What Happened to Dennis Martin?

The loss of a child might be the most devastating of all tragedies. It is every parent’s greatest fear, and the burden of protection – perhaps the most important of parental duties - weighs heavy on those of us blessed enough to have children. The loss of a child leaves the bereaved parents not only reeling from grief but from guilt, the guilt that they have failed in their most sacred of duties: protecting their offspring. In most cases, the parent has nothing to feel guilty about. Accidents do happen, no matter how careful we try to be. Children sometimes simply do not listen to or follow the directions of the adult figure in their lives which sometimes leads to their demise. Certainly, no parent should ever blame themselves should their child develop cancer or some other insidious disease. Still, the parents of lost children often feel they have done something wrong or that they could have done something differently. If they had, they reason, their child would still be alive. The pain of loss dulls over time to some degree, but the guilt seems to be there always, just beneath the surface waiting to bubble to the top if given even half a chance. These are the thoughts that passed through my mind as I revisited one of the most puzzling missing persons cases in U.S. history: the disappearance of Dennis Martin.

It was the summer of 1969 when Bill Martin decided to take a Father’s Day weekend camping trip. It would be a trip for the men of the Martin family and a time to get back to nature. Bill loaded up his father, Clyde, his oldest son, Doug (9 yrs.), and Dennis, who was less than a week away from his seventh birthday, and headed for Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Martin men spent the first night of their trip at the Russell Field shelter. Early on the morning of June 14^th, the group hiked west for two miles until they reached their destination: Spence Field. Spence Field was a grassy area running east to west on the main Great Smoky ridge. The Appalachian Trail and the Tennessee/North Carolina border run along the apex (4,800 ft. above sea level) of the field. Streams and creeks on the north side of the ridge drain into the Volunteer State while water courses on the south side of the ridge descend into North Carolina. The area features steep slopes, deep ravines, fast moving creeks, and scores of laurel and rhododendron vines, but the grassy and flat Spence Field seemed benign enough on this sunny and cloudless day. That being the case, the group settled into a shelter cabin on the western end of the campground.

            

After putting their gear away, Bill and his father sat contentedly and watched the boys, who had found two play mates from another family camping nearby (coincidentally, this other family also had the last name of Martin). The men watched as the group of young boys came together in the tall grass and whispered to each other. Then, almost like a football team breaking a huddle, they sprinted off in two different directions: Doug and his two new friends ran to the wood line to the south, Dennis, alone, ran into the woods to the northwest. The boys had planned a prank on their father and grandfather. They decided to run into the woods, sneak up behind the men, and then jump out and startle them. Why one of the three other boys did not go with Dennis has never been clear. What is clear is that after Dennis ran into the woods that afternoon, he would never be seen again. 

Doug and his two friends carried out their plan and sprang from the woods to “scare” Bill and Clyde. Dennis did not. The men and the boys waited between three and five minutes – thinking Dennis might have misunderstood the timing of the prank – before becoming concerned. Bill, Clyde, and the other boys set off to look for Dennis but found no sign of the young boy. Calls went unanswered, the only noise was the wind whistling through the forest canopy as a storm approached. After searching on their own for over an hour, Bill Martin managed to report his missing son to park authorities. The reaction was swift with several park Rangers responding but their efforts were stopped short when a ferocious thunderstorm rolled into the area. Spence Field received between 2.5” and 3” of rain over the next several hours. Hail fell from the heavens in some spots. The streams and creeks in the area rose quickly and were described as “high and turbulent” in the official incident report. No sign of young Dennis was found. Bill, Clyde, and Doug had to sit and wait out the storm knowing Dennis was out there somewhere alone.

The initial search the following day consisted of upwards of 50 people ranging from Park Rangers to maintenance personnel. Also joining the effort were members of the Sevier County Rescue Squad, the Blount County Rescue Squat, and the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club. The searchers began combing drainages in the area. Rain continued to fall intermittently, washing away potential tracks and sign, winds kicked up and the temperature dropped into the 50s, increasing the chance of the boy becoming hypothermic. The searchers beat the bushes until well past dark. There was no sign of Dennis. 

As word of the missing boy got out, more and more people made the trek to Spence Field to help. The number of searchers would swell to 1,500 before the operation was called off. It would become the largest search in National Parks history with the volunteers investigating at least 50 square miles. No one found any sign of the boy. Some believe the search party became too large and unwieldy. Clay Jordan, Deputy Park Superintendent, in a 2019 interview with USA Today said, “Today, we would not have anywhere near that number (searching).” The hearts of the people who showed up to help were in the right place but looking back, far too many well-meaning but inexperienced volunteers were allowed to participate. It is quite possible that some sign left by the boy was trampled by people who did not know what to look for. In addition to the mistake of allowing too many novice searchers to participate, officials decided, due to the prolific rainfall, not to call in dogs to search for Dennis’s scent. The officials were likely correct in that Dennis’s scent near Spence Field was likely washed out, but he was still out there somewhere and should have been creating new scent trails search dogs might have been able to lock on to (These and other miscues have been used as teaching tools ever since for search and rescue teams in training). Even so, the fact that absolutely no sign of the boy was found was shocking. “Something should have been found,” said Dwight McCarter, a veteran tracker and retired Smokies Ranger struck by the complete lack of sign.

