BFRO #26750: Chemical Engineer hears possible vocalizations while turkey hunting in the Lower Buffalo National Wilderness Area

📍 Location

📝 Description

Probable Sasquatch VocalizationsI am writing this in October 2009, three and one half years after hearing what were likely the vocalizations of two Sasquatches in southern Marion County, Arkansas in April 2006 in the Lower Buffalo Wilderness Area. I have told many people unashamedly of my encounter over the past 3.5 years, and I have thought about it hundreds of times to keep the memory fresh in my mind.The date of my encounter was either Wednesday morning, April 19 or Thursday morning, April 20, 2006. The reason I am not certain of the date is that I do not keep a daily journal, and I cannot remember if I left home for my 3-day, 2-night turkey hunt on Monday or Tuesday. Whatever the case, the encounter happened on the final morning of my hunt.At midday on Monday or Tuesday, I launched my canoe at the Rush, Arkansas landing on the Buffalo River. Rush is between the towns of Yellville and Harriet in the heart of the Ozark Mountains. Before getting to the river, I had my last association with another human until two-plus days later. I had purposefully planned my trip for mid-week while school was still in session, most adults were at work, the summer canoeists had not begun their season, and probably few other turkey hunters would be out hunting. Indeed I did not see nor hear another person on my trip.I floated only about one mile downstream from Rush to the spot where Silver Hollow empties into the Buffalo River. I pulled off on river right (the south side of the river), and pitched my tent camp to be used for the next two nights. I turkey hunted in Silver Hollow that afternoon and all the second day. This entire region is mature deciduous woodland with a sprinkling of pines and cedars on certain slopes and bluffs. Spring was just springing. The dogwoods were blooming, and all the deciduous trees had just begun to leaf out.Silver Hollow is nearly pristine. I saw no sign of humans having been in that 1.5-mile long hollow in many years. There are a few signs of very old activity from 70+ years ago when some mining took place, but otherwise it was just me, the turkeys, and numerous species of neotropical songbirds (warblers, vireos, tanagers, and others) that had returned for the summer.I had heard several gobblers over the course of my 1.5 days hunting, but I had been unsuccessful in taking one. As the second day came to a close, I returned to my camp and made a plan for the final morning�s hunt. I was to awake at 4:15 a.m., eat my Cheerios breakfast, and then hike by flashlight 1.5 miles up Silver Hollow to set up where I�d heard a gobbler late the second evening. My watch-alarm awoke me at 4:15 a.m. on the final morning. I lit the dim lantern at my campsite, and sat down to eat my Cheerios. The last quarter moon was overhead shedding a small amount of light onto the otherwise very dark landscape. It was chilly (probably mid-40�s degrees F), and there was no wind. There was not a sound to be heard � no crickets, no Whippoorwills, nothing, owing to the cool, crisp, calm morning. While eating, I was sitting facing northward into the darkness across the Buffalo River.As I was eating, the silence was broken by a loud, clear �hoooOOO-op� call from the mountainside behind my left shoulder to the southwest of me. I immediately stopped in mid-crunch to soak in the brief, 1.5-second call I was hearing. Within two seconds and before I had resumed crunching, an even louder, clear �hoooOOO-op� call came from the mountainside on the north side of the river. This call was to the northwest of me. The second call was not an echo of the first call. It was a second animal responding to the first. There were no 90-degree cliff faces in the area to have created an echo. Besides, the second call was louder than the first, with no hint of echo after either call.So, I was sitting there thinking with a mouth full of Cheerios, �What on earth could have made those calls?� I am a lifelong birder. I have seen all but two of the approximately 650 regularly-occurring North American bird species. Furthermore, I can identify more than 600 of those species by song or call note alone. I immediately ruled out all birds as having made the sounds, even the Barred Owl which has quite a repertoire. My mind turned to the mammals � coyote, fox, bobcat, otter, etc. I quickly ruled out all of those. Mountain lion maybe? I have never seen or knowingly heard a mountain lion in the wild. However, once I returned home from this trip, I listened to every mountain lion vocalization I could find on the Internet, and I ruled out the mountain lion.But still, as I continued eating my bowl of Cheerios, I kept thinking, �The sounds I just heard were distinctly human/primate in quality.� At that point in my life (I was 43 years old), I had done enough self-study to be a believer in the existence of Sasquatch. But I didn�t think too much about Sasquatch in my everyday life. I certainly started thinking about Sasquatch as I was finishing my cereal that morning! I am

🔍 Circumstances

Only me.

🌤️ Weather Conditions

4:30 a.m. Calm, clear, cool, and dark.

ℹ️ Additional Details

4:30 a.m. Calm, clear, cool, and dark.

🔗 Sources (1)

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