I did this while running from 2 would-be rapists when I was 16. I escaped their truck, and they were enraged!
They shone their light right at where I was crouched and never saw me. I was able to creep back out to the road to town, but leapt back into the trees every time I heard an engine.
That was a long and scary night!
I'm so glad you made it.
It worked for me, too, twice. The first time was running from the cops, I tripped and fell behind a log and they ran right past me with their flashlights. The second time was worse -- one night a car load of guys passed me with my boyfriend and male roommate, screeched to a halt and said "let's get her!" We ran and again I tripped and they ran past me after the boys, and I quickly rolled behind a hedge. They came back and I saw their feet pass right next to me as one said, "Where is she?!" I didn't move for ages, then finally ran through people's yards and down a back alley, back to the party we'd been at. I don't want to think about what would've happened if they'd found me. Super scary memory.
I've also hidden in people's back yards twice when being followed home, once by a guy on foot, and once by a guy in a car, who screeched up and down the street looking for me, then came back one more time driving really slowly. I remember hiding behind the house, hearing the sound of the engine as he crawled past. It was like a horror movie.
But yeah, hiding works.
Any college town. This behavior was more common than you’d think before cell phones. I was followed by cars or men on foot a few times during undergrad and grad school, walking home at night. As a now older woman looking back on it, it was really frightening. Today the phones and cameras are making this more difficult. Good cameras!
Holy moly so glad you're safe! Can't imagine what the world was like hundreds or thousands of years ago, if those things are happening just a few years/decades back :(
Honestly I do wish we had more appreciation of how far we’ve come just recently. Technology has been a massive step forward in personal safety - but only if police services are responsive. That part is critical and often missing in large cities.
I recently read a story here on Reddit placed in 1979, of 2 men kidnapping women . I don’t want to go into details and bring back your trauma or what ifs . Your quick thinking and will to survive is something you should be proud of . I’m happy you got away .
This is a very real tactic. Hide and seek in the Florida swamps in the 90s was basically Predator the movie, but with us children playing the roles when we couldn't be inside playing AVP Gold Edition.
In college I went on a paintball war with a bunch of my friends. My GF was in ROTC, so I borrowed her camo gear (she was my height) and even the face paint. Everybody laughed to me … until the game started. People could walk right up to me … it was like I was invisible. At one point two guys saw me moving and chased me. I just plopped down in the leaves. The two guys walked until they were inches from my feet saying “maybe he went *that* way?” I raised my gun and blasted them both point-blank.
The restaurant I worked at years ago used to have semi-annual paintball outings on a farm belonging to one of the cooks. I’ve been in the Army for years, and did the same thing as you. Eventually the game turned from team v team to just everyone try to get me!
I saw a news report where a reporter was standing on the edge of the woods and talking about camo, and she said “right guys?” And *everything* started moving, and you realized there were 20-30 guys in frame, totally invisible. Some had gillie suits, branches tucked in their clothes …
You don’t need to blend in, just break up your outline and the contours that give you a human form.
A gray and black tabby cat lying in green grass is surprisingly hard to spot. They gave natural camo
Human brains are kinda amazing at processing what we see, we associate shapes like faces as well as the chevron formed by human arms/legs really easily, we also are really good at spotting perfect lines or circles. Our brains have even adapted to add guns to that list of things over the past 500ish years of gunpowder conflicts
Once you know how we are programmed and break those common shapes you become nearly invisible
People think camouflage that its not a full on guillie suit useless, because they don't realize what it truly does , the dark and light tones play with shadows in a way that they hide your shape, while face paint (or any face covering) will break what we know as a human face
Also just wearing a poncho or cloak will make you not look like a human and it might be just enough for someone to glance over you without processing you as a human
Even just being darker on top than on the bottom (countershading) serves to break up your outline very well. This is why most animals have lighter coloured bellies than backs. Because light comes from above, the underparts of animals tend to be shaded compared to the upper parts, which in turn makes them look 3-dimensional. Countershading cancels this out, making the animal look the same shade all over and therefore more 2-dimensional.
Yes for the most part, counter shading is far more noteable on marine creatures where they can be seem from above and below, but many animals have whiter bellies as camouflage, to counteract shadows, like you said.
The main issue with countershading on humans is that we are very vertical tho, and we have a lot of range of movement so the bottom of our arms won't be on the bottom often, and we can also crawl or lay on our backs/sides. So regular camouflage tends to be more efficient cause it is designed to be position and angle agnostic
But mixing colours can help! Running two contrasting colours might lead the brain into seeing two halves of a person instead of one whole body, and can help mix with stuff like wood, dirt, dry grass on the ground and leaves on top
Oh yeah I wasn't suggesting it was useful for human camouflage, more just backing up your point that a little change in lighting can make a huge difference! I'm thinking of things like deer and antelopes
One time my cousins and I were playing hide and seek/manhunt at night. No leaving the property, maybe half acre. The back door had a security light coming off it, bright as a flood light. Straight off from there and to the right about twenty feet was a corner where an addition was built so while it was still fairly bright in the area it was cast the corner in pale shadow. House was painted a pale yellow at this time. I was wearing a baby blue crochet poncho, the pattern with the big wide holes, backed right into the corner half crouched and staring out. A cousin came along the path, paused and looked me dead in the eyes for five long seconds... and kept walking. To this day I don't know if he was just messing with me or if the light, shadow, poncho combo did it. Pretty cool overall.
This is also a mechanism we use in combat sports. Under stress, you tend to be watching shapes and movements. Things like not flaring your elbows on straight punches and changing your silhouette can give an extra split second on your opponent's response time that is the difference between landing and missing.
Eventually your body will heat the mud up though.
However it will take the shine off your skin. Bare skin is actually quite reflective and if a torch is shone on it is quite obvious. Mud will stop the reflection and break up the shape of your face making it less regular and more like the irregular shapes you find in a forest. It's why the military wear face paint.
This applies even if you have a darker complexion. It's still shiny. It's just a darker mirror when a light hits it.
Also, using stripes or something can go a long way to breaking up the shape of your face. Further down the rabbit hole, people try to change the apparent depth of facial features by using lighter and darker colors. But, you can't always do that with what you have.
Yes, stay where you are so we can apprehend you without a chase. We may not be able to spot you with NV, but our eye in the sky equipped with FLIR will guide us right to you. 😆
In this post I’m more talking about running away from a psycho chasing you. But yeah. Hiding from a helicopter is pretty hard but so is running from one
This is a good topic in this age of psychos. Hiding in general is good advice but an older guy who spent time in the Army Rangers once told me that when you hide you never want to lose sight of your pursuer. If you can see him, you can adjust your movements, and stay clear of him. He also told me something that was counterintuitive. Try to double back to where you came from, (obviously from a distance). People never think to look where they just came from. With any luck he’ll keep looking in the opposite direction and that will allow you time to get to safety
Height change is huge. I used to mess with people at work and turn a machine off. They would walk behind the machine, and I'd be on top, I could reach out and touch them, but they never saw me because they never thought to look up.
