I'm taking an Intro to Primates course this semester at my University.

Today we were going over all the various forms of communication between primates (facial expressions, body expressions, vocalizations, etc.). Not once during the lecture was anything said about wood knocking.

I just went through the indexes of the two textbooks for the class and there's nothing in there on wood knocking either.

If you search wood knocking on Yahoo, you get nothing but Bigfoot sites saying that its a "common form of communication" between primates yet they link to no sources.

Nothing on Google scholar either on primates and wood knocking.

Can anyone provide me a link to a scientific source with proof that primates wood knock? Grover Krantz, etc. don't count. I'm beginning to think this whole wood knocking thing is a scam- it sure looks like one.

I am curious as to how wood knocking even got associated with Sassy. Was it just a convergence of people who had sightings mentioning that they had heard wood knocks either befor or after the sighting like the odor that gets reported? Now, I have heard my share of stange wood knowcks in the local boonies myself but, before I started reading up on Sassy, I never would have associated them with the big guy.

I remember watching a TV show years ago that showed a chimp beating on a tree with a stick. Can not remember why it was doing it but it done it for a while.

I have seen replies on these forums from people that know a lot more about apes then I do say they do use knocking as a way to communicate.

But do they have evidence? I mean I can say I'm the president, but doesn't mean I'm telling the truth...

I don't see any reason to say that a primate couldn't or wouldn't do wood knocks. They have all the equipment to do it, and they do make an assortment of physical displays to establish dominance. A wood knock seems like a more discrete way of making contact with another ,than a vocalization would be.

here's some videos to watch. Check out the "apes with tools" video.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/...chimp_baby.html

SY.

Can you point me to a source other than bigfoot-related message boards and web site reports where the behavior is characterized as a "common form of communication" among primates and/or sasquatches? That is, is there a prominent (let's say) bigfoot researcher who makes this kind of claim? I'm not doubting that people hear noises that can be described as sounding like wood knocks, but I think it's presumptuous to associate them with bigfoot activity. As stated at the Squatchopedia:

I think the above videos pretty much settles the issue of whether primates do wood knocks or otherwise use sticks as tools. The observations in the videos dont suggest a form of communication as of yet. Of coarse, this has no bearing on whether a Sasquatch does or doesn't do it. I will do some searching for the report I remember reading, I know it's out there.

SY.

I've researched this a little while ago and the information I came up with was that chimps would bang on roots with their hands or knuckles to gain the attention of their troupe. I did not find any documentation on sticks being used for any species. (for tree knocks)



That video peregrine posted shows some using sticks to break open nuts.

Search for 'branch dragging'. Chimps and bonobos both use branches and sticks as a show of aggression, although the usage doesn't progress to tree knocking, it would be a possibly related behavior. That being said, I don't buy into the tree knocking thing all that much--it's possible, but I don't know.

I found the same info.

I only started hearing about woodknocks in the last 10 years or so myself, my old sas books dont say anything about them.

I started doing them myself only after hearing other people talk about them and we get great results.

I have many people say it must be other people hiding in the woods, or woodpeckers etc. But I have an open offer to take anybody that wants to go and hear and decide for themselfs what it is.

As of yet nobody has taken us up on it.

Sammy

The only thing I can say is that it's most definitely NOT freakin' woodpeckers.

SY, there was a report that was discussed (on this forum , I think) concerning a witness watching a squatch banging on a tree with a piece of wood, or branch... to knock a critter (raccoon, if I remember right) out of the tree. That could not be directly tied to communication with another squatch, of course, but it could show that they do bang on trees.
I can't say for sure that BF is doing the wood knocking to communicate, but I've filed several reports to BF research organizations to report the nocturnal wood knocks that I've heard and recorded.
If someone could please tell me What Is making the wood on wood sounding knocks at 4 AM on a calm still night, in remote forest....I won't bother reporting anymore of these incidents, and taking up my time and other researchers time.
Here's what I've thought up, and have eliminated the majority of them...for making the sounds:

