Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I live in the Northern Utah area and often take my family into Idaho, Wyoming or northern Utah to camp, fish or hunt. One of our favorite camp sites at the time was the Oneida Narrows, 10 miles north and east of Preston, Idaho. Approximately 3 miles north of State Road 36 up the dirt road that parallels the Bear River, is a (then unimproved) camp site called Red Banks campground. As an avid fly fisherman, I often tried to time my camp trips to this region for the amazing caddis fly hatches that often start as early as June.

The closest I can peg the date of my encounter is the first or second week of June in 2003. It had to be close to this time frame because my wife was a school teacher and usually had to have been out of school for summer recess before we left to camp. I had taken her and my 6 year old grandson to this spot and arrived early afternoon on a thursday so as to get there before all the weekend campers arrived. I wanted to camp in the site nearest the river on the south west end of the camp ground. From this spot, I was confident my grandson and I could literally walk out the camper door to within 15 yards of one of my favorite stretches of the Bear River. Upon our arrival, I was excited to see that no one else had arrived yet at the campground, and we had the place to ourselves. After taking some time to back the camper into place, disconnect and level it, my grandson Turbo and I rigged up our rods and began fishing.

It became immediately apparent that the Fish and Game truck had recently been there to drop a truckload of planter rainbows in the river. My grandson and I literally caught a fish on every cast. Turbo had been fishing with an open faced reel since he was 4 and could cast and reel like an adult, but didn’t like to have to try removing the hook/worm from the fishes mouth. I remember being annoyed because I had distanced myself from him so as not to catch him with my back cast, but still need to to be close enough to keep an eye on him near the river bank. It seemed no sooner had I helped him chain or release a caught rainbow, and headed back to make a cast of my own, he was screaming that he had caught another. He was so excited and kept screaming “Papa, Papa, I caught another one” with this high pitched voice, that seemed to echo off the walls of the cliffs directly to the south where the river valley “narrows” into a steep-walled limestone canyon. After some time, I heard a scream that reverberated from the direction of Oneida Reservoir, another 3 miles to the northeast. It was a powerful and resonant vocalization, so unusually loud from that great distance that I thought that some kids were messing with using an amplifier or speaker system on a boat on the lake or something weird to carry that distance. It almost sounded like a woman being murdered. That thought crossed my mind. It seemed odd at the time but there were often campers up river near the reservoir and I hadn’t driven up there, so I brushed it off. Turbo continued catching fish and I released the ones that I could.

He continued to scream loudly at every hook-up. Some time passed and then I heard another scream, this one much closer and even louder, coming from the same direction as the reservoir. I remember that I was wading in the river and the scream seemed to penetrate the loud noise of the rapids around my place in the rivers edge. The bellow started low like a growl, increasing in volume and pitch that became a terrible scream that ended like a howl. I had never heard anything like it in my life before. I have hunted large and small game my whole life and have spent countless hours in the mountains of the western United States, but I was uneasy, and because of the failing light, decided to take Turbo to the safety of the camper. We set our rods in the crotch of a tree next to the camper and we went in just in time for dinner. At some point, I recall hearing a truck and camper pull into the campground during dinner and was glad we had gotten the best camp site.

I remember thinking at dinner that I had heard that mountain lions can make weird screams so I resolved to be alert and observant and keep an eye on Turbo for the remainder of the trip. I think I mentioned that I might of heard a mountain lion scream to my wife, but am certain that I avoided talking much about it so as not to scare my grandson. During dinner, it became darker outside as dusk settled in the river valley and the sun set on the peaks to the north. After dinner, I grabbed my waders, vest and rod and quickly made my way for the big drop shelf and back eddy hole just down the trail near our camp that I had fished before. My wife and grandson remained in the camper playing games. I had had great success catching big predator browns and cuts in that hole near dark when smaller fish came to feed on the caddis emergers and I was excited to throw a few casts. The big predators would violently strike at a wooly bugger silhouetted against the fading light in the sky above them. I was somewhat nervous walking down to the water even though the drop shelf hole was still close to the camper. I kept my eyes open in the fading light as I waded into the current and started making some casts. I hadn’t been fishing too long before I heard a long moaning cry emanating from across the river from me.

The volume and tonal range was startling and I can only describe it as an over dramatization of a woman sobbing uncontrollably. The cry/moan/sobs were so strong, however, that I could feel almost a vibration in my chest. What made this even more remarkable, was that the cry completely overpowered the noise of the water crashing around my legs and the rapids in knee-deep water in a good sized river during run-off. The cry went on for several seconds as my mind raced to make sense of it. The cry was coming from a scrabble covered rock face that climbed to the limestone cliffs and caves of the narrows entrance across the river. There were pockets of cedar and pines with scrub oak on the face of the the slope but they were difficult to see in the growing dark. I struggled, in those seconds that the creature cried, to rationalize what I was hearing/feeling. Was the cry some woman or teenagers trying to scare us? The nearest bridge to cross the river to access the far side is over three miles away, near the spillway below the reservoir.

Why would a person or persons walk down that far side of the river and at that time of night just to scare us? The far side of the river is rough country and only accessible by wading and with the rivers higher in run-off, I wouldn’t risk it myself. These fleeting thoughts led me to thinking of a mountain lion again. As the crying/wailing/sobbing stopped, I immediately felt the hair rise on the back of my neck and felt like I was being watched. Whether it was the uncertainty of what I was hearing, the possibility that it might be a mountain lion, or the growing darkness, I turned and hurriedly made my way for the camper, reeling in my line as I walked, trying not to panic and run. I suddenly didn’t feel like a 30 foot wide by 6 foot deep river and rapids were enough to stop or slow down what was on the other side. I was spooked enough to open the trailer and close the door behind me before peeling off my waders. I eventually rationalized away my fears and decided that it had to be a lion and that I would be doubly vigilant when daylight came.

I didn’t even consider that it could be a bigfoot at the time, I don’t think the thought even crossed my mind. Due to my age and a weak prostate, sometime after midnight I got up to take a pee and went outside. As I was standing there, I heard a distinct whoop sound coming from the same direction that the sobbing had come from earlier. Cats don’t whoop. I remember laying in bed sleeplessly for a while that night trying to figure out what or who could be making such weird noises across the river. Suddenly having another camper at the site seemed somewhat comforting.

The next morning we ran into the other campers who had arrived around dusk. I remember the guy asking if I heard the mountain lion cry the night before. I told him I was in the middle of the river when I heard it and wasn’t so sure it was a lion. He asked what else would it be? I couldn’t say.

A year or so ago I came across some some of your shows and others on You Tube. I read somewhere that other people had heard vocalizations that sounded like a woman crying. Many of these vocalization encounters seemed to “resonate” with me and my own experience. In retrospect, I now think that there was a bigfoot near us that day and was drawn to us because of the echos of my grandsons screams off of the narrow canyons walls.

I’m convinced the vocal capabilities of the creature I heard that evening are not even close to what I’ve heard mountain lions are capable of. My grandson is now eighteen and he spends alot of time hunting sheds and large game in the Uintas with his younger brothers and in laws. The boys are often alone for hours while waiting for an elk to cross their path. After hearing and reading David Paulides and your shows, I must admit I’m fearful for my boys when they’re hunting elk. Several people have vanished in the Uintas since 2007 and It is considered one of Paulides 30 missing 411 hot spots. I’m constantly telling them to hunt with a buddy when they go. They laugh at my bigfoot stories and think I’m nuts. Don’t know if I’m worse off from my experience now because of my increased awareness. I now worry.”