Some people think noises in a Blue Mountain Swamp are Bigfoot(s)

Is the fabled, but never found, creature making weird noises in the Blue Mtns. east of Pendleton?

The Wildlife News has discussed the matter of Bigfoot from time to time. Hint: search.

There are often things that look, and this time sound strange in the outdoors, and this time some think it is Bigfoot or Bigfoots making not tracks, but noises. ย Since November residents of an area north of the Wildhorse Casino on theย Umatilla Indian Reservationย Reservation, Oregon, ย have been hearing loud and seemingly inexplicable noises coming from aย brushy swamp on the edge of the Blue Mountains.

The sounds are real. ย There is audio on-line. ย Bigfoot is just a hypothesis, if we can dignify the explanation of the sounds with a scientific phrase. Others have suggested fox which sometimes make unusual noises. We can add to the ideas by suggesting wolves because the relatively new Walla Walla wolf pack ranges down and perhaps into this area.

Is Bigfoot wildlife or a species of human, assuming it exists outside of our minds and as a myth (mostly of the Pacific Northwest)?

Here is a link to a web site interested in cryptobiology. Many more can be found with a simple news web search.

So we have accomplished a lazy news story for a Monday morning. ๐Ÿ˜‰

 


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  1. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    Call in Matt Moneymaker, Bobo, and the rest of the clowns at the Bigfoot “Research” organization–no doubt they’ll have definitive proof within a day or two of filming their so-called TV show.

  2. Ken Cole Avatar

    The recording is of a fox. I’ve heard that sound many, many times but the recording quality on the website is terrible.

    1. Louise Kane Avatar

      Even before I watched the video or saw yoru comment Ken, I thought that sound would be a fox. They make some unearthly sounds. They roam up and down the deserted dirt roads by the bay here. Its a mixed blessing, I love knowing they are out there but in the fall when they seem to be especially active and our windows are open, my dog hears them long before I do. It starts with a low grrrgrrr rumble grrr and ears erect. Then the pacing back and forth, then it erupts into a full fledged, I am on duty protecting my family from the foxes of the world, German Shepherd deep booming bark. My dog, Rue is close to 100 pounds and he runs from window to window rumbling and booming until I can calm him down. The fox, undeterred by the trapped inside loud mouth dog, continues his roaming and screeching. As the fox gets farther away Rue gets back to sleep…. until he hears the fox somewhere far away again. I hear the grrr rumble rumble start all over again knowing very soon I’ll hear the grumbling husband. I lean over and try and ssshh the dog. Too late, by then the husband wakes up and inevitablly says, “Louise the dog is barking”. I think to myself, your kidding that was a bark? ” Then he says, “Can’t you do anything”? That almost always makes me giggle. I mean really if I could do something would’nt I already have. Then as the fix gets nearer, we start the whole process again until the fox decides he has roamed enough and the screeching stops. My dog, humbled then by my reproaches, lies down for a good snooze and I am up the rest of the night. Foxes and screeching a part of life here. No big foot in sight

      1. jeffallen Avatar
        jeffallen

        How do you know it’s a fox? Did you see it? Maybe what you’re hearing is a Bigfoot.

        1. Ken Cole Avatar

          I’ve lived amongst foxes for years. I know what a fox sounds like. I am also a former student of Dr. Jeff Meldrum and I have had many long conversations with him about this subject.

          It’s a fox.

  3. Joseph C. Allen Avatar
    Joseph C. Allen

    My students and I saw a tooth fairy riding a unicorn when I was in Wyoming last summer…..wolves were in hot pursuit

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      ๐Ÿ™‚ ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. CodyCoyote Avatar
    CodyCoyote

    Only 63 satiring days left till April Fool’s Day.

    Gotta go . Dang Yetis got into the root cellar again…

    1. Jay Avatar
      Jay

      Best thing for getting rid of yetis is leprechauns–they hate yetis. But then you’ve got a leprechaun infestation, which requires a Loch Ness monster to get rid of, so you’re going to have to decide how badly you want to get rid of those yetis.

  5. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    Take a listen to this. Much better audio.
    Is Bigfoot/Sasquatch real? Eerie screams late night

    1. Jay Avatar
      Jay

      Coyote

      1. jeffallen Avatar
        jeffallen

        I would think these people hear coyotes all the time and can tell the difference. I know I have and this doesn’t sound like one to me.

        1. Ken Cole Avatar

          I would think that people like to make hoaxes about this subject and fool ignorant people into thinking that something they’ve never heard before could be something exotic and different.

      2. Jon Way Avatar

        It is a coyote’s bark-yodel howl. It is a bark-howl for warning. Clearly coyote.

        1. Jon Way Avatar

          Different than a normal howl, that is why the man was confused…

  6. Leslie Avatar

    One fall in the Winds, after Dickinson Park campground had been closed all summer and just opened for the last few days before, I drove up and camped at the trailhead. No one had been there all summer and I was alone with 2 dogs. That night I heard what could only be described as a pack of ‘screaming banshees’ (if you know what banshees sound like). They passed by at around 10pm, then came back through around 4am. Eerie and scary, the dogs pricked up their ears. I’d never heard anything like that before. When I went home, I listened to a lot of audio of animals and found that they were foxes. very very strange sounds though and I bet these Big Foot noises were foxes as well.

  7. Ida Lupine Avatar
    Ida Lupine

    Ha! I hear them from time to time also, the first time I ever heard the screams on a summer night I thought it was a bird of some kind, but then found out it was a fox. We had a two of them in the yard.

