Does anyone know why the BFRO has markedly increased Ohio reports published in the last month?

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/newadd.asp

Is an Ohio BFRO investigator catching up on previously submitted cases?

Or, for some reason, have members of the public started to come forward recently?

-- James
Cincinnati

I'm not sure what the reason is, but none are current. I recall back in May of this year that there was a spate of postings for the state of New York. Looking back,
there were 15 posts on 5/23/03 and none of these were current. Catch up time,
perhaps?

Looks like I am going to have dust off my backpack now....

I checked out the site and, , wow....

Noble, Monroe, Washington, Athens, Morgan, Muskingum, and Guernsey Counties are a bit of a hotbed of activity at times. Wayne National Forest is in that area.

I have been down there a few times and it would be idea country. I would give this a high God's Country rating. You are in the middle of nowhere.

Footracker, I could not agree more. I think it's noteworthy that Ohio (104 listings) is the #4 state in terms of volume of reports at BFRO.net, behind Washington (286), California (246) and Oregon (128).

Ohio has huge undeveloped areas, including not including the Wayne National Forest, but Mead paper's thousands acrews of forest reclamation, 19 state forests and millions of acres of former farmland.

I just wish there were something that I could do to help in the search.

-- James

Another interesting area that I have heard of some activity is the Wills Creek area. It is just south of Coshocton. I have heard that Mr Keating hangs out in that area.

Some wild stories around here in Ohio. I have talked to a couple people who have witnessed or reported seeing something in those counties. There is even a story similar to the shooting incident mentioned in another thread. Only difference was the individual was drunk and wasn't sure it really happen after talking with the individual.

I have not been involved with any recent field research either. I thinking of taking some time off this spring and visit a couple places. I have been looking up old news stories and records and found some interesting stuff.

I have definately noticed the Ohio increase at BFRO and was also wondering about it. It almost makes me think that some of them could be false reports, but I dont want to stake anything on that claim. Ohio is certainly a hotbed in terms of Bigfoot activity. The stats don't lie. Crazy stuff...

The thing to remember about the BFRO database is various locations get more or less reports posted based on the activity (or availability) of investigators in that area. Lots of reports in Ohio may mean lots of BF activity or an active investigator (or many investigators) or a combination.

A surge in Ohio reports could be based on a surge of activity or a broken logjam of old reports. I don't know which in this case. I'm just saying...

Whackyass. Call your office!

I grew up in Marietta, Ohio which is in Washington County in southeast Ohio and have been around the southeastern part of the state camping,hiking etc. It is indeed very remote in parts of that area.I was always kinda surprised there wasn't more activity reported in that area due to the remoteness and the abundance of hunters.But then again knowing the people in southeast Ohio they would not be the kind to go around talking too much about something like bigfoot even if they did see it.

I heard or read somewhere a few years ago that some forrest rangers and civilians in the Wayne National Forrest had a spade of sightings in the eastern part of the forrest and had to close a part of the forrest due to the sightings. I don't know if this is true or not and was wondering if someone here heard about that.

I remember in the summer there was a big run of new BFRO Texas reports. I assumed it was just because BFRO had an energetic Texas investigator.

I really admire the BFRO website. I don't know if it's possible, but I think adding some of the following would be great:

1) % of North America reports received that are deemed credible (How much garbage do they receive and have to sort through? I imagine it's quite a lot.)
2) Credible report tallies (published and unpublished) by state
3) % of credible North America reports that are published (I wonder how many people don't want their report posted)
4) Number of credible reports received each month or year (As internet availability and awareness of BFRO grows, they will get more and more reports. It would be interesting to see any trends.)

For BFRO members out there, I think what you already have is fantastic. Any idea or suggestion-even a good one-entails a lot of work for the people who have to implement it. None of you get paid to do the tremendous amount of quality work you do. So, even if you like the above ideas, I completely understand if they "go to the back of the queue." I'm not here to set anyone's priorities

It is a matter of investigators catching up.

That's usually the case...

Thanks, beshdichizzi (easy for you to say!).

I have reviewed the BFRO site and looked over the reports. It looks like a few people have stepped forward to relate a incident from a few years ago. A couple sound very fimilar to me.

Well, I will keep my backpack on the ready.....

Hey, James, if you hear anything down your way let me know....

no problem, bipto. In fact, whenever a rash of reports comes out from one area it is almost always a result of pointed investigative efforts rather than as a direct indication of increased activity.

Ohio is now soon going to pass Oregon for the number of reports on BFRO.

This is more fun than watching the primaries and about as disturbing.

I haven't seen a plausible answer to why Ohio is so hot. In fact the reason I stumbled onto this site was to find a BFRO forum to ask someone specifically about Ohio.

Has there been a media influence in Ohio? Newspaper reports? TV shows?

Having only driven through Ohio I can see that there are remote areas, but there still is a sizable human population density that doesn't seem conducive to a big hairy creature not leaving a lot more physical evidence.

What the anonymous BFRO member said.

