Habituation Situation: Shifting To Formal Documenting

This is a continuation of the series about a landmark study in the early 2000s in the Southern United States in which landowners and their formed research team began to document meticulously the ongoing back and forth with the Bigfoot People that coexisted on the property and around the property in the wildlife management area, lake, and neighboring rural residences. 

Installment #1 LINK

January 4, 2003

It was an incredibly warm weekend for January. Dusty joined the property owner, but the others couldn't make it that weekend.

The property owner had a friend who lived near the wildlife management area just down the road. The man's property backed up to the WMA and the lake. The property owner and Dusty decided to head to his friend's property to check out the activity there.

There was no fence behind his home, just markers on the trees defining the WMA (Wildlife Management Area). 

They were hiking along the shoreline of the lake west to east when they got to a point and there was sand for a distance on the shoreline and then an area of grass, then another area of sand, on and on along the lake's edge.

In one area, there was a trout line to the water where somebody had placed a line with hooks for fish and it was attached to plastic water bottle bobbing on lake's surface. 

There, they found barefoot tracks in the sand. These were coming in a direction and then turned to go to trout line. 

The steps were one directly behind another. 

They followed the tracks and went over to the sand area down the way, where they found more tracks picking up. This went on for about a quarter mile. They appeared to be the same person’s feet (in January).

Photos below show in order of steps from the direction of the boat landing at the nearby COE (corp of engineers) park moving east to west. The prints start right - left....

It became apparent that documenting these findings was a priority, as there would be better understanding of what individuals were where and what their places and habits were. It began with casting the trackway that had about 4-foot strides. 

January 5, 2003

The next day, out on the owner's property again, they came across tracks at the creek.

Someone stood there, foot beside foot. 

The print above showed the first step out from the standing still position. Dusty put the camera bag nearby for reference, but with all the tracks occurring, Dusty was beginning to think they might need to begin measuring and showing accuracy in documenting the evidence.

The next print was the second step from the standing still position.

Another step showed it right near the concrete bridge that went over the creek. 

The print above showed the foot at the bottom of the creek embankment, stepping into the embankment. 

On the southeast corner of the property in an area that showed a lot of activity, Dusty and the property owner found two trees broken off with a limb across the top. They came to refer to these as "door formations" and considered them intuitively to be an invite to the area. 

The property owner and Dusty decided to head back to the "dirt trail" (how they refer to it) used along the wildlife management area.  A print was discovered (below). This one measured 12 inches (would be a 14-1/2 men's shoe size).

Over time, the team realized this dirt trail near the WMA was very active!

With the addition of video footage and field notes, measuring, and the beginnings of interactive experiments, the team's momentum took hold. More on the excitement of the next finds in the next Monday installment....