Yellowstone Bison Running For Their Lives - Fake ?

[bltay]

Looks like this is the original poster on YouTube. If it's fake, it's a good one.

http://<iframe width="560" height="...p4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Published on Mar 14, 2014
by Yellowstone Leo

March 14, 2014 -- This herd of Yellowstone National Park Bison dashes from Mammoth Hot Springs eastward along the roadway and deeper into the park. If the herd matriarch gets the urge to run, she will ... and the entire herd will run to keep up. Sometimes I can tell, I can feel that this running is a celebration of life -- running for the sheer joy of being able to.

In short, nothing particular was said about it except that it was a cool video made by some folks driving along the road (the reason the bison keep to the other side) and it's been co-opted for engendering panic.

I went through it several times stopping and starting over and over and yeah, in some frames, their feet are above the ground - normal for trotting animals. In many others, feet were firmly in contact with surface of ground.

See cantering horse in slo-mo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25n9Aim7NT0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFVo1VcYKDY


But, okay, it could be CGI, I just don't see any point in it. I think it's just a video of bison trotting along in a particular direction for ordinary reasons that has been used to create a scare.

I mean, look at this one:

http://<iframe width="420" height="...Fw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Thank you for that levelheaded approach, Laure, your objectivity always impresses me. I second your previous statement about paranoia.

This road is in the northeast section of the park and runs from Roosevelt Junction to the Northeast gate of the park, approximately 14 miles. Where these videos are taken is closer to Roosevelt Junction in the park interior and is not close to any park boundary. This area is called Lamar valley, and is the area where wolves were first reintroduced into the park in the mid '90's. It is also an area where bison winter because it is a low lying flat area where they can feed. These bison could be running from wolves, or they could be running because the car passes to close to them, or does something else we cannot see to spook them. They could also be running simply because they choose to run at this time, which is something bison occasionally do.

Bison in Yellowstone are acclimated to motorized vehicles. Interestingly enough, they often walk down the right hand side of the road mostly in lines as in this video. If a car comes up behind them, they have been known to cross over to the other side of the road to let the car(s) pass. They get stumped and usually come to a complete stop when they are faced with cars coming from opposite directions.

This area is not known for heavy seismic activity and is not within the Yellowstone caldera. There is no time or date that I could see on the video and that makes it impossible to match it to any known seismic activity. There are maybe 20 to 30 bison in the video, and there are over 4000 bison in Yellowstone. To say a few bison running on a road that is not near a park boundary represent an exodus of animals leaving the park is just totally irresponsible. While it is technically true the bison are moving toward the closest boundary, the car is moving toward the park's interior. Why did the photographer not turn around and follow the bison to the park boundary if he truly believed these animals were leaving the park? This is just a typical video taken by tourists as they drive by bison on the road.

As for the lack of elk in the video or area, because of the reintroduction of wolves the elk population within the Yellowstone park area has decreased dramatically. Yellowstone was over saturated with elk that were actually causing environmental damage; the wolves have caused them to scatter out over the ecosystem so fewer are viewed in the park boundaries. During the winter, those elk in the park tend to stay on higher ground for protection. The wolves hug the valleys and are unable to chase the elk on the hillsides.

The latest seismic activity is nothing unusual for Yellowstone. There is a fault line running from Norris Geyser Basin to Mammoth Hot Springs, and the latest 4+ quake occurred about 4 miles NNE of Norris Geyser Basin which would put it right along this fault line.

In addition, I am not sure animals would react to earthquakes; just as the bison are acclimated to cars in Yellowstone, they must be acclimated to the 100's of earthquakes that happen weekly in the park. Another indication is that they do not react when geysers erupt. Some of Yellowstone's geysers will shake the ground when they erupt, and yet animals nearby only react when they get sprayed with water, not when the geyser begins its eruption.

This video is attempting to stir paranoia as Laura alluded to earlier.

 

[luke wilson]

What is this feeling? I have it sometimes also... What were you feeling when you were writing the above post?

My predator's mind produced three feelings, two of which diametrically opposed, all stemming from self-importance:
shame, self-contempt vs. pride:
|for incompetence| |of humbly admitting a mistake, seeing the incompetence|

and a fear,driving the impression-management, wanting to reestablish myself as someone competent.

And what my other mind produced, concurrently:
I (oh god, which I?) think, it was an empathy based (I thought mainly of Laura, in the midst of her work for all of us, driven to dissect some video that I called fake when it didn't even matter) honest urge to apologize for the incompetence to her, and all concerned in order to prevent further distraction.