EDIT: words and typos.
> He also told me something that was counterintuitive. Try to double back to where you came from, (obviously from a distance).
When I was a teenager me and my friends used to play hide and seek in big retail stores. I was hiding inside of a clothes circle and when I saw the seeker pass me I got out and followed him. I didn't hide or anything, I just walked 20' behind him as he walked through the store looking around. It took him like ten minutes and a full lap of the store to notice me.
There's a video clip of a hare running from a hunting dog. The hare went into the bushes right by the path and stopped moving, the dog ran past, the hare doubled back where it came from.
Sounds reasonable. A little detail: It is very hard to walk a straight line in terrain with trees. There is a good chance you will be walking in a (huge) circle wether you want to or not.
It depends, if this is still a single-psycho-situation, it just changes how you hide. Instead of prioritizing being behind things, being under things.
You know those long parking lot awnings they have outside some apartment buildings? Find two next to each other, run under one, rush to the opposite side in a straight line, then throw a jacket or something across the short gap between the awnings so that the movement will lead them into thinking you went under the second awning. then head the opposite direction as they wait for you to come out the opposite side, and gain as much ground as possible while staying covered from above.
Thats what I’d do, but it’s not like I have any experience beyond pulling scenarios out of my ass
No, so you run to increase distance between you and what's chasing you. Find a random tree to hide behind, then find cover, like a downed tree or brush to hide out in. You won't be seen, or heard anymore. I dont have any experience, but I'm a good hider and watch a lot of scary movies yelling at the screen, "stop running and just hide!" Get behind a tree, lie low then seek cover. You only need to lose their tracking. Have you ever dropped something in the woods and not found it again though you JUST dropped it in front of you? Our perception skills is not great especially in heavily wooded areas.
He’s right, though. I’ve disappeared into brush when being pursued in the dark. Had a dark leather coat on and used it like a cloak to cover with. Chopper overhead completely missed me. As did the 4 squad cars that passed within feet of me.
On the flip side, if you're *lost* in the woods, also **stop moving**. Try to leave lots of clues like heavy footfalls, broken branches, etc., and settle down somewhere where you're easily spotted.
There are mountains of data on lost person behavior, but the bottom line is that a moving target creates a larger search area, and with a finite number of searchers, staying put within the initial search area dramatically increases your odds of being found within a survivable amount of time.
Even better advice, don't go into the woods by yourself without telling someone your exact route and timeframe.
I just have so many nightmares about the lady that stopped in a clearing and waited like you're supposed to, she was like 30 minutes away from safety and they just never found her. :(
That's one incident. And 30 minutes from safety doesn't mean anything if you don't know which direction to go.
If people are searching for you* staying in one place is essential. There is a way to search that involves clearing areas.
Not sure if this is exact, but imagine a grid of boxes with numbers. You're in box number one and move to box number two. They search box number one and mark it clear. Now you move back to box number one. They won't go back to box number one. They're eliminating boxes, narrowing it down. If you stay on one place they can narrow down the search area and are. More likely to find you.
If there is a river with reeds in it, snap one off and put it in your mouth. Submerge yourself in the water and breathe through the reed. I’m positive this will work.
[Reed Snorkel](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedSnorkel) (Warning: TvTropes rabbit hole)
List actually seems surprisingly short, I'm sure I've seen this trope more times than this.
It's actually possible, but only if you're just below the surface. Mythbusters did it once. Problem is the further under the surface you are, the longer the reed needs to be, and at a certain length, it's not cycling the air properly.
If you're trying to imagine the appropriate length, just think of a typical recreational snorkel (~16 inches). The reason they don't make them any longer so you can go further underwater is because of the dead space which causes you to inhale low-O2 air and CO2. There are a few other issues with longer snorkels but this is a big one.
Some Mexican dude is already way ahead of you. Sorry.
https://www.ruedasgordas.es/blog/view/ciclistas-se-empotran-contra-un-tunel-que-estaba-pintado-en-una-pared
It's in Oprima Numero 2.
I live in Australia, I'm positive that in most places where there is murky water and reeds, there are things in the water you don't want to be swimming with.
Hiding is how a [Maui tourist couple escaped](https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/west/maui-tourist-couple-haleakala-carjacked-robbed/) being hunted.
I mean, the report was just updated on the 27th of last month - so 5 days ago.
Repeat criminals who get caught, being repeat criminals that get caught, are usually not that smart. There's a chance they've got sealed warrants out and are already looking for suspected accomplices. Between GPS and Bluetooth logging, text messages, and the like, there's a good chance we'll be hearing about more arrests in the coming days/weeks/months.
Absolutely not blaming the tourists but I would never drive through a closed road. Someone told them it was okay and I'll bet that someone was part of the gang intending to rob them.
I also read that Hemler's parents blame the police. Hemler has had a drug problem for years and was in jail for making threats. He was allowed a low bail which his exgirlfriend paid.
100% true and it works. I've been meaning to type up my story and post it to r/creepyencounters or someplace, but in 2017 I was literally chased through the woods by, who I can only assume was, a creepy serial killer dude. I evaded him by running around a curve of a trail where he couldn't see me for about 15 seconds, ditching the trail and hiding behind a bush. I stayed still, he couldn't see me and kept running down the trail.
Unrelated but one time I was chasing a guy in the woods. I lost him by where the trail curved and then he wasn't there anymore. Couldn't figure out where he went so I started clinking two bottles with my fingers and sing songing COME OUT AND PLAYYYYAYYYYY.
I never found the guy again.
Oooh love that. I think acting more creepy and psychotic than they are is an excellent self defence strategy. My mom had a friend who was in a bad situation like this and started laughing like a maniac. Then she suddenly stopped, looked him in the eye with a blank expression on her face and held eye contact while she pissed herself. Then she smiled at him.
He turned around and booked it so damn fast. I’ve always remembered that story and kept that idea in my back pocket. They don’t wanna mess with crazy! The less you seem like a compliant victim the less they will attempt to victimize you cause you’re just not worth the trouble and risk.
When I was a kid, our scout leader had this game that we played in the night, that there was a bucket that had to be claimed and brought back from the woods by us kids to certain place that acted as a base/spawn for kids, and some scout leaders were guarding the bucket, around 10 meters away, with flashlights and could not move. If guards saw you, they left out "the predator", a scout leader that could move, and most of the time was the fastest of them all, that tried to catch us kids in a 2 minute period, after that it's called back to it's post for later deployment. If the predator catched you, you move back straight to base to re-deploy after 1 minute. If you had the bucket, you lose it and the predator takes it back to it's original place. Usually the predator had a headlamp for light. Most of the time predator catched kids who ran, but 80% of the time if you ran away from line of sight and hid, the predator would lose you.
