I grew up and hunted on a disused farm near Mid-coast Maine. At the time, in the 90's, the line was that lions, wolverines, wolves, lynx, didn't exist so don't bother asking or reporting about them. We did have coyotes, bobcat, bear, all manner of large predatory bird, and moose that were all anecdotally said to occasionally bother hunters. All of the verboten creatures listed above had been seen, but never by someone you knew within 3 degrees. Most have since been confirmed by the state or people I trust, including lions by two different sisters at different times in the town this farm was located. Just by people I know myself wolves, lions and wolverine have been seen within 8 miles of the house. God knows what else has crept back down the river valleys over the last century.
That said, two things come to mind as having spooked me personally, and maybe they can be attributed to one of these animals. But maybe not, and I don't like it.
1. I was sitting a 30-year-abandoned skidder trail with my much older and experienced cousin. It was a really still, cold day near thanksgiving. Absolutely no air moving, the kind where you hold your breath involuntarily because you can hear your skin move in your shirt, let alone any creature moving within half a mile. So we're about 40 yard apart, back to back so to speak. Absolutely nothing happening, the woods are dead as a smelt. Then we get the lightest shift of air for one second, westerly, coming from the swampy lake, across us, and into the thicket just to the south of us. It dies. Nothing to care about. Then a few moments later form my cousin's direction a voice started, mid range and not loud, like a smallish lady talking in the wind. In one breath it went smoothly from that to HIGH and LOUD like an old fashioned siren but faster. It crescendoed to its peak and slammed instantly back to silence. I thought "creepy but he'll know what that was" and leaned forward to see my cousin. He was still, studying the woods in front of him, waiting for more. After way too long he leaned around and whispered "WHAT THE ---- WAS THAT!?" Not another shred of noise came from that direction, and we could easily triangulate where we thought it came from. Too close, as close to both of us as we were to each other. Nothing I could ever picture having made the noise made sense. It was very likely a bird but it had to have been an enormous bird. It was sonorous and not raspy or screechy like any owl or eagle or hawk or raccoon I've ever heard. But it was clearer and louder than a human or deer or coyote could ever manage. I've never been able to find a recording that was anything like it. I've heard foxes crying, fisher cats, raccoons fighting, I've heard rabbits screaming when killed, I've heard recordings of lions in heat. I was never able to confidently walk through that spot alone again. Whatever it was was yelling at us and not talking to its family, and it never made a sound moving around. There was one trail where we had to low crawl though a hollow old evergreen thicket about 50 yards from where the noise occurred and I couldn't ever duck in there again without worrying about whatever made that noise.
2. About a half mile of trail from the first event and a year later I found a pile of poop. I was with my uncle, an extremely experienced woods hunter. I thought it was odd because a) it was mostly apples and there aren't any red apples within 400 yards, so whatever it was either started within 400 feet of the house or came to our property from close to the neighbors house. b) it was HUGE. I just knew it wasnt deer scat so I pointed it out as coyote because why not. My uncle cocked his head and focused on it, which he never did to anything I mentioned. He's always moving his eyes and attention around because he's a good hunter. But he locked onto it and said no... wait, that kinda looks like a bear... what?... I don't think it's a bear, but... that looks friggin human... sort of. If it's a bear he feels a lot better and he's big. I dunno... Then he moved on without concluding with his shoulders or a joke which never happens.
Maybe there was nothing special about that turd but he never misses an opportunity to jerk my chain. And the scream might not have been unique, bloodcurdling as it was. Each are freaky on their own but forgettable seperately. They gained new life when I was researching bigfoot and heard someone's recording of what they thought was a squatch in their woods. I hadn't thought of the turd or the scream in a decade but that recording was the CLOSEST BY FAR to what I heard with my cousin. I'm not saying it was an apple-loving Maine bigfoot, but now I have to live with that question in my mind.
. I laid there trying to make sense of it. The next morning I talked to my neighbor and he said he had a bear on his deck. This was June and I had just seen a new fawn with a doe the day before. So I googled strange deer noises and bingo. I guess it's a noise to attract a threat to the doe and keep it from the fawn.
