23 Responses to “Bluff Creek Trail Camera Survey Project”

1. William Dranginis via Facebook responds: September 13th, 2012 at 12:20 pm

   Great Idea! Unfortunately, by requesting funding and divulging the site location they have provided the perfect stage for someone to hoax them, especially at the Patterson/Gimlin film site! You never broadcast where you plan to deploy surveillance equipment, you’re just asking for trouble.

2. Goodfoot responds: September 13th, 2012 at 12:28 pm

   Patty we hardly knew ye! I sometimes wonder if the Big Gal is still with us, but, based on human lifespan data, I know it’s unlikely to be true. (And you know, that’s a PERSON, not an animal)

   I think ole Patty will never be surpassed as THE Iconic Bigfoot. One day, if we survive as a species, there WILL be a statue of her erected!

3. Marcelo Volcato via Facebook responds: September 13th, 2012 at 12:48 pm

   The site is so remote and inaccesible, specially in winter, that anyone tryingo to hoax a Bigfoot sighting will probably frezze to death there…

4. Steven Streufert responds: September 13th, 2012 at 5:28 pm

   I appreciate that, William, but here’s the deal: the site is so hidden that very few would ever find it. It took us nearly four years to find and document it. The road down to the site is closed permanently. The creek flows too high in winter to get across to it if one walks down there, unless one is willing to risk injury or drowning. It is snowed in for most of the winter, and the roads in are closed with gates. To get in there one would have to cover at least eight miles on snowshoes or combine those with a snowmobile. In the height of snow season the main road up there is closed at mile 3 or 4, and it is 17 just to get to the cutoff down into Bluff Creek itself. Also, we will almost certainly be the last ones in there putting them up, and the first ones back down in the spring, once the snow melts and the roads are opened. Hoaxing would be really, truly quite a difficult thing to achieve. Plus, we plan on having a very sly camera deployment, with multiple angles covered, so they won’t know when we are watching them and from what angle. It would be difficult to get away with it.

   Steve
   Bigfoot’s bLog
   Bigfoot Books, Willow Creek
   BLUFF CREEK FILM SITE PROJECT

5. squatchman responds: September 13th, 2012 at 6:36 pm

   I hope we can find Him/Her

6. DWA responds: September 13th, 2012 at 8:42 pm

   William Dranginis:

   You are certainly right – as long as the hoaxers know where the site is. Don’t know whether further exploration of the website makes that explicit enough. But then it appears that Steve, in his post, covers these considerations.

   Another thing, though: I think that a hoax will be readily apparent. Anything with human proportions and walking like one can be presumed to be human; I’m betting a hoaxer wouldn’t pass review. Of course, I have always thought that the knee-jerk conclusion that Patty’s a costumed hoaxer is irrational. She simply is not propotioned that way and doesn’t walk like one. I also think that the idea of somebody simply coming up with something so subtly but distinctly different from the human gait, and packaging it in an utterly unique and complex costume, is just naive. Back then, no one would have thought of that (except, of course, The Omnipotent Hoaxer, the skeptics’ version of the Great Pumpkin).

   I think that the idea that hoaxers are a significant issue in the sasquatch evidence is very off base. But then, I’ve read more of the evidence than most have.

7. muircertach responds: September 14th, 2012 at 2:32 pm

   And when yet again nothing is found what will the excuse be this time?

8. DWA responds: September 14th, 2012 at 5:27 pm

   “And when yet again nothing is found what will the excuse be this time?”

   “When”? You have the results? Care to share?

   Excuse? Um, hmmm, reposition the cameras.

   The Bornean race of the Javan rhinoceros lives on an island in a habitat that is shrinking while I talk about it. It is a lot bigger than the sasquatch, and presumably dumber.

   A concerted effort to get video took TEN YEARS.

   Besides which, the evidence appears to point to the existence of the animal. It doesn’t invalidate all that evidence to fail to come up with a shot in one effort in one (small) area of a huge potential range.

9. Steven Streufert responds: September 14th, 2012 at 5:42 pm

   Personally, I think that WHATEVER we get on the cameras will be fascinating and cool. If a Bigfoot shows up, all the better. We will learn something about the site and the area, regardless of whether we catch a Bigfoot on camera. At very least, we can consider it an observation of claimed Bigfoot habitat.

