YEAR: 2022

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: 27

STATE: Maine

COUNTY: Piscataquis County

LOCATION DETAILS: 45.5747690, -69.0443620

NEAREST TOWN: Brownsville, Me

NEAREST ROAD: Route 11

OBSERVED: Saturday, August 27th, 2022. My lovely ladies birthday. We planned on hiking Mount Katadhin on Sunday and didn't have a reservation, which was fine because I've always gotten in last minute due to the no-shows.

We decided to camp out nearby, and ride up early the next morning. We went into the Joe Mary Lake road and they had spots open at Joe Mary Pond. We agreed and we got to our camp site at 6pmish. Per standard camping procedure my lady set up the tent while I made a fire and started dinner. We enjoyed the pond and enjoyed our meal before laying down at around 8:30. I don't fall asleep easy ever, so for sometime I was just laying there listening to the sound of nature.

My girl snoring heavily, fed, watered, and happy. I was listening to some noises across the pond that sounded like a loon at first and I fixated on it. It was real quiet at first but got louder as time went one, say 30ish minutes. It was a weird set of woops and woos, I initially thought it was an adolescent loon trying to find his voice until I realized it was more then one. It was more like half a dozen or more, and every 3 or 4 woops would turn into what sounded almost like regular human gibberish or what I thought was an owl. I was perplexed and thought maybe I was just hearing things so I woke up my woman and said "Honey. I'm just making sure I'm not going crazy, but do you hear that?". She was groggy but immediately started listening intently until the next Woo and she confirmed I was hearing things correctly. I said, "OK but wait because sometimes it's not normal, it sounds like pig Latin gibberish." So we listened to the woos and woops up and down the back side of the pond until the weird gibberish noises happened. She looked confused at first, I'm betting because it was dark and we were in a tent, and she got really unsettled when I said "Honey. I do not know what that is." This statement hit deep because she knows I've been essentially living in the forests of Maine recreationally for many years and I'm a Registered Guide, and she got real unsettled. We kept listening.

They continued at different intervals, at different distances across the pond up and down the far shore until it sounded like that nearest one was rounding the bend toward our camp site. At that point we heard a huge SPLASH in the water. Which registered at first like "Omg thats a loon, ok." Until the howls and woops started again and we could hear distant branches breaking. Loons don't typically break branches...or walk in the woods....So maybe I'm wrong on that assumption. By now it's nearing 2am, all night listening to these strange calls and random bouts of gibberish and wooing and whistling and rumbling. I'm racking my brain on all the critters I could think to figure out what it could be.

2:30am rolls around, and I know because I checked. Something very odd took place. Out of nowhere, in the pond 8 feet from our tent something CHARGED through the water and let out two big snorts. BIG snorts. My girl was not ok at this moment. I grabbed my gun, and my headlamp, and my flashing, and told her I need to figure this out, that it was either a moose or a bear. In my head I was about to have a staring match with a bear over the dinner I made earlier, or show my lady her first Maine moose that showed up in the worst way possible. 30 seconds elapsed, or so, not sure, adrenaline was pumping, before I burst out of the tent literally gun blazing, headlamp on the forehead, scanning the water first thing, I looked up and down the shore, off the shore, across the lake, around the tent, through the woods, up and down the dirt road we took......and nothing. Absolutely nothing.....which was very.....unsettling.  It was at this point I knew I needed to keep my cool for the sake of her panic.

The only thing I noticed since leaving the tent was that the noises stopped. No wooing or woops or whistling. I restored the fire pit, listening intently. Nothing. My girl waiting. I told her I saw nothing. I got back into the tent and layer down and I swear to who ever is listening, as soon as I layer down and settled in.....the calls started again. Then we heard something move silently between us and the fire, and jusy looked at each other. My brain was ready to burst. All my years in the woods of Maine and all over the country nothing has baffled me more. I didn't know what to do. The woops and woos were louder, which told me they were moving closer, and now we were hearing them call from across the dirt road, but we could also hearing breathing. Only twice we heard the breathing but both times my lady was desperately trying not to panic. It's nearing 4am now and the adrenaline was wearing thin for me and her. The noises persisted and kept moving in what sounded like a single file-ish line except for the one wee beastie mystery animal that was hanging near the tent. I was dozing off until I felt something kick my foot, and it was my girl. I came back to reality and she whispered "It's behind us on the road." The same snort/growl we heard after the splashes in the water sounded off again behind us on the dirt road and we could HEAR THE DIRT move under its feet. The tent is only 20 feet from the road and 8 or 10 feet from the lake. At this time it's almost 4:45.......my alarm was set for 5.....a few more minutes go by and im just 100% listening as close as I can to anything outside. Then without warning, maybe 20 yards from the tent, the same wooing we listening to all night sounded off...LOUDLY....we both froze....after being frozen all night damn night...and just looked at eachother. I shook my head, sick of it all and just got up.

The light was already bright enough to see at that point in the morning, and I was exhausted. We packed up and ultimately decided we weren't fit for Katadhin. We heard nothing more after that btw. But I was dead set in my Wilderness Guide mind to find out the culprit behind our experience. The next 2 days I listened to recording of all the Maine owls, birds, mammals, everything I could find to establish the creatures we heard. I found nothing until yesterday I stumbled across a recording taken back im the 80's from the Sierra Nevada mountains, I'm sure you are all familiar. My girl borrowed my truck to go to Ellsworth thay day and she picked me up at the docks after I got done work and I said "Honey I think I found the animal thay tormented us all night Saturday." And I played the recording for her and immediately she was like, "Omg! That's exactly it! What was it. Ive been freaking out for two days now!" And I showed her the title of the Sasquatch noises from the Sierra Nevada Camp.....anyways hear I am.

ALSO NOTICED: Nothing noteworth

OTHER WITNESSES: 2 witnesses, camping.

OTHER STORIES: Only stories i have heard personally came from Down East Maine near Clifton.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Sunset to Sunrise

ENVIRONMENT: Heavily forested, lake side, nearby hills and mountains

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