It took me a good while to write this down, and I felt insecure during that.It's what I remembered...

It this what you had in mind? Is this what you saw? What would you say, precipitated most in this post?

What would you call this yourself ?

I am very curious..You have shot me dead with this one

I personally recognized it because it is something I experience every now and again myself - maybe I was just projecting but what you wrote in response confirmed that it was similar to how I feel sometimes. I liked how you described it, as the opposition of many different things, mostly stemming from the predator's mind but also some of it stemming from a place of feeling sorry (empathy?). I also suppose another part of it from a place of temporarily seeing ones own incompetence (not saying you were incompetent!).

I don't know what value judgement you should place on the whole thing to be honest i.e. is it good or bad? A number of opposing things coming from different places!!

Added: Also, I suppose it was Laura's response that triggered the whole cascade of opposing feelings? The opening sentence "I think you are dreaming here." must have plucked a string big time? It would have for me... Was it really empathy for her or was it because what you said was so diametrically opposed to how she saw it? Then from all that follows from others responses somewhat aligning with Laura's, you see you may have been wrong but what you originally wanted was to be somewhat right?? Again, not sure about the whole thing..

 

[sacriface]

Added: Also, I suppose it was Laura's response that triggered the whole cascade of opposing feelings? The opening sentence "I think you are dreaming here." must have plucked a string big time? It would have for me...

At that point I still was 100% sure that there is something wrong with this news. And because the contrast in the video seemed off to me, I went to dissect the video itself to find support evidence for this notion, while the video was simply inconclusive, whether real or not.

After reading Laura's response I still was no less certain there is something wrong with the news, so my reaction then was more like "really? hmm" and went to watch every bit of it very closely, during that I did want to be right which is in a way natural, I think ? Trying to find the chief glitch in there but I couldn't, and then admitted it without much of inner struggle. During that exchange several conclusions regarding the news came, and were somewhat agreed upon.

Was it really empathy for her or was it because what you said was so diametrically opposed to how she saw it? Then from all that follows from others responses somewhat aligning with Laura's, you see you may have been wrong but what you originally wanted was to be somewhat right?? Again, not sure about the whole thing..

Well, I found the responses to be mixed. But after I saw that Laura went on to check up the video again I did feel guilty for causing disproportionate distraction when, as most agreed - it doesn't matter; It's the piece of information as a whole that's somewhat faulty, hence in the end the red flag had a reason, I just stuck in the wrong part. The self-importance was rather quiet until admitting the mistake and apologies (found that interesting in itself) and I analyzed it as well as I could at the time.
***
One more thing that comes to my mind about the video:The fact that it seems so convincing in this context could be also due to bison running from an elevated ground which could make one prone to automatically (unconsciously?) assume it to be the caldera's edge of the volcano.

edit.: Added: Re the value judgement, I think seeing the self importance has a value in itself if it will cause learning. And re the lesson from the overall post, it's simply 'think twice about what you're actually thinking' sort of thing. That's where I would see value, fwiw.

What do you think ?

 

[loreta]

I can see what ametist is trying to say. Apparently, sometimes the grey road(along with the light combination) can create an optical illusion that makes those bison look like they are not really stepping on the road, it feels like they are floating on an invisible layer pasted over the road(sometimes visible when the greenscreening effect doesn't look so well). But IMO the video is very real.

Me too. Seeing this video I think it looks to good, to clear, too beautiful. It looks like the bison are made by digital effects. It is just an impression.

 

[Laura]

At that point I still was 100% sure that there is something wrong with this news. And because the contrast in the video seemed off to me, I went to dissect the video itself to find support evidence for this notion, while the video was simply inconclusive, whether real or not.

After reading Laura's response I still was no less certain there is something wrong with the news, so my reaction then was more like "really? hmm" and went to watch every bit of it very closely, during that I did want to be right which is in a way natural, I think ? Trying to find the chief glitch in there but I couldn't, and then admitted it without much of inner struggle. During that exchange several conclusions regarding the news came, and were somewhat agreed upon.

Well, as far as I can see, you were correct that there was something wrong with the "news" aspect of it. It also seems reasonable to try to find out what is wrong with the "news" when you have a strong instinct that there is something wrong. So I can see the logic in going after the video itself. But that was only because you were primed to believe that the video was what the news said it was: a bunch of bison fleeing a volcano.