   I’d remind folks that is says this above and on the project’s page:

   “We do not [necessarily] expect an image of a bigfoot creature as a result of this project. We do however expect lots of HD video of local wildlife including bears, deer, elk, and cougar.”

10. Steven Streufert responds: September 14th, 2012 at 8:21 pm

    Like this on Facebook and you will be able to follow updates on the Bluff Creek Trail Camera Survey going on this winter.

11. Fhqwhgads responds: September 14th, 2012 at 9:43 pm

    I think that the idea that hoaxers are a significant issue in the sasquatch evidence is very off base.

    You say things like this from time to time, but it’s never more than something like a half thought. I’d like you to flesh this out a bit more.

    So, for example, take the purported Bigfoot pictures and videos that are posted to this blog. I’ll assume for the moment that those who read and comment on Cryptomundo are neither more skeptical, nor more gullible, nor more ignorant than the cryptozoological community as a whole, yet it is not at all uncommon to find that 50-80% say “hoax” or “misidentification” on any given video, with the rest saying, “Interesting — I dunno.” Rarely (if ever) does anyone say, in effect, “NAILED IT!!!” Still, if you’re saying that hoaxes and mistakes never fool your average Bigfoot follower — people like you who have read the books and watched the documentaries, but not had an encounter — I would say that the evidence suggests otherwise.

    I suspect, though, that you mean something very different. Something like, “70% of reported Bigfoot encounters are either clearly hoaxes or misidentifications, or they vary so randomly from one story to the next that they can be dismissed; they are inconsistent with each other. However, the remaining 30% look nothing like the frauds and mistakes. Anyone sorting reports would put these all in the same pile because they are consistent with each other. This would be both the largest pile and the pile with the most varied details without contradictions.” That would be at least some kind of argument.

    Otherwise, how exactly would you know whether or not hoaxes were fooling you?

12. DWA responds: September 14th, 2012 at 10:44 pm

    Fhqwhgads: Stick around with me grasshopper, you might learn something!

    It’s (b), although not quite. Toss the percentages.

    (And by the way, I’ve said this here, many times on many blogs. I am a patient man.)

    The evidence that is “live” in this discussion is consistent. All the sightings are alike, in consistent ways, one of the most consistent being that the subject is very obviously, to the sighter, not human. Propoortions are not human (and the differences are very consistently given); size is not human; movements would be impossible for an Olympian in a track suit, let alone a fool in an ape suit. All the footprints are alike in that they share consistent characters that indicate an animate source, not a manmade fake.

    All of the stuff you can toss is equally consistent. All the sightings (i.e., photos/video) are very clearly human; they have human proportions and move like people. All the footprints show obvious earmarks of fakery.

    Boom.

    You know, sooner or later you’re gonna have to read it. Once again: I’m not asking you to teach physics here. You’re not gonna get this knowledge on the cheap, either. You won’t get it until you get it the way I did: reading, thinking, sifting, evaluating.

    No shortcuts.

    If it were worth coming here, for me, that’s what I’d be doing. But of course I had done it long before I ever heard of Cryptomundo.

13. Fhqwhgads responds: September 14th, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    Again, stay away from comments like, “All the sightings are alike.” By “sighting”, you mean the ones you think are real, not “the stuff you can toss”, which you say is ALSO consistent. Everything falls into two clean, neat categories, with no possibility of anyone mistaking one for the other.

    Except, of course, that it doesn’t. For someone who repeatedly claims to have read and studied and perused and contemplated the subject so much more than just about anyone else, you should know this. Some “sightings” are at close hand. Some are at a distance of 10 to 50 yards. Some are partially obscured by vegetation, and some wholly so — so that what is reported is a strange cry, or a knocking sound, or a nasty smell, or a combination of the above. Sometimes the encounter is for several minutes, sometimes for a few seconds, and sometimes it isn’t even suspected until someone reviews a photograph or video. To say that they DO NOT all fall into two distinct categories: ones with clearly human proportions, and “the real thing”, does not require an encyclopedic knowledge of alleged Bigfoot encounters.