By the second day of searching, Bill’s wife and Dennis’s mother, Violet Martin, had arrived on the scene. She was devastated by the developments but hopeful. “I have a feeling we’re going to find him,” she said. “Maybe God sent this ordeal to us so we could appreciate things more.” Others, however, were beginning to lose hope. Some searchers were told surreptitiously to start closely examining any bear, coyote, or bobcat scat. Others were dispatched to areas where vultures were spotted circling. The hours and the days dragged on, still no Dennis.

The first of several self-proclaimed psychics chimed in on Wednesday, June 18^th. The Martins, and to some degree Park authorities, did not dismiss the visions of these seers outright. The areas recommended by the clairvoyants were all dutifully searched. “I believe some people have the ability to see or predict things,” said Bill Martin at the time. Whether the Knoxville-based architect had given any thought to such matters prior to the disappearance of his son remains unknown but desperation had set in and all involved wanted to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for Dennis. One such example came from a Mrs. Schwaller of Linden, Michigan who contacted authorities to say Dennis would be found in a spot “near a stream by a small waterfall with white pine trees in the area.” Unfortunately, like other visions reported by the various psychics who contacted authorities, this description was so vague that it could have been applied to hundreds of spots in the region. Still, the parents grabbed on to each of these visions as if they were life rings and the searchers did their best to check them all out. 

Excitement was briefly aroused on the fourth day of searching when volunteers located a set of faint child-sized tracks about a mile from Spence Field. After examination, authorities dismissed them as having been made by members of a Boy Scouts troop that was searching the area. Potentially, this was yet another missed lead. Tracker Dwight McCarter, still aggravated about the way the tracks were dismissed, would tell USA Today 50 years later, “They didn’t find tracks from a bunch of kids. They found tracks from one kid.” It will never be known with any certainty who made those faint impressions or what they might have led searchers to discover. Later, Dennis’s seventh birthday would come and go (June 20^th) without any trace of him having been found.

On June 23^rd, the Spartanburg, South Carolina Police Department provided a “police dog” to help in the search. According to the official report, “The search met with negative results.” The description of the canine as a “police” dog and not a "search" dog could be simply a semantic error or it could be significant as not all police dogs are trained for search and rescue. Other dogs were called in – far later than they should have been - but they fared no better. Rumors began circulating from the beginning that the dogs were not attempting to find Dennis’s scent and failing; rather, they were refusing to track at all. The canines, so the story goes, simply sat down and whined, refusing to work. This is one of the big factors that has set off the “high strangeness” radar of so many, however, I simply cannot say whether it is true or not. I found references to dogs not being successful, but never found any source that stated the dogs refused to track.

Fate can be cruel and she turned especially so on June 24^th. Searchers came across a young man wearing a red t-shirt and green shorts (the same color of shirt and shorts Dennis had been wearing when he vanished) walking the perimeter road of the Cades Cove campground. It turned out the boy’s name was Michael Devlin and he was camping in the area with his parents. The parents agreed to change the boy’s shirt so as to avoid any future confusion. On the 26^th, a man called in to Carson Brewer of the Knoxville News-Sentinel and told him to inform the searchers to “Look in the trees and treetops. Stop looking on the ground.” Did this caller have some kind of inside knowledge of the case? Was he another alleged psychic? We will likely never know. This cryptic phone call is another of the strange details surrounding the case that just does not sit right with many.

The official search would end on June 29^th. Unofficial efforts would continue into September. The Martin family, refusing to believe their son was dead – in their defense, no body, blood, or any other spoor that might lead to that conclusion was ever found – put up a $5,000 reward for information leading to the return of their son. Authorities never bought in to the Martin’s kidnapping theory, but could not dismiss it outright either. In any case, the reward remained unclaimed.

The scope of the search for Dennis Martin has given pause to some. Never before had such a large force of government resources been used in a missing persons case. Between the National Parks Service employees, various county rescue squads, and military personnel involved, nearly 30,000 man-hours were invested in the search. This total does not include private citizens who volunteered their time. It is the involvement of those military personnel that has raised suspicion among many that something unusual, something other than the disappearance of a small boy, had occurred at Spence Field that June day in 1969. While it is not unusual for the National Guard to help in such matters, I have been told it is highly unusual for a regular military outfit to do so, much less a Special Forces unit like the Green Berets. The story was they were in the area on a training exercise and were instructed to come help in the search. As a non-military person, this did not seem like anything unusual to me but I have since been told by friends in the military that this simply does not happen. A bit of research revealed that the Green Berets are considered a Special Operations Force of the U.S. Army and exist to deploy and execute “nine doctrinal missions,” none of which include search and rescue operations. Digging a bit deeper, secondary missions sometimes taken on by U.S. Special Forces include, among others, combat search and rescue, hostage rescue, and manhunts. This being the case, perhaps the involvement of the Green Berets is not as strange as it at first seems. Other details, however, do lend an air of mystery to their presence. Many witnesses claim the “special ops guys” were standoff-ish, unfriendly, and “did their own thing,” which intimates a lack of communication and coordination with the other searchers. In addition, multiple reports state that these military units were armed with rifles while conducting their searches. This does sound unusual to me but I have been unable to absolutely confirm this assertion. I have seen photos of military personnel arriving at Spence Field but have not seen any weapons.

