When are we going to get that thermal?

I'm thinking this morning about what my friend Mark Maisel experienced last weekend in Ohio, back at the area where I got to record the East Central Ohio Chatter. As a group of researchers walked a trail along a creek, they found that the trail was pretty badly washed out, so they started up the slope to try to make it to the upper trail that they knew was above them somewhere. That's a hard climb, especially in the dark. Upon reaching the upper trail, they heard splashes in the creek below them, as if something heavy had hit the water hard, and movement on the other side of the creek. There are slopes on both sides, and both are pretty steep, but no upper trails on the other side. The second splash was quite loud, with a lot of water pushed up into the air.

Mark has a thermal imager and he had it ready that night. He could hear the movement, but he never got anything on the thermal. I asked him if he thought he should have been able to see whatever it was on the other side, and he paused and thought a moment about it. Then he simply said, "Yes." The leaves were fully sprouted by this time, so perhaps our big fellow was simply in a leafy spot. But Mark keeps that thermal with him all the time, and so far has come up with nothing.

I recently had a conversation with a well-known VA researcher, who has had a thermal unit for several years now. I asked him if he had ever seen a sasquatch with a thermal. "Never," he said.

When are we going to get that clear, thermal image?

I'm reminded of the reports that came out of Pine Ridge during the summer of 2006. As the police chief reported (through Cryptomundo ):

During one of these sightings, I had our department’s thermal imaging camera and along with about six other officers, did in fact pick up a large heat signature on the camera.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a recorder yet for the camera so we weren’t able to record it. We did watch as it moved away from us down a gully and it was missed by the other officers as they tried to find it using their flashlights. It is hard to explain as it must have already been past the officers before they arrived on scene.

Similar to this, a researcher I know very well once watched through his thermal what he thought was a sasquatch walking in the rain. But he didn't have it hooked up to a recorder at that time.

One night, as Mark, another VA researcher, and I were camping out in an area near Culpeper VA, something started shaking trees. We had rented a thermal unit for the weekend, and I happened to have it at that time. I kept the camera on the area where the noises were happening. I caught a glimpse of something indistinct. My finger was on the capture button, but it happened so fast, and the image was so unclear, that I didn't pull the trigger. If I had, we still wouldn't have anything since the image was so amorphous.

That same weekend, the other researcher did "accidentally" take a picture that might have been a sasquatch, as I've detailed elsewhere. But we can't be sure what is in that picture.

I've heard that other researchers have had what they thought was a bigfoot in their thermal camera, but we've got no indisputable pictures or film out of it.

So when is our superior technology going to prove itself in the field?

VERY LATE EDIT: It seems that the folks at The Anomalist got the impression that I said no one has ever seen what they thought was a bigfoot through a thermal. That isn't what I've said. We don't have any pictures or recordings via thermal that we can be sure are of a bigfoot. Several people that I know of believe, and I think with good reason, that they were seeing a bigfoot with their thermal camera, but in each case, a recorder wasn't connected, or the picture wasn't taken. It seems luck is against us.