All this was played in a pitch black forest, sometimes moonlight nights made hiding harder, but players had to learn how to move in a dark forest without making noice. I don't know what it tought us in the real world, but it was fun.
Probably. Not good image kids telling their parent's that there was "a child predator" in the camp! The original name for predator in finnish is "Saalistaja" that we saw more like "a beast", but the straight translation is "a predator". Also "beast" in finnish is "peto" and could be pronounced badly to sound like "pedo".
Buddy and I ran from a police helicopter in a golf cart on a private course in the middle of the night (after being spotted by a patrol car from the road).
When I knew he was gonna get us with the search light, I drove it straight into some dense bushes, and then we waited with our eyes closed, lol (so no reflection, because that was in some Rambo-type movie back then).
After he was comfortably gone, we got the cart back (we both worked there, but not at 1am ofc) and GTFO as quick as we could, amazed not only that it even happened, but that there weren't any cops waiting at any of the entrances (that we could see).
To this day, I'm not sure if we actually got away, or they were just messing with us.
Hiding and staying put can actually be an effective strategy, especially in low light conditions when movement is easier to detect. In such situations, it is important to remain calm and think quickly.
Having a plan helps. There was an excellent book I read about people who survived events many died. Most had thought a bit about the what if’s ahead of time.
Yep its three groups.
Those that had a *Good Plan*
Those that had a *Bad Plan*
And Those that had *No Plan*
Those that died probably had a bad plan or no plan, or had a good plan but just got unlucky.
EDIT: I'm leaving Garland thumb in... here is video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDqzlGBejWo
---
At night the sound you make while running is going to give you away much more easily than the sight of you.
So ya get a head start if you can, and then find a ditch or ravine or whatever and hide in there.
Even better if there is some water to mask your scent and sound.
If you find a creek, run down it for a while and then cross over to the other side. Messes up blood hounds as they lose your scent.
Garland thumb did a really good video on this concept and he was a full on sere instructor. (us military special op tactics)
Conversely if your LOOKING for someone try to de focus and let your eyes drift from time to time as Human peripheral vision is very good and is drawn to movement that you may not have seen if your actively looking hard at a certain spot
We were watching a horror movie and this girl was running away from someone down the middle of the road. I was like “get in the woods and hide behind a rock.”
Also from my Boy Scout days, flashlights do not throw off enough light to see someone at a distance. However, the person using the flashlight is obvious to all
I always found in games of manhunt I was virtually invisible if I just laid down in some shadows. like, not even anything covering me, just shadows next to a wall or fence.
As someone who has run from the cops a fair few times, I disagree. Example: when we were teenagers, my friends and I were stripping lead off an abandoned building to sell (yes we were little shitheads). The police came and I jumped off the roof and ran. Jumped a fence and hightailed it outta there.
The other lads hid. They were found and arrested. It was night time and dark, with no lights.
But it's an interesting topic, I'd be interested in hearing more about it.
That doesnt work with an organized force that will increase in numbers, and hit each area in a coordinated manner.
Huge difference when it's a singular person I'm the forest
When I was 16, I used to play tag at night with a fairly large group of kids.
One kid, whenever he hid, we could never find. He wore dark clothes and a camo shirt and would pull the shirt over his head and squeeze into this little inlet in the wall behind the doctors office we used to hide at. He would go missing for hours!
I was that hider with my friends, but we were contained to the house. My superpower was being small and bendy enough to fit into impossible places.
In dim light its also important to remember we can only see in grayscale. Grays, browns, and blues are better than wearing black because solid black tends to stick out in grayscale. Obscuring your shape (camoflage) helps as well
It's highly dependent on what type of terrain you are in and what kind of detection equipment they have.
If you're in relatively dense woods, first off, you're going to have a hard time just moving through the woods because even with a full moon it'll be almost black in those woods. Going to ground in those conditions and you're almost impossible to find. Even if they have a flashlight. Hollywood dense forest is always fantasy bright.
If you're in light woods, it's going to depend on how much moonlight there is, the color of the terrain vs the color of your clothes.
Desert terrain is going to depend on the landscape and the color of your clothes versus the landscape. Full moon and you're mostly fucked.
I don't have much experience messing around in an urban area, hiding or looking for people. I imagine with the ambient light it's pretty tough to hide for long.
Honestly Border Patrol also had a canine unit in our area that really did not produce as much results as you’d expect. She was a good girl though and did her best
Military survival training taught me what you said about movement being the key to detection. If what you're saying about dogs not being not that great is true, then it makes me wonder if the best benefit in the dog is the perception by the person being chased that the dog WILL find them so they keep moving.
Working dog handler here. I'm a civilian but my training group gets brought into work with various agencies and units to enhance their K9 programs.
This is going to sound obvious, but a good K9 team backed by an agency or a unit that has deep institutional knowledge about how to deploy K9 is very difficult to evade on foot. Not impossible mind you, just very difficult. A lot of K9 evasion strategies for tracking or detection isn't about confusing the dog but screwing with an inexperienced handler who doesn't fully trust their dog. An experienced handler will trust their dog's ability to follow odor, and can better recognize and correct for situations that make it difficult to pick up the odor if it's been lost or overwhelming. It really is a team effort between dog and handler with the judgment and experience of both being necessary to conduct a good track.
The problem is most agencies don't have experienced dogs or handlers and often have leadership that has zero understanding of K9 and how to best utilize it. The military tends to do a better job of it because their training pipeline is different (handlers and dogs are trained separately) but can still fall into the same pitfalls that LEAs do on the leadership side. The quality level of K9 from local all the way up to Federal is all over the place. With some being really good and some being absolutely atrocious. It's extremely common for agencies to get swindled into getting subpar dogs on top of their usually subpar in-house training. And a lot of federal agencies for all practical purposes don't have K9, instead relying on taskforce officers from local agencies. Or utilize dogs that were donated to them.
Another important thing to consider about K9 is the dog can't smell what's not there. The environmental conditions can shift suddenly in a way where you can't pick up the odor even if you do everything right. It's also entirely possible for the person being tracked to double back and flank the K9 team. Which is why you need security in the form of cover officers or the rest of your unit to watch your back and sides. A lot of LEOs don't know how to provide good cover for a K9 team and can actively get in the way or provide inadequate security. This is also why LEO K9 handlers in many agencies have a higher than average probability to get into officer involved shootings. Since they are actively hunting people who do not want to be hunted.
I learned this as a kid playing man hunt every night in the summer with my friends. The runners always got caught. But the kid in some random house's bushes could chill for hours without getting caught.
My friend and I once got jumped at a party and we both got some good hits in before we took off. We were chased on foot for maybe a mile before they stopped, and turned around to run back to their cars. We hopped a fence and hid under the dumpsters in an alley for like 3-4 hours while we could hear them driving around, screaming and looking for us.
