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Here’s what NASA says:
“Erroneous CO emissions over California cause unrealistic CO concentration in GEOS-5 model
March 1, 2016
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Elevated carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations over California in the GEOS-5 products since February 25, 2016, are incorrect. They are a consequence of unrealistic emissions derived from satellite observations of fires, which led to elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO (as well as other species).NASA’s EOS-Terra spacecraft entered safe mode on February 18, 2016, during an inclination adjustment maneuver. This caused the MODIS instrument to enter safe mode, with the nadir and space-view doors closed. When the Terra MODIS transitioned back to science mode on February 24, 2016, the operating temperatures for the SWIR and LWIR (Short-wave Infrared and Longwave infrared) focal planes have not yet stabilized. As a consequence, some data products have been severely degraded. This includes the “Fire Radiative Power” fields that are used by GEOS-5 to compute emissions of CO, CO2, and carbonaceous aerosols by biomass burning.
GMAO is working to correct this problem. The GEOS-5 analyses will be re-run from February 24, 2016, using only the EOS-Aqua MODIS data, in order to exclude the unrealistic CO emissions. EOS-Terra observations will be re-introduced once the instrument has stabilized.”
http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/geos_system_news/2016/incorrect_CO_concentrations.php
You can also get to this site from a link on the source earth wind map which is operated by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.
I was a total doubter. No and then we’d see BF reports that included descriptions of a “snout.” Pretty much dismissed them as a mistaken identification and ignored the “snout” part.
Then about 3-4 years ago, my wife came back from a ride and got me. She took me to a wash about 2 miles from our house to show me some dog prints she and a friend had found.
The prints were in a short stretch of damp sand and were bigger than my hand. And it didn’t seem like there were enough prints for it to be walking on all fours.
Scratched my head for a long time about that.
Then about a year, year and a half ago, I saw a pic on the web of a track with a guys hand next to it. Flashed me back to that set of tracks. That was the first time I heard the term “dogman.”
Now I don’t know what to think. I’m 50/50 now.. Maybe 60/40.. or maybe 70/30 in favor, depending on where I am and how dark it is.. Keeping my eyes wide open.
Dammit. Ignorance was such bliss..
Got news for you all.
Plaits in horses manes and tails happen naturally. Happens to ours all the time, especially when the weather turns humid and we don’t keep up with the grooming.
We have 12 horses/Welsh ponies on our place.
And I’m 100% sure that there are no BF, witches or gypsies around here. And if thieves are doing it, they’re piss poor thieves, as it’s been happening for, like, ever.
Our neighbors have minis. Happens to them too. I’ll just leave that open…
It is different. Very different. The other way I’ve described it is that it was like walking into a wall.. Happy-Boom-Scared. That fast.
When I first started in this, the term was “sudden onset fear.” If you go through the reports, you’ll find quite a few incidents where people have experienced it. Some saw something others didn’t. It was reading those reports that helped me make sense of what happened. Plus talking to folks who’ve also had experiences.
I came to the conclusion that these things can project some kind of “bubble” around them. Either purposely or just from being what they are. And I think it depends on what they’re feeling at the time. I’ve had experiences since where I was close, but didn’t feel what I did that first night. Thank God.
The other way I’ve described it (in my case) is like that feeling you get when you’re working at a keyboard and someone comes up behind you and just stands there and it may take a moment, but you sense someone else is there. When I was on the trail it was kind of like that but to the power of about 100. Maybe a 1,000.
Whatever it was, it was completely overwhelming. And I’m pretty sure that it’s what some dogs feel too when BF are around.
I’ve been hit with the fear. In fact, it was what got me started in the BF game.
I’ve literally spent my life in the outdoors. My background is actually similar to Bob Garretts. For a period of about 10 years, in the ’80’s, I lived in a cave in northern Colorado (on and off). Choice of rifle was even the same. An AR7 take-down .22, which I still have (pretty worn out). I was never afraid of anything in the light or the dark. Never worried me. Ever.
Moved to AZ in 1990. In 1999 I accepted an invitation to go camping with a large group on the Rim here. I normally don’t go with groups but I made an exception on this occasion. First night, around 11:00 p.m. I got fed up with the noise and partying and took my pack and headed down a very rough 4x road across from the campsite. Didn’t have a flashlight or a weapon. Was heading to a spot I knew about 4 miles in.
No moon and a beautiful night. Was loving it. Could see enough not to roll my ankles simply from the amount of starlight. It was absolutely gorgeous. Was in the best mood I’d had all day. It was like a breath of the freshest air. I was simply in heaven.
About a mile and a half, maybe two miles, from the camp is when it hit me. One second I was trotting along completely happily and like a switch flipped I was completely and totally terrified. That fast. Went from euphoric to whimpering and quaking in my socks instantly. For no reason.
I thought I was losing my mind.
