In the Shadows – The problem with trail cameras - Article 19

People ask all the time, why don’t we use trail cameras to catch pictures of Bigfoot, or why don’t we catch Bigfoot on the trail cameras.

The Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center has come to the conclusion that Bigfoot tends to avoid trail cameras that are deployed because they know what is in their woods, and this box thing suddenly pops up in the area, they don’t know what it is and avoid it. You have to think too, that the lens does resemble the open end of a gun barrel, and I’m sure they have seen the old-style cameras light up the entire area with a bright flash. Once while researching near Stigler, Oklahoma, a team of researchers was on a ridgeline that overlooked a creek flowing through a valley, when in the middle of the night, the woods in the valley lit up like a bolt of lightning had hit it. Wasn’t lightning, it was a trail camera going off and it lit up the whole area.

So, the MABRC uses the trail cameras being avoided by Bigfoot to their advantage. Taking trail cameras that don’t even work anymore (as well as some that do), the researchers will place them in an arc around the camp or campfire and use this like a perimeter fence. The Bigfoot wants to get close to check out things but will avoid the trail cameras, and come in from the direction where no trail cameras have been placed, not realizing it’s really a trap, the researchers are concentrating on that area with night vision and thermals.

Another tactic used by the MABRC, is to place working trail cameras about 20 feet above in the trees, angled downward. Above the eye level of the Bigfoot, they don’t really see the cameras until the picture gets snapped. It still hasn’t provided any good evidence yet, and newer approaches are to mount the trail cameras onto camera tripods and placed them near vehicles and buildings and use what is referred to as plot watchers, which takes a picture once a minute, in hopes that a Bigfoot will be caught outside the range of the motion detector during one of those pictures.

Other uses of trail cameras are placement in the bottom of ice chests, so that when a Bigfoot or other animal takes off the lid, a picture is taken of them looking in, placing it in camp chairs with clothing wrapped around to distort the look of the device, and even placing the cameras in wheel wells of vehicles and on back bumpers. Perhaps one day, one of these tactics will deliver a full frontal view of a Bigfoot’s face, with a big surprised look on it as the flash or IR flash illuminates his face and probably temporarily blinds him.