StanCourtney

Unusual sounds continue to be recorded behind my home.

This sounds like laughter in the rain recorded at at around 6:00 p.m.

Recorded the 20th of December, 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 1 

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 1

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A moaning vocal recorded also at around 6:00 p.m. the next evening.

Recorded the 21st of December, 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 2 

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 2

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A sad vocal recorded at 3:15 in the afternoon.

Recorded the 23rd of December, 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 3 

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 3

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And at 9:00 in the evening.

Recorded the 23rd of December, 2011

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 4

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 4

A year and a half ago I recorded a series of very pitched screams here in Central Illinois.

Please see:  Illinois Screamer – Pt. 1

In that post I posted Red Fox screams to illustrate the difference.

Woods behind my home.

This past week I have recorded what I think is similar screams. I also have a friend who lives about 1/2 mile from me. Just as it was getting dark he heard what he described as a very long loud high pitched scream. It was only about 75 yards from his back door and he did not investigate. He heard only one scream not a series. I emailed him my recording and he thinks it matches what I recorded.

Click here to listen to the 22nd December 2011 sound clip:  Scream 1

Waveform view and spectral view of Scream 1.

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Click here to listen to the 24th December 2011 sound clip:  Scream 2

Waveform view and spectral view of Scream 2.

I am not sure what this is, I don’t believe it is a Red Fox but possibly it could be a Bobcat or a Cougar.

This past summer there was a lot of work going on at the earthen dam near my home. Workers had been cutting down small trees and mowing a large area. The morning  of the 30th of July 1011 when I went outside I noticed this small tree (still with green leaves on it) had fallen onto the narrow roadway leading to the dam.

Although the tree looked old there was not a breeze last night, it just makes we wonder if something gave it a push and perhaps intentionally blocked all traffic on that small access road. Nothing dramatic but with the vocalizations I have heard this year and the rock throwing that both my wife and I witnessed I thought I best take a picture and write a short note.

I have been running two recorders at home each about 200 yards apart. I have attempting to get a idea of the direction that the sounds are coming from and hoping the outer recorder will have less of Belle’s barking. On the 16th of December, 2011 from my deck I recorded this far off  “yahoo” vocal which I think was perhaps 500 yards away.

The view looking up the small valley from where the distant voices are coming from.

The first recording using Sound Devices 722 field recorder and Telinga Parabolic Microphone.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice  1 

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 1

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My drop recorder recorded the same sounds. However, the dog barking (not Belle) is less pronounced. It gave me an idea of where the yells are coming from. Poor quality recordings because of the distance but it helps figure out the direction of the vocals.

The second recording using a Sony PCM-M10.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 2 

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 2.

For some time now I have been aware that there is something in the woods behind my house that once in awhile makes strange sounds.

The leaves are off the trees now and the woods in the daytime are fairly transparent. Deer are easily seen on the hill behind my house. I live on a small lake at the end of a spur.  I do have a few neighbors up the road from me but none next door.

At night everything changes dramatically.  It is extremely dark as I do not use any security lights or leave outside lights on.

The small valley behind my home.

I am doing audio recording 24/7 with a Telinga parabolic microphone.  The parabolic is mounted on a tripod and located on a covered patio which is covered by a roof and surrounded by three walls. Microphone cables go through a hole I created in my basement wall and then feed upstairs to my Sound Devices 722 recorder.

I live in a very quiet area. At night there is almost no vehicle traffic. The greatest problem I have getting good recordings is wind in the tops of the trees.

In the last month I recorded strange sound three different times.

I propose no explanation to the sources of the sounds only that I can verify that no one is wondering around in the woods behind my home at the late hours of the night. The rustling of leaves that is heard is my dog Belle running up closer to the house.

The 1st sound almost sounds like a low moan.

Recorded the 15th of November, 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 1 

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 1.

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The 2nd sound sort of sounds like someone laughing.

Recorded the 17th of November, 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 2

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 2.

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The 3rd sound resembles voices similar to a GPS audio or a TV.

Recorded the 11th of December, 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Voice 3

Waveform view and spectral view of Voice 3.

One could certainly wish to have better quality recordings but with the wind and distance it is not possible.

It has been a year since I recorded some unusual sounds at what I call the Troll Bridge. This bridge is located in rural Greene County, Illinois.

Painting (1915) by John Bauer -  Wikimedia Commons

To familiarize yourself with the incident it would be best to read the three posts from last year.

