I know I will not be content with knowing statistics about these creatures answering questions such as: how long do they live, how many of them are there, what is their range, or how do they survive? I must also seek to learn how they have managed to remain hidden for so long, how do they communicate with each other, what circumstances seem safer when we access their habitat areas and under what (if any) situations are we or they at greater risk and danger.
From what I've learned so far by studying witness reports and observations, the most reckless behavior being manifested by these creatures is their curiousity. It is this one behavioral trait that most often entices them to come out of concealment and into situations where humans can and do observe them. The old proverb says, "It was curiousity that killed the cat." From what has been observed with bigfoot animals, curiousity is not a fatal trait but it may well be the vulnerable Achilles heel that betrays them into revealing themselves.
The subject of this lesson in Bigfoot Behavior 101 is the following daytime encounter report made by a dump truck driver on July 1, 2005. This eyewitness was charged with the task of delivering gravel to improve the access road for a landowner's remote camping location in Pennsylvania.
Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Chip Beam (posted 7-5-05):
Witness’ boss asked him to deliver stone to a very old campsite. The first day he was shown where the site was. It took two days to deliver the stone. One pile delivered one day and the next day’s delivery was to be spread on the road by a process called tailgating where the bed of the dump truck is hoisted into the air and the stone is gradually poured while the truck slowly moves forward. The second day was when the sighting occurred.
The witness had to go to the campsite to turn the truck around due to the width of the road. He turned the truck around and prepped it for the dumping process, during this time he felt like he was being watched as he unsecured the chains to the tailgate, but when looking into the woods he didn’t see anything. Being a hunter most of his life, the witness has never felt scared or uneasy in the woods and has hunted by himself many times. He climbed into the truck drove to the spot where he was going to start the dumping about 150 yards away. It took several tries to get the bed up and the truck into gear. This created a pile of stone about two feet high in the road. He started moving the truck but decided the chains weren’t set right and made the decision to back up to the pile of stones where he initially started. In the mirror he noticed what he thought was a cinnamon bear on the pile of stones. The witness was puzzled that the bear would not move or even look at him as he backed up because the back up alarm was blaring. About five or six feet from the pile he hit the breaks on the truck and the animal stood up on two legs. He could only see the belly of the creature and still not clearly from the effects the vibration of the truck had on the mirror. At this point the witness saw something in the mirror run across the road. He checked the passenger side mirror and saw nothing. When looking back to the driver’s mirror the other creature was gone as well.
The witness then got out of the truck and adjusted the chains. He said that most bears will run from you then turn to look back. He found it strange that he couldn’t see anything where he saw the animal run to. The trees are thick, but not thick enough to where he wouldn’t be able to see a bear that had just ran away. The witness climbed back into the truck and started the dumping process again. After about forty yards he saw two of the creatures in the driver’s side mirror. One was much bigger than the other. He estimates the creature to have been about nine feet tall because of the clearance to the height of the dump truck to the tree limbs. The truck with bed tilted made the cab protector about nine feet above the ground and this brushed a large branch of the tree. The larger creature had to duck its head to clear the same branch. The color of the fur was a red orange color that he compared to an orangutan color. He said the creature was a duplicate to the Giganto on the web site but he cold not see the face clearly because of the vibration of the mirror. The second animal, he stated, was about his height, a little over six feet tall. They paced the truck from several yards back. They had long arms and a very long stride. At this point the witness became scared and left the area so quickly he forgot to drop the bed of the truck.
When he got to the gate at the bottom he said he had to stop to collect himself for about a half-hour. At this point he went to his boss’ house. His boss said he looked as white as a ghost. He asked him to go back to the campsite with him with a firearm. As they went up he described what happened. When they got to the spot they saw footprints. The witness’ boss is a large man who wears a size thirteen boot and it was much smaller than the footprint. At this point they got another friend to come up with them. The friend told them that his buddy’s dog got loose and was never seen or heard from again. The friend’s own dog, that is quiet all the time, had raised hackles and barked into the dark woods from his porch for a half-hour the night before.
The men went to the site and measured the footprints with a tape measure. There were many prints, although many weren’t clear a couple were distinct enough for a measurement. The larger set was about seventeen inches long and deeply embedded in the loose stone. The smaller were about ten inches. The witness said his boss was not having much of an impact trying to make footprints, he estimated the boss’ weight at about 450 to 500 lbs, so they said the creature must weigh much more than him. He also said the stride between the footprints was large enough he had to leap to cover the same distance.
He said his whole outlook on the forest has changed and he will never go hunting again without constantly looking over his shoulder.
They also stated they heard whistles and a howl while looking at the area, but the sounds were not similar to the audio recordings on the site.
I worked in the office at a trucking company for 6 years and can attest to the details of this circumstance as being a credible situation. The Teamsters who drive dump trucks on construction jobs take pride in their tailgating skills for delivering a load of gravel along a stretch of roadway. And every experienced dump truck driver is conspicuously aware of the height of his overhead clearance before he raises the bed of his truck. Failure to remain aware of the ground level, bed clearance and other situational factors can cause a rollover or other damage when unloading a dump truck.