We ended up getting away and walked to the 7/11 on the corner and called my friends grandpa to come get us. After we got picked up and made it home we checked our Myspace profiles (as one did at the time) and saw we had multiple death threats and messages saying they knew where we lived. Never saw or heard from any of those assholes after that night though, but hiding definitely saved our asses even though we wanted to run *many* times.
I’m enormous and we used to play manhunt, I would run into the forest with the rest and almost immediately crouch and stay still behind the first big tree/bush.
They would inevitably run straight past me, despite being huge and wearing not particularly dark clothing.
But what about those FLIR cameras on helicopters that I’ve seen in police chase videos on YouTube? It makes it so obvious where hiding would be counterintuitive.
This worked for Joanne Lees, she hid in the bushes from the gunman who shot her boyfriend and lived to tell the tale. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Peter_Falconio
I was out soaping windows and the other usual Halloween mischief. A guy bursts out of the house across the street. I start running into backyards. They all have privacy fences that I can’t get over. A run up along side the front yard and there is a long run of hedges. I dive underneath thinking I will slide my way into the next yard. No dice. It could have been a chain link fence as thick as it was. The hedges have no leaves so I am thinking that I am totally busted. The guy walks by and stops right next to me, looks around and heads back home. I learned a valuable lesson: don’t quit and don’t move.
Also, aluminum foil can block flir.
Find a spot to hide, cover with something to block the heat signature.
Go to the Winchester, have a pint, and wait for it to all blow over.
One of those aluminum emergency blankets with a military camo blanket/netting works pretty good on thermal s if you wear it like a cap so it has time to accumulate temp to the environment. Works better the hotter it is.
We used to play “foxes and hounds” in Boy Scouts. Basically one team goes and hides him the woods, the other tries to find them. What I learned from 5 years of playing that is that it’s very easy to hide in the woods and not be found. The greatest secret is not to run when someone is getting close. Wait until you absolute have to, because 9 times out of 10 they will not see you.
I was with friends fishing at a park after dark drinking. Pretty sure it was closed at night but it was in a rural are and we didn't expect company. Cops came and I took off into a deep brush and just played down after getting some distance. The spotlights wher going over but they couldn't see me.
That was a scary ass night though. Some were arrested, others sent home. I was in the woods alone and I couldn't move foe what felt like hours because of the spotlights going by. I kept thinking I heard animals and stuff creeping in the woods. I had no light it was pitch black in dense woods.
My phone had died, but I think I got a voicemail or something off before it died. As everyone left, I was finally able to find my way to the road, alone in the middle of nowhere in pitch black. I did have some cars go by, and I would dive into the woods. I did see that one was a sheriff.
Hours went by, and at this point I didn't even care if it was a cop. I was scared and alone with no way to contact anybody. I was still miles in the park trying to find my way out.
A car came by, and I just stood in the road, like fuck it. Even if it's a cop I just want to be rescued at this point. Well luckily, my sisters boyfriend who was there came back to find me. I was so happy as I hopped In the car around 5am.
This is the right answer. I have done escape and evasion both as aircrew candidate as well as staff flying tactical helicopters. Just standing still beside a tree makes you essentially impossible to see from the helicopter. Not swinging your arms and keeping your upper body still is incredibly effective if you have to move. I spent one day and night in a ditch under a tree and never got found. This does not work with dogs, stay downwind if you can. If the dog hits on a scent which happened to us several times, run. You are not outrunning the dog, rather the handler. Try to get across a water body if possible. You will not fool the dog but maybe the handler. Scent blocking does not work. No movement is key in the bush, its remarkably effective.
Our cross-country running coach didn't really appreciate this frankly
Cross-country running and hiding.
Cross-country hide and seek.
You'll never break a six minute mile like that!!
I did this while running from 2 would-be rapists when I was 16. I escaped their truck, and they were enraged! They shone their light right at where I was crouched and never saw me. I was able to creep back out to the road to town, but leapt back into the trees every time I heard an engine. That was a long and scary night!
That's nuts, hope the scumbags eventually got caught.
I'm so glad you made it. It worked for me, too, twice. The first time was running from the cops, I tripped and fell behind a log and they ran right past me with their flashlights. The second time was worse -- one night a car load of guys passed me with my boyfriend and male roommate, screeched to a halt and said "let's get her!" We ran and again I tripped and they ran past me after the boys, and I quickly rolled behind a hedge. They came back and I saw their feet pass right next to me as one said, "Where is she?!" I didn't move for ages, then finally ran through people's yards and down a back alley, back to the party we'd been at. I don't want to think about what would've happened if they'd found me. Super scary memory. I've also hidden in people's back yards twice when being followed home, once by a guy on foot, and once by a guy in a car, who screeched up and down the street looking for me, then came back one more time driving really slowly. I remember hiding behind the house, hearing the sound of the engine as he crawled past. It was like a horror movie. But yeah, hiding works.
Where do you live, Rapey Town?
Any college town. This behavior was more common than you’d think before cell phones. I was followed by cars or men on foot a few times during undergrad and grad school, walking home at night. As a now older woman looking back on it, it was really frightening. Today the phones and cameras are making this more difficult. Good cameras!
Holy moly so glad you're safe! Can't imagine what the world was like hundreds or thousands of years ago, if those things are happening just a few years/decades back :(
Honestly I do wish we had more appreciation of how far we’ve come just recently. Technology has been a massive step forward in personal safety - but only if police services are responsive. That part is critical and often missing in large cities.
Still happens if you’re a girl/woman these days.
This is why women will always choose the bear
Can confirm, even works in an urban setting. I had to out run a guy who meant me violence and I got away by ducking around some corners .
I recently read a story here on Reddit placed in 1979, of 2 men kidnapping women . I don’t want to go into details and bring back your trauma or what ifs . Your quick thinking and will to survive is something you should be proud of . I’m happy you got away .
Also rolling in the mud can reduce your heat detection, from predators
Get to the choppa!!
Put da cookie daaawwwwnnn
Uhhh, oh my god, this cookie!
I gotta get the recipe from liz.
NOOOWWW!!
Nay-buh!
I’m sorry, it’s neighbor.
That’s what I said…nay buh.
Just like it says on the pay-puh
It’s not a toomah!
That's no'a choppa! It's a macheeene!!!
It's definitely naht a tooma!
Who is your daddy and what does he do?
He makes rubbah babah buggy bumpas
This is a very real tactic. Hide and seek in the Florida swamps in the 90s was basically Predator the movie, but with us children playing the roles when we couldn't be inside playing AVP Gold Edition.
In college I went on a paintball war with a bunch of my friends. My GF was in ROTC, so I borrowed her camo gear (she was my height) and even the face paint. Everybody laughed to me … until the game started. People could walk right up to me … it was like I was invisible. At one point two guys saw me moving and chased me. I just plopped down in the leaves. The two guys walked until they were inches from my feet saying “maybe he went *that* way?” I raised my gun and blasted them both point-blank.
