Nothing to report? That's hard to believe.....

One of the things that I question when it comes to field research is coming home with no news. No data. Nothing. This is really quite a shame because even on the most uneventful outing, hoards of information can still be collected.

 Have you ever come across a professional “researcher” or “scientist” who came and went without taking any notes, samples or making a phone call relating to what they were doing in the field?  It never happens. Habitual processes kick in and even if you don’t sit there with a pen and paper that crazy little thing called a “memory” starts taking notes for you.

 Hang on a second here – people who make trips into the field and say “nothing to report”, no sightings, nothing of relevance……”

 Are you implying that just because you did not have a Bigfoot encounter that you were unsuccessful, therefore you have nothing to report? Perhaps it was just another “uneventful field trip”?

Ok, great. Thanks for sharing that. By the way, what was the ambient air temperature during your trip? What was the dew point? Were there any prevailing winds? Cloudy? Clear? Ambient noise such as a construction crew that echoed down the lake? Drunken partiers at a fire pit yelling obscenities all through the night? How about the water temperature at the local lake? Were flowers and berry bushes in bloom? Unusual odors in the area?

 I guess you get the point. Even with no “perceivable” Bigfoot activity, many other factors are still prevalent. It adds to research, theory and potentially a better way to understand what might be living on our planet with us.

 A creepy yet sobering close to this – As elusive as Bigfoot seems to be, the whole time you were in the field looking for “It”, “It” could have been there the looking right at you. Observing you. Learning from you.

 If that was the case…. sure, you could say you came home empty handed – but in one respect, you were a teacher. You just taught it once again how to be even more elusive.