Troll Under The Bridge, Pt. 1 

Troll Under The Bridge, Pt. 2

Thoughts on ‎”Troll Under The Bridge”

The discussion has centered around whether the sound that was recorded:

1. Is the sound bipedal or quadrapedal?

2. Is the sound that of a dog, a horse or unknown?

It must be remembered that I was unable to record either a dog or a man running across the bridge in that neither was heavy enough. I weigh 240 lbs and the recorder did not pick up any sounds at all as I ran back and forth the bridge. It is assumed that whatever was running across the bridge was very heavy. I was unable to find anyone living close to the bridge that raised horses. Therefore, I was unable to record a horse galloping across the bridge. However I found a couple of horse sound samples on the net.

Although I can not the answer the question as to the source of the recording  I can provide several other recordings for comparison, (Copyrighted horse sound clips courtesy of  Soundrangers.com)

1. The original recording of 24 Nov 2010. The Troll Under The Bridge

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Clip # 2 – The original file (shortened to 13 seconds) showing just the running sounds.

Click here to listen to sound clip:   The Bridge Runner – 24th of November 2010

Waveform and Spectral View

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Clip # 2 – A recording of my dog Belle running up the wooden stairs between the deck and patio of our home.

Click here to listen to sound clip:   Belle_Running_Up_Stairs

Waveform and Spectral View

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Clip # 3 - A recording of  a horse galloping on dirt.

Click here to listen to sound clip:   Horse Galloping on Dirt # 1

Copyrighted sound clip courtesy of  Soundrangers.com

Waveform and Spectral View

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Clip # 4 - A second recording of  a horse galloping on dirt.

Click here to listen to sound clip:   Horse Galloping on Dirt # 2

Copyrighted sound clip courtesy of  Soundrangers.com 

Waveform and Spectral View

Two days ago ( 15th of November, 2011) I recorded an unusual sound in the woods behind my home.  Please see:  Just Passin’ Through, Pt. 1

Last night at 6:30 P.M. I recorded another strange sound.

Click here to listen to this sound clip: Voice 20

The picture above illustrates the sound in both waveform view and spectral view.

With the wind and distance it was tough to get a decent recording. Recorded using a Sound Devices 722 field recorder and Telinga Stereo Parabolic Microphone.

I have mentioned before how I believe that something comes close to my home and makes unusual sounds from the nearby woods. I have always thought the purpose of this is to test or tease my Karelian Bear Dog, Belle. Last night, the 15th of November, 2011,  was one of those nights.

The woods behind my home. The sound was recorded at about 10:20 p.m.

Belle was barking at something that was about 200 yrds north of the house and up in the woods on the hillside. In this recording you can hear  the odd sound at the 2 second and 9 second mark. Belle is also running and rustling in the leaves.

The picture above illustrates the sound in both waveform view and spectral view.

With the wind and distance it was tough to get a decent recording. Recorded using a Sound Devices 722 field recorder and Telinga Stereo Microphone.

Click here to listen to sound clip: Voice 19

It sort of reminds me of the Jason Aldean song lyric “it’s your world, and I’m just passing through.”

Many Americans have read and enjoyed the “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” the short story by Washington Irving. And I would assume that we enjoy it because it combines horse chases, ghosts and goblins and dimly lit bridges.

The passage reads:

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones’s ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash—he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind.

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane (1858) by John Quidor

From Wikimedia Commons

Last year I wrote two posts about unusual sounds that I recorded at a rural country bridge in Greene County, Illinois.

These posts can be found here:

Troll Under The Bridge   and   Troll Under The Bridge, Pt. 2

I had gone to the location with a friend who knew of two bigfoot sightings at this bridge. We heard very loud but distant vocals in response to our own calls. So I left a recorder underneath the bridge and recorded for several months. At that time I recorded wood knocks, metal banging and an unseen large animal running across the bridge. Someone mentioned to be me that whatever large animal was running across that bridge kind of reminded them of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

Click here to listen:  Running Across Bridge 

That got me to thinking that possibly what has inspired this recurrent theme of the headless horseman throughout Irish, English and German folklore is a quadrupedal bigfoot. Obviously if someone sees an animal as large as an adult sasquatch running on all fours in the nighttime they could possibly think that it was a horse running without a rider.

I have long held the opinion (as have others) that many of our folktales have been influenced and inspired by the large hairy wildmen that our ancestors encountered in the woods of medieval Europe.