  8. Harley Avatar
    Harley

    Ok, so lets suppose they are foxes or coyotes. Like the guy said, they’ve had these animals around all the time, why all of a sudden starting in November are they hearing these noises? I mean this isn’t a bunch of crazy city people who don’t know anything about wild animals.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Foxes may be establishing new territories. Wolves keep coyotoes in check, maybe allowing foxes to make a comeback in some areas. It is a bizarre sound Leslie ๐Ÿ™‚

      1. Leslie Avatar

        Nancy, you are right. Old timers who have lived here for many years saw few foxes. But there are many more around now with the wolves in the valley. Three territorial carnivores in an area makes for an interesting study of competition. I have yet to hear that screaming banshee sound again in my lifetime.

    2. jeffallen Avatar
      jeffallen

      Exactly.

      1. Ken Cole Avatar

        The recordings (2) are of a fox and a coyote.

  9. Larry Thorngren Avatar

    The foxes in my area make these screaming sounds when confronting racoons.

  10. CodyCoyote Avatar
    CodyCoyote

    – and unless you’ve ever heard the screams that can emanate from a Cougar in courtship… makes the neighbor’s little Queenie in the alley getting schtucked sound almost tolerable. Carries for miles, too.

    Add to list : Loons , and my totem Coyote. Up close and personal: talking Ravens doing ventriloquisms.

    1. savebears Avatar
      savebears

      My wife’s Uncle raised a talking crow, his name was Mikey, and he loved to get up in the trees outside and start talking, Her uncle lived next to a bar, I am sure, there are many that stopped drinking after being exposed to him over the years!

      1. Leslie Avatar

        One night I heard the weirdest screeching sounds. Looked out the window to two skunks copulating.

      2. Elk275 Avatar
        Elk275

        Didn’t your wife Uncle live next to MR. ED. Remember MR. ED the talking horse, that has been a long, long time ago.

        1. savebears Avatar
          savebears

          My Wife’s Uncle lives in Lincoln.

      3. Ida Lupine Avatar
        Ida Lupine

        ๐Ÿ™‚

  11. CodyCoyote Avatar
    CodyCoyote

    -just spotted this at Wired.com

    There is an online library containing 150,000 clips of the sounds made by over 9,000 animal and bird species.

    http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/macaulay-animal-sounds/

    The MacCauley Library at Cornell U.

    1. Ralph Maughan Avatar
      Ralph Maughan

      CodyCoyote,

      Thanks!

  12. Sam Parks Avatar

    Let me see if I can follow the logic here:

    We hear a sound in the woods that we can’t identify. Therefore, it was a bigfoot.

    Flawless.

    1. Jay Avatar
      Jay

      You got a better explanation that doesn’t involve mythical creatures? I’d like to hear it…

  13. savebears Avatar
    savebears

    Hell, I grew up in Washington, hunting all around the areas they are suppose to live, ape caves, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, Trout Creek, and yes sometimes we heard really weird sounds at night and even during the day.

    1. Cobra Avatar
      Cobra

      S.B
      Have you ever heard a mountain lion screaming?
      When I was a young boy we used to hike down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison river in western Colorado to fish, it was awesome fishing back then. One night while we were fishing we heard this godawful screaming coming from the rim of the canyon and we were sure it was a mountain lion, I’ve heard them a time or to since then and was able to confirm that sound by the tracks in the area. Scary as hell, your with two other 14 year old boys and it’s dark. Sure made for a long night, I don’t think any of us slept a wink for the whole 5 days we were there. Lol

  14. topher Avatar
    topher

    I don’t believe in bigfoot but I still like to read the Bauman story once in awhile. It’s best just before a wilderness backpacking trip.

  15. Immer Treue Avatar
    Immer Treue

    May the gods forbid that something like big foot is real. It’s probably: Canadian; is, well, big; has parasites that are dangerous to humans; spreads CWD, brucellosis, toxoplasmosis,…; jeezo peezo!:-)

  16. Vicki Fossen Avatar
    Vicki Fossen

    It is easy enough to find audio clips for comparison. I am not so quick to dismiss the possibility of any new species. We found new species all the time. Ken Cole, as a former student of Dr. Meldrum, surely you have heard the myriad of rationalizations. To me, the entire subject is intriguing. I have no problem with investigating sasquatch in general. I would just encourage people to do it with a scientific approach. I don’t doubt it is possible, but I can prove it is real. So what I have is, questions. I know very credible people who stand by it’s existence. Meldrum, Bendernagel and even Jane Goodall say it is possible. With experts like that being open to it, who am I to scoff at it?

    1. Ken Cole Avatar

      Yes, I have heard many rationalizations. I think you have to be extremely skeptical about evidence for Sasquatch. With regard to the videos and audio we’re talking about here I think you have to use Occam’s Razor: “among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected”.

      It’s a fox.

      1. Vicki Fossen Avatar
        Vicki Fossen

        Ken Cole,
        This is fox, no doubt. I was speaking in the general and nor on this recording. I wouldn’t discredit everything that is presented though. Chuckling, this is most certainly a fox.

        1. Ida Lupine Avatar
          Ida Lupine

          Yes. You can hear it plainly in the attached video too. ๐Ÿ™‚

            1. Vicki Fossen Avatar
              Vicki Fossen

              Great Link Ida,
              I have stored some other sites on my favorites bar. It isn’t often that I am unable to identify a sound just from years of experience. Every once in a while, I have to search though.

Author

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

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