BFRO #3625: Couple experiences vocalizations in Bradshaw Mountains and group detects odor while camping by Mogollon Rim.

📍 Location

📝 Description

I have two incidents I'd like to relate. They both took place in Arizona, but were in locations miles apart and were separated by years.I was born and raised in Colorado and have been an outdoorsman my entire life. I have camped and hiked in just about every state west of the Mississipi no matter the weather or season. And most of the time, I've been by myself. I've always preferred camping and hiking alone. Most of the time, weather depending, I rarely use a tent when alone. I've been that way since I was 16. I once lived in a VW Bus for a year travelling throughout Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Oregon and Northern California, mainly camping in remote areas I found by exploring logging roads, two-tracks or what have you. I'd explored much of Utah and Northern Arizona mainly by myself. I know the outdoors and the animals which inhabit it.I've been a BF believer since I was 13 when I first saw a still from the Patterson film in a Readers Digest. I've read numerous books on the subject (John Green, Rene Dahinden, etc.) and during each of my travels through the PNW I've always kept alert for any signs or sounds, but I've never seriously expected anything.I was married in 1988 and my (now ex) wife and I moved to Arizona in 1990 because of a work transfer. We immediately set out to explore Arizona. In 1991 on a camping trip in the Bradshaw mountains I was awakened about 1:30 in the morning by a sound I did not recognize. Where we were camped was on a level spot about 40 yards off of a forest road. I'd backed the truck off of the road and we carried the gear further off the road to a point where the land dropped to a steep slope to the west. On the other side of the forest road was a ridge that sloped steeply up from the road to the east. It was in a transition zone between forest and desert. There was sparce timber and a lot of scrub pinons.The sound that awakened me was coming from the ridge overlooking our campsite. It was a high pitched noise repeated over and over again at irregular intervals of perhaps 30 seconds to several minutes. As I listened, there was a return call coming from the slope below our camp. Whatever they were, they were calling back and forth to each other. I laid there for about half an hour listening to the exchange. The sound from the top of the ridge would move back and forth as if it were pacing in wide swings along the ridgetop. At times you could hear a large intake of breath. The sound from below also moved, but I couldn't get a feel for how it was moving. I'd been listening to the sounds for about half and hour when my wife (never much of a camper) startled me by asking me in a very concerned voice what the noise was. I didn't know she was awake. She aparently knew that I was. I told her I didn't know, which surprised her. I suggested that maybe it was some kind of desert night bird or something, but she didn't accept that and as we listened to the two different calls she grew more and more nervous. At one point we heard a little trickle of rocks down the slope above us and she had had enough. We waited until the sound above us had moved away again and made a sprint for the truck. We spent the rest of the night in the truck. Just before daybreak we could hear the sounds moving off into the distance (to the north) both above and below us. After the sun had come up we went back into the tent and slept for a while. When we woke up I looked at our campsite and I could see that there was a trail that came down the slope across from our site, went across our site, and down the slope we were camped on top of. I did not go up to the ridgetop as it was very steep and my wife did not want me to go or leave her alone.When back at work I asked around if anyone had ever heard sounds like that and what it could have been. No one could explain the noises. Several years later I found this site and during the course of exploring the site I found the sound recordings and played them. The recording titled "Scream," 1998 from Columbiana County, Ohio sounded very familiar to me, but I wasn't sure. So I got my (ex by then) wife and went through the WAV files leaving that one til last, and watched her reaction to them. When she heard that particular recording she visibly paled and her mouth opened. She said that was exactly what we had heard that night, only there were two of them calling back and forth.That recording is the most similar thing I've heard to what we heard that night. My ex-wife is adament that was the sound we heard that night.The other incident occurred a year and a half ago. I was participating in a group camping trip northeast of Phoenix by the Mogollon Rim. There were about 20 people there and the first night was a pretty raucous evening. About 10:30 I got fed up with the noise and partying and I put my backpack on and told the woman I had gone with (she also was trying to sleep) that I was heading out and that I'd be back in the morning. I walked out of camp

🔍 Circumstances

1991 - My ex-wife. We were sleeping.1999 - About 20 people smelled the odor. Socializing.

🌤️ Weather Conditions

1991 - About 1:30 a.m. Dark, clear, dry, warm (Arizona weather).1999 - Odor appeared immediately after sundown (2000/2030 hrs)and lingered in varying degrees of intensity, in different parts of the campsite probably until around 2200/2230 hrs)

ℹ️ Additional Details

1991 - About 1:30 a.m. Dark, clear, dry, warm (Arizona weather).1999 - Odor appeared immediately after sundown (2000/2030 hrs)and lingered in varying degrees of intensity, in different parts of the campsite probably until around 2200/2230 hrs)

🔗 Sources (1)

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