When I looked at it, I ignored the "priming" completely and just considered the video all by itself. It didn't look to me like any bison fleeing a volcano. That is: the words didn't match the actions. I noticed all the criticisms of the video but after watching it over and over and over again, stopping, starting (I did find a shadow of a pole, by the way, at 1:08, left side, just after the buffalo passes) looking at sky, shadows, feet, road, etc etc.; then watching a bunch of videos of trotting, cantering and galloping horses (which is mostly what you can find on youtube); I just concluded that it was a tourist type video that had been coopted. Menrva then found the original which was, in fact, a tourist-type video.

It's actually a fairly typical pattern used by disinfo types. And when I say "disinfo types" I don't necessarily mean intentional disinfo, but a type of mental operation that works because of the architecture and general functioning of our brains/minds. Humans seek patterns and meaning. We've got a paper in the psych section that discusses this. It IS better to see patterns than to NOT see them, because it is a survival heuristic. But having that automatic thing in the mind that seeks patterns needs to be balanced, when possible, by logic and reason. In a crisis situation, it can save your life, but in a world run by psychopaths where everything is confused and mixed up, you need to take some care.

So, anyway, as I said, it is a typical pattern used by disinfo types. We've pretty much cottoned on to that and that is what Ametist did: instinctively knew something was wrong; recognized the taste of the paranoia switch being pushed. But here is where we need to recognize another aspect of this pattern: the disinfo types will take what is there, what is real, and run it off the tracks.

Take the recent Malaysian plane, for example. I think most of you have seen what has happened there. The incredible conspiracies that have been constructed around that are a good example. Chris Bollyn, for example, learned that there was a "twin" of the plane in the possession of Israel so, of course, the inference to be drawn was that Israel dunnit (after all, that is true often enough!) and this twin in a hangar is the evidence of a planned 9-11 type event. However, as Joe pointed out in his article about it, there are at least 14 other "twins" of this plane that are here and there around the planet, decommissioned, and often purchased for spare parts (it was a popular model). So Israel having one of 14 doesn't look so important anymore. There are other arguments against that scenario that I won't go into here, the point is mainly that we see there the same "ooops! something wrong with this picture!" and then leaping to convoluted conclusions and pushing the panic button.

Coming back to our video: okay, somebody is pushing the panic button with a video, but what always comes to my mind in such cases is something my grandmother always said: "believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see." Turn off the words that people are saying and just LOOK without prejudice. Still, believing only half of what I was seeing, I thought I should make some comparisons which was why I went looking for other videos to compare shadows, trotting, etc. When I saw that humongous herd of bison in another video, the light went on: this was not a bunch of panicked bison, they were just trotting along going somewhere the same way a bunch of cows or horses will all turn toward the barn and start trotting home at dinner time. And since I've seen that phenomenon in real life enough times, I realized that the bison were acting similarly and it certainly wasn't the vast hordes of bison that actually live at Yellowstone!

The next issue was: okay, if these are just trotting bison going for a jaunt somewhere, WHY would anyone take the time or trouble to fake such a video? I mean, that would be a lot of work. I spent time looking for the fakiness and didn't find it. If somebody wanted to really produce a video of fleeing critters they could have made better use of the other video where the bison really were acting panicked and crossing the river in droves.

So, none of it made any sense EXCEPT that it was just a touristic video that was being used to make claims designed to push the panic button.

And that's not to say that I don't get taken in by stuff often enough! But usually, if I suspect a video of being just "too good to be true", I bring it here and let some of the experts look at it. In some cases, they convince me, in others, they do not because I still heed my instincts. Sometimes it is only way later that the reason for my instinctive "pattern recognition" i.e. that something is off, becomes evident. And sometimes it has nothing to do with the object in question, but the source or some other element that doesn't "fit."

So, Ametist has good instincts; we just need to take time with things if at all possible.

 

[bltay]

Here are some pictures of a (badly burned) bison being chased by a grizzly bear. Notice that when caught at the right time by still photographs while running, both appear to be floating above the road.

_http://gearchase.com/blog/index.php/buffalo-chased-by-grizzly-bear-14-epic-photos/

 

[sacriface]

So I can see the logic in going after the video itself. But that was only because you were primed to believe that the video was what the news said it was: a bunch of bison fleeing a volcano.

And that exactly hits the nail on the head.

something my grandmother always said: "believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see." Turn off the words that people are saying and just LOOK without prejudice.
[...]
we just need to take time with things if at all possible.

