I have been reading here for quite some time, gathering information, and pretty much entertaining myself. I have never registered or posted until now, because I didnt have any pertinant information to post. Well now I do. I had a heart stopping encounter yesterday morning, 11/20.

Me and my buddy decided to go hunting up in the George Washington National Forest in north western Virginia. We dont have any private land to go on, so going to the Ntl' Forest was our only option. It is a heavly hunted area during deer season, as hunters from the Northern VA area and others like myself frequent the area. We decided that due to the heavy hunter traffic, it would be a good idea to be in the woods and situated at least an hour before sun rise. This was in hopes of other hunters jumping deer and pushing them our way. At about 4:45am we began our trek into the forest. To light our way we took along a small maglight, the single AAA kind, as a large beam of light would have been too intrusive. This light, as some of you know isnt worth the battery you put in, and can only illuminate merely 10 feet at the most. Once we left the truck we had to cross a creek, then up a hill of about a 45* angle for roughly 300 feet. At the top of the hill the grade levels off to a nice inclining slope. For referance, the valley we were in has mountains of roughly 2000ft on each side, with the valley floor being carved out by the creek. We were very quite going up the hill, and took our time as not to spook any possible deer. After a very short time we noticed a car coming down the logging road that we parked on. We decided to stop and wait, so that we could see our truck in the headlights, to get a bearing on which way we were headed and how far we had gone. I would say we were about 200 yards from the truck. Again we began slowly moving up the mountain. About 30-40 yards later I heard some noises ahead of us, and we both stopped to listen. It was the sound of 'something' walking through the fallen leaves. The sounds were roughly 20-30 yards ahead of us, and I figured we just jumped a small mammal. It wasnt very loud, and at first I thought maybe a coyote, possum, coon, etc. Then the noises stopped, and we began to start walking again. After we both took one step, we heard it. It was the loudest blood curdling scream that I have ever heard. My heard skipped a beat and I was petrified. When it started, I began to think it was a coyote, but it kept going and changed tones throughout the enitre call. The only way that I can describe it, is very similar to a howler monkey. It went for about 5 seconds, started at a low frequency (not bass, but low), then progressed to a high pitched yell. It was just a OOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo. We stood there for a few seconds, and heard nothing else, no movement, nothing. I freaked out. I told my buddy we were leaving. At first he was reluctant to leave, I told him I thought it was BF and he laughed. He was holding my shirt, and not letting me go, finally he let go and we headed for the truck. I started going down the hill at a tremendous pace with my back to the valley shining the light up the hill because I didnt want to turn my back on it. We made tons of noise, and were not quite at all. When we got back to the truck we stood there for a minute and didnt hear anything else. I made him open up the truck and let me in. I told him that I wasnt going back into the woods until daylight, and we would have to move to a different area, which we did. We didnt hear anything else, and never came across any sign.

Now we both had rifles, me a 30/30 and my buddy had a 7mm. So if we would have needed to we could have defended ourselves. But being that it was so dark, moon covered by overcast skies, and could bearly see 5ft in the darkness with the light...defending ourselves would have proved more dangerous than the big guy. I am assuming that it was a warning call, telling us he was there and to get the heck out. He never did throw any rocks at us, but I am sure that would have happened if we would have stayed. If I would have heard that from a distance, I wouldnt have been so scared. But because he was right there, I didnt want to take any chances.

Well, that is what happend to me and my friend on Saturday. He is still not conviced that what we heard was bigfoot. I was wondering if anyone could direct me to some good sounds that I could send him. Anything like what I described, and others would be helpful. I have tried bigfootsounds.com but I dont want to buy that cd, and would just like to find some downloadable sounds.

Please, any feedback would be great. I will be here, and dont plan on posting and disappearing. Thanks for listening, BTW I am going to report this to bfro right now.

Mike

Man, that's cool stuff. Mind if I put this in my files?

I'm in VA too, but up here in Springfield, we don't see much of Uncle Hairy..

Yup. Go ahead and file away. Winchester, where I am, isnt that far from Springfield, and I actually work down in Herndon. It was a very scarey thing to encounter, and if I had any visability I doubt I would have been as worried.

Mike

Thanks Mike. I think BFRO ought to be interested in this. I remember driving through GWNF and thinking "Man, that's one place you might find a BF.." I do wonder where they'd hang out during the times when hunters infiltrate..

http://www.angelfire.com/apes/wtbrg/yowie.wav

Just doing a little research, and this is to a 'T' what we heard. When I started playing it the hair on my neck stood up.

Mike

Thanks for sharing your encounter Mike and welcome to the BFF. Is this particular area one that you have hunted before or relativley new to you? I'm also assuming you went back up after light because you said you didn't find any sign. Thanks again for posting.

For the sake of science, can you distinguish what you heard from this? :

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wolves/confront.html

That's a wolf's warning howl.

mike2k1:
I have hunted here off an on for the last 6 years, and have used the area for camping. My buddies and I used to come up here in high school and screw around. This is the first time that I have had anything happen in the area. I have camped here more than hunted, as I just recently lost my hunting land. We didnt go back up the area for two reasons. We didnt want to go back up there, even though it was daylight....and secondly, after the sun had come up we noticed that where we had entered just happened to be the only piece of posted land that backed up into the valley. Trespassing, especially when other hunters can see you purposly commiting the act, isnt somthing I wanted to do.

dbdonlon:
First off, wolves are not native to the area and to my knowledge there has never been a sighting in Virginia, let alone MD or WVA. Secondly, it was very different than that. I am a avad outdoorsman, and tend to watch Animal Planet and Discovery as much as possible. I would have known if it were the howl of a wolf, and the the way that it projected itself to us was not wolf nature. Wolves dont tend to howl at an intruding human, rather growl/snarl etc. Plus the way that wolf howls end, is very different to the way that this vocalization ended. It ended with a sort-of accent at the end of the call.

