Strange Tracks At Nebraska Golf Course

originally posted by: rickymouse
I'd guess they were tracks from a very sleepy bear

Image from article...


There is no center straddle and it is from a bipedal animal. This is as far from a bear as an airplane is from a car.

Bear track pattern...

I've seen prints where the hard surface of the snow fractures in front of the toe and makes the print look like it has claws. I'm wondering if this is just a melted out boot track. The other prints in the image don't appear to have such defined claws and this might just be the scariest looking print that they found.

I went digging online to see if there was anything else on the tracks on other webpages. It looks like a few other places have picked up the story, but it is the same information being presented in the original article I posted. There was not a lot of snow on the ground and it melted relatively quickly which could have aided in the usual look of the tracks. As far as wild animals in the area, there isn't much. Deer, coyote, maybe a mountain lion (very rare) and rumors but no proof of a black bear.

a reply to: warpig69

And the stide is far to long for mountain lion and bear.

a reply to: seabhac-rua

That's about the only rational explanation. The article mentions a neighbor who keeps emus but birds have 3 toes forward and 1 back (owls are 2 x2). My first thought was an ordinary animal making tracks where the snow had repeatedly melted making the tracks larger with each melting then refreezing at night. I've seen tracks double in size due to that but nothing like this.

The distance between tracks is quite far, about right for a running human. It was obviously bipedal so our only logical deduction would be a person wearing strange footgear. If not, I'm not sure I'd want to meet this thing. I've seen LOTS of tracks but never anything quite like this. Finally a track story that doesn't have a ridiculously simple explanation!

a reply to: CraftBuilder

I'm not distinctively seeing any prints for the left foot. I see the obvious human footprints but not anything that looks like the mystery tracks. Also, only the first print looks really like a foot to me. I can't really see the toes like I can on the first print. I thought perhaps it's just where the snow has melted, but I would think that the snow would be melted in more than just those three spots.

Well....from that last pic, it looks like someone was walking on the left of the "odd prints". Could it not be that someone was walking the course and had a bag or even a golf bag or something they were toting and happened to set it down on their right side where we see the printing?

I mean, what were the people who were taking this walk doing there if it is in the middle of nowhere?

Maybe someone looking for golfballs and had a bag with them and set it down where the prints are when they picked up another one and put it in the bag? I know I used to do this in the woods and the lakes at a course near my old house for range balls....

My thought is this is not a foot print at all, but something that someone walking in that area had with them and set down at intervals for one reason or another.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Sounds plausible to me. Would explain why I don't see the same prints on the left, where the regular human footprints are clearly visible.

a reply to: CraftBuilder

There are a trail of footprints that run parallel to the bigfoot tracks already, for all we know she could have done this herself. Why is one step like 5 or 6 feet then the next is like 2 or 3? I'm not sure I totally believe this picture.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: CraftBuilder

There are a trail of footprints that run parallel to the bigfoot tracks already, for all we know she could have done this herself. Why is one step like 5 or 6 feet then the next is like 2 or 3? I'm not sure I totally believe this picture.

Hard to say if there are any human tracks mixed in with all of that.

a reply to: CraftBuilder
Wait, you see a bigfoot print in the ones to the right, but can't see the human prints on the left? Really..?

The human prints are pretty clear.

originally posted by: Havox
a reply to: CraftBuilder
Wait, you see a bigfoot print in the ones to the right, but can't see the human prints on the left? Really..?

The human prints are pretty clear.

Where did I give the impression that I thought they were bigfoot prints?? I think they are faked or melted out boot tracks.

I see some depressions on the left that could correlate with human foot prints, but with all of the other tracks/divots overlayed there it is pure speculation.

The scaling/cratering on the surface of all of the snow shows a series of melt-related features that make it almost impossible to say that these tracks are anything but somewhat large and far apart. They could easily be human or something else.

What I am trying to figure out is how the biologist she spoke with came up with jackrabbit as a possibility. He should be fired from biology.

a reply to: CraftBuilder

Ah, alright. I don't think they're faked, probably melted tracks or something along the lines of what Vasa suggested. Perhaps it's just a spot where something had been sat by someone, leaving imprints.

I can clearly see the human prints though, and was just surprised you didn't see them but saw something in the mystery prints.

originally posted by: Halfswede
The scaling/cratering on the surface of all of the snow shows a series of melt-related features that make it almost impossible to say that these tracks are anything but somewhat large and far apart. They could easily be human or something else.

What I am trying to figure out is how the biologist she spoke with came up with jackrabbit as a possibility. He should be fired from biology.

Biologists are not typically trained in wildlife tracking. I know what they were thinking though. When a full rotation of hare tracks melts out it can look like a single large print. There is often a long lope between each rotation.

Hare single rotation...

Actually, looking at this a bit longer, I would say it was that lady walking with her dog, and every so often having the dog sit down. Looks like where a dog sat and it melted out, and likely the other prints from it walking just melted out to divots as seen in the pic.

From the viewpoint of the dog being on her left in that last pic and walking towards the camera is how I am seeing it. She walked a couple steps and stopped, the dog sat down, walked a few more and stopped and the dog sat down, etc....

a reply to: Vasa Croe

You might be on to something there. Her own dog may have made the tracks by sitting down. That might explain the weird amount of space in between each imprint.

a reply to: CraftBuilder

you may be onto something.

a reply to: CraftBuilder

Those almost look like the tracks of a large snowshoe hare in that picture. I have seen them blended together like that while hunting many times. That does not have to be a biped that made those.

a reply to: rickymouse

Agree. I think in spite of my original comment, that a hare of some sort is the likely suspect after seeing Craftbuilder's photo and doing some searching. With the pockmarked melt features everywhere, it could easily blend to that shape. Additionally hare behavior supports the story that the tracks came out of the brush/trees and then went back in.