1) Humans....sure, and best answer.... but running around remote, wild lands in the middle of the night ?
2) Owls... I've heard them make clicking sounds, but never like the wood knocks I've heard.
3) Woodpeckers...I've compared audio recordings on the Pilieted, with the wood knocks I've recorded....Nope, notta
4) The forest itself.... trees making these sounds...not that I've every heard, with no wind or ice at the time.
5) Any other forest critters from my region....hopefully ones with hands and not paws.. I've drawn a blank on that one also
6) Something else we don't know about that can produce that sound, maybe through it's mouth , and mimic a wood knocking sound.
I'm all out of other ideas, folks. Help me out, if you can. Sometimes skeptism is healthy, and other times it just plain floors me.

Bill R.

We dont know all there is to know about great apes. Perhaps they wood knock only at night?

Peregrin, I have a bone to pick here with your statements as follows.



Are you asking that we find a source outside of Sasquatch reports that mentions Sasquatch doing wood knocks? How is that even possible?



Do you have a list of Prominent Bigfoot researchers to choose from, so we can remove the strawman from this request? And what exactly is the claim? That bigfoot did it?........or that they have heard Knocks and responses to them, and that there were only two choices as to what made them.......or is it the claim that it is communication? What else would it be if something Knocks and then another something from another location knocks within seconds of each other, repeatedly?

SY.

The point I was trying to make was that anonymous forum comments or web site reports are not credible information sources, neither is a "scientific source" as stipulated by SKM. However, there are other sources of information on the Internet that might come closer to being citable, such as articles written by known authors for publication on the Internet or posted on the Internet from other sources.

My impression was that SKM's request had to do with a "scientific source with proof that primates wood knock" as a means of communication, which is different from whacking nuts with a stick. I have that on good authority from RB, who I'm sure wouldn't mind being quoted.

Actually, this was the request



Not this


Bolding Mine,

SY.

He said, "Today we were going over all the various forms of communication between primates (facial expressions, body expressions, vocalizations, etc.). Not once during the lecture was anything said about wood knocking."

Yes, but that was not in the request for a scientific source. Primates have been shown to knock on things with a stick, they've been shown to use sticks as a tool for digging, fetching termites out of mounds, smashing nuts, and checking the depths of the water they are wading in. I personally don't see it as a big stretch from this behavior (for a more highly evolved primate) to knocking on trees as a simple signal to warn against intruders or a locator signal, which would be a form of communication.

SY.

Maybe, but it hasn't been observed, much less documented. But, anything is possible, I suppose.

Chimpanze behavior link

In particular:


I am certainly glad that the latter part of that behavioral description does not seem to have carried on in their Squatchian relatives!
On a more personal note...Stacy said it all...these things aren't frikken woodpeckers.

I remember there being something in the news a few years ago about a chimpanzee (or was it an orangutan? Chimp, I think) beating a female of the same species to death with a stick.

If a person had their limbs twisted, their flesh torn and their blood drank, would they be around to talk about it. Next missing person in the woods was likely killed and eaten by a squatch. If you don't believe me, just ask the missing person, or the squatch. If squatches are real, they're likely eating animals, and what large omnivore/carnivore won't eat a human being. Chimps can be cannibals, so why not a squatch. I guess what I'm saying is we should all be afraid to go in the woods, very afraid, because at some point we're all going to get killed and eaten by squatches. Really though, I'm just trying to make a point that there is no behavioural description more credible than another. If we look at primate behaviour I think we can agree they'll kill things, especially to eat them, but sometimes they'll just kill things. Why would a behavioural description of a possible primate leave that out?

chimps
do go out on terrortorrial hunts in groups of four and they are good at it because when they find the victim of another clan they just tear into them ,they are also knoewn to tear up babies as well th,they always tear the limbs and gentitals.Now How many cases are there of these creatures actually killing people that we actualy know off.Then how many cases are there of missing people that have yet to be found that have gone wondering of into the wilderness that we know of as well but can we actually say that these creatures are killers no.I can say that they can cause bodly harm because they have caused it on me and it was done intialionally only because i was to stupid not to hear the warnings.So I can say that these guys can intentially kill if they want when they want .So each time we go into these woods we are actually risking our lives.I believe it really matters on how you handle your self when you encounter these creatures.So sometimes safety in numbers is good but like I have said it is a matter of how these creatures read you and your intentions.