Thanks for the link to a wolf howl, it did help me in clarifying that. I have been listening to owls, coyotes, and other nocturnal animals...but that was the first wolf howl I have listened too.

Mike

For some reason this link is not working for me. Dang.

You have to copy and paste it to your browser. Anglefire is a pain, and wont let you do a direct link.

Mike

I certainly wasn't suggesting that I thought you had heard a wolf, just want to get that out of the way.

I think wolves may have been native to VA centuries ago but I'm not 100% on that. But I know plenty of people in Charlottesville, for instance, that raise half-wolves for pets..

So we just get you on record that it wasn't a wolf is all. Thanks for taking a listen.

If you were to find near the exact same spot again, you and your buddy, outfitted like you were this time, except plus a recording device of some kind, you might get a repeat and get it recorded. But I can understand if you don't want to go back in there..

I didnt mean to sound defensive, as I didnt take any offense to that, sorry for the confusion. I too know of people who have at least owned a wolf dog, this was years ago. I think we may make our way out there after hunting season is over, but I dont plan on going into those woods during night time, ever again. It was just too over whelming of an experiance. I would like to go back to the area just to look for some kind of indicators such as the bent tree structures, or other stuff that may stand out. Probably wont be until March or April as they close the access roads during winter to prevent people going 4wheeling.

Mike

frey51, is this what you heard, or maybe something similar? It's known as the "Ohio Howl," and I've heard it several times at several different places here in Texas. In the BFRO, we use a "cleaned up" version of it for call-blasting.

http://www.bfro.net/AVEVID/MJM/ohrec.asp

Click on WAV format.

Wow, texastracker that sound was scary. If that's what he heard I can 100% understand why he was so scared. I would've freaked!

And I see that you have identified the sound, but there are also a few good recordings found HERE.

Mike, there is a long history of BF sightings in the George Washington National Forest. I remember reading a local article here a few years ago detailing some of the sightings. I'll see if I can find it again and will post here.

Mark

I would appreciate that! I'm making a map of VA sightings. I think the only reason we take a back seat to Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland is because we haven't had a whole lot of dedicated research here.

I've looked around, and there are no sites I can find that detail VA sightings. I think it's time to catch up with the rest of this region.

What newspaper would be your local? After the Christmas break, I'm going to spend some time at the Library of Congress trying to turn up some good bits for VA.

Frey51, would like to know if you heard anything before this long OOOOOOOooooo

Don't know think you have the capablities to PM but please email me. and will be able to help you out.

Check out this link, this guy had an interesting encounter. I'm in the Vienna, Va. area...Mark

http://www.virginiabigfootresearch.org/

Yeah I've been there. That's William Dranginis' site. He has a set of sightings reported to him, some of which don't appear to be complete records. Right now I'm of the opinion he isn't being as careful a chronicler as he could be..

I want to make a database of all of them. So far I've got 36 pages of sightings in my file, but I don't know how many separate encounters that amounts to yet.

Ok, looks like I've got 35 reports. I am sure there are more than that if you go back into historical archives, but that's all that's available on the web.

I keep my eyes open for any new sightings in my neck of Virginia. There's one on the bfro site and it wasn't a sighting exactly, but audible. I remember reading some reports from the Richmond area but I can't remember where I found them.

Sorry fellas. I havnt been on here for a while, just been so busy...plus I dont have the internet at my house and can only do this while at work.

TexasTracker - I am pretty sure that what we heard was a slight variation of the calls in the recording. That is extremly similar with the only differance that I can tell being clarity and the fact that we were merely 30 yards from it. I am sure being so close gave us the ability to differentiate between subtle tone changes. Also it was only one single call, not a series of calls. The length was almost identical to those calls in the recording.

BiPedal - The only other sounds that we heard that entire morning was a flying squirel (as we were walking up the hill). Then obviously the movement that made us initially stop, which inturn ended up being whatever yelled at us.

dbdonlon - Like I said in my emails, I am definatly interested in doing a little more research out there. I have heard from some of my fellow hunters that there have been reports of people hearing elk bugleing in the last 2 or three years up in the GWNF. Obviously elk are up in PA, down in KY, and a small population in SW Virginia that have migrated from Kentucky...So elk making there way to my area isnt hard to believe. Although if someone were to hear a BF in the distance, and not have any knowledge of what it may be, then an elk could be a possible animal for them to think they heard. Anyway, I am serious about getting hooked up with you and going in and doing some searching. Keep in contact with me on email.

Mike

Elk in VA? Wow, for some reason that really surprises me. All the woodland animals are coming back.

I'm still very interested in having a look up there. I've seen Elk sign and I think if they are hanging out in that area it ought to be pretty easy to find out.

Hey there, Ethereal. I used to live in VA Beach. Man I loved it there.

I don't have any sightings from VA Beach itself, but I've got two from Chesapeake. Have you heard of any others in that area? Let me know if you have details and I'll add it to my map.