The Sasquatch Listening Project is a 24/7 audio project gathering Sasquatch vocalizations using remotely placed recorders.

This project has two goals. The first goal is to purchase additional Sony PCM-M10 digital audio recorders to allow me to increase the number of remote recording systems from the current level of four to an inventory of ten. Many witnesses ask for his help in monitoring their areas where they suspect they have had Sasquatch activity.

The second goal is to produce a CD of all my Sasquatch sounds. This will include all previously recorded sounds plus sounds from this coming spring and summer. This will be sent out in October 2013.

To be a part of this crowdfunding project please click on the link below or the picture.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sasquatch-listening-project/x/2417040

The Sasquatch Listening Project is a 24/7 audio project gathering Sasquatch vocalizations using remotely placed recorders.

This project has two goals. The first goal is to purchase additional Sony PCM-M10 digital audio recorders to allow Stan to increase the number of remote recording systems from the current level of four to an inventory of ten. Many witnesses ask for his help in monitoring their areas where they suspect they have had Sasquatch activity.

The Sony PCM-M10 digiatal audio recorder
The second goal is to produce a CD of all Stan’s Sasquatch sounds. This will include all previously recorded sounds plus sounds from this coming spring and summer. This will be sent out in October 2013.

In 1956 Stan was introduced to audio recording at the age of eight in Northern Idaho. Cousins visited from California and brought along a large magnetic reel-to-reel tape recorder used to record all family members while they traveled around the country. Stan can be heard in this short clip talking on what to him was an amazing machine in June of 1956.   Stan in 1956

Recorders gradually became more affordable and Stan received a Webcor reel-to-reel as an after-Christmas gift January of 1964. That recorder was used to record innumerable family members, TV and music from the radio. In the spring of 1969 Stan recorded his first nature sounds, spring frogs, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

Stan using a Telinga Parabolic Microphone and Sound Devises 722 Field Recorder.

Gradually over the years digital recording came on the scene and totally changed the ability of nature recordists to record for extended periods in the field. While Stan was on his first Bigfoot expedition to New Mexico in September of 2004, he determined that he needed to record the many vocalizations he and others were hearing. At that time he purchased a Marantz PMD-670 digital recorder with flash drive. Starting in May of 2006 Stan made a decision to record full-time in various locations with a history of sasquatch activity. Others have stated that “Stan is a pioneer” when it comes to techniques of recording 24/7.

Since that time he has purchased more recorders, including the Sound Devices 722, and several Sony PCM-M10. From 2006 until the present Stan has recorded continuously with several recorders placed in different locations. Stan spent a lot of time developing a recording system which allows him to leave out recorders for an extended length of time. With a complete recording system Stan is able to drop off one of his systems at a remote location and return 2 months later to retrieve it. Stan has traveled to all lower 48 states since 2007, recording in most of them.

Interview this past fall with Channel 20′s Illinois Central TV
Stan developed the website, StanCourtney.com with several goals in mind. One goal was a place to share the sounds of nature, whether from birds, frogs or mammals (including Sasquatch) and also to help researchers to select recorders and microphones that hopefully fulfills their goals. The Night Sounds section includes many recordings of Barred Owls, Coyotes and Fox which commonly are mistaken for Sasquatch.

www.stancourtney.com

The Field Recorder section brings together links of forums, reviews and sound clips of various audio recorders, microphones and sound editors.

Stan emphasizes that all sounds must be compared against Reference Species to help determine their species. Only by using sound analysis can any sound be eliminated as being of a common animal.

Stan has given presentations to various groups throughout the state of Illinois and has been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows.

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Stan is prepared for any challenge when audio recording. This recording project has been on-going for 9 years now and over a 100 sound clips have been recorded of possible Sasquatch. They, as well as any new Sasquatch sounds from this spring and summer will be included in the October 2013 CD.

I am going to be a guest speaker at the Pekin Public Library this coming Thursday, April 11th, 2012.

From the Pekin Public Library website:

This Thursday

April 11th, 2013

6:30 PM

Public Invited

Pekin Public Library

301 S. 4th St.

Pekin, IL 61554

[Click for larger image]

The long awaited Illinois episode of Finding Bigfoot will air this coming Sunday evening, 24th March 2013, 10 pm Eastern.

Bigfoot the Friendly Ghost

The team travels to Illinois to meet a man who claims to have recorded bigfoot howls in his backyard. Several witnesses share their sightings of these creatures in some unusual locations, including a graveyard. 

Before the school play I will be speaking on the topic of “Bigfoot in Illinois”

This Friday

March 15th, 2013

3 PM

Public Invited

V.I.T.  Jr/Sr High School

1500 E.  US Hwy. 136

Table Grove, IL

[Click for larger image]

The long awaited scientific paper on sasquatch DNA was published today, 13 Feb 2013.

I am very excited that the blood sample that I obtained from Chatham, Illinois in September of 2011 was one of only three DNA samples nationwide in which a complete genome sequence was obtained. The blood sample came from a downspout that had been bitten into and ripped from a house in a subdivision.

The first link is to the main scientific article can be  found at:

DeNovo Scientific Journal (there is a fee involved).

http://www.denovojournal.com

This second link is to the project headquarters and contains detailed information as well as details on groups and individuals involved in this endeavor.

The Sasquatch Genome Project

https://sasquatchgenomeproject.org/

Once in awhile something very odd happens when I am recording.  This past Thursday, the 29th of November, 2012 my wife and I were awakened at 12:30 a.m. I heard my dog whining on the back deck. I first thought she had been attacked by one of the dogs that travels occasionally past our home.