Soon after the report of the footprint find in Chatham was made public I was contacted by several other people in the Chatham / Sugar Creek area concerning unusual sounds, possible footprints or  unusual occurrences going on around their homes.

One of these was a short distance from Sugar Creek near the covered bridge.

On Sunday, the 23 of October, 2011 the witness whom I call Tom, although that is not his real name,  had an unusual experience at his home and the next morning found a large footprint outside his living room window. He took pictures with a tape measure along the footprint. Tom was also able to see all the toes in the loose dirt. Photographs of footprints are always difficult to show the detail.

Click here to listen to this short interview: Sugar Creek Footprint Interview

Tom – I have an L-shaped couch and I am sitting on one end of it, the other end is under a window, and that window is on the east side of my house. We are watching the World Series, it was probably around 9:30 and Lulu, my dog, raised her head and then looked at me with big eyes like “Did you hear that?” And then she turns and looks at the window and I go “Yeah, I heard it.” And I said “Go ahead and get down.” So she got down, came out on the floor and laid down so she could watch the window.

Tom – And we heard the noise several more times, and she got up wandered around the house and smelled floor, and walls and was just nervous.

Tom – Then the next morning we went outside and there was a footprint out there. Now let me back up a little bit, Friday I pulled some rose bushes and raked the landscaping right there next to the house, so it was all fresh. So, that footprint happened I believe Sunday night. Now this scenario where she is on the couch and we hear this noise ,this has happened seven or eight different times this summer.

Stan – Can you describe the sound.

Tom – It just sounds like a creak, like somebody is leaning against the wall on the outside. And I’ve got vertical blinds and they’re turned to block the light where I am sitting but when you are outside you can look and see the TV if you are tall. I can’t see the TV when I am outside. I am six foot tall. So for someone to look in that window has to be more than six foot tall.

Right footprint showing a length 14 inches.

Stan – I know you had a ruler next to the footprint, how long did you think it was?

Tom – It is 14 inches long.

Stan – And the width was?

Tom – 7 inches wide. And the footprint is curved, it almost looks like a broken foot or something, I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s not straight like ours. Where ours has an arch this looks like the footprint is curved.

Stan – Thank you for allowing me to interview you Tom.

Tom – You are welcome Stan.

Right footprint showing a width of 7 inches.

I originally met with Tom at his home on the 19th of July 2011 and left a long-term recorder in the woods near his house. I checked the recorder several times in the next few weeks and did record some unusual sounds. Although the sounds were not of good quality they still were of some interest.

This sound was recorded on the 14th of August 2011. Although listening through the first time I thought it was just humans the witness assures me that he had no house guests in the time frame and he also has no close neighbors.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Sugar Creek Voices

The witness did find what he considered to be an unusual footprint along the creek near his home but the print had been stepped onto by other prints so the picture was just not good enough to tell whether it was human or not.

On July the 19th I did a short interview with the witness and had him explain what types of things he had been experiencing.

Click here to listen to this short interview: Sugar Creek Summer Interview

Stan - When was the first time that you something happen that you didn’t understand.

Tom – It was a year ago, so it was probably early June of 2010. It was a Saturday, a friend had stopped by. When I am outside my dog Lulu roams the property, sometimes she will go back into the tree-line but she usually stays close to me.

Tom - At one o’clock in the afternoon we were in the shop talking and doing stuff. When he was getting ready to leave I called for her. She was real nervous, her tail was tucked. There was a light breeze from the south and she was facing towards the south and acting very unusual.

Tom - I figured it was a deer, a coyote, something back there. I walked back a little ways and she wouldn’t move, she just stayed here by the side door, very nervous. I finally said, let’s go in, my friend had left. I opened the door and had to raise my voice to get her to come in, which was unusual because she always wants to stay right near me. So I raised my voice and she came in and she ran straight down the steps into the basement and hid. I first thought when she went down that she was looking for a toy or something.  After ten minutes I went down and found her, she was hiding behind the furniture in an unused room, cowering, and I reached down and she wouldn’t come to me.  I reached down to touch her and she was shaking.

Tom - I made her come back up for awhile and then we went back outside and repeated the same thing five or six times to about  8 o’clock that night. We had Lady Asian bugs and I am apparently sinus sensitive to them and that night around 9 o’clock I got my sinuses cleared up and we stepped out that side door, still had a breeze from the south, and she instantly panicked and went into that cowering motion, still shaking and standing low, not  up like a dog does.

