A Strange Report from a Strange Area

     Last March, a local newspaper photographer and his wife and dog were picnicing in the quiet area that was in my last report. It was later afternoon and the gentleman and his wife were eating supper at one of the back, nearest to the woods, tables in the picnic area. He said he was kinda surprised when his dog didn't seem interested in eating or taking hand-outs. After they finished eating they decided to take a stroll into the woods on one of the well marked paths. The said their dog was rather subdued, not his old bouncy self. They said they hadn't walked more than 70 or so feet into the woods before they started hearing something heavy moving through the brush. They stopped and tried to see what it was. Deer are common in the park and bears are not unknown but are rare. The dog definitely had ideas of his own about going back toward the car. Just as they turned to return to the car, they saw it. Standing not more than 50 ft away, beside a large tree was a huge dark hairy apelike creature that scared them very badly. Making a hasty retreat back to the car they claimed the creature followed them and let out a most fearsome noise. Once back in town they reported the incident which resulted in the typical jokes, jibes, and an avalanch of people tramping out any possibility of evidence. Because he worked for the local paper, the story made page one. Discusted by the bad publicity he had experienced, our newspaper man decided to investigate whether any other such reports from the park had ever occurred., What he found was a bit disconcerting. There were no less than 30 reports of a large hairy biped somewhere in the park area. One of these reports is logged at the local sherriffs office where a ranger at the park reported a huge hairy biped scared him so bad he ran his arm through a plate glass window that required 60 stitches to close. After this report, which couldn't be hid, the park employees were ordered, on threat of their jobs, to tell no one of futher reports. They check out such reports when they are made, blame bears (which  really rarely enter the park) and not to unduley upset campers. Also, they do not want a bunch of wild-eyed nutcases looking for bigfoot in their park; thus causing no end of problems. A friend of mine, works in maintance at the park. When I asked him about these reports, he just grinned and said, "I can't tell you, I need this job".

Strange area

     This has nothing to do with this house or town. A few miles north of this village is a State Park. There is an area in that park where there is almost no sound. My wife first brought it to my attention at lest 20 years ago. Back then we were much younger and more ready to hike and explore the wilderness that makes up much of this park. I didn't think much of it at the time, but the area was quite silent as compared with other parts of the park that we visited. Over the years, this area has become a favorite of ours because ot is an easy walk, has an old interesting ruins of a house and deep picturesque gorge. We have never gone through that area when it was not totally silent. Oh, if the wind is blowing you can hear that. Sometimes a noisy motorboat can be heard on the park's distant lake. But the normal noises that you should hear on a wooded walk, birds singing, insect noises, animals scurring about, are simply not there ,and haven't been, at lest during the times we have been there. The area is bordered by a road, on either side of which are picnic areas. When children are present their voices are heard; but actually this area is not heavily used by picnicers. We have sat on fallen stones at the ruins of an old house and just listened to the silence. The area is certainly peaceful. Once you walk back to where you parked your car, you need only walk on across the road and ten feet into that wooded area for the normal sounds that you expect to hear in the woods to again assert themselves. Why this area is so quiet is a question that has been bugging me for years.

PHANTOM DOG STEPS

 Nothing like my last post, thank goodness. Yesterday, early in the afternoon, I was coming down the back staircase I could hear a dog padding down the stairs behind me. Turning to look and expecting my dog, I was surprised to see nothing. My dog then appeared out of the kitchen and was headed for the den. My dog was not upstairs. I do not know what I heard, but it sounded like a dog does as they come down a stair.

Growls

     This is a first and one I do not like. I was in the library working on the computer, my dog was lying on a rug between the library and the den. My wife was working in town. The house has been very quiet of late, but I'm not surprised as the house is often most quiet in the spring and summer. This all ended yesterday. As I sat reading at the computer a growl, really more than a growl, its hard for me to discribe, it was loud and menacing. My dog went erect and issued a growl of his own but he immediately moved over to beside me in the chair. Then a series of thumps and bumps occurred, very loud and sounding like ,whatever ,was in the next room which is the dining room. Frankly I did not know what to do. I couldn't imagine that a large animal had gotten into the house, but whatever it was, it sounded big enough that I didn't want to tangle with it. Apparently my dog had no desire to tangle with it either. I sat there, not doing anything. The noises stopped, I waited, then quietly got up and backed up to the fireplace where a sword that my father bought me many years ago was displayed. I unsheathed the sword and quietly as possible entered the dining room with it. There was no sign of anything, nothing out of place, no place anything bigger than a mouse could hide. Still unnerved, I passed into the kitchen, all doors were locked or tightly closed. I checked out the whole house. Nothing indicated an intruder of any kind. My dog was at my heels all the way. Whatever caused this racket had his attention as well as mine. That growl or snarl or whatever it was was the first menacing thing I have enountered here. I didn't like it and hope never to encounter it again.