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It is seldom that a researcher records sounds that are worthy of sharing with the public or a picture of something that is definitely sasquatch related.

Such is the case with this blogpost. I am not saying what I experienced in the night or the picture of my window is of any importance but I thought I would share it with everyone just the same.

On the 22nd of June 2009 I spent the night in a campground in the Lewis & Clark National Forest of Central Montana. This is the same campground that my brother had an experience in 2004, I recorded bipedal footsteps in 2005 and last year I had an unusual experience.

After arriving at the campground I struck up a conversation with several Forest Service employees. I explained I was doing research in the area. I was interested in seeing their reaction and perhaps get some new information. All three were polite and the young graduate student was especially interested. I invited him to accompany me while I did some sound blasting. We did two vocal calls of my own voice  & two of Illinois Howl. There was a cow elk about 100 yards from us in a small meadow and I wanted to see her reaction. The elk reacted with a series of vocalizations and walked & ran back up to the ridge. She did not run away from us, in fact her position was closer to us after broadcasting.

Click here for recording of:   The Botanist & The Elk

At about 4:40 a.m. I woke up. The sky was just starting to become light and the birds were singing. I was going to leave, as I had a long ways to travel that day, but decided to wait until dawn as I did not want to miss any activity. While I was laying there something very large struck the hitch on the front of my car. It was as if something grabbed ahold of the hitch and bounced on it. I was glad that I was awake. I was not able to see anything as it was not light enough.

I was sure my recorder would have picked up the hitch sound but upon review the noise from the creek was so loud that sadly the complete night’s recording was mostly covered over.  When I went to bed I checked all the car windows to make sure they did not have any marks or smudges. This picture is what I found in the morning.  Nothing definitive but I still found it interesting.

The evening of the 4th of May, 2009 I was accompanied by Dennis Pfohl of Colorado to my “Main Research Box” here in Central Illinois.

The conditions were almost perfect, 55 degrees, no humidity, no bugs and no breeze.  Hopefully it would be great for making audio recordings. I have adjusted all the recordings for volume and eliminated all base rumble. They have not been altered otherwise. Because of the distance from some of the sounds the resulting quality is poor.

Click here to listen to sound clip: Introduction

While at the “food drop” we heard a very distant howl off to the east.  It did not seem to be either coyote or dog.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Howl 7

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Dennis mentions an unusual smell and branches breaking, which could be many things from small forest animals to deer or raccoons or even Belle who was tagging along with us.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Discussion about the smell and breaking branches.

This area has many Barred Owl and Whippoorwill which are always a real treat to listen to. Sorry about my breathing on the recording after hiking through the mud and wet grass.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Barred Owl & Whippoorwill serenade

We heard and recorded a very strange hissing type of sound coming from the ridge just above our location. Difficult to describe, it’s position changed several times.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Hissing 1

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About 30 seconds later it moved further up the ridge.

This picture is from Cool Edit showing the length of time that the sound lasted, about 10 seconds which is quite a while for an animal to be exhaling.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Hissing 2

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Many coyotes decided to join in on the music making.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Coyotes – 1st recording

Dennis did a series of woodknocks with no responses other than more branch breaking.

We walked an hour back to the Jeep. We returned along the road to this last position and did a series of three soundblasts. It was 1 1/2 hrs. between the time that we heard the 2nd Strange Sound, hiked back the mile through the woods and drove the 4 1/2 miles back to begin the soundblasting . After soundblasting we again heard and recorded this strange hissing sound. This time the sound maker had moved further south, across the road into some trees on the other side.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Hissing 3

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After the 2nd soundblast we had two different groups of coyotes decide to sing along.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Coyote Serenade

All in all it was a good evening.  We would have liked to have been closer to the initial howls and to have known what was making the strange hissing sound but field research at  night is not easy and getting good quality recordings up close is almost impossible.

Thank you Dennis for accompanying me. After seeing three cougar several years ago in this immediate area I do not consider it safe to venture out alone at night into the deep woods of my “Main Research Box”.

On the evening of the 8th of April 2009 at 2 a.m. I recorded 5 minutes of a series of screams. Sadly they were at a distance and the quality of the recording was poor.  Most researchers thought that the sound maker was a fox.

Update –

On the 1st of May at about 4 a.m. I again recorded this Red Fox.  This time he was very close to the recorder.

To listen to the sound clip, click here – Not So Distant Screams

I took this  picture several years ago of another Red Fox at a distance with a point and shoot camera.

Red Fox

Many readers contacted me that they thought this sound was a fox.  One of those that helped identify this sound was Doug Von Gausig of Naturesongs.com.