The restaurant I worked at years ago used to have semi-annual paintball outings on a farm belonging to one of the cooks. I’ve been in the Army for years, and did the same thing as you. Eventually the game turned from team v team to just everyone try to get me!
I saw a news report where a reporter was standing on the edge of the woods and talking about camo, and she said “right guys?” And *everything* started moving, and you realized there were 20-30 guys in frame, totally invisible. Some had gillie suits, branches tucked in their clothes …
YES! I am such a nerd for this theme. It's a great tactic for the army, and even mentioned in Shakespeare (Macbeth)
You don’t need to blend in, just break up your outline and the contours that give you a human form. A gray and black tabby cat lying in green grass is surprisingly hard to spot. They gave natural camo
Human brains are kinda amazing at processing what we see, we associate shapes like faces as well as the chevron formed by human arms/legs really easily, we also are really good at spotting perfect lines or circles. Our brains have even adapted to add guns to that list of things over the past 500ish years of gunpowder conflicts Once you know how we are programmed and break those common shapes you become nearly invisible People think camouflage that its not a full on guillie suit useless, because they don't realize what it truly does , the dark and light tones play with shadows in a way that they hide your shape, while face paint (or any face covering) will break what we know as a human face Also just wearing a poncho or cloak will make you not look like a human and it might be just enough for someone to glance over you without processing you as a human
Frodo stealth unlocked. I learned this stuff in basic training. Breaking up your outlines and then your face is very important
Even just being darker on top than on the bottom (countershading) serves to break up your outline very well. This is why most animals have lighter coloured bellies than backs. Because light comes from above, the underparts of animals tend to be shaded compared to the upper parts, which in turn makes them look 3-dimensional. Countershading cancels this out, making the animal look the same shade all over and therefore more 2-dimensional.
Yes for the most part, counter shading is far more noteable on marine creatures where they can be seem from above and below, but many animals have whiter bellies as camouflage, to counteract shadows, like you said. The main issue with countershading on humans is that we are very vertical tho, and we have a lot of range of movement so the bottom of our arms won't be on the bottom often, and we can also crawl or lay on our backs/sides. So regular camouflage tends to be more efficient cause it is designed to be position and angle agnostic But mixing colours can help! Running two contrasting colours might lead the brain into seeing two halves of a person instead of one whole body, and can help mix with stuff like wood, dirt, dry grass on the ground and leaves on top
Oh yeah I wasn't suggesting it was useful for human camouflage, more just backing up your point that a little change in lighting can make a huge difference! I'm thinking of things like deer and antelopes
One time my cousins and I were playing hide and seek/manhunt at night. No leaving the property, maybe half acre. The back door had a security light coming off it, bright as a flood light. Straight off from there and to the right about twenty feet was a corner where an addition was built so while it was still fairly bright in the area it was cast the corner in pale shadow. House was painted a pale yellow at this time. I was wearing a baby blue crochet poncho, the pattern with the big wide holes, backed right into the corner half crouched and staring out. A cousin came along the path, paused and looked me dead in the eyes for five long seconds... and kept walking. To this day I don't know if he was just messing with me or if the light, shadow, poncho combo did it. Pretty cool overall.
This is also a mechanism we use in combat sports. Under stress, you tend to be watching shapes and movements. Things like not flaring your elbows on straight punches and changing your silhouette can give an extra split second on your opponent's response time that is the difference between landing and missing.
Pew pew
How were you not one big mosquito bite after that?
Mud blocks mosquitoes.
But not gators
Sometimes the gators win. The are the hide and seek champions after all
So don't cover yourself in gators
You can't tell me what to do! On a side note does anyone know where I can get discount artificial limbs?
Buckee's has em, next to the popcorn
Floridian here. We were.
Another Floridian that grew up playing swamps. I was just one giant bug bite.
Cajun seasoning and Tabasco sauce. https://youtu.be/XZubL4mZ5n0?feature=shared
Eventually your body will heat the mud up though. However it will take the shine off your skin. Bare skin is actually quite reflective and if a torch is shone on it is quite obvious. Mud will stop the reflection and break up the shape of your face making it less regular and more like the irregular shapes you find in a forest. It's why the military wear face paint.
This applies even if you have a darker complexion. It's still shiny. It's just a darker mirror when a light hits it. Also, using stripes or something can go a long way to breaking up the shape of your face. Further down the rabbit hole, people try to change the apparent depth of facial features by using lighter and darker colors. But, you can't always do that with what you have.
it actually works but only works until it dries up.
Which is like 15 seconds, according to the time that Mythbusters did it.
[Corridor Crew's test](https://youtu.be/GoqsBQYM4lY?t=788) showed that it worked REALLY well for at least a few minutes.
I’M HEEYYYAA!! KEEELL MEEE I’M HEYYYA!!!
KAHM AHHN! DOO EET NOW!
A former state governor: "I ain't got time to bleed."
You son of a bi***
There's someone in the trees and it ain't no man. Because he's hiding
Guy who chases people for a living is telling people to stop running. a bit sus.
Yes, stay where you are so we can apprehend you without a chase. We may not be able to spot you with NV, but our eye in the sky equipped with FLIR will guide us right to you. 😆
In this post I’m more talking about running away from a psycho chasing you. But yeah. Hiding from a helicopter is pretty hard but so is running from one
This is a good topic in this age of psychos. Hiding in general is good advice but an older guy who spent time in the Army Rangers once told me that when you hide you never want to lose sight of your pursuer. If you can see him, you can adjust your movements, and stay clear of him. He also told me something that was counterintuitive. Try to double back to where you came from, (obviously from a distance). People never think to look where they just came from. With any luck he’ll keep looking in the opposite direction and that will allow you time to get to safety
Yeah also get out of line of sight, up or down but try not to be at a normal height
Height change is huge. I used to mess with people at work and turn a machine off. They would walk behind the machine, and I'd be on top, I could reach out and touch them, but they never saw me because they never thought to look up. EDIT: words and typos.
Yeah, Human Resources? This guy right here …
I will look into this, thank you.
Oh wow an actual r/usernamechecksout
I would recommend looking up.
> He also told me something that was counterintuitive. Try to double back to where you came from, (obviously from a distance). When I was a teenager me and my friends used to play hide and seek in big retail stores. I was hiding inside of a clothes circle and when I saw the seeker pass me I got out and followed him. I didn't hide or anything, I just walked 20' behind him as he walked through the store looking around. It took him like ten minutes and a full lap of the store to notice me.
I have always thought about the double back when watching movies. Obviously hard if you leaving foot prints in the snow or mud.
My favourite trope is protagonists doubling back by stepping in their own footprints. First saw it in Calvin & Hobbes.
To be fair, many prey animals actually do this. Maybe not exactly putting each foot into a previous imprint, but it can fool the predator scent wise.