The moral of this story(ie.topic), I think.
And a great set of analysis and comparisons to take home,
thank you for taking your time to expand on that, Laura.

Here are some pictures of a (badly burned) bison being chased by a grizzly bear. Notice that when caught at the right time by still photographs while running, both appear to be floating above the road.
_http://gearchase.com/blog/index.php/buffalo-chased-by-grizzly-bear-14-epic-photos/

These are absolutely terrifyng, bltay!
Thank you for the link, although I'd say the video authenticity case is settled firmly at this point. ;)

 

[Laura]

I'd say the video authenticity case is settled firmly at this point. ;)

And we know the source that started that nonsense is disinfo too because we see what they did with a generally ordinary video.

And that's not to say that something isn't up at Yellowstone, either. But as was pointed out above, the critters there are used to the ground shaking so it MIGHT have to be something really "off" for them to head for the hills/lowlands/whatever. And it might be something altogether different than shaking ground that would trigger them, like sensing some serious EM disturbance or something like that. So yeah, I do think we should keep our eyes peeled on stuff. We may be in a period of unzipping fault lines and that can lead to a lot of adjacent rocking and rolling. But we also need to keep our cool.

 

[sacriface]

Indeed, Yellowstone is on the "move", worthy paying attention.

Search results for "Yellowstone" on Sott.net yield several "unprecedented" events and processes (quake swarms, swelling):

http://www.sott.net/article/223601-Huge-volcano-under-Yellowstone-Park-rising#searching

So the bogus news now can as well have an opposite effect to "panic button", equally divorced from reality. Baby out with the bathwater.

We may be in a period of unzipping fault lines and that can lead to a lot of adjacent rocking and rolling. But we also need to keep our cool.

The Ring of Fire also seems to be experiencing a kind of "quake swarm" recently, with the peaking 8.2 in Chile.

Let's unzip the BBM and see what's in there!

added: Right on that note:
"The crust is moving, be prepared"
http://www.sott.net/article/276538-The-crust-is-moving-be-prepared

 

[luke wilson]

Indeed, Yellowstone is on the "move", worthy paying attention.

Search results for "Yellowstone" on Sott.net yield several "unprecedented" events and processes (quake swarms, swelling):

http://www.sott.net/article/223601-Huge-volcano-under-Yellowstone-Park-rising#searching

So the bogus news now can as well have an opposite effect to "panic button", equally divorced from reality. Baby out with the bathwater.

We may be in a period of unzipping fault lines and that can lead to a lot of adjacent rocking and rolling. But we also need to keep our cool.

The Ring of Fire also seems to be experiencing a kind of "quake swarm" recently, with the peaking 8.2 in Chile.

Let's unzip the BBM and see what's in there!

added: Right on that note:
"The crust is moving, be prepared"
http://www.sott.net/article/276538-The-crust-is-moving-be-prepared

So things have been interesting the last couple of days. Add the ebola outbreak

_http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/01/297884573/why-is-guineas-ebola-outbreak-so-unusual - apparently it's unusual because it is popping up in many areas of the country but they have said this is due to ease of travelling.. my question is, when ebola outbreaks happened in the past, did people not travel within those affected countries?

Doctors Without Borders has called the current outbreak of the Ebola virus in Guinea "unprecedented" — not because of the number of victims (so far at least 78 have died) but because the disease has traveled to various parts of the country. The widespread infection (which includes the capital city of Conakry) is at least unusual, the World Health Organization agrees, and presents more challenges than usual to the medical team seeking to contain the virus.

Sterk believes the infection may have spread more than usual because it's easy for people to travel from place to place in Guinea, including from the southern part of the country (where the first cases were reported) to the capital.

Reading through this, _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks previous outbreaks have been localized to certain villages in the countries affected.

Like for example, Uganda is a fairly developed country in africa where the population can move quite freely up and down, but reading through the description below, only a certain region was affected...

2007–2008 Dec–Jan Uganda Bundibugyo ebolavirus 149 37 25% Outbreak occurred in Bundibugyo District in western Uganda. First reported occurrence of a new strain.

So maybe something to look into some more...

The UK is also on alert as a precautionary measure

_http://sandrarose.com/2014/04/british-hospitals-on-alert-over-worst-ebola-outbreak-in-7-years/

Another thing to add to the mix for the last couple of days is JP Morgan's move on Russia which was rather interesting...