I think it is like the same when you are alone in a parking lot and you see a stranger there by your car holding a knife do you approach the car or do you turn around because you know within your self that this is not a good situation.Well i believe that this is the same in the creatures process of thinking ,that they have that same thought process (rather then go at you from the super natural angle i figure i will tackle this from a different angle and try to explain)These guys behave alot like us except there schooling is what we all know survival.They have every reason to live except there living is somewhere that we cannot go.You guys want to call them primates well that fine but they are more then that and to tell you the truth that is an insult to them . I think i went off topic and i am sorry it is just that i do not think that chimps or apes can come close to being anything as intelligent as these creatures are.

Why do you (and Stacy) say that? I've never heard what I'd consider BF knocks, but I have been absolutely startled by LOUD woodpecker knocks.

What characteristics do the knocks that you've heard have that rule out woodpeckers?

I don't think sas has really been obsereved doing much other than haulin ass.

I know where we go we have to deal with woodpeckers, and usually the first time they "peck" we all jump, but you can tell within seconds that its not the normal tree knocks we hear, it sounds more like,,,like a woodpecker.

Sometimes you can tell the knocks are far far away, but they just sound very heavy, unlike anything else you are likely to hear out in the woods.

What I find most amazing about woodknocks is we have spent YEARS wondering around in the dingweeds and I don't remember EVER hearing woodknocks, ever!

But soon as we started DOING woodknocks they are everywhere, I cant for the life of me explain that one.

Whatever is doing it must have been there all along. Some are so far away I am curious if they know the knocks are being made by a human or not.

Some are so close though I'm sure they see us and know whats going on.

Sammy

EDIT to add for oregonman's question "What characteristics do the knocks that you've heard have that rule out woodpeckers?"

Woodpeckers do their thing way faster than I have ever heard or could do. The woodknocks we get are probably closer to a second a whack or longer. Peckers seem to peck much faster than that, also it sounds much lighter.

I have NEVER heard a group of "knocks" coming from way out in the mountains and thought " that must be a woodpecker"

Sammy

Thanks for your reply.

Growing up we had tons of woodpeckers around the house and their sound was a “rat-ta-tat-tat” like a machine gun and they were rarely larger than a robin. A few years ago we were camping up around Mt Hood at Timothy Lake and I started to hear this loud deep “tung..tung…tung” with a frequency of about a half second. It sounded like some one was hammering trees with a large wood mallet. Since we were in a campground I thought it might be just that. I was curious, so I walked around and found the culprit, a LARGE woodpecker. It was larger and louder than any woodpecker I'd seen. Not being a bird person, I don’t know if this is some sort western "woods" woodpecker, or what, but it was something I’d never seen before.

It looked like this one:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds..._dtl.html#sound

In his book “Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide”, Robert Michael Pyle details an encounter he thought at first was wood knocking, but when he investigated, it was a woodpecker. I’ll need to re-read that section, maybe he identifies the specific type of woodpecker.

I’m not saying that you folks are hearing woodpeckers, but from my experience I’d be curious how I’d be able to tell the difference without a visual.

We've got pileated woodpeckers where I go, and I can say it's an interesting sound, but I've also heard what people would refer to as wood knocks and it's different. I'm not saying "wood knocks" aren't wood peckers, and maybe pileated wood peckers, but what I've heard is different than when I'm looking right at the bird doing the "knocking". I don't attribute wood knocks to an unknown primate though, probably something else and I'm just not aware of what it is...or it's the damed wood pecker(s) hitting a more hollow tree or something and moving around when they do it.