There's a video clip of a hare running from a hunting dog. The hare went into the bushes right by the path and stopped moving, the dog ran past, the hare doubled back where it came from.
Sounds reasonable. A little detail: It is very hard to walk a straight line in terrain with trees. There is a good chance you will be walking in a (huge) circle wether you want to or not.
> In this post I’m more talking about running away from a psycho chasing you. C'mon man, what are the odds of running into Shia LaBeouf in the woods?
Very small, but never quite 0.
Username checks ouahfuckahfuckahfuck
I know a chap who managed to hide from one, luckily they don't have big fuel tanks 🚁
He had been working on his cardio for just that situation 😁
It's Rule #1.
i heard it’s a good idea to run towards a busy airport they need fly over clearance to continue the chase.
I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m on the run in the woods best a busy airport
Was it Rambo? It sounds like Rambo.
So what should we do about a psycho with a helicopter?
It depends, if this is still a single-psycho-situation, it just changes how you hide. Instead of prioritizing being behind things, being under things. You know those long parking lot awnings they have outside some apartment buildings? Find two next to each other, run under one, rush to the opposite side in a straight line, then throw a jacket or something across the short gap between the awnings so that the movement will lead them into thinking you went under the second awning. then head the opposite direction as they wait for you to come out the opposite side, and gain as much ground as possible while staying covered from above. Thats what I’d do, but it’s not like I have any experience beyond pulling scenarios out of my ass
You seem to have spent a lot of time thinking about this….
Are you actual cannibal Shia Labeouf OP?
No, so you run to increase distance between you and what's chasing you. Find a random tree to hide behind, then find cover, like a downed tree or brush to hide out in. You won't be seen, or heard anymore. I dont have any experience, but I'm a good hider and watch a lot of scary movies yelling at the screen, "stop running and just hide!" Get behind a tree, lie low then seek cover. You only need to lose their tracking. Have you ever dropped something in the woods and not found it again though you JUST dropped it in front of you? Our perception skills is not great especially in heavily wooded areas.
If you put that on a resume, I would proudly hire you.
He’s right, though. I’ve disappeared into brush when being pursued in the dark. Had a dark leather coat on and used it like a cloak to cover with. Chopper overhead completely missed me. As did the 4 squad cars that passed within feet of me.
Ahhhhh. This person has real life experience.
@own assistance. Found the Mexican. Look under the cloak
lol, nah. Just a pasty white northerner who practically glows in the dark
[You can run but you can't hide, bitch.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjrE86-VVro)
The next person they find they're gonna ask *hey did you see my reddit post?*
On the flip side, if you're *lost* in the woods, also **stop moving**. Try to leave lots of clues like heavy footfalls, broken branches, etc., and settle down somewhere where you're easily spotted. There are mountains of data on lost person behavior, but the bottom line is that a moving target creates a larger search area, and with a finite number of searchers, staying put within the initial search area dramatically increases your odds of being found within a survivable amount of time. Even better advice, don't go into the woods by yourself without telling someone your exact route and timeframe.
I just have so many nightmares about the lady that stopped in a clearing and waited like you're supposed to, she was like 30 minutes away from safety and they just never found her. :(
That's one incident. And 30 minutes from safety doesn't mean anything if you don't know which direction to go. If people are searching for you* staying in one place is essential. There is a way to search that involves clearing areas. Not sure if this is exact, but imagine a grid of boxes with numbers. You're in box number one and move to box number two. They search box number one and mark it clear. Now you move back to box number one. They won't go back to box number one. They're eliminating boxes, narrowing it down. If you stay on one place they can narrow down the search area and are. More likely to find you.
Not a good tip if you’re fleeing border patrol though!
Dude said, trust me, I hunt Mexicans
If there is a river with reeds in it, snap one off and put it in your mouth. Submerge yourself in the water and breathe through the reed. I’m positive this will work.
It worked when Bugs Bunny did it!
Worked for Robin Hood too!
[Reed Snorkel](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedSnorkel) (Warning: TvTropes rabbit hole) List actually seems surprisingly short, I'm sure I've seen this trope more times than this.
You just watched Robin Hood a lot Like the rest of us :)
This is first degree Secret of NIMH erasure and I don't appreciate it
It's actually possible, but only if you're just below the surface. Mythbusters did it once. Problem is the further under the surface you are, the longer the reed needs to be, and at a certain length, it's not cycling the air properly.
If you're trying to imagine the appropriate length, just think of a typical recreational snorkel (~16 inches). The reason they don't make them any longer so you can go further underwater is because of the dead space which causes you to inhale low-O2 air and CO2. There are a few other issues with longer snorkels but this is a big one.
Then I also have a plan involving painting a tunnel on the side of a rock wall… 🤔
Some Mexican dude is already way ahead of you. Sorry. https://www.ruedasgordas.es/blog/view/ciclistas-se-empotran-contra-un-tunel-que-estaba-pintado-en-una-pared It's in Oprima Numero 2.
hahaha the photo they chose for that article slays me
Without a paddle was a good movie
It worked for James Bond in Dr. No.
But look out for sheepdogs with lit sticks of dynamite the right diameter to fit in the reed.
I tried this method with my earth-friendly paper straw; and now I'm brain dead and eating out of a plastic straw.
I live in Australia, I'm positive that in most places where there is murky water and reeds, there are things in the water you don't want to be swimming with.
This is how I survive heat waves.
Hiding is how a [Maui tourist couple escaped](https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/west/maui-tourist-couple-haleakala-carjacked-robbed/) being hunted.
Wow that's a crazy story! Looks like it just happened last month. Sounds terrifying.
So they got the one guy but what about the others helping him search?
I mean, the report was just updated on the 27th of last month - so 5 days ago. Repeat criminals who get caught, being repeat criminals that get caught, are usually not that smart. There's a chance they've got sealed warrants out and are already looking for suspected accomplices. Between GPS and Bluetooth logging, text messages, and the like, there's a good chance we'll be hearing about more arrests in the coming days/weeks/months.
Jfc I'm going to Hawaii in a month
Absolutely not blaming the tourists but I would never drive through a closed road. Someone told them it was okay and I'll bet that someone was part of the gang intending to rob them. I also read that Hemler's parents blame the police. Hemler has had a drug problem for years and was in jail for making threats. He was allowed a low bail which his exgirlfriend paid.
Well that’s fucking terrifying
This is shocking! Especially in Maui.
100% true and it works. I've been meaning to type up my story and post it to r/creepyencounters or someplace, but in 2017 I was literally chased through the woods by, who I can only assume was, a creepy serial killer dude. I evaded him by running around a curve of a trail where he couldn't see me for about 15 seconds, ditching the trail and hiding behind a bush. I stayed still, he couldn't see me and kept running down the trail.