One thing that cannot be denied is that the government and the military were heavily involved in the search for Dennis Martin, much more so than any other missing persons case I can recall. A fixed wing plane, multiple helicopters, a dozen jeeps, multiple National Guard Units, and Special Forces were called in. Several military command posts were established that seemed to be working independently of the National Parks Service and FBI. In the official case report on the incident it states that President Nixon was monitoring the situation and wanted to be kept up to speed. The sheer scope of the government and military involvement regarding this event was unprecedented. The question many ask is why? It is true that Tennessee Congressman James "Jimmy" Quillen requested assistance from the government but the sheer scale of the effort would have required much more than a call for help from a Representative. In any case, the military commitment was extraordinary. You can look up all the numbers here but here are some statistics from the case report to chew on: 

-       The Army flew 938 sorties into Spence Field 

-       The Air Force flew 78 sorties into Spence Field

-       The military moved between 1,800 and 2,000 personnel in and out of the area via jeep over the course of the search

-       Involved branches/military resources included:

o   Tennessee Air National Guard

o   Tennessee Army National Guard

o   United States Special Forces

o   The U.S. Marine Reserve, Knoxville, TN.

o   U.S. Army troops from Fort Benning, GA.

o   Air Force personnel from McGhee-Tyson AFB, TN.

o   Air Force personnel from Robbins AFB, FL.

o   Personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, TN.

o   Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation

o   Two Huey helicopters

o   Two HH-53 (Jolly Green Giant) helicopters

o   One U-10 fixed wing airplane

o   Two CH-53 helicopters

o   Two Air Force communications trucks

o   Two Chinook helicopters

I must admit to being quite taken aback regarding the investment of time, money, and resources the federal government committed to the search for a civilian missing person. I do not think it a stretch to state that it was highly unusual. George W. Fry, at the time Superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, echoed a similar opinion in a letter to Tennessee Representative James H. Quillen sent on June 26, 1969 – three days before the official search for Dennis Martin concluded. He wrote, “In my entire experience with the National Park Service I have never heard of or participated in a search the extent of which this has built up to.” It may be the cynic in me but I simply do not believe that the government was acting out of the goodness of its heart in this matter. Neither do I believe a personal relationship with someone in Congress could yield such a deep level of involvement. Military personnel were flown in from as far away as Florida. It is very strange.

The final piece of weirdness is quite likely the most well-known piece of the entire strange puzzle that is the Dennis Martin case. It seems a family (Keys was their last name) hiking between 3-6 miles (I’ve found documentation supporting both these numbers) from the spot where Dennis vanished reported hearing a young boy scream in the woods. One of the family members spotted movement in a brushy area and thought it must be a bear. Instead, it turned out to be a man walking in the woods with something red slung over his shoulder (remember, Dennis was wearing a red t-shirt when he disappeared). The details of this report have morphed together and now you will find that the Keys saw a “bear man” walking upright through the woods. This birthed the theory that young Dennis had been snatched by a wood ape or sasquatch. Other reports describe the figure as an “unkempt man.” Largely ignored, another version of the Keys visual is that they saw only a “suspicious” man in dark gray work clothes that drove away after being seen. Either way, the FBI gave the Key report no credence and failed to share the information with Bill Martin, something that angered him greatly as he believed in his heart his son had been kidnapped.

It has been 51 years since little Dennis Martin disappeared. Bill Martin died in 2014, never knowing what had become of his youngest boy. The rest of the Martin family has been silent and has not discussed the case publicly since the search was called off all those years ago. There have been a few “false alarms” over the years when it seemed the remains of Dennis Martin might have been discovered. The most recent occurred in 1985 when a ginseng hunter reached out to tracker and retired Smokies Ranger, Dwight McCarter and told him he had come across a child-sized skeleton below Spence Field near an uprooted tree. A search of the area, however, yielded nothing. Most have come to the same conclusion as Clay Jordan, Deputy Park Superintendent, who said, “I think it is virtually impossible that we will ever know what happened to Dennis Martin…It’s become one of the enduring mysteries of the Smokies.” 

Spence Field looks quite different than it did a half-century ago. Trees now cover what was once open ground. Leaf litter and other forest debris cover the earth where meadow grasses once grew. “For every year, nature layers up about an inch,” Dwight McCarter said. “And it’s been a lot of years.”

As a parent, most of us sympathize greatly with the torment Bill Martin must have endured after his son disappeared practically before his very eyes. Such pain is something to which we believe we can relate, but can we? Can we really?

I, for one, pray I never find out. 

Sources:

Lakin, Matt. “Missing in the Smokies.” USA Today, 12 June 2019, pp. 1A–3A.

Lakin, Matt. “'An Enduring Mystery': Why Dennis Martin's Disappearance Fascinates Us, 50 Years Later.” KNOX News, 6 June 2019, www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/2019/06/06/dennis-martin-missing-smoky-mountains-disappearance/1338089001/.

Balloch, Jim. “From the Archives: Search in Smokies for Lost Boy, Dennis Martin, Produces Lessons for Future Searches.” Knoxville News Sentinel, 2 Oct. 2018, www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2018/10/02/massive-1969-search-dennis-martin-produces-lessons-future-searches-smokies-archives/1496635002/.

Striepe, Becky. “10 Mysterious Disappearances in National Parks.” HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks, 10 July 2015, adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/10-mysterious-disappearances-in-national-parks6.htm.

StrangeOutdoors. “Dennis Martin - Strange Disappearances from US National Parks.” StrangeOutdoors.com, StrangeOutdoors.com, 27 Oct. 2017, www.strangeoutdoors.com/mysterious-stories-blog/2017/10/22/dennis-martin-strange-disappearances-from-us-national-parks.

Swancer, Brent, and Paul Seaburn. “Some Very Strange Information on the Bizarre Vanishing of Dennis Martin.” Mysterious Universe, 9 June 2017, mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/06/some-very-strange-information-on-the-bizarre-vanishing-of-dennis-martin/.