Tom - I stood there and thought about it for a little bit and got a good whiff of it. The best description I have is that it was like the worst locker room stench or sweaty clothes that sat in a hamper for two weeks mixed with maybe road kill, bloody violent. It stood the hair up on my back, I sat back and thought wow, the trees are two hundred feet away, what is back there that smells so bad. And at the time she laid down in the yard, facing the south and be real nervous. She would look over her should behind her and then she would get up and face the other way because the wind currents were changing and she kept doing that. So we went back in for the night.

Tom - Next morning I got up and went to church and breakfast and came home, got dressed and walked back in there. She walked with for a ways and then she turned and ran back up here to the house.

Tom – From that time on there have been few deer and coyotes around. Prior to that I could see deer most every morning out back or down the roads. I think I have only seen one deer on my property in a year. Last night was the second time I’ve heard coyotes in a year. And usually if I grilled chicken out they would be howling, they would smell it and they’d be singing.

Stan – After that initial time did you smell it again last year?

Tom – I never noticed it again. About a week before, my nephew called and said there is footprints in a subdivision south of Chatham. I said that bugs me because a few days ago she (Lulu) was out back behind the brown shed barking in defense and I stepped out to see what she was doing. She had her nose up, she was following the wind currents I think, because she was running in circles, tail was tucked and she was real nervous. And I called her and she looked towards me, like she was ready to come to me and then she would jump like something spooked her, an animal, like you through a rock at her.  She did that for a couple of days when we were out. It was in the west that time and she was facing west.

Stan – Have you ever felt like you were being watched?

Tom –  Yes, just about every time I see her doing something like that, a few times I’ve been outside, I get that feeling.

Stan – Have you ever had anything thrown at you, like rocks or anything.

Tom – No.

Stan – What about sounds?

Tom – Last night, it was probably after 10, I think it was 10:30 or so I had been watching TV and I noticed she was restless in the house. I asked her once “Do you have to go potty?” Usually she would come up to me and she would give me a “Ruff” and we would go. She wouldn’t do that last night, she just looked at me like “keep guessing”. About 10:30 I said “Come on let’s go potty and then we’ll go to bed. We stepped outside and she immediately faced south and froze and I got that feeling while she was doing that somebody was starring at me.

Tom – So I stepped back in, grabbed my cellphone and my big spotlight and she was still outside. I stepped outside and started walking south towards the treeline, she stayed right by that door. Now normally a dog will follow it’s master, and I got about half way between the pool and the treeline and stopped and stood there a little bit. And I could hear ( it was real quiet you could hear crickets) stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. My hair stood up, I thought “What in the world is walking in twigs and branches?” And I said “Who’s there?” and I stopped, and I’m thinking “a couple of my friends know and are they pulling a prank?” And then I think I said it again “Who’s there?” like that.

Tom – And I waited and there was a “Whoo-oo” sound like that came back at me, probably not that loud because it knew I could hear it whatever it was. Right after that, west of here, and I would say a good half mile coyotes started screaming and yelling. Now, I don’t need to be out here alone, I don’t have a gun, I don’t have a knife. My dog was spooked, she was staying up at the house. So, I came back in, started turning the light off, fifteen, twenty minutes past.

Tom – I have a little sound amplifier and headset and you can adjust the volume. I went quietly out onto the deck, left her inside, and I set for fifteen or twenty minutes listening. I could hear some footsteps same interval steps that was west of me now back in the trees. I said “There is something back there, but I’m not going to go look after dark not when it’s something powerful.

Tom – Anyway when I came in from that I went to check email and Facebook was up with the link for Chatham for the story they just published in the paper about footprints and Messing With Sasquatch.

Stan – So did you hear any other vocals.

Tom – After I heard the footsteps and I called out and it made the sound back I started walking back up to the house. I heard what sounded like children playing and they weren’t very far away, like a couple of little girls giggling or talking. Now there are no kids back there, I know there can’t be. The next house is a half mile down the road or so. My dog Lu, started out to me and I said “Who is that?” and she froze and came right back to the house when she heard it again.

Stan – So it sounded like kids playing?

Tom – Like little girls talking or playing.

Stan – No crying, more as a conversation?

Tom – I don’t know how I would describe it, it wasn’t understandable, it wasn’t “I want that toy.” It was a whining, high pitched voice like a little girls would be.

Stan – Thank you for allowing me to interview you Tom.

Tom – You are welcome Stan.