Audio recorded footsteps

[Tim*]

Hoping to get some opinions on my thoughts regarding audio recordings of Yowie footsteps.

Just about every piece of audio I've heard, claiming to be Yowie footsteps, sounds like a Wallaby to me?

The footsteps are fast and rhythmical, consistent with hopping. If a Yowie was investigating a camera setup, why would it be rushing in kamikaze style, rhythmically dancing? If this was the case there would be far more visual evidence found to accompany these recordings. Video, still shots, prints, disturbed ground, hair.

This doesn't seem consistent with other cautious behaviour they exhibit. These recordings are sometimes accompanied with visuals of 'peeking'. I would expect to hear slower, lighter footfalls you would associate with cautious, creeping, peeking behaviour.

I know if I'm sneaking up on someone or something, I'm channeling my inner Ninja, not flailing around like a teenager at a rave party.

So, am I missing something? or is this the audio equivalent of pareidolia?

If anyone has audio of the footfalls one might associate with creeping, I'd love to hear it.

Tim

[Rusty2]

In my situation Tim and back in the old days I alluded to the point that I believed what I was capturing was yowies on audio walking although I don't believe I ever said "thats a yowie walking " .

The truth is , this website , my own website and every other cryptid website on the planet and everything they contain is specualtion with a small amount of facts . We cannot prove the existence of yowies or yowies walking or running captured on audio .

Again In my own research I've recently been able to distinguish clearly through impact measurements and the measurement of stride lengths that what I am capturing and what others are capturing on audio is not wallabies or kangaroos .

This is all we can do . Sometimes I will walk out onto a limb and say something that I can't prove but people generally get the idea in my videos that I rarely say the word yowie . The other point is sometimes I feel I must walk out onto a limb to get the point across and if I get condemnd for that the so be it . The other thing to remember Tim is that no one is perfect , we all make mistakes and try to correct ourselves if possible .

As for the cautious behavior , what i believe is happening is that they will peek at the gear or sit back for long periods watching to see if a piece of equipment actually does anything . If a lone audio recorder has been watched and scutinised for danger and there seems to be no danger then they will just walk straight up to it especially if it's dark . They may even watch the gear for hours on end . They won't go anywhere near cameras because cameras have eye's /lenses . Audio recorders do not and this is why I believe they don't hesitate to approach them . Recent stomping and running audio I've collected during daylight hours was all done behind cover .

Below is 2 of Daves recent charts showing clearly that his "unknown" subject is anything but a wallaby or kangaroo . Just remember , we're not scientists , we're imperfect people with normal jobs and with no formal education in scientific fields so sometimes we get things wrong .

Last but not least , show me anyone that can distiguish a difference of .231 milliseconds . The measurements don't lie but still we can't prove it , you must decide for yourself , this is where belief comes in , some believe , some do not .

[Tim*]

I appreciate the reply Rusty.

Being such a speculative field, I can understand your comment on belief. Accepting something on faith has never come easily for me. I feel it's a fine line between believing and wishful thinking. The parellels with religion become apparent here. Perhaps if I'm fortunate enough to have an encounter one day it will come more easily!

How do you differentiate between a heavy subject stepping lightly and a light subject stepping heavily? Is it timing between steps and duration of the impact?

Tim

[Rusty2]

How do you differentiate between a heavy subject stepping lightly and a light subject stepping heavily? Tim

I can't . All I can do is measure the impact and stride length/height .

However , in Dave's most recent piece of running audio with what appears to be 5 separate subjects , we know that running subjects can have twice the impact of a walking subject of the same weight . So , those subjects , if they were walking past the audio recorder , they would have a much lighter impact . So I guess this goes a little way to answer your question , if it's running then we'll know it's actually much lighter than the impact we've measured , if it appears to be walking in a normal fashion then we can tell that the impacts are likely to be close to the subjects actual weight .

In the above charts you can see that the subject has a large stride length and is noticeably heavier than myself . It adds up , the subject is taller and heavier than myself .

These 2 features which we can measure accurately tell us that this is not wallaby or kangaroo behaviour . The measurements are facts but that's all we can say .

I can understand your comment on belief . Tim

You could relate it to a religious belief but as a group , we know they're out there but there are differences in our opinions , some people believe it , some people know it , some people suspect it , some people want to believe it . Without 100% proof and without any assistance from any scientists we are left to figure things out for ourselves . At some point we may sometimes step over the line to make a point in good faith .