Need the full story
Unrelated but one time I was chasing a guy in the woods. I lost him by where the trail curved and then he wasn't there anymore. Couldn't figure out where he went so I started clinking two bottles with my fingers and sing songing COME OUT AND PLAYYYYAYYYYY. I never found the guy again.
Oooh love that. I think acting more creepy and psychotic than they are is an excellent self defence strategy. My mom had a friend who was in a bad situation like this and started laughing like a maniac. Then she suddenly stopped, looked him in the eye with a blank expression on her face and held eye contact while she pissed herself. Then she smiled at him. He turned around and booked it so damn fast. I’ve always remembered that story and kept that idea in my back pocket. They don’t wanna mess with crazy! The less you seem like a compliant victim the less they will attempt to victimize you cause you’re just not worth the trouble and risk.
I’m glad that you’re okay! Please tell me that you reported the incident to the police? Would like to read the story as well!
Saved this for the next time I need to smuggle myself across the border
When I was a kid, our scout leader had this game that we played in the night, that there was a bucket that had to be claimed and brought back from the woods by us kids to certain place that acted as a base/spawn for kids, and some scout leaders were guarding the bucket, around 10 meters away, with flashlights and could not move. If guards saw you, they left out "the predator", a scout leader that could move, and most of the time was the fastest of them all, that tried to catch us kids in a 2 minute period, after that it's called back to it's post for later deployment. If the predator catched you, you move back straight to base to re-deploy after 1 minute. If you had the bucket, you lose it and the predator takes it back to it's original place. Usually the predator had a headlamp for light. Most of the time predator catched kids who ran, but 80% of the time if you ran away from line of sight and hid, the predator would lose you. All this was played in a pitch black forest, sometimes moonlight nights made hiding harder, but players had to learn how to move in a dark forest without making noice. I don't know what it tought us in the real world, but it was fun.
Probably critical thinking and situational awareness
Probably these days they wouldn't call the scout leader "predator".
Probably. Not good image kids telling their parent's that there was "a child predator" in the camp! The original name for predator in finnish is "Saalistaja" that we saw more like "a beast", but the straight translation is "a predator". Also "beast" in finnish is "peto" and could be pronounced badly to sound like "pedo".
Sounds like fun!!
Buddy and I ran from a police helicopter in a golf cart on a private course in the middle of the night (after being spotted by a patrol car from the road). When I knew he was gonna get us with the search light, I drove it straight into some dense bushes, and then we waited with our eyes closed, lol (so no reflection, because that was in some Rambo-type movie back then). After he was comfortably gone, we got the cart back (we both worked there, but not at 1am ofc) and GTFO as quick as we could, amazed not only that it even happened, but that there weren't any cops waiting at any of the entrances (that we could see). To this day, I'm not sure if we actually got away, or they were just messing with us.
Just climb a tree. Then you have the high ground, an advantage over even a Sith apprentice.
Careful spreading such unsubstantiated rumors. Who knows what could happen if the Sith apprentice was someone who was granted the rank of master.
Does this work on debt collectors?
Hiding and staying put can actually be an effective strategy, especially in low light conditions when movement is easier to detect. In such situations, it is important to remain calm and think quickly.
Are you able to change the speed at which you think at will? How does that work?
Having a plan helps. There was an excellent book I read about people who survived events many died. Most had thought a bit about the what if’s ahead of time.
Tbf you don't know that the people who didn't survive didn't also plan ahead.
Yep its three groups. Those that had a *Good Plan* Those that had a *Bad Plan* And Those that had *No Plan* Those that died probably had a bad plan or no plan, or had a good plan but just got unlucky.
Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
That's thinking ahead, not thinking quickly.
EDIT: I'm leaving Garland thumb in... here is video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDqzlGBejWo --- At night the sound you make while running is going to give you away much more easily than the sight of you. So ya get a head start if you can, and then find a ditch or ravine or whatever and hide in there. Even better if there is some water to mask your scent and sound. If you find a creek, run down it for a while and then cross over to the other side. Messes up blood hounds as they lose your scent. Garland thumb did a really good video on this concept and he was a full on sere instructor. (us military special op tactics)
Would y'all please stop running?! I can't keep up and I need to make my monthly quota!
Conversely if your LOOKING for someone try to de focus and let your eyes drift from time to time as Human peripheral vision is very good and is drawn to movement that you may not have seen if your actively looking hard at a certain spot
I did this video games. Watch the horizon and let my peripheral pick up any movements
Reminds me of one of my fave posts on Reddit [story](https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet/s/YhUuoaP1Hl)
Sheesh that was a read 👏🏾
We were watching a horror movie and this girl was running away from someone down the middle of the road. I was like “get in the woods and hide behind a rock.”
Exactly and this is why we can't catch Bigfoot....dude is just standing there Watching....always watching.
Also from my Boy Scout days, flashlights do not throw off enough light to see someone at a distance. However, the person using the flashlight is obvious to all
I always found in games of manhunt I was virtually invisible if I just laid down in some shadows. like, not even anything covering me, just shadows next to a wall or fence.
As someone who has run from the cops a fair few times, I disagree. Example: when we were teenagers, my friends and I were stripping lead off an abandoned building to sell (yes we were little shitheads). The police came and I jumped off the roof and ran. Jumped a fence and hightailed it outta there. The other lads hid. They were found and arrested. It was night time and dark, with no lights. But it's an interesting topic, I'd be interested in hearing more about it.
Well, that’s a different scenario. The classic “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I have to outrun you” kinda thing.
That doesnt work with an organized force that will increase in numbers, and hit each area in a coordinated manner. Huge difference when it's a singular person I'm the forest
Police will spend their entire shift looking for you in those situations.
When I was 16, I used to play tag at night with a fairly large group of kids. One kid, whenever he hid, we could never find. He wore dark clothes and a camo shirt and would pull the shirt over his head and squeeze into this little inlet in the wall behind the doctors office we used to hide at. He would go missing for hours!
I was that hider with my friends, but we were contained to the house. My superpower was being small and bendy enough to fit into impossible places. In dim light its also important to remember we can only see in grayscale. Grays, browns, and blues are better than wearing black because solid black tends to stick out in grayscale. Obscuring your shape (camoflage) helps as well
Use your cake decorating skills to apply SFX makeup so you can become one with the rocks ✨
Aww. Peeta 😢
It's highly dependent on what type of terrain you are in and what kind of detection equipment they have. If you're in relatively dense woods, first off, you're going to have a hard time just moving through the woods because even with a full moon it'll be almost black in those woods. Going to ground in those conditions and you're almost impossible to find. Even if they have a flashlight. Hollywood dense forest is always fantasy bright. If you're in light woods, it's going to depend on how much moonlight there is, the color of the terrain vs the color of your clothes. Desert terrain is going to depend on the landscape and the color of your clothes versus the landscape. Full moon and you're mostly fucked. I don't have much experience messing around in an urban area, hiding or looking for people. I imagine with the ambient light it's pretty tough to hide for long.