Doug wrote –

On my website (http://www.naturesongs.com) I offer to help people identify unknown sounds they hear, and the Red Fox is the number one culprit! It’s such an unusual and scary sound, and people seldom actually see the perpetrator. I always know just from the initial description what it is. Also, the reports peak in the Spring each year, during the breeding season. The second most reported “mystery” is the Barn Owl, and Great Horned Owlets come in third or so.   Doug

Also, for an excellent website of many fox sounds you can visit –

Sounds of the Fox

One of my greatest joys is my Karelian Bear Dog, Belle. Karelians have been bred for hundreds of years in the region of Karelia, in Finland. They are used for hunting, specifically bear and moose. They are fearless, loyal and very energetic. I was after a squatchin’ partner with keen senses who could accompany me while doing field work.

I operate my recording gear from my backyard in Central Illinois 24/7. Recently I recorded the following sequence.   Although the recording is no mystery, I thought it was still curious to hear how Belle goes on the alert to something she heard outside (she was napping on our bed inside the house). She begins barking and charges out the doggie door onto the upstairs deck. Getting more upset she is ready to charge when she realizes the intruder was me. She then runs down the steep stairs and goes into a joyful spate of crying and vocalizing.

If only my wife showed this much rejoicing when I returned home, (laugh out loud).

To listen to the sound clip, click here: Belle’s Surprise

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A somewhat controversial topic is the use of sound blasting in sasquatch research. Please vote! As always I would like to hear your comments.

By escAPEe

Originally posted on escAPEe’s hideway:

Wooded brush east of the house as seen an hour before the unidentified noise occured

Please listen to this inexplicable sound recorded during an on-site investigation in southern Illinois on Saturday, 12-Jul-2008.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Weed-eater 1

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This audio clip is edited from near the end of a recording that lasted over 2 hours. The other investigator and homeowner are the first two voices being heard in this audio clip as they react to this noise which broke the silence that evening. They were perhaps up to 100 yards from the source location of the noise in an overgrown and wooded lot east of the homeowner’s property. The end of the audio clip includes our initial reactions as the other investigator, homeowner and I share our observations and try to understand what we had just heard. Mine is the third person’s voice you hear speaking near the end of the audio clip.

When this noise occured, my family and I had just come out of the homeowner’s house and were walking out to our car. The events in the audio clip occured at 9:20pm, around an hour after sunset. The other investigator, the homeowner, my youngest daughter and I had been outside talking and touring the vicinity around the house since 7:00pm. At sunset, we hiked about one-third mile east through the woods which run behind the homeowner’s house, stayed put and talked until 9:00pm when the moon was bright and started heading back to the house. My daughter and I walked on ahead (needing to get back and use the restroom). The other investigator and the homeowner were still on the trail back in the woods when my family and I came out of the house. As the 6 of us we were standing within the circle of light from the house’s front porch, this loud sound erupted from the lot east of the house in the direction where I expected the other investigator and homeowner to have been.

From our position, the noise was much louder than it sounds on the audio clip. I was feeling the amplified pulse of each grating hiss and popping squeak striking my body as if we were standing too close to the percussive bang of an M-80 firecracker. Yet we did not see any fire, pyrotechnic light or sparks. I had to raise my voice and shout to assure my family that the noise was either fireworks or something being blasted over a loudspeaker. As it was happening, my guess was that either the other investigator or homeowner were broadcasting a recorded sound over a megaphone to see what kind of response was returned. (I hadn’t been around another investigator who did “sound blasting” before so it seemed the simplest explanation at the time.)

When the three of us met immediately after the loud noise, I learned that the only equipment they had with them was the recorder and microphone being used to capture this recording. This had not been a “sound blasted” noise as I originally thought. From their vantage point, the source location of the noise was up to 100 yards south in the direction of the house. From our vantage point at the front of the house, my family and I heard it coming from very close range to the northeast in their direction back in the woods on the trail. This pinpointed whatever it was that had made the sound as being located in the wooded brush of the lot east of the homeowner’s house (this lot is pictured at the beginning of this entry). They were looking south from the north end of this lot, we were looking northeast from the south end and none of us saw any lights, flashes or sparks associated with fireworks. Nor did we hear any movement in the brush. Otherwise it was too dark to have seen anything.

We’ve been reviewing the audio clip for a week and so far have been unable to identify with any certainty whatever it is that made this sound. We had eight people witness the noise– myself, my wife, my four children, the other investigator and the homeowner. My wife described the noise as sounding like somebody playing with a Mr. Microphone toy on high volume. Our unanimous consensus is that it was not fireworks.

The repeated pattern does bear similarities to one of the calls made by southern leopard frogs which are common in these woods– except for the sheer volume of the noise and that popping squeak at the end of each grating hiss. The one theory that makes more sense than anything else is that the noise then is actually an imitation or mimicry of the frog call being made by something capable of mimicking other animal vocalizations with this demonstration of both volume and lung power.