You bet.

I have on a couple occasions snuck up on a woodpecker that I had assumed was a woodpecker, the ones around here dont seem to mind humans at all, its just trying to see them in the thick branches. If I hear a noise (depending on the noise) I will try and investigate.

The rat-a-tat-tat is what they do here too. Most of the close return woodknocks I get are only single knocks too, which also leads me to believe its something other than a woodpecker.


USUALLY, If I do two or three knocks we get back two or three knocks, if I do up to seven knocks we get back up to seven not always mind you, but most of the time.

I dont think its woodpeckers but I have yet to see what it is.

Another thing with us anyway is there will almost always be MORE woodknocks coming from other places once we start most definatly sounding like a cominucation, and I dont think woodpeckers pay any attention to eachother pecking.

Imagine the sound of chopping wood, the cadance of it, much too slow to be a pecker, thats kinda what our woodknocks sound like, time-wise anyway,knocks might be a little faster maybe, but close.

Sammy

Hey Julio, I understand your frustration...just keep in mind that humans are primates as well, and it is in that sense that I might refer to these creatures. I would agree that these creatures are on a higher level of intelligence that just might be termed sentient. It's just that people need to see that there is a nonhuman precedent for certain abilities and behaviors, and a good way to get there is to look at other known nonhuman primates. I know that BF likely blows these other primates away but it's all we have for comparison unless we compare humans to BF, and some people just find that unacceptable, regardless of what the evidence and anecdotes suggest. Not me of coarse.

SY.

As loud as someone swinging a baseball bat with everthing they've got at against tree trunk, sometimes hearing a branch being broken just before them (leaving the distinct but unconfirmed impression that the branch being broken is the one being used to hit the tree), sometimes hearing what sounds like whatever's doing the striking crack and/or break during a strike.

[edited to add...] Right, the woodpecker is a light rap as described above. This is a huge, LOUD BANG!!

Heh, You sure nailed it StacyInMI....

OregonMan, here's what we are talking about. This Knock ocurred within 30 yards of me, and I don't have a clue what did it besides the hypothetical BF. I know for sure it wasn't a wood pecker and I know it wasn't another member of my crew.. You will also hear someone snoring, It was a crew member asleep on a picnic table at this remote campsite in a river bottom area of East Texas.

SY. Click to view attachment

OregonMan
There is a very big difference between a wood pecker and what we would call a tree knock coming from one of these creatures .At least with the wood pecker you can identify that it is a wood pecker because you can pyschically see it.These creatures when you hear that wood knock you just know that it is from something that it is not suppose to be out there.It is very distinct and clear and there is just no mistake about it .It is even more wondering when you you recieve a reply after you have knocked backed yourself which adds to the mystery.The knocks that we have recieved were at dusk and it only happen once with two other witnesses.At first we thought we were being played but when we found out that there was no way we all came to an understanding on what did happen.

Now whether this is a form of communication or this a way for them to gain our attention is the qution that we should be asking? I ask this because they were the ones who started the knocks first followed by us answering back.I did say to our group that at first I did hear a faint kinda of howl way in the distance and within a minute or so after that the knocks followed by me answering back in a pattern.

Now i will say this at this time we were suspicius of Jim hoaxing us and we did everything to make sure that the area would not be compremise right after the knocks were done we all pilled into a van since it was only three of us and my dog,we drove quickly to see if we could catch who ever was doing these knocks but found no one.What we found was a 2"-3"dia broken tree limb laying in the middle of the road over by the next camp sight over.After further investigation we found the exact spot where the knocks were taken place and we also found prints and on the tree the spot where the impact took place.

We tried it out as well by two of us staying there in that spot and the others going back to camp while the two who stayed on the spot knocked on the tree as hard as they could to duplicate the situation again and it confirm what we had already have known.