“United States Army Special Forces.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 June 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Special_Forces.

https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/upload/1969_GRSM_DennisMartin_dissapearance_REDACTED.pdf

Coming Home: I am Kickstarting the Blog

Greetings from the Lone Star State. I hope this message finds you all well and safe. Thank you for coming back and taking the time to read my thoughts. I have been absent from this platform for quite a while now and those of you who continue to visit are much appreciated.

After much consideration, I have decided to kickstart the blog. I love writing it and hearing from all of you regarding the various odd topics I discuss here. I have missed the process of writing it, the interaction between us, and having an outlet for my opinions and thoughts. I guess there is truth in the old adage “You can’t miss something until it is gone.” I have missed the blog and I want to get it going again.

Much of the reason I have been absent has simply been a personal choice. I suppose the blog started to suffer once I started work on my book on the black panther phenomenon, Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America. I toyed with the book for a couple of years before deciding it was time to either finish it or junk it. I felt it was a worthwhile project and at that point, I devoted my writing time exclusively to the book. That is not to say that I had a lot of time to write. I do not make my living as a writer; I am a teacher and until recently, a coach. I am also happily married with two daughters. My particular line of work is demanding of much time and my family gets the lion’s share of the time that is left over. You may think what about summer? You should have lots of time to write in the summer. It is true I have more time to write in the summer (hence the timing of this post) but this is also the time of year when I catch up on all the things that went undone during the school year. I remain quite busy.

Some other circumstances played into my neglect of the blog, too. After finishing the book, I was exhausted. My hat is off to prolific writers of non-fiction that requires a lot of research who are working only in their spare time. I was burned out after finishing Shadow Cats. I was seeing black panthers and other cryptid creatures in my sleep. I needed to step back for a while. I decided if I ever wrote another book it would be fiction. My logic was that it has to be easier to just make stuff up than do research, fact-checking, cross-referencing, and citing sources (I would find out that is not exactly true).

I have also reached a point in life where my parents and in-laws are getting up in years. There have been multiple health crises that have demanded the full attention of my wife and I. My youngest brother has also fallen into poor health and my elderly parents are now his full-time caregivers. They live less than 30 minutes from my home so I get over there and try to help as much as I can. Again, nothing anyone would not do for their loved ones, but it is time consuming. 

I could go on but you get the idea. What I finally decided was I needed to prioritize things in my life and make some adjustments. As a result of that decision, I left the school district where I have taught and coached for more than 20 years in order to accept a position closer to home. Instead of a 30 minute drive to and from work every day, I will be working at a school only 7 minutes from my house (that’s when the traffic is bad). I have also decided to put some other interests/hobbies on the back burner for now. My free time will be devoted to my family, my work with the NAWAC, and my writing.

While I have been absent from the blog, I haven’t been totally underground. I have continued to appear on radio and podcasts plugging the book and discussing all things cryptid. My most recent appearance was an interview on Spaced Out Radio a couple of weeks ago. I now have a personal website – Michaelcmayes.com - where my activities are summarized and the organization makes it easier to follow (I needed that even if no one else did), and have continued to write. I have tried my hand at fiction and actually had some success. Most of you know about the illustrated children’s book I did several years back with the brilliant Arkansas-based artist – and fellow bigfoot enthusiast – Robert Swain called Patty: A Sasquatch Story. I don’t know about the writing, but Robert’s illustrations make the book worth the purchase price. I have also written several short stories and am proud to announce that one of them, a ghost story titled "Troubled Waters," will be published in the fall by Hypnos Magazine. I have high hopes for a couple of other stories and hope to get them published in various periodicals over the next few months (fingers crossed). Too, I have broken my vow to never write another non-fiction book. I am currently working on a book detailing the adventures and work of the NAWAC from its formation (originally the TBRC) up to our current work in the notorious Area X. It is a story that needs to be told and should be a breath of fresh air for those who have watched one too many silly cable television shows on the subject and want to know what it is really like to pursue the elusive wood ape or sasquatch. Hopefully, there is a publisher out there that will take a chance on it as I believe there is an audience (likely, one much bigger than those who follow the black panther phenomenon) out there who are hungry for something other than retellings of the old bigfoot classics and scary campfire tales.

The blog is back. I will make every effort to post something at least a couple of time per month. While I do not think I will ever get back to posting as often as I did in the early years, I am making the site a priority again. It is true that I have said what I have to say about most of the well-known cryptid creatures out there, but will continue to mine new nuggets where I can find them and comment on current cryptozoological events more often.

It would help me to know you guys are still out there. If it is not imposing too much, I respectively request you officially “follow” the blog. This helps me to know I am not just talking to myself and might convince any potential publishers of future work that I do have people who are interested in what I have to say. It would be a huge help.

Until next time, continue to follow the Facebook and Twitter pages (where I have remained active) and I’ll let you know there when the next post is up. 

It’s good to be back.

Mike

Big Cat Conversations Interview Now Available

I was recently interviewed by Rick Minter of the Big Cat Conversations Podcast. Rick is based out of Britain and is looking into the big cat sightings there.

You can listen to the interview by clicking here.

Gray Wolf Killed in East Texas

 A wolf has been killed in East Texas. 

That is not a misprint or a mistake. A gray wolf was shot and killed this past week in a heavily wooded region of East Texas. I will not be revealing the location – please don’t ask – for a variety of reasons. I will say that the man who took the wolf is a close friend of mine and I can absolutely vouch for the authenticity of the story and the photographs included in this post. 