Standing there in the dark, having a violent internal argument with myself, one half telling myself to get a grip and the other half wanting to panic and bolt. I had NO idea what the hell was going on. So I compromised. I sat down right there in the middle of the road and made myself stay there for the night. Never saw or heard a thing. But I KNEW if I took one more step I was a goner. Honest to God, that kind of thing can make you feel insane.
Night passed uneventfully. I know because I was wide awake the whole time wrapped in my bag. Morning came and I made coffee, had breakfast and went back. Completely confused and totally shaken.
The next night something that smelled very bad circled our camp for about three hours. That was when I started to figure out what was going on.
I also did not go back into the woods for about a year and a half. And when I did, like others, I went looking for it. That’s what got me into squatching. And those first few months, were hell. Had a lot of anxiety attacks out there. But eventually things calmed down.
Unless you’ve experienced that (and I think “projected” is a good description) fear you can’t imagine what it’s like. It is not a typical kind of fear people have.
And the time I got the “being watched” feeling the strongest and most palpable was in northern Colo. Walking down a ridge at sundown and I felt that feeling go right through me. Stopped me dead in my tracks. When I turned around, there were two does looking around a pinon at me from across a wash about 60 yards away. I’ve paid attention to those kind of feelings ever since.
Knobby, I’ve had an experience where the damned thing came up behind me (on my 6) as I fired a 1M candlepower IR spotlight to my 12:00. I had NO idea that the damned thing was there (I was also using a Bionic Ear at the time and heard NOTHING) until I turned the spotlight off. The absolute second I killed the floodlight (after about 15 minutes) the thing EXPLODED through the brush next to my truck and I could hear it running downhill for a minute or so through the microphone.
Let me tell you, that kind of thing gets your heart pounding.
The only reason I’d turned the light on was because I was bored. It was about 0130 and I’d had nothing going on at all that night. I have Gen III NV and in the woods, the IR spot doesn’t do much (too much backscatter). In open areas it’s outstanding, but not so much in the woods (Gen III really doesn’t need any illuminator, but the IR can really extend it’s range in the right conditions). What it does do, however, is bring in insects. Which in turn bring in bats. It’s really cool to watch the bats through the NV as they streak through the IR light getting the bugs. That’s what I was doing at the time, while listening through the microphone. Again, I heard NOTHING.
This was in an area I’d been going to for a while where there was a family group and I think they were curious about me (and I knew they were getting bolder) because my activities were different from the usual campers/ATVers they were used to.
The place I was backed into was on a shoulder off of a forest road lightly ringed with tall brush which then opened into open, loose,rocky slopes dropping into a valley that was about 1/2 mile down. The only large brush in that area was directly ringing the little dead-end road I was parked in. One little cedar tree was off of my rear-left rear bumper and scrub oak and such was on either side of my truck. After that, just sage and light grasses and bottlebrush was on the slopes.
When it got daylight, I checked the area around my truck, because at the time (sitting there pondering what the hell had just happened for the remainder of the night), it seemed like the only way it could have generated that much noise, was for it to have blown through the brush heading AWAY from my vehicle. What I found were marks in the road (road was rocky and hard packed with little dust) where I could see that the damned thing had crawled out from the cedar tree and was apparently alongside my truck on the drivers side just behind the door (it was a little 4-banger Nissan Frontier). The brush was bowed over right there.
What I surmise is, the thing worked up enough nerve and curiosity and was coming in to check me out. At that moment, I fired the spotlight and froze it in place. And again, the spot was projecting forward over the roof and hood of the truck. I was looking forward through the windshield. I can’t run the spot too long, because the heat of the bulb makes the IR filter get soft, so I used it sparingly. After about 15 minutes, I killed the light. And again, I can’t emphasize this enough, the SECOND the light went dark this thing blasted away from the truck, through that ring of brush and down into the valley.
It happened so fast and was so unexpected that I didn’t even have time to be scared, if that makes sense. I kept an audio log of what I did back then and the recording I made after that makes me laugh to this day. Talk about a mind bender. I sound totally and utterly perplexed/baffled/startled.. I can only picture what my face must have looked like.
But there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, that that damned thing was entirely cognizant of the light, even though it could NOT see the source, and booked it as soon as the light went black.
This happened in 2004-2005 or so and to this day I’ve always wondered what would have happened had I NOT turned that light on. Might’ve had an up close and personal. Dunno.
But one more time, there is no doubt in my mind that it SAW the IR light illuminating towards the front of the truck. They CAN see in that spectrum. I’ve had numerous discussions about this over the years and lemme tell you, there are a lot of closed-minded folks in the BF world. LOL… Well, I guess, that’s the understatement of the year.
One more word on the bats… Several times over the years, I’d be sitting in various places in the pitchy black night and all of a sudden my radio antenna would suddenly and without warning, loudly go ‘BYOOINNNG…..’
Never ceased to scare the living hell out of me. Took me a while to figure it out. My radio antenna had a little ball on the tip of it. Turned out that the bats were mistaking it for an insect and come in like a meteor to nab it.. After I finally figured out what was causing it (after discovering the number of bats around here with the IR and NV) it became SOP to hang a styrofoam cup over the antenna. That solved the problem. For me and for them.