 

[bltay]

These are absolutely terrifyng, bltay!
Thank you for the link, although I'd say the video authenticity case is settled firmly at this point. ;)

Sorry, I did not mean to be terrifying. I guess I've grown accustomed to natural wilderness and forget it can seem harsh to those who do not see it often. Also my writing tends to be very blunt, so if I cross the line with these topics let me know. :D

 

[sacriface]

So on the top of Yellowstone there's Ring of Fire roaring to life on it's quieter side, Russia/NATO developments, and an Ebola outbreak which so far seems to only grow.

The "April Drop Dead Month" prognosticated to be a "cosmic can of worms" by the astrologers seems to make sense as we move into it. Though windows of opportunity are supposedly part of the set. Let's wait and see..

Sorry, I did not mean to be terrifying. I guess I've grown accustomed to natural wilderness and forget it can seem harsh to those who do not see it often. Also my writing tends to be very blunt, so if I cross the line with these topics let me know. :D

Well, I can speak for myself here only, but it's not like I fled in terror and regretted clicking the link. It is equally amazing, as terrifying.
Harsh indeed, but that's Nature - which is God.

Reminds of what Laura alluded to recently in another thread, an excerpt from the Wave which corresponds to issues at hand in the broadest way:

This is nature. This is God. And God has two faces: Good and Evil. We can love them both, but we can choose which face we manifest, while always loving unconditionally both faces.

This state of the world is masterfully depicted in Tennessee Williams’ play Suddenly Last Summer where Mrs. Venable says:

We saw the Encantadas, but on the Encantadas we saw something Melville hadn’t written about. We saw the great sea turtles crawl up out of the sea for their annual egg-laying… Once a year the female of the sea turtle crawls up out of the equatorial sea onto the blazing sand-beach of a volcanic island to dig a pit in the sand and deposit her eggs there. It’s a long and dreadful thing, the depositing of the eggs in the sandpits, and when it’s finished the exhausted female turtle crawls back to the sea half-dead. She never sees her offspring, but we did. Sebastian knew exactly when the sea-turtle eggs would be hatched out and we returned in time for it…

Terrible. Encantadas, those heaps of extinct volcanoes, in time to witness the hatching of the sea turtles and their desperate flight to the sea! The narrow beach, the color of caviar, was all in motion! But the sky was in motion too… Full of flesh-eating birds and the noise of the birds, the horrible savage cries of the — carnivorous birds… Over the narrow black beach of the Encantadas as the just hatched sea-turtles scrambled out of the sandpits and started their race to the sea… to escape the flesh-eating birds that made the sky almost as black as the beach!

And the sand all alive, all alive, as the hatched sea turtles made their dash for the sea, while the birds hovered and swooped to attack and hovered and swooped to attack! They were diving down on the hatched sea-turtles, turning them over to expose their soft undersides, tearing the undersides open and rending and eating their flesh. Sebastian guessed that possibly only a hundredth of one per cent of their number would escape to the sea…

My son was looking for God, I mean for a clear image of him. He spent that whole blazing equatorial day in the crow’s nest of the schooner watching this thing on the beach till it was too dark to see it, and when he came down the rigging he said “Well, now I’ve seen Him!” and he meant God. And for several weeks after that he had a fever, he was delirious with it.

It came to my mind right away after seeing the burnt buffalo chased by a bear. Thought it might be worth a read in this particular context..

 

[bltay]

The National Park Service just released their estimated bison population for Yellowstone Park for 1914. An estimate of 4900 bison is the highest since 2005 when 5000 bison were counted. If the bison were rushing to leave Yellowstone in April, it seems they changed their mind and rushed back in.

_http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/14056.htm

 

[Palinurus]

The National Park Service just released their estimated bison population for Yellowstone Park for 1914. An estimate of 4900 bison is the highest since 2005 when 5000 bison were counted. If the bison were rushing to leave Yellowstone in April, it seems they changed their mind and rushed back in.

_http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/14056.htm

That's a glaring typo if there ever was one. The referenced article speaks of an estimate for 2014. :P

 

[bltay]

The National Park Service just released their estimated bison population for Yellowstone Park for 1914. An estimate of 4900 bison is the highest since 2005 when 5000 bison were counted. If the bison were rushing to leave Yellowstone in April, it seems they changed their mind and rushed back in.

_http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/14056.htm

That's a glaring typo if there ever was one. The referenced article speaks of an estimate for 2014. :P

You're right. My apologies, I intended 2014. Thanks for pointing that out Palinurus.