The details are as follows: The property owners where the wolf was taken were decorating for a party they would be hosting the next day. The family noticed the animal skulking about on the edge of the wood line and reported it to my friend. He told me the family members described it as being “as large as a shepherd.” These are people who live in the woods and they know a coyote when they see one. They were quite sure this was no coyote. My friend searched the area, but found no sign of it.

The next day, the animal was seen again – this time by a delivery person who had come to the property. According to the delivery man, the animal fled when it was seen. Another search revealed nothing.

Sunday evening, my friend heard one of his dogs yapping at something in a pasture that was occupied by livestock. Upon investigation, my friend saw a huge, gray, dog-like animal interacting with his pointer. The interaction did not seem aggressive, but knowing coyotes will often act playful in order to lure a domestic dog away from its yard in order to attack it, my friend decided to take no chances. He felt that a huge wolf-like animal near his livestock, dogs, and family was a recipe for disaster and took the shot.

The animal weighed in at 120 lbs. Certainly, this was no coyote. On top of that, it did not look like a coyote; it looked like a wolf. My friend called the local Game Warden who arrived and took possession of the animal. My friend was notified today that the animal has been positively identified as a gray wolf by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) once roamed over the western two-thirds of Texas but has long been considered extirpated there. While red wolves once occupied East Texas, gray wolves were always rare there. It has long been believed that the last two gray wolves in Texas were killed in 1970. One was shot on the Cathedral Mountain Ranch, south of Alpine in Brewster County on December 5 and the other was trapped on the Joe Neal Brown Ranch, located near the point where Brewster, Pecos, and Terrell Counties meet. While there have sporadic wolf reports from all over the state since 1970, almost all of them turned out to be coyotes. As for the few sightings that seem intriguing, the more likely candidate was always the red wolf. These facts are what makes this incident so fascinating.

The Texas Parks & Wildlife biologists are almost certain that this animal – though absolutely a gray wolf – was someone’s pet. Whether this unfortunate canid escaped an enclosure or was released will never be known.

I’m sure the biologists are correct and that this was not a truly wild wolf. Wolves are pack animals, not solitary wanderers. Certainly, a pack of wolves – even a small one – would be noticed by authorities and the locals. Still, the next time I am out in the woods and hear the coyotes start to howl and carry on, I will pause and listen a little more closely. My hope is that I will hear an answer to their calls that goes on longer and is a bit deeper, something that might indicate the presence of a wild canid larger than a coyote.

A guy can hope… 

Sasquatch FAQ Series: Do Wood Apes Avoid Game Cameras?

With thousands of game cameras out there, if bigfoot is real, why are there no pictures?

The question above is one I have heard countless times over the years. Make no mistake, it is a fair question and I have no problem with anyone who asks it. On the surface, the fact that no clear and conclusive photos have been captured via game camera would seem to indicate that the wood ape does not exist. The real answer as to why game cameras have failed to get the “money shot,” however, may not be quite so simple. As seems to be the case with almost everything related to the sasquatch enigma, the truth may be more nuanced and layered than one might expect.

In 2003, a team from the University of Nebraska published a paper titled Wariness of Coyotes to Camera Traps Relative to Social Status and Territory Boundaries. The paper detailed an aversion that Alpha coyotes seemed to have regarding game cameras. The study took place in the Dye Creek Preserve in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains of California which was closed to the public. The authors thought the coyote population in this area would make good subjects for their study due to their extremely limited exposure to humans. “Coyotes on the preserve were not hunted and generally represented an unexploited population,” the authors wrote. The results of their study were fascinating.

The study found that the dominant coyotes, the Alphas, were never photographed inside their territories during the three years the game cameras were in place. Not one time. The authors concluded that this was not due to the animals having left the area as Betas and transient coyotes, thirty-eight in all, were successfully photographed by the cameras and Alphas were observed via more traditional means in their territories. Instead, the authors felt the lack of photos of the Alphas had to do with an increased level of awareness and caution on the part of the dominant pack members. “Alphas are probably the only coyotes that are truly territorial in terms of defending and fully exploiting their space,” the authors said. The Alphas regularly traversed their entire territories and “actively tracked human activity within their territories and presumably gained information about camera stations as they were being set up.” The final conclusion was the Alphas “were cautious of camera stations because of their association with humans and not simply because they were novel.”

The conclusion that Alpha coyotes avoided game cameras because they associated them with humans is one that has real ramifications for those attempting to gain photographic evidence of the wood ape by the use of such devices. The NAWAC conducted a large-scale camera-trapping project dubbed Operation Forest Vigil from 2006 – 2011. Despite hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars spent on the effort, no definitive photos of the target species were captured. The thinking was that apes might avoid the cameras for a few days or weeks after their initial deployment, but get used to them over time. The lack of results and the findings of the University of Nebraska biologists caused the group to reconsider that opinion and the project. If the apes were avoiding the cameras due to associating them with humans and not because they were something new and out of place – like the Alpha coyotes in the University of Nebraska study – then the group was very likely wasting its time and money. 

Coyotes are one thing, apes are another. How can we be sure that apes are as wary of cameras as Alpha coyotes? A recent study conducted by the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology shed some light on that question. According to a paper published in March of 2019, an international team of researchers placed cameras in ape-populated forests in Africa in an effort to learn how wild apes would react to these unfamiliar objects. Responses varied by species, and even among individuals within the same species, but one thing was consistent throughout: the apes definitely noticed the cameras.