What if they have a bloodhound dog?
Honestly Border Patrol also had a canine unit in our area that really did not produce as much results as you’d expect. She was a good girl though and did her best
I imagine that's how my coworkers talk about me when I'm not there
This made me laugh out loud to myself, at work. I'm sure my colleagues are saying some variation of "she tries her best" about me right now.
Military survival training taught me what you said about movement being the key to detection. If what you're saying about dogs not being not that great is true, then it makes me wonder if the best benefit in the dog is the perception by the person being chased that the dog WILL find them so they keep moving.
Working dog handler here. I'm a civilian but my training group gets brought into work with various agencies and units to enhance their K9 programs. This is going to sound obvious, but a good K9 team backed by an agency or a unit that has deep institutional knowledge about how to deploy K9 is very difficult to evade on foot. Not impossible mind you, just very difficult. A lot of K9 evasion strategies for tracking or detection isn't about confusing the dog but screwing with an inexperienced handler who doesn't fully trust their dog. An experienced handler will trust their dog's ability to follow odor, and can better recognize and correct for situations that make it difficult to pick up the odor if it's been lost or overwhelming. It really is a team effort between dog and handler with the judgment and experience of both being necessary to conduct a good track. The problem is most agencies don't have experienced dogs or handlers and often have leadership that has zero understanding of K9 and how to best utilize it. The military tends to do a better job of it because their training pipeline is different (handlers and dogs are trained separately) but can still fall into the same pitfalls that LEAs do on the leadership side. The quality level of K9 from local all the way up to Federal is all over the place. With some being really good and some being absolutely atrocious. It's extremely common for agencies to get swindled into getting subpar dogs on top of their usually subpar in-house training. And a lot of federal agencies for all practical purposes don't have K9, instead relying on taskforce officers from local agencies. Or utilize dogs that were donated to them. Another important thing to consider about K9 is the dog can't smell what's not there. The environmental conditions can shift suddenly in a way where you can't pick up the odor even if you do everything right. It's also entirely possible for the person being tracked to double back and flank the K9 team. Which is why you need security in the form of cover officers or the rest of your unit to watch your back and sides. A lot of LEOs don't know how to provide good cover for a K9 team and can actively get in the way or provide inadequate security. This is also why LEO K9 handlers in many agencies have a higher than average probability to get into officer involved shootings. Since they are actively hunting people who do not want to be hunted.
Yeah, yeah. We've also seen Rick and Morty thanks Scary Terry!
You can run but you can’t hide bitch!
I learned this as a kid playing man hunt every night in the summer with my friends. The runners always got caught. But the kid in some random house's bushes could chill for hours without getting caught.
My friend and I once got jumped at a party and we both got some good hits in before we took off. We were chased on foot for maybe a mile before they stopped, and turned around to run back to their cars. We hopped a fence and hid under the dumpsters in an alley for like 3-4 hours while we could hear them driving around, screaming and looking for us. We ended up getting away and walked to the 7/11 on the corner and called my friends grandpa to come get us. After we got picked up and made it home we checked our Myspace profiles (as one did at the time) and saw we had multiple death threats and messages saying they knew where we lived. Never saw or heard from any of those assholes after that night though, but hiding definitely saved our asses even though we wanted to run *many* times.
I’m enormous and we used to play manhunt, I would run into the forest with the rest and almost immediately crouch and stay still behind the first big tree/bush. They would inevitably run straight past me, despite being huge and wearing not particularly dark clothing.
I choose the bear
Muchas gracias, amigo.
Andale! I found one!
But what about those FLIR cameras on helicopters that I’ve seen in police chase videos on YouTube? It makes it so obvious where hiding would be counterintuitive.
This worked for Joanne Lees, she hid in the bushes from the gunman who shot her boyfriend and lived to tell the tale. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Peter_Falconio
You people are why I come here
>Human eyes are trained to catch movement. *We* were the T-Rex this whole time..!
I was out soaping windows and the other usual Halloween mischief. A guy bursts out of the house across the street. I start running into backyards. They all have privacy fences that I can’t get over. A run up along side the front yard and there is a long run of hedges. I dive underneath thinking I will slide my way into the next yard. No dice. It could have been a chain link fence as thick as it was. The hedges have no leaves so I am thinking that I am totally busted. The guy walks by and stops right next to me, looks around and heads back home. I learned a valuable lesson: don’t quit and don’t move.
Space blanket
Also, aluminum foil can block flir. Find a spot to hide, cover with something to block the heat signature. Go to the Winchester, have a pint, and wait for it to all blow over.
One of those aluminum emergency blankets with a military camo blanket/netting works pretty good on thermal s if you wear it like a cap so it has time to accumulate temp to the environment. Works better the hotter it is.
We used to play “foxes and hounds” in Boy Scouts. Basically one team goes and hides him the woods, the other tries to find them. What I learned from 5 years of playing that is that it’s very easy to hide in the woods and not be found. The greatest secret is not to run when someone is getting close. Wait until you absolute have to, because 9 times out of 10 they will not see you.
As a person who's run from the border patrol more than once, I agree. Hiding worked better than running.
And don't wear those cool sneakers that have LEDs that flash when you step down.
I had someone step on my head once while I was hiding. I didn’t move, and they didn’t catch me.
I was with friends fishing at a park after dark drinking. Pretty sure it was closed at night but it was in a rural are and we didn't expect company. Cops came and I took off into a deep brush and just played down after getting some distance. The spotlights wher going over but they couldn't see me. That was a scary ass night though. Some were arrested, others sent home. I was in the woods alone and I couldn't move foe what felt like hours because of the spotlights going by. I kept thinking I heard animals and stuff creeping in the woods. I had no light it was pitch black in dense woods. My phone had died, but I think I got a voicemail or something off before it died. As everyone left, I was finally able to find my way to the road, alone in the middle of nowhere in pitch black. I did have some cars go by, and I would dive into the woods. I did see that one was a sheriff. Hours went by, and at this point I didn't even care if it was a cop. I was scared and alone with no way to contact anybody. I was still miles in the park trying to find my way out. A car came by, and I just stood in the road, like fuck it. Even if it's a cop I just want to be rescued at this point. Well luckily, my sisters boyfriend who was there came back to find me. I was so happy as I hopped In the car around 5am.
This is the right answer. I have done escape and evasion both as aircrew candidate as well as staff flying tactical helicopters. Just standing still beside a tree makes you essentially impossible to see from the helicopter. Not swinging your arms and keeping your upper body still is incredibly effective if you have to move. I spent one day and night in a ditch under a tree and never got found. This does not work with dogs, stay downwind if you can. If the dog hits on a scent which happened to us several times, run. You are not outrunning the dog, rather the handler. Try to get across a water body if possible. You will not fool the dog but maybe the handler. Scent blocking does not work. No movement is key in the bush, its remarkably effective.