YEAR: 1980

SEASON: Summer

STATE: West Virginia

COUNTY: Cabell County

LOCATION DETAILS: us west virginia cabell co. huntington spring valley area

OBSERVED: Hello, My name is Dwayne. I am 31, married, father of two and probably the most skeptical person around. I can usually find some reasonable explaination for ghosts, ufo's etc.., but I heard something when I was thirteen that scared me more than anything ever had before or since. I am an avid hunter and growing up in rural WV have spent the majority of my time in and around the woods. Basically, I am no stranger to animal sounds.

Anyway one night me and a friend went to an area lake at night to fish, we did this quite often in the summertime. We had been there for about 30 minutes when up behind us in the woods we started hearing what sounded like voices about 40 yds up. The first thought was, "theres some guys in the woods talking loudly and kinda whooping it up", which would have been unusual in the first place. I kept trying to make out what they were saying, but could not. I could never explain this to anyone until I read a submission I had stumbled across while surfing. The person had written he had heard what sounded like "people talking backwards?", it hit me then that was EXACTLY what it sounded like.

As I was listening I assumed that it must be people in the woods, but they must be further away than I thought since I cant make out what they are saying, it sounded like people talking loudly only I could not make out words. While listening to this all of the sudden there was a hair raising, blood-curdling SCREAM from just up the hill behind us. I cannot possibly explain how frightening this sound was other than to say my body went limp with fear it felt like my legs were jelly. I looked at my buddy who looked as scared as I felt and asked him "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT"?? He said I don't know, lets go. We left in an extreme hurry to say the least.

I have told this story to many people over the years and have always said that it must have been a screech owl, panther etc.. although I have never believed it to be any of these. I had never considered the possibility of a bigfoot until reading other peoples stories about hearing that scream and how terrified they were by it did I think that could have been.

I had always thought my story was just not that "exciting", until I read other stories where people had not seen anything only heard that scream did I think ok maybe I'm not nuts.

I have listened to the recordings that people have made, and believe me the scream that I heard was not that sound, it was intense!!!

Just reading stories from other people 18 years later still gives me chills.

ALSO NOTICED: Nothing before, after I don't know because I wouldn't go back.

OTHER WITNESSES: fishing quietly

OTHER STORIES: My mothers family had an encounter years earlier with something that came around their house many years ago grunting and screaming, they had always referred to it as the "red eyed monster". I had always thought yeah probably some kind of animal. Until my encounter, then needless to say I have a different perspective on those stories.

ENVIRONMENT: rural wv hardwoods dense undergrowth at a lake with sloping bank going into dense woods

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