But for a long time, I harbored a visual of a long, hairy arm reaching out of the brush and a big finger flicking my antenna just to mess with me. And as is typical, reality is much more mundane…
Knobby, I just read that article and you’re right. It is an excellent article and sums things up very well. As I said in my last post, I have issues with the sound theory, but I’ll hold judgement for a while. I could not detect any noise on the two models I checked when I did a full frequency sweep.
In addition, from watching the vid of the BF photos, that BF was at a fairly decent range from the cam. It had to have been making noise as it moved (it does not appear to be exercising a lot of caution until it seems to become aware of the cam) plus natural ambient sounds would probably have masked any noise the camera may have been making at that range. If the noise theory holds, BF detection levels have to be far beyond anything we can even imagine. But it’s pretty obvious that something alerted it to the presence of the cam. During daylight.
*sigh* The mystery is going to continue.
The ground sensor triggers mentioned in the conclusion make a lot of sense (I have a vague recollection of that episode). Wonder if those’ll ever hit the civilian market.
I do not believe basic off the shelf trail cams use any type of auto focus. It’s a simple fixed focus lens just like the old instamatics. Auto focus would drastically affect affect the trigger time of the camera and introduce a noise aspect to the camera. There may be cams with an autofocus, but I’m not aware of any. Clarity of the pictures is adjusted by altering the varying megapixel resolutions of the cameras.
I’ve checked my cams for noise and vibration using sound detection gear I have access to. There may be a slight clicking sound on some models while picture taking during nighttime operation. Some models have a lens filter that pops over the lens at night that makes some slight noise – Bushnell trophy cams can actually rattle while you’re carrying them as the filter kind of flops around when the camera isn’t operating.
But other than that, there really isn’t any noise to the camera. I don’t buy the ambient sound theory. Smell maybe as it’s definite that bears seem to be able to smell them.
The trigger times vary per model and manufacturer. The site trailcampro.com has good reviews and stats of the varying trigger times. Typically for photos it’s around a 10th of a second or less. Trigger times for videos are a little longer, maybe around 2 seconds or so.
And some animals do react to the flash. Racoons and skunks seem very prone to it. In a 3-4 series of pics, you cans see them moving around and turning to look at the cams during the picture taking. Moreso in photos, however, than video. They don’t seem to look at the camera as much during a video.
This, I believe is because the typical IR flash source is perfectly visible when it operates. You can walk by a cam in the dark and it’s perfectly obvious that it’s emitting a deep red glow. You can’t see what it’s illuminating, but you can see the source itself. That dull red shine may also be an advertisement to a BF, but by the time you see it, the pic is already taken.
Skunks and coons react to things they take as eye shine. It’s why they sell the fake, blinking eye shine things as a predator deterrent. I think they react more to a quick sudden flash more than they do to a steady, unblinking light.
They recently (in the last year or two) started selling cams that have the IR ‘blacked out.’ Not supposed to be able to emit a glow. I haven’t tried these so I don’t know if they work or not. I use cams routinely around my place to monitor the property. So maybe next time I have to replace one, I’ll try it.
That’s a very interesting vid of the daylight photos. I’ve not seen it before. If it’s true, it appears that the BF becomes aware of the cam even during daylight and at a relatively long range. That’s very interesting.
Fully agree that thermal is probably the answer. Gotta love new tech.
But it doesn’t answer the question as to why camera traps don’t work. That’s going to perplex me forever, I think.
First time post here. Been a member for a while now, but gave up on BF forums and internet BF’n years ago so haven’t wanted to go that route again.
You’re right. BF CAN see active IR light. I know that for a fact. So when a trail cam activates the active IR at night it probably does advertise itself to them so they can avoid that particular area. IF they see it trigger.
However, the passive IR detector on the front of the camera emits no energy. It simply detects IR light reflected off of whatever may be in front of it. So they cannot detect the camera from seeing anything being emitted while the camera is in standby. Try looking at an armed camera with NV. You’ll see nothing.
So seeing the IR flash and noting to avoid that particular area may be one reason trail cams haven’t worked.
However, it doesn’t explain why the damn things haven’t worked during daylight hours and, statistically speaking, you’d think that at least ONE would have been surprised by a camera (given how many must be out in the woods across the continent) by now.
NOR does it explain why the old tripwire cameras used in the good old days never worked. Again, you’d think something would have turned up by now.
Camera traps are a total enigma. I have pondered the continual failure of these damn things for years now and still haven’t come up with a viable explanation. And I’ve seen some ingenious variations on the usage of them. Disguises, pressure pads, trip wires etc. etc. etc….
People have been trying camera traps for over 50 years with no clear success. Makes no sense. And it brings to mind the definition of ‘insanity.’
We’ve been doing it wrong for over 50 years somehow. And damned if I know how.
