we lived in a place called waterville Vally in The NH Mountains....
The wife...our Oldest Daughter and myself were standing on the wrap around porch....right at dusk so the shadows were very deep......our daughter was 5 at the time....we are just enjoying the fresh air....out of nowhere....we heard this sound....(I just asked my wife to describe it...she says it was a "Horrific snarl") it happened again and my daughter freaks and runs in the house crying.......it happened again and at this point...the wife is freaking out....I was just lets say...very adrenaline rushing...hard core.....I had no guns but some very combat ready swords...I almost went and got one I never heard a sound like this before.....and it sent chills up the spine....a crazy sound....
the light from the setting sun was in the front of the house... and out of the shadows....stepped.....a small fox....no lie....she (I am guessing here) was advertizing her mating readiness. it was most definitely the fox I could see her making the sounds....
if I never saw the fox I would think some crazy beast or werewolf was alive in NH.
as far as not believing or believing in Sasquatch....my mind is open to it...I have seen what looked very much like a foot print...my brother swears he saw one....I think they could very well be intelligent enough to avoid us....
the Patterson film is very convincing....the baby in the trees...the accounts of seeing them from people who are not "kooks"
also once again there are many who say God does not exist.
I think it is much better to have an open mind then a closed one.
I hear foxes vocalizing quite frequently.
I live on a 400 acre Boy Scout camp, and we have red and grey foxes, as well as coyotes, and an occasional wolf has even been known to pass through. The noises the wolves and coyotes make are pretty "expected" and although they make my wife, kids and dogs nervous, they're not really all that alarming, and you KNOW what you're hearing.
Foxes? Those are an entirely different story...
Hearing a fox vocalize when you know they're there and are likely to make some noise (like when I'm out predator calling at night) is enough to make a grown man come perilously close to soiling his armor.
Hearing one vocalize when you least expect it is enough to make the hair on your head, neck, and shoulders stand on end. I've had grown men out predator calling with me that just plain wouldn't go out again after hearing one.
Foxes sound like some almost-human, demon-like critter of at least 400#. Or sometimes a woman screaming for help. Or some type of banshee-critter. They sound B A D !
Worse yet, the dang things will actually APPROACH you while vocalizing! Or more accurately, will get closer between vocalizations. The effect is that you first hear one, freeze in your tracks, and wonder "WHAT THE ^&%$ WAS THAT!!!). Of course, you wonder that silently to yourself for two reasons... First, you sure don't want to draw its attention to you, and second, you don't want anyone you're with to hear the fear in your voice. Then you just listen to the silence and wonder what to do next... Are you seriously contemplating leaving the night woods just because you heard something? Are you actually scared of something you just heard?? Could it be someone playing tricks on you in the dark???
Then, it calls again! But it's closer now! And no way is it human!
But it sounds "almost" human! A demon? Sasquatch? What in the blazes IS it?
A small dog-like critter will never enter your mind... If it does, because someone's told you of a similar experience, it's immediately dismissed... This sound/instance is WAY WORSE than anything you can ever a lil' dog-like, almost cat-like critter could make. This is BAD!
Hearing one while you're out in the woods at night, just once, is enough to ingrain it forever in your head. You won't forget it! I can EASILY see where people that hear these things think they're hearing sasquatch.
Surfinn's story at the beginning of the thread just screams out at me as "fox". It's almost word-for-word the same as I've experienced several times, and I'd even speculate it's a grey fox rather than a red that's to blame.
Foxes are also interesting in that in almost every case, people who spend TONS of time in the woods hunting, fishing, trapping, camping, etc, and who know "everything there is to know about the woods and what's in them" won't have a clue about what a fox sounds (or can sound) like. And because of the variety of their calls, even if they do "know" what a fox sounds like, they may only be familiar with the more dog-like barks, etc. This, IMO, sets fox up to be an ideal "sasquatch".
As someone who's done a fair share of fox trapping, I know that grey fox in particular are attracted to campsites. In particular, they're attracted to the fire ring, and I've had them come in on me twice at night while I've been tending a fire. They'll come right in to within a few yards of you, and give out that blasted scream. They're not overly concerned with your presence, and are attracted by the scent of the smoke/coals. I used to bed my traps in an old campfire, make a small burn on top of it, and place some scent there. The fox is attracted to the site by the fire scar, and digs near the scent...
This is a pretty cool site that has a lot of fox recordings on it.
http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/thefoxden/sounds.htmlWhile I've heard many different varieties of calling, these are some of the ones I hear around here...
http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/thefoxden/fox_territory_call.wavand the one in the last third of this recording...
http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/thefoxden/faroffcry.wavMost of the time when we hear them around here, they only call once, and then are silent for @ thirty seconds before calling again. That gives you some time between calls to stand there and wonder about it, lol...