This is my second blog entry and also part two of my Delaware County, NY investigation blog. I was planning on writing and posting this the weekend after I got back, which would have been last weekend, but instead I made a spur of the moment decision and went on a two-wheeled road trip to Maryland for the extended Labor Day weekend.
Those that know me fairly well know that besides this research I have another great passion which drives me. It’s a passion for adventure on the open road where it’s just me & my motorcycle and mile after mile of beautiful scenic landscapes. So this blog was temporarily delayed a week so I could join about 60 other members of an online motorcycle forum I’m a member of for an extended weekend that consisted of many handshakes, smiles and of course many miles of riding. It was a chance to attend what we call a “meet & greet” where I was finally able to put a voice and in some cases a face (since some members will post pictures of themselves online and some won’t for some reason) to many of the online screen names I’ve been talking with on the forum. Of course there was also plenty of food and drinks to be had as the whole weekend was one huge BBQ and party (usually late into the night or more correctly the next morning) which was held at the home of a forum member who agreed to host the party. So after much eating, drinking, partying and riding I rode home again with close to 800 additional miles on the odometer of my HD Softail Deuce. Okay enough about my two-wheeled Labor Day weekend adventure, now let’s get back to this blog…..
On the weekend of 8/23 – 8/24 my friend John Campbell and I made another trip upstate to the property we are investigating in Delaware County. This time the weather was good and we were able to spend a lot more time in the field exploring different areas of the property.
After a few delays in route, we finally arrived at the location about two hours later than we had originally planned. Once there though we wasted little time and immediately began to get our gear ready for the days hike. As soon as we were ready we started off for the high ridge where the possible wood knocks have been heard.
We hiked back up to the top of the ridge line where we had found the three rock stack and some unusual looking stick/limb formations on our first visit. I wanted to go back to this area so that I could take apart the rock stack on this trip to see if it will be restacked again on a future visit later in the fall.
We had no trouble finding the rock stack and after taking a few additional pictures of the stack I then removed the top two rocks placing them on the ground nearby. I only moved the top rocks about 5 - 6 feet on either side of the bottom rock and made sure they were clearly visible because I wanted them to be easy to find.
In addition to taking apart the rock stack, I also took down a horizontal stick and possible marker that we found in the same general area. This stick was wedged in between two trees that were approx 6 feet apart, resting in the “V” of both trees. It reminded me of a limbo pole, a pole that is held horizontal to the ground while people try to pass under without using their hands or touching the ground at parties. I found this horizontal stick/possible marker interesting because in my opinion it couldn’t have fallen straight down from above to land the way it was wedged in the trees. There were several smaller diameter branches that stick out directly into the “open airspace of the V of the one tree” that this branch would have hit on the way down if it had fallen from above. If it had hit these smaller diameter branches it probably would have deflected the falling branch enough from its path that it shouldn’t have wedged in the twin V’s of both trees. In addition, any of the smaller branches it should have hit on the way down should have at least shown some type of damage, if not have been broken clean off the tree, by the weight of the larger falling branch hitting them. I carefully examined all of the smaller branches and also both the bark of the V in the tree as well as the fallen branch itself for signs of damage. I couldn’t find any sign of damage to any of the braches or the tree to indicate they had been struck by the larger branch as it fell down from above. This leads me to believe that this horizontal branch was placed in the V between both these trees for some reason. Why or when this was done I don’t know, but I don’t think this branch came to be wedged between these trees is the result of storm damage or some other easily explainable natural occurrence.
Hiking along this ridge line John and I found a number of other unusual stick/limb formations and another rock formation. This second rock formation consisted of a larger, triangle shaped flat rock on the bottom with four smaller flat rocks lying on top. Three of the smaller rocks were arranged along the leading edge of the bottom rock from left to right with all of the rocks touching each other. The fourth rock was lying on top of the second layer rock all the way to the far right side when looking at it from the front. Because the second layer of smaller rocks were arranged from left to right all neatly hugging the leading edge of the bottom rock and resting against each other, I also don’t believe this to be a natural occurrence. I believe these rocks were placed there and arranged in that formation for some reason, possibly as some type of crude marker. I won’t go into detail here about the other stick/limb formations but will instead save that for my full official investigation report to cut down on how much material is repeated between my blog here and the report. But I will tell you that I did find at least two other formations that I consider very unusual and that I suspect also weren’t likely caused by nature.
As we hiked further down the top of the ridge line looking for more signs of possible evidence we found a number of different patches of blackberry bushes throughout the area. We also found signs of the many deer that live and pass through this property. There were plenty of scat piles and tracks left in fresh mud from a recent rain. We did find one large track that looked like a black bear overstep but we still didn’t find what we’re really hoping to find, possible Sasquatch tracks. If we do get lucky enough to find any I’ll be ready though, as I carry all the necessary casting supplies with me in my backpack.