I also have another reason why they might wood knock and that is to push wild life to an area of there wish.A way to ambush either deer or elk or whatever wild life they want to eat.but who knows right!

southernyahoo
I am not fustrated,This Board has progress alot and to tell you the truth It is just me that needs to stay away from the super natural and try to find a way to better express what we are dealing with.They are here for good and will always be just like there will always be skeptics so there will alway be believers and ones who know the truth.It is something that we have to except just like our immortal bodies.We all have to go through it so we except it.(death)

It bugs me: if alot of people hear sounds such as wood knocking without ever seeing the creature do it, how can you come to the sasquatch conclusion? A sound is a sound, thats it.

Then what's your theory, Spock?

You aren't the only one who is bugged by not seeing the creature that does this, and believe me I did what I could to see it , and remain safe with an armed partner...lights and cameras rolling. If it was BF , he's one slick creature because it got away without making a sound!!!

SY.

Hi

Dear : Mr blue bear

I have not read any thing straight out that says anyone is saying it is a BF, What is being discussed is that when in and area that is believed to have some BF around there seems to be wood knock like sounds from time to time,

Don't lose sight that some of the folks you are talking to are the ones that are out there in the woods looking for Mr Bigfoot and trying to figure out how the forest works for members like you and me, It takes time and a s**t load of real interest in this to come here and post . . . . Let's boost the forum awareness level a bit Huh !

Peace
Tim

Known primates are not bipedal either. What makes anyone think that their alleged bipedal characteristic is the only one unique to sasquatch? If they do exist, and I believe they do, I think they will have a whole lot of characteristics that other primate do not have. If they are more human than known primates, the may just have many talents other than walking upright and wood knocking. I hold out hope that they have some crude verbal language. I also have a hunch there are different species with different characteristics.

When and if one is captured, I think we'll be in for a few surprises!

Regards,
Mojo....

OK, ya...that does't sound like a woodpecker. To be fair, the woodpeckers around Mt Hood are really, really loud, but their sound isn't anything like that recording. Most wood knock recordings I've heard on the ‘net have been faint and vague which is the reason I brought up the woodpecker idea in the first place.

I’ve been looping it over and over and it sounds like there are wood fibers breaking in that sound; it’s a heck of a whack. Since you’ve accounted for the humans in the area, it makes that very interesting.

SSLeithead, Ace, southernyahoo, StacyInMI, julio12, good replies, thx.

It seems like it would be a good way for them to contact each other in a non organic way, i.e., it’s a “human” type of sound and it wouldn’t attract predators such as bears or wolf packs. Of course that’s just a wild guess.

Or as Henry Franzoni said the other night on one of the blog talk shows, it’s their way of messing with us. :^)

I'd hate to run into the woodpecker that could make that big of a knock!

Yep, when I loop that knock it sounds like someone hammering wood like building a house, like a hammer on a 2x4. It most definately isn't though. I have other recorderd knocks from that exact location. some more distant and some with less force. You definately know you have company when you hear these.

SY.

hmmmmm.......

Maybe its an ECHO..Ehco...echo... (lol...sorry I couldn't resist)

Paul, that's about what I had in mind!

Paul1968UK
all right Giant wood peckers! I only see those when I take majic shrooms and thats a bag full.Never had a trip in paris with a pecker though

Now that's a well done report! Nice!! I especially like the part about driving wildlife!

I believe Bigfoot is out there and have heard wood-knocks myself but if you can't see who's making the sounds then you have to admit the most likely explanation is its a human setting you up.

Chimps definitely throw stones though, a much more common observation in bigfoot sightings...stone-throwing chimp

And this just in... Monkey kills cruel owner

Jake, I swear we had a lunch lady in high school that looked exactly like your avatar.


Come to think of it, if you tied one of those old lady headwraps onto Peregrines avatar, it would look strikingly similar to my Aunt Margaret.

Good topic question and aside from drumming I'm not aware of anything except this related and newly reported behavior:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7946614.stm

-A