I noticed a report on your website from September of 2001 at the Sand Flat campground (State of California, County of Tuolumne). The hair stood up on my neck when I read this due to the similarities with my experience. My experience occurred the same month and year at the Clark Fork campground, about one mile Southwest of Sand Flat.
My wife and I arrived at the Clark Fork campground on Thursday, September 20th 2001. This was our first ever September camping trip (we usually go in mid-August). We were surprised at how few people were in the campground compared to our 4 previous trips to this area. One factor that probably lead to the extremely low occupancy was that the 9/11 terrorist attacks had happened the week before. Out of 88 camp sites, probably only twelve were occupied. We set up our camp in the 'B loop' and settled in. The B loop is our favorite of the 2 campground loops. It has a slightly nicer setting (more pine trees, nicer bathrooms, etc.) and is closer to the 'wilderness' than the A loop. But on Sunday the 23rd, the two retiree campground hosts told us the B loop was closing for the season and that we would need to move to the A loop of we were going to stay.
After relocating to the A loop on Sunday morning we noticed that there was only two other campsites occupied. All other campers had left. One group was a young couple with two very young children, the other was two older men in their 60's or 70's with a trailer. I had never seen so few people in this area. It was really nice to practically have the whole place to ourselves. It was very quiet.
Sunday night it rained hard, and we spent most of Monday morning patching our leaky tent and drying everything out. On Monday night, we did as we always did before bed: played cards and listened to the radio. We climbed into our tent and went to bed at about 10:00 p.m.
Late that night after 2 a.m., I slowly came out of a deep sleep due to high-pitch noise which I initially thought was a wounded coyote. After I was fully awake, the noise got much louder. It was clearly a 'screaming' sound rather than howling, yipping, yelling, or shouting. The screaming appeared to be coming from the Clark Fork River area, north of the access road which leads to the campground. The sound got progressively louder and was obviously not from a canine.
I wondered if any human being could make a sound so loud, long, and hideous. The sound changed pitch and tempo many times. My wife woke up about a minute into the screaming. She asked, 'Why is that man screaming?' I had no idea what could have made such a sound but it was very unsettling. My wife said it sounded like a man was being murdered out in the forest, but then commented that a person couldn't make a sound like that. Whatever made these sounds had to have an enormous lung capacity. The screaming went on for about 5 full minutes before it stopped. I laid awake for a while, nervous and wondering what it could have been. Frankly I didn't want to know.
As I drifted off to sleep about an hour later, I was awakened by a very loud metal-on-metal 'bang' coming from the closed B loop portion of the campground. It was obvious to me that the sound was one of the bear-proof dumpster lids being lifted up and then dropped. I've heard the sound many times. Now that's fine and dandy, except that it was 3:00 a.m., bears can't open the dumpster lids, and there was no one else in the area where the sound came from. The B loop was closed. This really bothered me. I did not fall asleep until almost dawn. I laid clutching a pistol with my heart racing every time I heard a rustle outside of our tent. I refused to leave the tent until it was light.
I have heard hundreds of coyotes throughout the years, both in the Sierras and in the California desert, and this screaming was not a coyote. As for the possibility of a mountain lion making these sounds, I would bet my life that it wasn't a feline. I've heard mountain lions make some strange noises, but the bottom line is that a cat sounds like a cat. It's easy to distinguish between noises a feline, a canine, or a bear makes. The screaming that my wife and I heard was none of these.
Okay, I just spent about ten or fifteen minutes listening to the various sounds and recordings that you have to try to help me identify what we heard. I cannot say that any of the recordings sounded j...
I was camping with my dad at Bear Lake in Emigrant National Wilderness. I had just woken up from a loud strange sound, I put my boots on and got out of the tent and heard a very loud howling noise com...
I was up off old strawberry road on sunday afternoon about 4pm. Take left before you get to strawberry proper off 108. I was getting the dogs out of the truck. Its a one lane old road, there was a tur...
I was just about to go to bed for the night when I took my dog outside for a quick walk. The area around my house is very densely wooded and my backyard is so forested that it's hard to see in the dar...
I lived on the very top of the mountain. I rode my bike down the dirt road from our house up the next hill, turned my bike around and would pedal down the main road and then coast up the next.
As ...
During the summer of 1974 my sister in law I am were on our way from Lompoc, California to see our respective grandmothers. My sister in law's grandmother lived in Buttonwillow which is in Kern County...
I have told my story to very few people for the fact that all they do is laugh. I saw a bigfoot in the summer of 1979 just east of Seneca. I lived there for about 15 years just north of the river brid...
Back in 1990 i was having predation problems on some property i was leasing. something was killing and eating my chickens i was raising. so me and my friend bj decided to doa little varmit hunting. we...
The subject that my brother saw was between 8-9 ft tall. It had brown hair covering its body, appeared to have no neck, very long arms, took long strides. It was started to cross a road when he came u...
My husband and I were on our way home last fall and we saw what can only be described as a bigfoot walk across the road in front of us. It was a cold rainy night and we were on the back roads to our h...
Initial report received as the associated media article linked below.
I spoke with James Hughes tonight and he sounded very credible.
Mr. Hughes told me that on the morning of March 28th at app...
my grandfather told me about seeing a thing he said looked like a ape when he was was hunting at harvest in Magoffin county when he was younger.
said he didnt shoot it because he didnt know what it w...
January 1972
THE BIGFOOT REPORT FROM SQUATCHABLE.COM
SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER!
In five seconds or less, keep track of the most important Bigfoot news of the day. Squatchable's daily email newsletter features the day’s biggest stories and sightings report that matter most to readers like YOU.
Check your email!
Please check your email's SPAM or JUNK folder and confirm your subscription. It's in there somewhere!