Having said all that , there are researchers in many different fields who won't let the truth get in the way of a good story , it's up to the viewer to discern who is telling the truth and who is telling a story .

[ChrisV]

Tim* - your questions are a very healthy approach to these kinds of situations. I agree with your challenging position on what is actually being recorded .

Rusty has put forth a very accurate and logical reply - and when you way up the if's and maybes, there is something that is happening out there.

What I find interesting is that these recordings is that they co-exist with sightings or other evidence of their presence.
For eg Rusty's recordings have areas that also contain physical evidence of activity. Put the two aspects together and you can see the focus changing to something else other than regular animals that we already know.

[AgeV]

Rusty!!

[DaveR]

The 5 subjects Rusty mentioned above..

5subjectrunby5thnight

https://soundcloud.com/dave-reid-556563 ... by5thnight

[Tim*]

Rusty, thanks for the thoughtful response and for not lumping me in the too hard, sceptic basket.

It wasn't my intention to shoot anyone down. Like everyone here I'm a Yowie enthusiast looking for answers and understanding. I enjoy reading what people have to offer on the subject but it sometimes raises questions and who better to ask!

Tim

[Tim*]

That last bit should have read, 'who better to ask for answers'

Can't seem to find the edit button.

[Tim*]

The 5 subjects Rusty mentioned above..

5subjectrunby5thnight

https://soundcloud.com/dave-reid-556563 ... by5thnight

Thats interesting audio for sure Dave.

To my ear there seems to be less of a pattern or rhythm to the footfalls that I would associate with a macropod.

Another thing I've noticed with the recordings that I thought were wallabies. As the subject gets closer to the recorder, the footfalls become louder but the speed seems to taper off as they come to a stop. Picture a wallaby coming in hot and washing off speed until finally coming to rest. I can't hear that in your recording. Gets the mind racing doesn't it!

[Wolf]

Sorry, but to my ear it sounds exactly like some wallabies racing past.

[DaveR]

Sorry, but to my ear it sounds exactly like some wallabies racing past.

The thing is Wolf we are not doing it by 'ear'.

[Wolf]

Sorry, but to my ear it sounds exactly like some wallabies racing past.

The thing is Wolf we are not doing it by 'ear'.

Yeah, I know.
Thing is, I cannot see how it is possible to measure 'impact/weight' from an audio file without knowing exactly how far away said sounds were made from the recording device.

I am certainly no expert but have worked with sound many times before (radio and video production).

(Just playing devils advocate here... as I feel one must in this field of research)

[Rusty2]

Hey Wolf .

I mentioned before that I cannot measure impact weight but I can measure impacts . One of the reasons came up 4 weeks ago and that is what you mention , distance . Sounds do vary over distance . I've got a lot of home work to nut out a way to actually measure correct weights .

The fact is , animals and people have a unique signature when they walk . This is a fact , each animal has it's own unique signature because they WEIGH a certain amount . When their foot hits the ground it leaves a signature that I can measure with a program called Izotope RX .

The heavier the subject the heavier the impact the lower the frequency .

The base frequencies can be measured and as I mentioned to Tim , very few can know the difference by ear in a piece of audio from a wallaby to a kangaroo to an unknown subject .
People can't but computers can measure the difference .

I'm not making this up , these are facts . The wallabies are in their own unique frequency range as you can see in the charts . The kangaroos are also in their own unique frequency range . And I am in my own unique range because I WEIGH a certain amount .

Regardless of how far away or how close a subject is , they are leaving a measureable signature . The wallaby and kangaroo stats show it clearly .
Below is a screenshot of Izotope RX with various subjects . I didn't have time to precisely measure everything but you should be quite able to SEE the difference for yourself .

Hope this helps .......

[Wolf]

Have you got any comparison graphs of different wallabies at different paces? (Flat out, hopping along mid pace, etc)

[TrevorPeters]

Thing is, I cannot see how it is possible to measure 'impact/weight' from an audio file without knowing exactly how far away said sounds were made from the recording device.

There is no measurement of impact weight being done here.
Rusty correct me if I say anything wrong here. What Rusty noticed from spectral representations of recordings is that there appears to be a correlation between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject. To test this out he did some walk tests using his own weight. During these tests he recorded himself on video and audio walking past the recorder and analysed the results using the spectrum analysis function on his software. Then after countless hours of field work he matched and compared video to audio of wallabies and then ran them through the same process, confirming that there is a relationship between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject.