“Our goal was to see how chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas react to unfamiliar objects in the wild since novel object experiments are often used in comparative psychology research, and we wanted to know if there were any differences among the three great apes,” said primatologist Ammi Kalan. “We were specifically surprised by the differences in reactions we observed between the chimps and bonobos. Since they are sister species and share a lot of the same genetic makeup, we expected them to act similarly to the camera, but this wasn’t the case.” The chimps, though they noticed the cameras, seemed uninterested, for the most part. The bonobos, on the other hand, were stressed by the devices. “The bonobos appeared to be much more troubled by the camera traps; they were hesitant to approach and would actively keep their distance from them,” said Kalan.

The experiment pointed out the necessity of researchers to consider how animals will respond to unfamiliar monitoring equipment – I would include audio recording devices under this umbrella, too –in their natural habitats. The variation in behavior from species to species towards unfamiliar objects placed in their environment “might be problematic when trying to collect accurate monitoring data,” said Kalan. In other words, there may be no such thing as truly passive observation. The mere presence of a camera or a recorder may alter the behavior of the target species.

Many researchers, me among them, have long held the belief that wood apes avoid camera traps. Do not misunderstand, I do not think an ape knows what a camera does and makes a conscious effort to avoid having its picture taken. That is foolishness. I do, however, think it is possible – likely even – that these wood apes associate cameras with humans. If they understand, even on an extremely rudimentary level, that humans are generally bad news, and if they are more bonobo-like than chimpanzee-like in their sensitivity to foreign objects in there environment, then they are likely going to go to great pains to avoid anything to do with them; that would include camera traps.

Despite this belief, I am still a proponent of the use of game cameras. I feel short of a hunter taking a specimen or a road-kill type of scenario, cameras remain our best chance of documenting the species. I also feel that despite the challenges, a large-scale camera project sponsored by a well-funded group with sufficient resources just might be able to capture the evidence desired. What must be understood is that just hanging a camera on a stake or a tree is not going to be good enough when the quarry is something as intelligent as a great ape. New and novel techniques will need to be utilized to have any chance of success. Another reason I remain a proponent of game cameras is that these creatures are not infallible. They do make the occasional mistake. Researchers can do the wrong thing, be too loud, fail to camouflage their cameras, etc. day after day for years. That is okay; there is always tomorrow. The wood ape has to be perfect every day in order to permanently avoid detection. That is simply not possible, not even for an animal as furtive and elusive as the sasquatch. One mistake. That is all it will take for the discovery of the millennium to be made. The question really is not whether or not the wood ape will make a mistake; one will. The question is will there be anyone or a monitoring device present to capitalize on said mistake?

If you are the type to get into discussions over cryptozoological-related matters – and you likely are considering you are reading this – file the findings of the University of Nebraska biologists and the researchers of the Max Planck Institute away for future conversations. The question of why no photos have been captured by game cameras is bound to come up eventually. Along with the most common response – and quite a valid one, in my opinion – stating that most game cameras are pointed at deer feeders that are not too deep into the woods, bring up the possibility, backed by scientific studies, that some animals simply avoid cameras due to their association with humans. You will come across as well-read, reasonable, and intelligent.

You will also be right.

Sources:

“Wild African Ape Reactions to Novel Camera Traps.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 14 Mar. 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190314111015.htm.

Sequin, E.S, et al. “Wariness of Coyotes to Camera Traps Relative to Social Status and Territory Boundaries.” Digital Commons @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USDA National Wildlife Research Center - Staff Publications, Mar. 2003, digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http://woodape.org/index.php/about-bigfoot/articles/190-cryptidcaution&httpsredir=1&article=1227&context=icwdm_usdanwrc.

Higgins, Alton, and Daryl Colder. “Cryptid Caution Concerning Cameras?” Cryptid Caution Concerning Cameras?, woodape.org/index.php/about-bigfoot/articles/190-cryptidcaution.

A Week in Area X

I recently returned from a week in the NAWAC’s primary study area. This area, dubbed Area X years ago, has proven time and again to be a place where odd things happen. The NAWAC is firmly convinced a number of wood apes make this mountainous region of southeastern Oklahoma their home. Events of this past week did nothing to change my mind.

I, along with two other NAWAC members, arrived on site on Saturday, July 27^th. A fourth member joined us the next day. Saturday afternoon and evening was spent getting settled into camp and prepping for the week’s activities. Nothing of note took place and we managed to all get a good night’s sleep.

Sunday, we took several day hikes in the hopes that any apes in the vicinity would take note and become curious about what we were up to. In the past, day hikes seemed to have enticed apes to follow members back to the camp site where all manner of behaviors have been documented. Nothing unusual was noted on any of the hikes, but we were hopeful that, if nothing else, any apes in the vicinity were now very much aware of our presence.

One of the strategies we planned on utilizing during the week was to conduct overwatch on a nightly basis. Basically, overwatch consists of half the team staying up all night and scanning the area around camp with thermal devices in the hopes of spotting an ape. It would be a dark camp, no fire. We had heard a loud bang up on the mountain slope earlier in the evening and were hopeful that it was a sign an ape was observing us in camp. Shortly before midnight, the two of us on overwatch duty were surprised to hear a loud sound just to the west of the camp’s small hunting cabin. The sounds were quite unlike anything I have ever heard in the woods before. It sounded like someone beating the ground repeatedly with a large stick. You could hear the stick – or whatever it was – cutting the air just before striking the ground. This went on for nearly a full minute. My partner and I stayed in place and scanned the area from whence the sounds seemed to be emanating, but could not see who or what was responsible. 

