Oregonbigfoot.com Photo Research Journal
August 31,
2002
near Sisters, Jefferson County, OR
Bow
hunters describe encounter with a "screaming banshee"
Date:
Fall August 30, 1986
Jefferson county, OR
Nearest
town: Sisters
Nearest road: Hwy 20, Santiam Pass
Conditions: sunny
Time: dusk 7:30 pm
Location: Round Lake, off Hwy 12
From
the hunters' perspective: The screamer traveled from
right to left, behind the trees.
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I
interviewed the witness and his brother on August 31, 2002.
We were camped next to these two men. They were bow hunters
who had been hunting thise area nearly all their lives.
When asked about Bigfoot, the witness was skeptical. Later
that evening, however, the men joined us at our campfire
and the subject came up again. The younger of the two said,
"Well, did you tell her about the banshee that screamed
at us?"
My ears immediately perked up. "Screams?" I asked.
The
older brother looked at his younger sibling. "Hmmm.
I'd forgotten about that." And he began to tell the
tale of a hunting trip during the last weekend of August,
1986. The two were scouting a fresh location less than a
mile south of there, where their father had shot a buck
from the road the previous day.
It
was right along First Creek. The young men took their bows
in the late evening and hiked up the logging road beside
the creek, hoping to find a perfect location to set up tree
stands. They found it. A steep ridge covered in dense pine
trees provided a cool shady area for the deer to bed down
during the day. At the base of the ridge was a clearing
which the road ran through, perfect for moonlit grazing.
The road had turned to the right and parallel the base of
the ridge for 50 yards or so. The brothers set out to set
up their ambush, reveling in the perfect spot they'd found.
Then the screaming started.
The
men looked at one another, terrified. They began backing
down the road, scanning the treeline for any sign of the
cause of the commotion. "At first, we thought it was
a cat. But I've heard cougars and they don't sound like
that. Then I thought, 'Maybe the cat is killing something'."
But that didn't explain it either. It was like a woman was
being murdered, only the screams were deeper and louder."
Then
men began to run. The sound paralleled them, staying with
them, never coming closer, never diminishing, and there
was no sound of crashing brush. Only when the road turned
90 degrees and headed back toward the main road, and they
reached the main road did it stop.
They
hightailed it back to camp, the younger of the two joking
that "maybe it was Bigfoot". The subject was brought
up briefly around the camprfire, but when none of the hunters
would say much about the "banshee" they heard,
the subject was dropped. I asked the men if it ever occurred
to them, being seasoned veterans of the Oregon woods, exactly
what a "banshee" might look like... they laughed
and said they never really thought about it. When asked
if they had ever tried hunting that direction again, the
eldest brother grinned sheepishly and pointed over my head
in the opposite direction of First Creek, saying, "Nah.
We've hunted over that way ever since."
I
asked the brothers if they would be able to recognize the
screams if they heard them again. Both were emphatic that
they would, that they would never forget the sounds they
heard that day. I brought them over to the van, put in a
CD, and cranked up the Klamath recording. They both went
white, their eyes as round as saucers. "That's the
sound!" the eldest exclaimed. "The screams we
heard were longer, they were sustained for, like, 4 seconds,
but that's the sound!"
The
brothers agreed to take us up there the following morning.
We drove down, following them. They had admitted the night
before that they were both a little apprehensive about visiting
that part of the woods again. The eldest brought his bow,
carefully explaining that "every time I don't bring
it, I see a deer".
The
area was virtually unchanged, they said. We hiked up the
road, which took a 90 degree turn to the right. They took
us to the exact spot at which the screams first started.
I started up the road from that point on, realizing that
the road took an immediate LEFT and paralleled the prior
portion of the road, allowing the screamer to parallel them
without making brush noise.
I
was greatly impressed by the men's knowledge of the woods,
particularly of that area, and of their genuine emotional
reactions to hearing the recording.
Text
and photos by Autumn Williams
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