This is not a calculation - it is an estimation at best. That is because the relationship appears to be slightly non-linear but also not logarithmic either. To calculate it correctly we would need to catch and weigh the wallabies before or after recording them in various behaviours, ranges, etc. Additionally, to validate the bipedal aspect you go and round up a bunch of people of a weight range from 50kg to 200kg and do walk and run tests with them, using the subsequent data points collected to algebraically calculate a formula for the relationship between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject.
This is way beyond the resources of the average person to accomplish.

It also does not invalidate the fact of the relationship between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject since it was obtained from experimental data, nor does it prevent us using it as an estimation only. It simply has not been calculated precisely because we do not have the resources to obtain the required data points.

How far away?
While we can speculate there may be a slight variance in frequency due to distance (perhaps through Doppler shift in frequencies), it would be negligible considering we are only approximating and the distance variance is small. The primary effect relating to distance would be the amplitude of the recording decreasing with distance.

Have you got any comparison graphs of different wallabies at different paces? (Flat out, hopping along mid pace, etc)

As stated above you are asking for data that is beyond current resources to capture, meaning the different paces, and I would argue it is unnecessary. You seem to be fixated on the idea that a wallaby hopping faster is going to change the impact force and thus for our purposes here, the relationship between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject. This may be true in humans where the manner of impacting the ground changes from a walk, where one foot remains touching the ground at all times, and a run where both feet are in the air and all our weight is now impacting the ground through one foot. Rusty mentioned that in this case the impact force is double for running. This does not apply to hopping macropods like Wallabies or Kangaroos because whether they are hopping slowly or hopping fast, they still impact the ground in the same manner. As such this will have no effect on the relationship between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject.

In regards to graphs of known wallaby subjects, Rusty already posted some in the Bimberi Wilderness Project thread and linked below.

Unknown subject - frequency comparison
5 subject Conga Line - frequency comparison

Hope this helps a bit.

[Rusty2]

Been out in the scrub and busy , sorry for my late reply .

Trevor wrote
"there is a relationship between "impact frequency" and the weight of a subject."
Yes
"This is not a calculation"
Yes .
"there may be a slight variance in frequency due to distance"
Yes
"the distance variance is small."
Yes
Thank you Trevor !

Wolf , I can understand that some people will be having difficulty with this but there is a noteable difference and it's not my imagination . The data speaks for itself .
Freequency vs distance chart below with trendline showing a slight decrease in frequency over distance .

[Wolf]

I would love to run your graphs by a sound engineer to get a 'professional' opinion.
Sadly I lost any contacts in this field a couple of decades ago.

Rusty, have you spoken to any sound technicians about this concept?

(Just to ensure you aren't going down an incorrect path with all this)

[Rusty2]

have you spoken to any sound technicians about this concept?

I've sent emails to probably half a dozen scientists by no replies from anyone .

I did consider sending it to a forensic audio specialist but considering the response I've been getting I thought that I wouldn't even bother .

I'll try again though , don't hold your breathe .

[Rusty2]

I've just emailed a sound engineer , a forensic sound expert and a sound specialist .

I doubt I'll get a reply but who knows .

[Wolf]

Perhaps refrain from mentioning Yowies in any way.

Just ask for a professional opinion regarding measuring frequencies and such things of recorded footfalls to determine animal types.

[Rusty2]

Yeah , I didn't say anything ........

[Rusty2]

Our first reply

"This is a question for zoologists not engineers"

Must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed , or maybe all this is beneath his extraordinary talents ........

[TrevorPeters]

Our first reply

"This is a question for zoologists not engineers"

Must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed , or maybe all this is beneath his extraordinary talents ........

Probably just outside the scope of his field.

There are specialisations within the sound engineering field and it is probably more common to find those that have training in sound for broadcast, performance or studio sound.

What you really need is a Forensic Sound Engineer that specialises in extracting information from audio such as that recorded from surveillance or an informant wearing a wire.

A music and sound type engineer has no reason to do the sort of analysis we are talking about but a forensic specialist just might, maybe, perhaps, be interested.
A google search will turn up a few in Australia.

Otherwise this really would be in the professional field of Zoologists and maybe Primatologists who would gain funding to do a study just to test and develop any relationship such as you have noted Rusty. In doing that they may tap into the services of engineers and technicians but they would manage the study and document the findings.

[Rusty2]

That was the forensic sound expert .

[Rusty2]

Another reply

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