[The now dry cove behind our home]

I immediately jumped up and raced for the door not knowing what the problem was. By the time I got outside my dog, Belle, had moved to the side yard and was barking towards something down by the cove, behind our house. Belle stopped and came back into the house and we all went to bed.

When I got up in the morning I listened to my nightly recordings and immediately found this dog barking. At first I was convinced that it was just a stray and I isolated the clip and put in my files for dog barks. I was going to keep it for future reference of dog sounds.

Later I started thinking about the strangeness of that night.

The barking went on for a full five minutes before Belle went outside. Belle normally spends the night going in and out and checking every couple of hours. I am just wondering if the lower tones on these barks did not awaken her as quickly as the  normal higher barks. When Belle went out onto the back deck she did not bark, she instead whined, which is odd. This whining is what woke my wife and I.

I am not saying dogmatically that this is not a stray dog barking, but because of the strangeness behind the recording it will require more sound analysis.

Recorded the 29th of November, 2012.

Click here to listen to sound clip:    Illinois Barker

Waveform view and spectral view of the Illinois Barker

There is an excellent article entitled Reference Species in this months’ issue of Bird Watchers Digest – Vol.35 No.2, November-December 2012.

The concept discussed is to learn about a common bird species in order to distinguish other non-common birds from that species. Although the author is speaking particularly about visual cues the same concept can be applied to sounds.

As a nature recordist I have always had a great interest in all animal sounds, whether birds, mammals or insects. Our world is filled with sounds and we as humans listen and sort out these sounds into what we believe they are although many times we can not see the sound maker.

Barred Owl resting in the daytime in one of our large trees in the backyard.

But how do we know these sounds? Well for one thing most species have been seen and videotaped while making these sounds. There are many bird CD collections of bird sounds and on-line collections.

How does all this relate to bigfoot / sasquatch research? It has long been suspicioned that sasquatch are accomplished mimics. The two most common animal sounds pointed to as really being sasquatch vocalizations are coyotes and Barred Owls. So my advice is to listen to as many sound files as possible of both these species. The more one becomes acquainted to the wide array of sounds that both coyotes and owls make the better one becomes at distinguishing between their vocalizations and sasquatch.

There are many good web-sites that have animal recordings or you can check out two collections that I have put together.

Barred Owls

Coyotes

Many researchers have never heard a Barred Owl scream and when presented with hearing one in the dark in the woods are convinced they have had an encounter.

Click here to listen to the sound clip of a Barred Owl scream. Barred Owl scream

Finding Bigfoot, the hit Animal Planet TV show is coming to the Alton, Illinois area.  Producers and organizers will hold an invitation-only town hall meeting during the last week of this month. Bigfoot experiences sent to the email address should include the date that it occurred and the location. If anyone has a Bigfoot experience please send your story to bigfoot.illinois@gmail.com.

Recently I was contacted to do a short interview with Illinois Central, a weekly half-hour program that airs every Saturday at 6:30p and 10:35p, and every Sunday at 10:35p on ABC Newschannel 20 and 15, Springfield and Champaign, Illinois.

Please click on link below to watch the video:

The topic of coyotes interacting with sasquatch has been talked about for a long time. It has been noted that many times coyotes while howling will be joined by another large voice, many times the coyotes immediately stop their vocals.

This recording of the Illinois Howl recorded in the spring of 2006 in Central Illinois shows a coyote howling immediately followed by a louder and deeper voice.

Illinois Howl – recorded the 12th of April 2006 in Central Illinois.

In 2009 a series of recordings were obtained over a two month period in Colorado.

Colorado Howl – Pt. 1

From Texas BFRO Investigator Sybilla Irwin we read

Second vocalization occurred ten minutes later at 10:00 PM from a location of approximately 150 to 200 yards south of our camp, across a meadow. A lone coyote began the vocals and was answered by the unknown animal, which had apparently moved within ¼ mile of our camp location. The coyote and the unknown continued to vocalize back and forth to each other as the coyote crossed the meadow moving west.  The participants seemingly met, and then everything went silent.

What is significant about Sybilla’s recordings is that she was there at the time of the recording and could tell that the animals were changing positions and coming together.

The coyotes and Colorado Howler were recorded multiple times in July and August of 2009 by Sybilla Irwin, Todd Perteet and myself.

Colorado Howl – Pt. 2

Colorado Howl – Pt. 3

So what is the meaning of this supposed meeting up of coyotes and possible sasquatch. Do they join together for a joint hunt much as modern man and his hunting dogs, or do the sasquatch bring them scraps? Until they are visually observed interacting together we won’t know for sure.

There are a couple of recent articles noting the relationship that ravens have with wolves and other large predators. Perhaps this is part of the answer.

Dinner Guests

He notes instances in his Yellowstone studies in which ravens located injured elk and called raucously, attracting the attention of a local wolf pack to an easy kill.

BirdNote  -  Ravens and Wolves

Raven researcher Bernd Heinrich writes: “Ravens associate with any animals that kill large game – polar bears, grizzlies, wolves, coyotes, killer whales, and humans. … In the Arctic, … native peoples know when the caribou arrive on their migrations, by the announcements of ravens who travel with them and feed on the kills of the wolves along the flanks of the herds.”

BirdNote. And a short 2 minute podcast from Bridnote