    Likewise, a statement that, “All the [fake] footprints show obvious signs of fakery” just means that you are setting yourself to be fooled by anyone with a little cleverness who is willing to put in the effort. And seriously, have you NEVER heard of naturally occurring odd depressions being mistaken as footprints, or of overlapping tracks being mistaken as a single, big, Bigfoot print? (After all, many, probably most, purported Bigfoot tracks are vague and poorly preserved — something that would be expected, after all, whether or not they are “real”.) That would be a 3rd category you don’t acknowledge — neither “obviously fake” nor “real”, but in fact honest mistakes.

    I’ll take your word for it that you are well-read on the subject. That will do you little good, though, if you are simplistic in your thinking about what you have read. I suspect you aren’t, really, but you keep making statements that are vast oversimplifications and really undercut your argument.

    But do I *have* to dedicate myself to reading all the Bigfoot books? Uh, no. You really overestimate my interest in this. Reading about cryptozoology is a diversion for me, and not a very serious one.

14. mystery_man responds: September 15th, 2012 at 5:50 am

    I think putting up game cameras in this spot is a novel idea, but there are a couple of things that make me wonder how effective it will be in capturing any photographic evidence of Bigfoot.

    The first thing that comes to mind is the possible ranges of this creature (if it exists). How do we know that Patty wasn’t just passing through? It is not uncommon for some animals, especially those with high caloric requirements, to roam over a very large territory. Bigfoot could very well be nomadic foragers that travel wherever the food takes them, stopping for awhile where the getting is good before moving on.

    I’ve always sort of hypothesized that Bigfoot migrate constantly over wide areas. I’d even venture to say that there is some reason to think so, and that the evidence (such as it is) points to this in some ways. For instance, it could be an explanation for why there is sometimes a rash of sightings in an area followed by the creature never being seen or heard from again. It could also be why many attempts to find the creatures end up in frustration. By the time you get there, they are long gone. This happens a lot even when researching confirmed animals that you know are there.

    If Bigfoot is a wide ranging scavenger like this, then there is a very real possibility that one of these creatures will never pass that exact area at Bluff Creek again, and you would have just as much success putting game cameras in any other area that is a prime Bigfoot habitat or where sightings have occurred.

    Another thing that I wonder about concerns the circumstantial evidence (or lack thereof) at hand. Let’s face it, almost every even halfway descent photograph of Bigfoot has been taken by a person with a camera. In comparison, our collection of serious photographic evidence supplied by game cameras is woefully meager. One reason that is often postulated for why we have captured so little of Bigfoot on game cameras is that Bigfoot somehow sense the cameras are there and are spooked by them, which leads to them staying away.

    Now this may be complete hogwash, but the fact is there is a lacking of game camera photos of Bigfoot. For whatever reasons, we just don’t have them. If Bigfoot does indeed exist, then whether it is some way of sensing the cameras or whatever, there is likely some reason for that. It seems that this perhaps poses a bit of a problem when trying to use game cameras. Until we either learn more about these creatures, alter the technology somehow to overcome this obstacle (hard to do when we have no idea what the cause is), change our approach to game cameras (also hard to do when we know so little), or all of the above, then I don’t see any very compelling reason to think that we will suddenly be getting high quality game cam shots just because it is Bluff Creek.

    At this point, I just don’t see any concrete reason to treat Bluff Creek as some sort of key to the whole phenomenon. Yes, it is a place where we got some good footage. That’s it. We know nothing of whether a Bigfoot will ever be there again or why they seem to stay away from game cameras. Is Bluff Creek some sort of Bigfoot mecca? Sure, could be. I don’t know. Until we do, I just don’t see any real reason to suppose it is at this point.

    I’m not trying to attack these efforts. Not at all. If they want to put in the effort and money to put those cameras there, then that’s great. More power to them. It certainly can’t hurt to have them out there, and who knows, maybe I’m totally off base. I’ll wait for the results. I just think that with as little as we know about these creatures, putting game cameras in Bluff Creek isn’t any more reason to get particularly excited than putting them in any other location where Bigfoot are thought to be.