A few minutes after this initial flurry of activity, the sounds started again. The maker of the sounds had changed locations slightly to the northwest in the area where a metal carport-like structure, nicknamed the hooch, sits. The hooch is open on three sides and provides a protected area for people and equipment during the frequent rain storms that occur in this corner of Oklahoma. I would have sworn that whatever was making these sounds was under the hooch and mere yards from us. The impact sounds were louder this time, as if the striker was swinging his “club” even harder than before. Whap! Whap! Whap! Despite how close the sounds seemed, we could still not see the sound maker through the thermals. The impacts went on for about 25 seconds and seemed to be increasing in intensity. Finally, I hit my head lamp, firmly convinced I would see an ape underneath the hooch. Instead, I saw nothing and the impact sounds stopped. 

We were astounded that we could not see whatever was making these sounds. Literally, it sounded like it was RIGHT THERE and uncomfortably close. We were more frustrated and amazed than shaken at this point and decided to move on to the porch area of the cabin. The hope was that whatever it was, it would think we had gone inside and might be emboldened to come in close enough for us to catch a glimpse of it. We did not have to wait long. Within 2-3 minutes of our sitting on the porch, the impacts started again; however, things had really intensified. I find it difficult to express just how loud and powerful the ground strikes were. Over and over again, the impacts were repeated. Finally, something struck the side of the hooch with terrific force. We were stunned at just how loud the impact was and how the hooch reverberated for several seconds afterward. We came off the porch immediately, scanning with thermals and then white lights. Nothing. Whatever it had been was now gone. How it could have been so close and yet remained concealed was something we just could not fathom. The remainder of the night was quiet.

While I cannot say for sure an ape was responsible for the noises we heard that night, I simply do not know what else it could have been. Something was swinging a heavy stick or log and beating the ground and hooch with it. A bear cannot do that. A cougar cannot do that. Even playing devil’s advocate, I cannot think of an alternate explanation that is not more outlandish than the possibility it was an ape. Some will say it must have been a person, someone messing with you. Two things on that. First, I do not think a person could have pulled these incidents off without being seen in the thermals and heard approaching and retreating into the bush. Second, anyone who tried such a stunt would be placing themselves in serious danger. We were heavily armed and ready should trouble arise. To pull such a stunt would be suicidal. I believe it was an ape, bigfoot, sasquatch; whatever your favorite term.

Later in the week, one of my teammates had a likely visual. I will not go into the details of how we were attempting to lure an ape into view, but will say that our efforts seem to have been rewarded. He saw a 5 1/2 – 6-foot tall figure covered in black hair peaking up over the bank of a dry creek bed. The animal was standing in the creek bed and seemed to be looking up the trail at something at the level of the forest floor. My teammate watched if for a minute or two, but it did not move. He could not make out a face or other distinguishing characteristics. He could only tell it was lean, upright, and covered in black hair. My friend decided to change his position in an attempt to get a better look at the animal. He hoped a new angle would allow him to positively identify it. In the process of moving, he lost sight of it for a few seconds. Those few seconds were all that it took for the animal to vanish. He did not hear it leave. Was it a bear? We talked about it, but it did not seem to act like a bear. It was quiet and still. Bears tend to roam about sniffing and seem to care little about being seen or heard. This animal seemed to be attempting to stay hidden and quiet as it peaked over the edge of the creek bed. Maybe bears do this, but if they do, I have not heard about it. Make of this visual what you will, but personally, I have serious doubts that what my friend saw was a bear.

I have heard skeptics say things along the lines of, “You guys seem to see bigfoot behind every tree,” and “All these visuals, but no video or photos.” Truth be told, we hardly ever see anything at all. Take this last week, for example. Four men stayed in Area X for six days. That is a total of 144 man hours or 8,640 minutes. Out of the entire week – combining the weird ground striking sounds and the visual – only an estimated 25 minutes of high strangeness took place. That is only 0.2% of the time on site. To be clear, that is not 2%, it is 0.2% of the time spent in Area X. That is a miniscule percentage of time. This despite our best efforts to annoy, irritate, and embolden the apes of the area to react to our presence. As you can see, the reality is that the vast majority of the time in Area X nothing out of the ordinary is going on.

Other than the two events discussed above, the week consisted of hikes, conversation, and dehydrated camp food. Oh, and sweating. Lots of sweating. As always, Area X gave us enough to make us want to get back there as soon as possible, but nothing more. It is a beautiful, wild, and unforgiving place. A place which I believe will yield the evidence necessary to officially document the wood ape.

I hope to return soon.

Black Pumas in the News and the Latest Black Panther Report

I have been reading a couple of book concurrenly over the last week, or so, Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record by Errol Fuller and The Ghost with Trembling Wings by Scott Weidensaul. The former is a beautiful, but very melancholy, look at several species that are extinct and gone forever. Species like the Carolina Parakeet, Yangtze River Dolphin, Eskimo Curlew, and Passenger Pigeon are discussed as are a handful of species that, while considered extinct by mainstream science, may yet be clinging to life in the more remote corners of the planet. The Ivory-billed woodpecker and the Thylacine are two such examples of these types of animals. The book is beautiful and full of photographs. There is something about the black and white images that is truly haunting. The emotions I feel when looking at them are jarring. Guilt, sadness, anger…they are all present and mixed up in a cauldron of sentiment that is impossible to ignore. The latter is a book about loss, recovery, endurance and resurrection. The book is enthralling and hard to put down. It is in this book that something caught my eye…

