A listener writes “In 2011 myself and my nephew were “survival camping” in the Schroon lake wilderness area of upstate NY at a place called Crane Pond. I don’t know how this usually goes on regarding telling my story. So if you can humor me ill just kind of tell at little story.
The actual encounter was very brief and only 5 to 20 seconds. In 2011 i moved back home to NY. I previously lived in CA for 20 years then moved back to NY after my brother passed away. My nephew who is not all that much younger than i am went camping in the Adirondacks. It was in a very hard place to get to. My car made it down the mile or two dirt road to a parking area. It was then a very muddy and thick bush area. About two hours to go maybe a mile or two, including a little bit of fishing. We didn’t bring food and were planning on fishing or finding our food for 4 days. we found a spot to camp after an hour or two near the pond. It was just my nephew myself and his dog( a Boxer}. it was a nice day in early August. We arrived probably in late afternoon and decided not to set up the tent and to just find some firewood and we would use our hammocks that night. It was an hour or two after dark so maybe 10ish pm.
We were still setting our camp up, the fire was roaring in a normal rock circle fire pit we made. Hammocks were set and we were almost ready to sit and relax. Then I noticed my Nephew was standing in front of the fire with his dog cowering behind him. I ran over to them and we both were frozen listening. At this point I didn’t hear anything. but his dog was hiding behind both of us, scared as hell. A few seconds later we heard something i cant explain. It was 3 very different sounds all in a row from the exact same place. I cant explain it and only after listening to your shows I can possibly explain it. It was pitch black at the time and we heard 3 very different sounds. All very loud, 1st it was 3 spaced out Woops or whistles, then 3 hoop hoop hoop’s then a very loud scream or roar(like a large cat ish). At the time we were scared shitless lol.
I was standing in front of my nephew and his dog was hiding behind both of us. About a second after it Roared/screamed i had some fireworks(m80s and like 20) and threw all of them in the fire. That was the 1st night and we luckily never heard anything else. We probably would not have made it back out at night as we had no lights aside from fire and it was thick bush and water to get in. We had no idea what we heard or what to do.
All we knew was it sounded like 3 different animals all loud. It turned out it must have been about 100ft away max. We searched the area the next morning. During this trip we determined there were no other people around until 2 days later when we saw a fire across the pond. A spot only accessible by canoe. About 10 years after my nephew and i were together because of family back in town and we still both told the same story. Im sorry that this is such a long email for a short encounter but I can go on and on about it still. I truly enjoy your show and appreciate it.”