On Saturday night at 9 PM Bob Coyne and I did a special one hour edition of our BlogTalkRadio internet radio show, the Bigfoot Quest, which can be found here at this address http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Bigfoot_Quest. I called in to the show to give a report “live from the field” since the open meadow where we set up for our night time surveillance is high enough up in the mountains for my phone to get a signal. John and I were sitting in our folding chairs under the stars on a beautifully clear but cold night at the edge of the tree line. We managed to do three wood knocks on a nearby tree live on the air before our knocking stick broke into pieces. It was hard finding a really solid wood knock stick in the area and I had already cracked the one we used by doing a number of the required test knocks on different trees to select the best tree to use.
John took the phone and was interviewed by Bob after he did the wood knocks so I could take my Zoom H2 digital recorder and move close to the tree line to concentrate and listen for any possible return knocks. I didn’t hear any knocks for the rest of the show but shortly after the wood knocks John had done I did hear two single hoots from up on the ridge.
In addition to the wood knocks we also used our vehicle as a “curiosity lure”. We parked the van at an angle in the meadow with the nose pointing uphill at the ridge where the land owner reported the sounds were coming from. We laid a marine rescue emergency strobe light which flashes a bright white light once per second on the roof of the van facing the tree line. Inside we loaded a country music CD into the stereo system, cranked up the volume and rolled down the windows. We were using the powerful repeating flash of the strobe light as a visual attractant and the sounds of the loud country music as an audio attractant in an effort to hopefully draw a curious creature out of the tree line and into the clearing, if one was in the area, where I could get a look at it through my Gen 1 night vision monocular. We put the “curiosity lure” into effect about 15 minutes before I called in to the show and left it until the show had ended. We thought once the show was over we should shut it all down for a while and go back to sitting quietly and listening again. If we had gotten really lucky and it had attracted a nearby creature to the edge of the clearing, we wanted to be alert for any sounds that might be heard.
All was quiet until about 30 minutes after the show had ended and I had hung up with Bob. Suddenly John and I heard a strange, high pitched scream type of call coming from down in the valley where the creek runs through the property to our left from the direction we were facing sitting in the meadow. I did record this sound and have shared it fellow NESRA investigator Chris Bartow who listened to it and ran it through some sound filters of different audio software programs he uses to analyze recorded sounds. Chris is fairly certain the sound I recorded that night was made by an Eastern Screech Owl. I listened to the scream I recorded and then to the audio clip of the owl and they are very similar, except that the “chatter” between calls heard on the online audio clip wasn’t heard in my recording. My recording just had a bunch of high pitched, scream type calls with no other noises heard in between the calls. But that one minor difference aside, they do sound almost identical to me so it would seem very likely that I did record an Eastern Screech Owl that night.
About 20 minutes after the screams were recorded John and I heard some possible wood knocks that sounded very distant but the sounds were coming down the ridge to our right. It’s hard to be sure if these were in fact true wood knocks, but if they were could they have possibly been an answer to the knock we had done less than an hour before?
After about 10 minutes the possible knocks stopped and it was quiet again for a while. Then the sounds began again but they were coming from a different area this time. The possible knocks had moved and were now coming from the extreme back right corner of the second open meadow/clearing which was behind us and to our right from where we sat in the first meadow. I wasn’t even sure if my recorder was picking them up or not, so I wanted to try to get a little closer to the sounds. So we got out of our chairs and started walking through the high grass and weeds towards the second meadow.
By the time we had reached the extreme back corner of the second meadow, which was now on the left side since we had been facing the other way in our chairs in the first meadow, the sound had stopped. We stood there for at least another 25 minutes waiting and hoping to hear it again. Now that we were much closer to the source I was sure I would get a clearer and louder recording of the sound but it remained quiet the rest of the night.
On Sunday John and I hiked to the other side of the property in an area we hadn’t been to yet in a search for the old apple orchard that was supposed to be there some where. We crossed the creek and found the remains of an old orchard with half dead apple trees in an overgrown clearing thick with tall grass and weeds. The half dead apple trees did have some apples on them but they were about a quarter of the size of normal apples and the trees certainly weren’t full of apples like healthy maintained trees would have been.
We hiked back to John’s van by early afternoon and began to pack up all our gear. We left the location around 3 PM heading back to Long Island. We will make at least one more trip back here in either late October or early November to see if any of the possible markers we took apart are rebuilt. I’m very interested to see if any of them will be. I’ll update this blog again shortly after we return from the fall trip.