Rolling field and distant woods as seen looking south from the house

The reason for our visit that evening is the history of sighting reports and other suspicious observations made by the couple living in this home spanning the past year and a half. It was the wife who actually was the first to see a grey lanky figure standing in the bushes just west of the house as she drove home after working second shift a year and a half ago. When her 6-foot tall husband stood in the same location, she said the figure she saw was easily a foot or two taller than he was. Subsequent sightings (including descriptions of other individual figures of different hair color, physique and size), unusual noises and tracks were observed on and off through last fall. New observations were reported for the first time this year beginning a couple weeks ago– as it appears a clan of individuals is again visiting this vicinity.

Branches in the homeowner’s backyard are thick and woven together to block access

The homeowner is unable to enter the brush in the back half of his lot adjacent to the woods. When he first moved here five years ago, he had plans to clear this land. During these five years, he has not even been able to walk on this portion of his property. Adjacent lots have a similar jungle of undergrowth (refer again to the first photograph showing the lot east of his house). When we asked him why he was piling up branches in his backyard, he said he wasn’t. Not all of the windfall branches are from nearby trees. Some of these branches seem to have been brought in from elsewhere.

One of the reasons cited by the homeowner for inviting the other investigator and me to visit his house last weekend was that a green apple had been thrown at him while he was in his backyard from within this jungle of branches and brush. Something like that had not happened during the previous year and a half of suspicious activity on and around his property.

The investigation of reports from this location which began a year and a half ago is ongoing. The unidentified audio recording made on 12-July-2008 is among the first pieces of physical evidence to be documented by someone other than the couple living in this house.

One of the biggest problems I faced for recording at my old place was hum from a treatment plant that was across the creek.  Sometimes it was not heard but other times it was terrible. I recorded the following clip on the 13th of November of 2006.

Although this sound clip is not of very good quality it does show several things. This was at about 2 a.m. in a rural setting, so I know that no one was down in my woods. We also did not have any small dogs so I think the barking sounds are not of a dog. However the pattern of the barks does seem to resemble how my own dog barks, not the sounds but just the pattern.

Click here to listen to sound clip:   Chatter 1

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4th December 2004

New Boston, Ill. “” Kenny Tharp of rural Mercer County, Ill., is an experienced hunter who has traveled to Utah over the years to pursue mountain lions, a creature he never had seen in his neck of the woods.

Until Saturday, that is.

The 39-year-old rural New Boston man and a friend were making a couple of deer drives Saturday behind his house on 76th Street when his friend came upon a large dead, mountain lion, also known as a cougar.

“It was a big male, 84 inches long from nose to tail,” Tharp said. “He was between 120-130 pounds.”

“I”ve lived here for 20 years and have never seen one here before. Here I go to Utah to hunt mountain lions and a find one a half-mile from my back door.”

The animal had been dead at most a day, and was preserved by the cold weather, he said. It had been shot with a bow, with the arrow entering the big cat’s shoulder and exiting at a downward angle through the chest cavity.

“He didn”t die right away,” he said. “They’re a tough animal. They’ll take a bullet and have enough left in them to fight a dog for 20 minutes before dying.”

A report of the lion was taken by the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department, which confirmed the incident.

Tharp placed the lion in his father’s freezer and plans to have a taxidermist stuff it for him. “I’m going to have it mounted for sure,” he said. “It’s definitely a trophy.”

But the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, wants to view the cougar before that happens, said Illinois DNR spokeswoman Gayle Simpson, who is based in Springfield. “We’ll take a close look at it and try to determine its origin and see where it’s been and what it’s been eating,” she said.

But DNR only can take the cat if Tharp allows them to, for further study. Otherwise, it is his. “We’re hoping he at least lets us look at it,” she said.

The last occurrence of a mountain lion in Illinois was several years ago in Randolph County, she said.

“That was in southern Illinois and in that instance it had been killed by a train,” Simpson said. “We were never able to determine if it had escaped from someone who had it in captivity.”

She said there have been a number of reports of mountain lion sightings in other parts of the state, but they have turned out to be false. Three mountain lions have been killed in Iowa since 2000, the first cougars confirmed in the state since 1867.

The mountain lion, also known as a cougar, puma, panther, catamount or simply lion, are found mostly today in the western United States and Canada, according to information provided by the Colorado Division of Wildlife Web site. The animal’s staple diet is deer and elk.

The cats were hunted into extinction in the eastern and Midwestern states in the 1800s and early 1900s. But there may be indications the lions are working their way eastward. Since 2000, more than two dozen of the animals have been killed or photographed outside the animal’s normal range.
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For example, a national park ranger in Michigan spotted a mountain lion near the shores of Lake Michigan in June. And in eastern Nebraska in November, a woman found a mountain lion asleep in a tree. A conservation officer killed the animal in South Sioux City, Neb.
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David Maehr, an authority on mountain lions at the University of Kentucky, said that the cougar population in the west appears to be growing, and young males are seeking new territory. Additionally, mountain lions are thriving because deer and elk have grown in numbers while competing predators such as wolves and bears are struggling.