In Chapter 5 of his book, Weidensaul discusses anomalist cat sightings. Having grown up in the Appalachians, he is particularly interested in cougar sightings. The Eastern cougar is thought to have gone extinct around the turn of the century. Still, Weidensaul points out, people continue to report sightings and, from time to time dead pumas turn up in the region. Clearly, there are still a few cougars in the East, the author concludes. The discussion was fairly typical up this point: How many? Where did they come from? Were they ever really completely gone in the first place? Etc. Then I read the following passage:

“How reliable are those eyewitness sightings? One measure of their veracity might be the large number – between a quarter and a third – that involve black panthers. This is more troubling than it may at first appear. While black leopards and jaguars are fairly common, I know of only two documented cases of black cougars, nor is melanism at all common among North America’s other wild cats.”

Did you catch it? Weidensaul wrote “I know of only two documented cases of black cougars…” Well, that is news to me. In my book Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America, I discuss the cougar as a possible suspect in the black panther mystery, but point out that there has never been an officially documented case of a melanistic puma. There are stories to be sure – many of which I discuss in the book - some of which are very old, but they are stories only. I have sent Mr. Weidensaul an email requesting some additional detail about these two documented cases of a black cougar. If he replies, I will update you here.

The question of whether or not pumas can be black came up again a day or two later when a reader of the blog sent me a link to a very interesting article. You may have read of the recent discovery of a ‘Lost City’ in Honduras. The ruins, built by an unknown civilization and uncovered in 2015, have yielded many items of archaeological significance since excavation began in earnest. Somewhat surprisingly, they have proven to be home to a treasure trove of rare wildlife as well.  Already, three species previously thought extinct, including the pale-face bat, have been found. It was the first paragraph of the article, however, that struck me with the force of a baseball bat.  It reads:

“Trond Larsen was night-searching for rare frogs and insects in the Lost City recently discovered within Honduras’ Mosquitia Rainforest when his headlamp illuminated something surprising: a curious black puma. Larsen, a researcher who led this February 2017 expedition into the so-called Lost City of the Monkey God, walked away from the encounter unscathed, but that puma was but a bite of the magnificence Larsen and his team would find.”

I know you caught it that time.  A black puma was seen among the ruins of a lost city in the heart of the Honduran rainforest. The witness was none other than Trond Larsen, of the Conservation International’ Rapid Assessment Program. Yet, nothing else is spoken about this remarkable sighting. In fact, the way it reads, it seems there is nothing remarkable about it at all.

What is going on here? Do black cougars exist or not? Why does no one seem interested in following up sightings like that of Trond Larsen? Are scientists so specialized that remarkable discoveries outside of their area of expertise are going unrecognized?

Finally, I will leave you with the latest credible black panther sighting reported to me. 

Reported 6/29/19

"Hi, Mike - really enjoy your blog. I don't know how meaningful this report is to your work, but I thought I'd send it to you as a datapoint.

In the summer of 2008 or 2009 I was riding my bike down a gravel road in Frisco just after dawn. About 40 yards ahead of me I watched a big black cat casually run across the road and then sail over a barbed wire fence into some trees. I'm not a good judge of animal mass, but it was about waist high, probably 5 or 6 feet from head to tail. It happened so quickly and was too far away for me to get any details other than the fact that it had a very long thick tail, was very dark, and moved like a cat. Coincidentally, this occurred next to a creek in Frisco called Panther Creek.

Here is the spot that I saw the cat: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2038699,-96.8718794,3a,75y,262.94h,78.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbJvie1BRm3X-8zb070OC0Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

The fence on the left wasn't there at the time, but the water treatment plant did exist. There weren't nearly as many subdivisions in the area either. Lots of open land back then.

Foolishly, I kept riding down the road and looked for it when I crossed the point where I saw it jump, but never saw it. For some reason, I thought I'd be able to out run it on my bike if I needed to, but I'll bet I would have been an exciting hunt for her if she decided to chase me down.

I thought for a long time what it could have been, thinking maybe it was just the silhouette of something else, which made it appear black. But, I was riding westward just after dawn when I saw it, so it definitely wasn't back-lit. I also spotted it before it entered the trees, so it would have been in the sunlight.

Also, I thought the sighting you posted on your blog from Plano about that same time was interesting. Maybe it was the same animal.”

- Brian Taylor

TCH Comment:  Brian is right in that Frisco has boomed over the last decade. On the surface, a big cat sighting of any kind there seems ludicrous, but a sighting from 10-11 years ago is another matter. The description given is fairly typical: big, very dark to black, long thick tail.  The area has been the source of black panther reports in the past (see distribution map). Too, I have had a handful of reports that have come from areas very close to water treatment plants, which I find interesting. I will be adding this sighting to my Black Panther Sighting Distribution Map. 

To wrap it up, in the last week I have become aware of no less than three sightings of black pumas referred to by recognized men of science and academia. Again, I am making an effort to get more information on these sightings. I’ll let you all know how that goes.

If you would like to know more about the black panther mystery, check out my book, Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America. You can hit the link to the right or click here for more information. 

Sources:

Fuller, Errol. Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Fuller, Errol. Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record. Princeton University Press, 2014. Page 126.

Funds, Yessenia. “Exploration of 'Lost City' in Honduras Uncovers Trove of Rare Life Forms.” Gizmodo, 21 June 2019, www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/06/exploration-of-lost-city-in-honduras-uncovers-trove-of-rare-life-forms/.