    These are just things to think about. I do wish the best of luck to them and I hope it turns out well. Like I said, it certainly won’t hurt if they don’t mind going through the trouble.

15. Goodfoot responds: September 15th, 2012 at 11:32 am

    See, the thing is: the evidence is REMARKABLY consistent. Sure, there are troubling variations, but few would be considered either outside of normal variance, or not explainable by the shortness of the sighting encounter.

    And don’t we already know that trail cams don’t work at all? These are smart, wary beings. They couldn’t still be here if they weren’t. They know how to survive.

    As for migratory behavior, I just don’t believe it’s so. I may be proved wrong, but I don’t think that’s precisely it. I think they have a pretty honkin’ big home range, and wander in search of food (or mates, or whatever) within that range. It would not be surprising if their range changes shape and size from time to time, because of food needs. But higher primates are generally not great wanderers. We have our explorers, and perhaps they have theirs, but by and large, I think they stick to generally defined territories.

16. DWA responds: September 15th, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    Fhqwhgads:

    Yawn.

    John Bindernagel’s two books: Jeff Meldrum’s one; the reports on the BFRO and TBRC databases.

    At a minimum. I’ve read considerably more.

    Or debate those guys.

    This just gets tiresome. The evidence says: scientists need to get into the field, and confirm. Those guys didn’t tell me what to think; they confirmed what I had independently discovered for myself.

    Done. Next thread.

17. DWA responds: September 15th, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    And THIS:

    “But do I *have* to dedicate myself to reading all the Bigfoot books? Uh, no. You really overestimate my interest in this. Reading about cryptozoology is a diversion for me, and not a very serious one.”

    Right, and quarks are stupid, and the only reason physicists can go on believing that crap is that none of the rest of us care.

    Come ON. That commment is an INDICTMENT. Know how much time I spend on physics websites? The time commensurate with my interest: none.

    You are spending WAY WAY too much time here to make that statement. No, you are.

18. DWA responds: September 15th, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    OK, for the rest of you, in the interest of education.

    Target-rich environment. But I’ll pull one.

    “I’ll take your word for it that you are well-read on the subject. That will do you little good, though, if you are simplistic in your thinking about what you have read.”

    A., boys and girls, is: don’t ever say something like this, then announce your ignorance of the literature.

    B., boys and girls, is: that sentence (never mind the post) shows clearly that he didn’t understand what he read.

    Every single bingle gingle zingle nuance Fhqwhgads mentions – plus 1,001 more – is captured, pristinely, in my post. What Fhqwhgads does – once again – is commit the unforgiveable, constant, and apparently irremediable pseudo-skeptical slip of believing that there are only two kinds of evidence: proof, and BAD EVIDENCE.

    The situation is, precisely and pristinely, as I have described. The reason Fhqwhgads fails to understand this is that he believes that evidence is either proof, or rotten apples. (This appears so ingrained that the practitioner doesn’t recognize he’s doing it.) THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF BIGFOOT EVIDENCE, CLASS: clear fakes, and the stuff that might be something else. The stuff that might be something else is, again, pretty damned consistent, for something that isn’t real, or that is something like (Heinz!) 57 varieties of false positive.

    To presume, as Fhqwhgads does, that

    “a statement that, “All the [fake] footprints show obvious signs of fakery” just means that you are setting yourself to be fooled by anyone with a little cleverness who is willing to put in the effort,”

    is to utterly misunderstand this state of affairs. THE FAKES SHOW SIGNS OF FAKERY. THIS IS WHY THEY ARE FAKES. The stuff that hasn’t been nailed down as fake shows consistent (read Meldrum’s paper! read Meldrum’s and Bindernagel’s books!) signs of an animated source that aligns with an animal of the size, weight and gait that people are describing. Presuming they could be fakes is to say “we cannot move off this spot until a body lands on us and crushes us.” Not how science works, boys and girls. When science is working, which (“The Discovery of the Sasquatch,” Bindernagel, 2010) it is most decidedly not here, not in the foggy foggy mainstream, anyway. Is there smudgy, third category stuff? Yup. DISREGARD IT. Could be real, could be fake. Tracks are that way. Focus on the compelling stuff…which one only can when one is conversant with the topic, and not announcing one’s conviction that the topic isn’t serious. A crippling error, that.