Ohio is dense in population in the Central, (Columbus) Northeast.(Akron,Canton,Youngstown,Cleveland)Southwest(Cincinnati,Dayton)and the Northwest(Toledo).If you add up the land area of of the dense population parts of the state,I would guess that leaves the other 75 percent of the state that has very little population.
However there is an area that is below Canton and extends all the way down I 77 to the Southeast where the population is very sparse and as a matter of fact the biggest city in this area is Marietta on the Ohio River with a population of 16,000. The Southeastern and south central parts of the state are very hilly,dense in forrest and sparse in population. There are even some counties(Noble,Meigs,Coshocton,Monroe) where the biggest towns and county seats are villages or very small cities at best.
To me this could very possibly be good bigfoot country.Most of the remote parts of Ohio are largly accessable when you compare it to the Pacific Northwest and I think it would be easier to do some serious research here.
I still think the Pacific Northwest is the best bigfoot country but alot of people would be suprised at the remoteness of Southeast,South Central and East Central Ohio.Big deer population too.As I've heard bigfoot is fond of.

All I can add to that is that after going down for the Ohio conference a couple of years ago, I have NO problem believing that the southeastern part of the state could easily hide a BF population. What I saw of it was very rural, hilly, and densely wooded.....even looking out the back window from the hotel pool it was very easy to imagine one coming down the hill through the thick woods there. Really didn't feel like Ohio at all, or at least what I knew of Ohio up until that weekend.

Comparing Ohio's absolute number of BFRO sightings to Oregon's is really apples and oranges here.

On a per nonmetropolitan capita basis, Oregon has about 2-1/2 times more reports than Ohio. Ohio won't be passing Oregon anytime soon on that measure.

The least densely populated counties in Ohio have about 10 to 25 persons per square mile (about 5 or 6 counties total in that range). Almost all of them are in the southeast.

There are 11 Oregon counties with less than 10 persons per square mile. They are mostly in the eastern part of the state. Even some of the more remote coastal or Cascade counties in Oregon are not exactly bursting with people.

When you see a lot of reports for a particular state or region getting posted to the site, it's most likely due to a motivated investigator working a backlog and getting caught up on witness interviews. It's less likely that there is a whole slew of new reports being submitted to the site.

Ohio does have some heavy forest cover in the southeast, mostly oak and hickory. There are also some extensives ranges of maple, beech, and birch in the northeast. The central part of the state also has some elm, ash, and cottonwood.

The entire state gets a good amount of precip, with nowhere getting less than 30 inches (John Green mentioned 20 inches as the level beyond which sas sightings became more frequent). The southern part of the state gets up to 50 inches.

Black bears have been moving back into Ohio from West Viriginia since the early 90s. There are probably less than 100 resident bears in the entire state. But, they have been sighted over the entire eastern half of Ohio. If the habitat is good enough for a black bear, it's good enough for a sasquatch.

Now re-imposing my vow of silence.

Quality over quantity, eh Jud?

Nice to have you back once in a while.

I've been checking out BFRO sightings lately too and I have to say that there is an overall increase in the number of listings in general not just from Ohio. Most of them are past sightings, not from the actual month they are logged in. There must be a much greater visibility of the BFRO's site and it seems like people are more willing to tell about their encounters now.

More investigators, greater willingness to tell their tales and increased knowledge of where to report them to = more sighting reports per month on the BFRO. That's my theory.

It would be interesting to check the number of reports received at BFRO after Legend Meets Science first aired.

As to Ohio, it's not that I don't realize that there actually could be areas out of the PNW that are humanly sparse, it's just that there is a fairly large surrounding population around these Ohio forests.

I'd agree that the likely-hood of a documented Bigfoot encounter in Ohio appears to be better than Oregon or some of the areas of the PNW.

All ya'll from Ohio, whatcha waitin' fer? Get to it!

Hey everyone,

Since I'm the one responsible for the vast quantity of Ohio reports on the BFRO website I will say it is nothing more than just some serious winter/spring cleaning. The backlog of non investigated Ohio reports was growing well over 150 plus reports. I talked with many witness's from all over Ohio. Lots of the reports were hoaxes, misidentifications, or witnees's were unreachable. I would say less than 30% of the actual reports were legitimate at best. Like I said, there was a HUGE backlog!! Don't look for a lot more new Ohio reports (unless they come in fresh) since I'm just about down to the bottom of the barrel. I've been very fortunate to be on paid leave from my job to raise my third baby until he's six months old. My first child (Georgeanne) tragically died of SIDS in 2001. This is the reason why I have had the time to check into all the Ohio reports for the BFRO. There trying to solve this thing just as everyone else. I hope this solves the Ohio BFRO question?? Take care my friends!

Marc A. DeWerth
Columbia Station, Ohio

http://hometown.aol.com/madbigfoot/myhomep...ial-crisis.html

Marc,

I cannot fathom what it would be like to lose a child. All I can say is I feel for you.

Thanks for all your hard work on investingating these reports, and thanks for posting here to confirm why so many Ohio sightings.

Hope you will check in from time to time and post anything interesting.