Frequently Asked Questions

How do I join?

Apply to your nearest active chapter. Corresponding membership needs nothing but the dues. Field membership needs the methods orientation, the safety module and two supervised sessions. It is all set out on the membership page.

Are there dues?

$24 corresponding, $42 field, nothing for students and archive volunteers. It goes on storage, sleeves, postage and printing. Nobody is paid.

Do you work with the police, or animal control, or the game commission?

Where a report touches public safety, trespass, injured wildlife, a missing person or a road hazard, we will hand over records or point the reporting party at the right office. That is the whole of it. None of those agencies has ever accepted one of our classifications and we have never asked one to.

How do you verify a report?

We do not have a "verified" stamp and we are not going to introduce one. Files are reviewed for witness independence, timing, site conditions, whether the original media survived, what the ordinary explanations are, whether anything repeated, and whether the account holds together. A well-documented report can stay unresolved forever, and plenty have.

Do members have badges or authority?

No. None. A Council card confirms that somebody has paid their dues.

What happens to material I send in?

Digital originals are kept unaltered wherever we can manage it. Physical material is logged, packaged and given a custody record.

We cannot promise to give anything back unless you arrange it in writing before you send it, and I would encourage anybody thinking of posting us an irreplaceable family photograph to send a scan instead. Public release needs separate permission wherever a witness or a private address is involved.

What does one look like?

We do not publish a composite description and we will not be persuaded to. Witness estimates vary enormously, most observations are brief or obstructed, and the moment a standard picture goes into circulation every subsequent witness has seen it before they see anything else. That is not a hypothetical; it is what happened to the Wilkes-Barre file in 1983.

Comparison is done instead on independently reported movement, eyeshine and vocalisation, together with where and when. See Identification.

Why use the name at all, if nobody knows where it came from?

Because it is what the files are indexed under and has been since before anyone now living joined. It implies nothing. See Etymology, and set aside an afternoon.

Can I come along on an active investigation?

No. Active files involve private property, witnesses who have not agreed to meet anybody, and perfectly ordinary hazards like unlit roads and steep creek banks. Qualified members attend when a chapter lead assigns them and not otherwise.

Can I bait it, call it, trap it, or follow it?

No, no, no, and absolutely not.

Does the RCABF agree with your conclusions?

Rarely. Separate databases, different intake standards, limited exchange under case-by-case terms. Their page is here.