    Now, my mission done, it really is onward! Next thread.

19. DWA responds: September 15th, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    Mystery_man: I didn’t mean you. 😉 And I mean, I know you know what I’m about to say; just thought elucidating another way to look at it might help folks a bit.

    I think the selection of the Bluff Creek site works for me. While ranges tend to be big for animals like this one seems to be (think: bears and orangs), we aren’t sure what the case is here. Patterson and Gimlin followed a lot of evidence into Bluff Creek. We don’t know the seasonal, annual or other pattern of that evidence…but since we have that film, hey, I’m interested in taking a look. We don’t know what Patty was doing …a state of affairs that greatly complicates the decision about camera placement in the first place. Placing cameras for known species takes known and accepted sign and trails into account.

    Now, ongoing research by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy seems to indicate that these animals – at least the ostensible population they are researching – aren’t either as solitary or as wide-ranging as conventional wisdom holds. (They haven’t looked at all their camera footage yet; but they’re saying they’ve had just about every other kind of encounter one can have, including sightings. And knowing these guys personally, a clutch a Biscardis they ain’t.) Now, chimps have been shown to have local cultures; these may too. But until we know more, we can’t tell, and to go to a place where an authentic encounter seems to have occurred is as good a decision as any. Where are “prime Bigfoot habitats”? We can guess (start: what do bears like? Plus sightings have a tendency to occur close to or in water) but we aren’t sure. In what other places where sightings have occurred do we have photographic evidence that leads one to allow that the witness might not have been lying or mistaken? Right. Why not here.

    One more thing, I guess: cachet. Science not being about the search for truth but about the search for funding, Bluff Creek is gonna pull more of …well, a very very limited resource in this field, that pays for cameras, among other things.

    And, Patty walking with a cane could be a scientific breakthrough of the first water. ;-D

20. Goodfoot responds: September 15th, 2012 at 6:59 pm

    Patty with a cane. Hey, I’d buy her one, if she’d come and take it from my hands. How long you figure it would have to be?

    See… I don’t need a scientist to tell me whether this is a real phenomenon or not. The evidence speaks quite eloquently in favor of such. And my daughter and my ex had an up-close-and-personal encounter on a road in north central Virginia on 4/19/2006, that was described to me in great profusion of detail, and consistency, within minutes of the sighting. This was not more than ten miles from where I lived. I had my own close experience a few months later in New Mexico, though it was not a sighting, but a really, really close auditory one that involved actual speech, a la the Sierra Sounds, although it would be years before I heard those recordings…

21. Steven Streufert responds: October 26th, 2012 at 5:40 pm

    OK, folks, I do understand the range of concerns that have been expressed above. Let me just say that Bluff Creek is historically and still currently a hotspot for Bigfoot reports. It isn’t just the PGF, but a long history starting in the local Native culture and continuing today down in the creek basin and surrounding mountains. Locals report them being seen all across this region.

    The cameras have been implemented. There are some ten of them, arranged in a way that it is very difficult for anyone (human) to access the area of implementation without being seen, or for any animal passing through that zone to be missed. It is a very narrow canyon, with steep walls. We set up the cameras to cover all reasonable routes through the zone. It would be pretty darn difficult for any larger, terrestrial animal taking a reasonable path of least resistance and seeking access to best food and water sources to avoid one of the angles of view.

    Updates are going to be posted on this dedicated web page, when available.

    If we get a Bigfoot on there, great! If not, I’m sure we’re going to have some very good images of bears, mountain lions and deer for you coming soon.

22. Steven Streufert responds: October 26th, 2012 at 5:41 pm

    Again, here is another way to keep in touch with project updates, on our facebook page.

23. Goodfoot responds: October 30th, 2012 at 4:01 pm

    There’s been enough game cams out there that I feel safe in saying Bigfoots will avoid them like the plague. They’re simply smarter than that. Smarter than, oh, for instance, APES. You WILL get good bear pics, but nice try… no Squatch cigar.

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