Example of a smaller dump truck used by contractors for delivering rock
The truck driver who experienced this encounter would have made certain he had his necessary 9 feet clearance beneath the tree branches before he began to tailgate dump his load. Therefore, I do consider his sight measurement to be more accurate than most folks when he says that he saw the taller of the two creatures duck under those same branches-- indicating that it was more than 9 feet tall. Yes, of course "some objects may appear larger when viewed in the rearview mirror," but in this case the truck driver had a known frame of reference in sight for comparing the creature's standing height.
What amazes me most is that these two creatures, fully capable of hiding in plain sight while the truck driver got out to chain up his tailgate before dumping the load, could not contain their curiousity-- and broke cover during broad daylight. The subsequent track findings, length/depth measurements and vocalizations observed by the truck driver and his supervisor at that location only further reinforce the credibility of this encounter report.
As a nod to the comedy movie named, "Dumb and Dumber," I've named this post CURIOUS AND CURIOUSER to describe the two creatures observed by the truck driver. Who would have thought that unloading gravel at a remote location in the woods would both attract and entice bigfoot animals to come out of hiding-- even to the point that they walked behind and paced the dump truck; apparently fascinated by the sight of the gravel sliding from the tailgate?
And rendering credit where credit is due, my kudos to BFRO Investigator Chip Beam for writing the recap quoted above which clarifies the truck driver's original report. Read the truck driver's original report and Chip Beam's comments on their subsequent investigation at http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=12034.
3 comments:
escAPEe, I'm not so certain curiosity is always the explanation for why critters like Bigfoot get spotted, (or, for that matter, ghosts, UFOs, Nessie, etc.).
There's a little detail in the dump truck driver's account which is highly suggestive to me.
He tells how the 'cinnamon bear', in spite of the truck's alarm blaring away, seemingly refused to budge as he backed up towards it.
Then, when he suddenly braked, he became all but mesmerized as the 'bear' rose up on legs to expose a juddering view of its belly to his rearview mirror.
It could be argued the refusal to move was actually fear induced paralysis; but the creature's subsequent raising itself up to its full height is a classic aggression response, thoroughly inconsistent with experiencing paralysising fear.
The bit that's most suggestive to me, however, is the way the driver's attention was momentarily distracted from the 'belly view' of the first creature by his peripheral vision's brief detection of movement from a second creature, only for him to refocus on the 'belly' and find the first creature gone.
The first thing that strikes me about this is how the creatures' behaviour strongly suggests not only awareness the driver was monitoring them, but precisely how he was monitoring them.
The second thing that strikes me is how much this episode reminds me of accounts of the way certain classes of Native American warriors followed the practise of 'counting coups'.
For 'coup' warriors it was considered that merely touching an enemy with one's 'coup stick' and risking not escaping with one's life was far more daring and meritorious than slaughtering him.
However, whilst not harming the 'coup' victim during such an encounter was considered the greatest possible insult one could inflict on him, it was also considered fair and practical for all 'coup' warriors belonging to the 'coup' party to cooperate in distracting the victim's attention until one of them succeeded in taking the 'coup'.
And that's what this Bigfoot story smacks of to me: not a creature spellbound by curiosity, but a young warrior band earning their stripes.
Even the reaction of failing to drop the bed of his truck before suddenly speeding off in alarm is suggestive the driver - a hunter and, in his own way, a warrior - had suddenly become aware of this on some visceral level.
borky,
Your comparison to First Nation values and ethics is insightful. Indeed much of what has been handed down over the centuries by Native American tribes was learned and adapted from their observations of animal behavior. Perhaps "counting coup" as a warrior practice has its origins in observations of animals such as Bigfoot creatures?
I do doubt however that the 2 creatures sighted by the truck driver were intent on acting aggressively. If so, then the truck driver would have observed intimidating vocalizations or a bluff charge while he was setting the chains on his dump truck. They seemed more interested in observing (watching, hearing, smelling, etc.) the rock slide out of the dump truck. At the risk of anthropomorphosizing their behavior, I'll label their action as curiousity.
The driver's "fear" reaction is totally understandable when confronted with seeing creatures that science and conventional wisdom tell us do not exist.
The truck driver's observations is just one case study that remains open to interpretation. More observations of these creatures are necessary before we develop working theories about what should be their expected range of normal behaviors.
Be alert and share your observations.
In hearing all of the reports of them using rocks, (ie: throwing, clacking, gifting, etc...), maybe they were just amazed at the guys generousity, and wanted to personaly thank him?
Just joking there.
I agree that they seem very curious.
But what drives them to come into the open, rather than just watch from a safe distance, is the question I have.
They sometimes are reported watching, from the edge of the woods, only to disappear, when spotted.
Yet sometimes they feel safe enough to come closer.
Both are curiousity driven.
It makes me wonder, why the difference.
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