Sometimes, when we start working a claim or case, we get to a dead end for various reasons.
This does not necessarily mean the person was untruthful or trying to pull a fast one. We have had people attempt to hoax us and I guess that is just part of the field.

Often times, we get sent photos or someone will send in a report and they are looking or asking for help with their mystery. In some cases we are able to help. Take for instants some recent photos sent to us by Nancy. Nancy, has some large birds on her property and they are causing some damage and attacking some of the critters. Of course, knowing Iowa has some history of Thunderbird sightings and that these birds on Nancy's property were large, we had hopes that maybe, just maybe it was Thunderbirds.

Here is one of Nancy's Photos

One of a few photos that Nancy sent us.

Team member Leon Drew, talked with Nancy on the phone and got more details about the birds and property. We were then thinking these birds could be vultures, and even Nancy thought they could be, but vultures normally do not attack living critters. But buzzard on the other hand, also called chicken hawks, do attack critters, and they are pretty large, so these large birds on Nancy's property could be buzzards. There was also a fairly recent report of a condor being seen in Iowa. Plus the picture quality was not that great due to how it was taken, which couldn't be helped, and we really can't identify the birds for sure until a better photo is taken.

Nancy's neighbor also had a mystery. He had this odd looking round things with a hole in them, laying on the ground. This photo was sent in.

I will admit, it is a weird looking thing. I didn't know what it was ....but I did find out.
I did some searching on the internet and found out this is the fruit of a Osage orange tree. The fruit is edible but it has a unpleasant taste. It is also called a horse apple. It is said that the fruit is a natural insect repellant. I found some good information and my info at 2 dope sistahs blog.

Of course this is only a couple of examples but other times we run down leads and they just don't pan out or the evidence is just not there to support the claim. Then on other cases we reach an end and just need to wait for another clue to keep going.

I have had several cases where someone would send me photos and claimed Bigfoot was standing in the background but it was nothing more than a shadow or just cases of pareidolia. We still have to check this stuff out and understand it is just part of the field. Often times, these types of reports are not posted. 

Not too long ago, we had someone trying to pull a fast one on us. It was a story about a Gorilla photo from the United Kingdom. We were able to filter out this story and expose it as a fake. The person who sent it in may have been taken in as well. I do wish other websites would attempt to filter some of their stories, as some of them will publish anything to get a few clicks. Oh well, what can you do.

I just thought I'd share a few of the cases, where it just didn't pan out. The cases are fun to work, even if they don't pan out sometimes or we get stuck and have to wait on the next clue. Thanks goes to Nancy for sharing her photos and stories with us. Thanks also goes to Leon Drew for his help.

Thanks
~Tom~       



This post by Thomas Marcum, Thomas is the founder/leader of the cryptozoology and paranormal research organization known as The Crypto Crew. Over 20 years experience with research and investigation of unexplained activity, working with video and websites. A trained wild land firefighter and a published photographer, and poet.



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Get to know your brain

This Post By TCC Team Member Dorraine Fisher. Dorraine is a Professional Writer, a nature, wildlife and Bigfoot enthusiast who has written for many magazines. Dorraine conducts research, special interviews and more for The Crypto Crew. Get Dorraine's book The Book Of Blackthorne! 

2. Slow motion perception is something we’ve all experienced at one time or another. It’s that strange feeling during a traumatic event that time is moving slower than regular time. No one really knows for sure what causes this phenomenon, but it is believed that, in an attempt of the brain to sort out what’s happening, it slows it down to a speed it can handle to break it all down, giving us the illusion of the event happening in slow motion. Though anyone else observing the event would see it in real time. It is believed that the more energy expended by neurons to process the event, the longer the time span will seem to the person experiencing it.

This can seriously distort our idea of how much time lapsed during a paranormal encounter. Since you’re the one that had the experience, it seemed much longer to you, when it may have only been a few seconds.


3. False memories are a real problem in cases of traumatic events. Our brains don’t like things to be incomplete. So if we don’t recall certain details of an event, our brain will attempt to create details to fill in the gaps. We’re not always geared to do this, but it’s important to write down all the details of the event right after it happens in order to keep things straight. And even then, you might find the details are a little sketchy. And the worse thing about false memories is that someone can actually create them for you through the power of suggestion. If someone would show you a photoshopped picture of yourself at Woodstock, your brain will actually create a memory of the event, even though you were never there. You’ll come to believe it even though it never happened. The ultimate mind____. Try not to fall into this trap.


