YEAR: 1998

SEASON: Summer

DATE: 16

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Jefferson County

LOCATION DETAILS: Traveling into Port Townsend on State Route 20, you pass a sign that says "P.T. 4 miles". A mile or so later you come to a left turn onto Jacob Miller Rd. You follow that for a few miles, passing the county landfill, and you come to Hastings Rd. You turn right, and less than a mile later, you turn left on Cook Av. perhaps half a mile later you round a curve and find Elmira Rd. On the left. This is the general vacinity from which the bellowing came from. The location of the friend's occurance would be the same turn onto Jacob Miller, but then a quick left onto Old Discovery Rd. and taking, I believe, the second right onto Arcadia Rd - then a quick left down this dirt road which I think is unmarked except for red fire markers. That dirt road goes for a few miles into the woods. His Tree loft was next to a small cabin and Gazebo at least a mile back in there.

NEAREST TOWN: Port Townsend, Washington

NEAREST ROAD: Cook Av. or Hastings Rd.

OBSERVED: This may be just a small thing, but if it helps you tie anything together, then it's probably worth it for me to share this. First, I must say that I am not easily taken to believing "out there" kinds of stories, but I feel I can explain most things in my environment while other things simply put, defy explanation. I lived in a 22 ft. travel trailer in the woods just outside of Port Townsend, Washington at the time, which - for this report I will say roughly - was about summer 1998 or so. It was long after dark and I was inside writing or something and heard a strange bellowing noise just off through the woods. It was so different than anything I'd ever heard since I moved there a year or so before that I got up and opened the door and stepped out onto the open porch. It was a clear and still night and out in the country there it is very dark and very quiet. I could see the stars so well. When I heard it the second time I was immediately perplexed by what I was hearing, followed by the kind of sensation where they say "the hairs on the back of my neck stood up". It sounded like a call from a large beast. I study music technology and am well familiar with timbre, frequency, and volume and I can honestly say that the type of voice mechanism and size of it's vocal chords/chest cavity had to be at least the size of a large buck to an elk or bear. I am also a long time, studied and experienced singer. I do very well at imitating voices and I was struck by this bellowing as being from not only a large animal, but also an animal which must be nocturnal AND trying to communicate. But with what or who? So, I only heard the two bellows and after waiting a few minutes, I decided to get a flashlight and walk up the dirt road where the noise was coming from. I didn't find anything, but I did hear other voices through the woods in the vacinity from which the noise came and I recognized them as coming from a nearby yurt, just on the other side of a small lake from me. It was in comparison of these voices that I determined that the crys I initially heard were coming from a distance of about 100 to 150 yards. The only other thing I should mention about the instance is that I lived on the edge of a green belt that runs, unbroken, from Port Townsend city limits, all the way into the Olympic National Park. Furthermore, my good friend, Todd, living on the same green belt was sleeping outside one night and heard a creature of large size come lumbering up, sticks cracking and brush sweeping and all, and get very close to where he was in a tree-
loft, then sat quiet for several minutes before crashing off through the brush, the way it had come.
Please understand, I have hiked the deep Olympic Mts. avidly for 12 years. I've even worked out there at times, and I've never heard anything like the bellowing I heard that night. And at the risk of sounding cliche or hoaky, that voicing sounded more like wookie, without the rattling throat sound that any other known sound. But it's true also that after years of hiking and tracking in the mountains, I've never seen a bear or cougar, nor their remains and though I know they are out there, I have only but chanced to stumble upon a fresh cougar den along the Lyre River but nary a single cat in sight.

Call it what you will, I say had a sasquatch experience and some of my trusted friends can report similar strange occurances. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Browns and Blacks, whatever they call them out here, they're real. And researcher Grover Crantz recently moved 35 minutes down the road from here in Sequim. So "something's" up, anyway.

ALSO NOTICED: The frogs in the nearby pond got quiet at the time and the coyotes didn't howl that night.

OTHER WITNESSES: sorry, none.

OTHER STORIES: At the end of the Quimper Peninsula is Port Townsend. And at its furthest extremity is Fort Worden State Park, a 1902 Army fort that has hundreds of acres of forest. I worked there for over four years and while I was there, I befriended the 50-something year-old night security officer, Gerry, now retired. He had worked ther for 20 years before quitting. One night while on duty with Doug, the local fish & game warden, he heard and investigated a large animal crashing through the woods behind the balloon hangar. When the game worden got closer to the hanger, the crashing in the woods began again, but very close. It so startled him that he threw his radio and ran back to the car, jumping up on top of the cruiser. They didn't pursue it any further that night, and the following day, in the light, they both visited the site separately, without the other knowing and were disappointed to find that the forest floor. there, was inconducive to recieve a negative imprint from anything samller than, say, a T-Rex. I personally checked the scene and found that this was the case. But there has been one other strange deer-kill story from a prior park ranger that I feel is related.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Clear, calm, dark. About 250 yards from the Strait of Juan De Fuca, in second or third growth forest.

ENVIRONMENT: Second or third growth fir and cedar forest, 200 yards or so from a bluff above a saltwater inlet known as the Strat of Juan De Fuca. The vacinity is wooded with a bit of shallow wetlands and a few small lakes are nearby. We are up on top of a rolling plateau of land that rises up from sea level on one side, cliff on another, and forest on the other two sides. If you look at a closeup map of P.T, which looks like a dragon's head, it would be located at the eye (Tibbal's Lake). There are only 7 or 8 residences over the span of 10 or so acres. No street lights are nearby.