Your Scent in a Jar - for tracking?

Interesting story out of Florida, where a woman with dementia was found quickly using a scent kit prepared two years earlier.

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/she-b...9d-0351b939787e

Any value for us? There are often distinctly scented socks in my car when I'm camping and off on a dayhike ...?

Presumably any article of clothing which carries the person's scent will be useful. According to my darling wife, I have plenty of scent...

A similar method for tracking is leaving a piece of aluminum foil that you step on to leave a shoe imprint, in your car when you leave for a hike or search.

Now a days you could take a photo of the imprint and send it to all the smart phones needed.

Maybe we can get scent to text someday too.

Any such evidence of the individual will help in the search. Leave as much as you can before you go.

I agree with the shoe print. i used to do tracking, but that was long ago. it would help trackers enormously to have the prints of your shoes.

The scent is very interesting. it seems to me that any article of clothing is good. how about just leaving an old shirt, soiled clothing, in your car b3fore you depart.

trackers will lose much time on stony ground and rock plateaus. if you create some simple rock markers, just three rocks piled on each other, it will speed things up a lot.

The hardest person to track is a small child who is lost. the path is confused and wandering, the footprints are poor quality, and there is no logic to where they are going.

Pete

You can see an example of this technique in the former headquarters of the STASI secret police, now STASI museum, in Berlin.
Apparently, suspects grabbed by the STASI to be interrogated would be seated in a special, though normal looking, chair. The interrogation room was very hot, causing them to sweat profusely.
When (if) the suspect was released, agents would remove a piece of cloth hidden in the lining of the chair, impregnated with his sweat, and seal it in glass jar.
If the need ever came to track a fleeing suspect, the cloth with his "signature scent" would be given to the dogs to sniff.

After the fall of East Germany, people found hundreds of such jars in storage, a true catalog of the scents of "deviants" and political dissidents.

Here's a picture of the jar in exposition.
http://andberlin.com/scent-jar/

albusg ... very interesting story. i had never heard that before.

Query do you need a sterile container? Do you wipe the sterile pad over your armpits (presumably without deodorant) or even your crotch or is a facial wipe sufficient? Is there a best time of day, as in the morning when your face, etc. has had hours to build-up oils ? Is it best to do on sweaty skin? Do u , as said, store it at room temperature or do refrigerate or freeze it? Anybody have instructions?

Usually the routine has been to secure some item of clothing from the residence, as certified as a personal item by friends or relatives,and using that. It's not usually much of a problem...

Best case, get the samples before you shower or bathe, and put them in a jar or clean plastic bag. The dogs will do the work.

For me, I would do it in the morning, after I wake up and before a shower, and seal the samples in a plastic zip-lock bag before I go on my trip. There is more than enough scent for a dog to work with.

Storage is not important, no need to freeze or refrigerate.