4. Change blindness is a simple phenomenon but can profoundly affect what we see… or don’t see. The ability to detect change is a basic but very important function in our daily life. But if we’re focused on something, like something traumatic or scary, we’re likely to miss other important details of the scene; other changes that may be taking place in the background. Sometimes very important details. But scientists theorize that in order for our brains to process an event effectively, it must be able to focus on the central event itself. So it will allow the focus to simplify itself on what has our attention at the time. And other details will begin to blur. This is helpful in certain situations where we need to focus on one thing, but very difficult in a case of mayhem where we need to process more than one thing at a time. It appears that our brains weren’t quite designed for this, and we find chaotic scenes very overwhelming. We simply can’t process it all. The only change we can detect in the background is when something moves and diverts our attention. If nothing moves, our focus stays on the main event. And we can miss a lot of details when this happens.

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Bigfoot is that you?

This Post By TCC Team Member Dorraine Fisher. Dorraine is a Professional Writer, a nature, wildlife and Bigfoot enthusiast who has written for many magazines. Dorraine conducts research, special interviews and more for The Crypto Crew. Get Dorraine's book The Book Of Blackthorne! 

The Real Purpose of Pareidolia?

By Dorraine Fisher

Pareidolia, to those familiar with it, has become kind of a bad word in the bigfoot world. It’s often described as the illusion or misperception of seeing faces in just about anything. Clouds, food, smoke, rocks. It doesn’t matter. And it’s one of the major factors the helps keep heated arguments going in bigfoot discussions in the analysis of supposed bigfoot photographs. And how many items have turned up on Ebay because they appeared to have the face of some significant or famous person? It seems it’s really easy for humans to see faces in everything, and bigfoot photographs often set off the pareidolia smoke detectors. Simply show some people a photograph of a supposed bigfoot, and they’ll often see ten more primate faces in the same photo.

Mental health professionals still use the old Rorschach inkblot test to determine the psychological state of an individual. It can be a valuable tool in analyzing the personal perceptions of patients. So if we experience pareidolia and we see a dozen sasquatches in a forest photo, does that mean we’re bordering on crazy?

Probably not.

There’s always a reason for our little idiosyncrasies…no matter how annoying they can be. Usually if all humans possess a certain trait, like pareidolia, you can bet it was adapted as some kind of survival mechanism that helped keep our tree swinging, cave dwelling ancestors alive. And in modern life, when human survival is redefined and it becomes a nuisance, we’ll just call it an illusion or an irritation. But is that really accurate?

Many scientists are now embracing a theory introduced by Carl Sagan. He believed that pareidolia evolved in us as a survival tool; the ability to readily distinguish friend from foe.

Of course, it had to be necessary. When they talk of it this way, it seems like a very basic, fundamental life skill. In the daily life of our forest dwelling ancestors, it was necessary to be able to recognize our parents, siblings, and other significant others in the dense foliage of the forest. Or anywhere else, for that matter. In order to hide or make our escape, we needed to be able to recognize our clan member’s or enemy’s faces very quickly. We needed to be able to always see faces no matter what, so we could either run away from them or run to them for safety.

We all unconsciously look for faces when we feel unsafe or anxious. But why then, do we see so many faces in everything? Too many faces?

Well, it could possibly be that in the course of our evolution, Mother Nature felt it was better for us to be designed to see far too many faces everywhere rather than to see none at all.

But does that mean those faces we or they see really don’t exist after all?

Not really. But it doesn’t mean they definitely do either. We should always try to be objective.

And maybe we’ll never know for sure, but maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on those who experience pareidolia. They may have an insight we don’t have. We’ve all experienced it at one time or another and it can be a great tool. And it’s one good example of where weird is actually normal. How often do we find living proof of that? ********DF

　

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A photo from the mast camera on NASA’s Curiosity rover is causing a little bit of a stir. There appears to be a rat in the photo.
Here is the photo

rat is on the left

Of course this is being explained away as pareidolia, but is it really? You remember how all UFO sightings were explained as Swamp Gas or ball lighting? Well I think Pareidolia is being very over used to explain away things.

Well I decided to have some fun with this Mars photo and here is my efforts.

I colored the rat in ...looks like a rat don't it?

Here is a blow up of the rat

Rat or not this is getting some press. To me it looks like a rat but I may be suffering from pareidolia....wish they made a pill for it. lol

This "Rat" was discovered by Scott C Waring according to Fox News.

Thanks
~Tom~

[Source: Fox News]

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