YEAR: 2007

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: June

DATE: 10

STATE: Minnesota

COUNTY: Pine County

LOCATION DETAILS: About a mile south of Sturgeon Lake

NEAREST TOWN: Sturgeon Lake, MN

NEAREST ROAD: Market St.

OBSERVED: Last night, about 3:00 am I was awakened by a loud screaming sound from outside my house, all the windows were closed yet the sound was so loud that it woke me up. I went to the front door and opened it to see if I could here any better, by this time it had quieted some, but I could hear what was similar to the whoop-howls recorded on your sight coming from maybe a half mile away.
At first I thought it might be coyotes, because I've heard them before in the area, but the sound was louder and hoarser without any yipping that usually occurs with coyotes. I could hear dogs barking at the noise from a long ways away.

OTHER WITNESSES: no

OTHER STORIES: No

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 3:00 am, clear, cool, calm, no moon that I could see lighting the outdoors, very dark

ENVIRONMENT: Heavy woods, streams, farms, feilds, lakes, swamps

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Andy P.:

I contacted the witness by phone and have the following to add to this report:

The sound was very loud at first. He heard it repeatedly while awake for a period of about two minutes. He heard several loud howls while still in the house and then it quieted down and resumed not as loud by the time he listened out of doors.

When he went outside to check it out, other animals were reacting to the calls, including both dogs and the neighbor’s bull (both of which were quiet by comparison to the calls he was hearing). After that, the sound diminished and then stopped. The call was, in his estimation, a single individual.

The sound was coming from the Southwest, and he estimates that it was about a quarter to a half mile away, based on what he heard outside. When it woke him up, it was very loud and he had thought it was right outside. When he went to the front door and listened to it from the outside, he could hear from the echoes and such that it was much further away than he had originally thought. He also stated that it got quieter by the time he got outside to listen to it.

The area has a lot of wood and swamp land, with some open land and not a lot of hills. There are also two rivers that converge to the Southwest, near where he thinks the call originated.

He researched the sound on the Internet, listening to many different animal sounds. He says that is was almost exactly like the 1973 Whoop-Howl from Puyallup, Washington that is listed on the BFRO web site. The only differences from the sound on that recording is that it seemed closer and the whoops ended in a trailing "E" sound.

He has heard coyotes and barred owls before and feels certain that it was neither.

I am giving this report a class B rating because of this same individual's report from last February of a sighting he had about a quarter mile north of his home (Report 17900).

The witness is a fifty-year-old man who has spent his entire life in the woods. I found him to be very credible and honest.

About BFRO Investigator Andy P.:

Andy P. lives in Minnesota. He is a professional writer with a degree in English and Biology. His interest dates back to his first sighting in 1985.

He attended the following BFRO expeditions:

- 2006 Wisconsin I
- 2007 Michigan
- 2008 Michigan
- 2008 Minnesota (private)
- 2009 Wisconsin
- 2009 Minnesota (organizer)