for peer review. And someone said this forum was just a bunch of armchair researchers! Hell, it don't [sic] get much better than this.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks for posting this Rick. It is quite interesting.

There is no way to tell for sure what is in the photos you posted, as you already know, however whatever it is does appear to move or change angle somehow in that first series of shots unless of course that is an optical illusion caused by wind movement which can happen as well. But you state that there is no stump there and this figure is not there at other intervals. So we can rule out a stump, and go with a human or live animal of some type.

The first cast track looks very much like the overstep of a bear. The second one looks much more like it could be something else. IMHO.

Given that you are a credible individual in the field, and didn't come in here telling us what it "had" to be, I'd go with the possibility of it being something. I wish you luck in getting a better round of photos.

Hi Rick,
Thank you for your usual thorough, no nonsense approach.
I found the pictures intriging and, like Streamrunner, got the impression in one that the subject was looking directly at the camera trap. Do you have that impression as well?
If possible, I would like to see a picture of the camera trap from the creatures estimated position. I am curious to see what it looked like.
I would also appreciate a reference picture of something of known height and mass in the creatures approximate location. I realize that the foliage may have really taken off between the time the picture was taken and it's posting, so the reference picture might not be of value.
But thanks again for the continued hard work. You are really needed in this field.
Jan

I looked some more last night. The resolution offers some problems.
Certainly if you got these, how awesome would it be to rig something with a lens that would get the image closer which might just work. Or is it already done. Or are these from a one of a kind situation ? It seems a wonderful opportunity and hopefully just the beginning of what's to come. .

SABRE, you said it all!

I think it's common opinion Rick Noll is one of the world's best trackers and Bigfoot researchers, and we are actually extremely fortunate to have him as a member of this forum!

After reviewing Rick's work on the BFRO website for several months before I found this forum (in March '02)... I was convinced that if I were to ever be serious about this research business then I had better set my sights on attempting to emulate Rick's work... which, by the way, is a very tall order... but if you're gonna try to learn from someone, might as well be the best...

Now flash forward... Mid-July 2003... dda becomes a member of this forum and RB falls out of his chair... RB takes several weeks to contain himself... and RB tells himself to behave himself from now on... and just when he is becoming accustomed to rubbing elbows with television and squatching celebrities, Rick posts some of his work... and RB passes out completely... be cool RB, be cool... don't want people to think you're some country bumpkin, even though you are... come on now RB, dry yourself off and mop up that puddle…

Yeah damndirtyape… thanks for posting your work here and thanks for being interested in our opinions on it.




whew, am I glad that's over... how'd I do?

Rick, thanks for posting the photos and track print. Looks really promising. I hope you will keep us update as the research in this area continues.

Knock it off everyone! You want my head to explode? Jezzes! There are a lot better than I out in the field and no one even knows it. The only claim to fame I feel comfortable with right now is that I am still alive and track'in. But seriously... Thanks! I wish I could show you more right now but I am working on a few problems here that have a deadline.

I hope no one has let Rick know about our plan to get him drunk so we can get all the really good info from him. Don't worry guys, it's like the deal with Bipto, he can't read the italics.

Almost forgot, just in case he doesn't drink, don't forget the sodium pentathol, RB.

You musta made a mistake, Fish. You got an empty post up there!

Ya know, that just might work

Something doesn't like trees with cameras attached to them

Camera two

Washed out area

Looking west

Check this ground level with that of the first pictures posted here. In back of me here is the forested island with the two camera tress laying on the ground.

Sorry, here is one with ground level

And from the air two years ago

Nice pics Rick! I can't tell, were those trees broken at the base, or pushed over and uprooted some? Also, what's the diameter? I've never held one of those cameras before so I can't use it for scale, but the trees look to be around 5-6"....close?

Very impressive, whatever did that.