Recently, my girlfriend and myself were out in west central Alberta, doing some Sasquatch "lookin'".

The area we were in is known for activity. Just after midnight, while laying awake in our tent, something screamed from a short distance away. The duration of the scream (screams) was about 8 to 10 seconds. Very high pitched, but not one steady scream, somewhat broken. The scream came from dead silence and was followed by dead silence.

I had been doing some tree knocking and rapping throughout the evening in responce to knocks I heard in the distance.

There were no other people around, it was NOT human. That leaves animal.

We have been searching for what possible answers there could be as to what made the scream. Our best guess are cougar or coyote.

It was a very bone chilling scream. We have looked for cougar screams on the net, but found little. Can anyone here help out with any possibilities?

what type of scream was it, can you define it? Sometimes I have trouble with the way people use little to no description of what they've encountered, its like did it sounds like a womanish scream? Was it girlish? Was it more like a banshee? lol Did it sound more masculin? If you could possibly use words to describe what it sounded like ie. a coyote goes aahhhoooooooooo that type of thing.

The screams were clean and high pitched. Each scream was preceded or followed by some sort of grunting woof type sound. The vowel sound of the scream would be a "wooohhhh....". Best example would be "rah-rah-rah-woooohhhhh....rah-rah-rah-woooohhhh...." repeated about 4 or 5 times. More of a scream for sure than a howl.

Well, after listening to damn near every possible animal call I could find, I have narrowed the possibilities down to cougar or coyote. Both of these animals are in the area I was, cougars less common than coyotes. Both of these animals can make an incredible variety of calls.

So can anyone tell me what are the odds and reasons for a cougar or coyote coming within a very close distance of our tent within 10-15 mins of us putting out the camp fire and crawling into our sleeping bags, and letting out the scream I described above.

We had no pets with us and had left no food out. There were no other pets in the area either.

Curiosity, territorial warning, mating search or just plain p*ssed at humans being there.

Then there's the other possibility :willies:

hey great description

I guess I've pretty much answered my own questions as to what screamed. I've talked to alot of hunters and outdoors people, been all over the net listening to every possible call from suspect critters. All I know now is that almost every damn animal out there screams, found nothing conclusive.

I agree that hearing a sceam or howl in the forest really does'nt mean much unless you see the actual creature doing the screaming, otherwise it's just speculation but hey isn't speculation 99% of Sasquatchery??

By process of elimination I have removed all suspects that don't fit the bill, that leaves me with coyote, cougar, fox, and wolf. Maybe next time (if a next time) it happens I'll run out after the son-of-female dog and tackle 'em, yah right. :rolleyes: