DATE:  04/10/97

 
TIME: 12:15 A.M. - 12:19 A.M.
 

LOCATION:  Talimena State Park, Oklahoma, Le Flore County
Within a stones throw of mile marker 0 of the Ouachita national Trail.  We were camped at the Quachita National Trail Mile marker 0.Talimena Trailhead.
 

TERRAIN: National Forest
 

OBSERVED:  While My wife and my 3 children were camped in the Ouachita mountains at Talimena State
Park we were lying in our tent after the rest of the campground had become quiet.  I heard what sounded exactly like a man moaning in terrrible dying agony.  Thinking that perhaps some unfortunate person had fallen and impaled themselves on their campaxe or was being murdered or such I looked at my watch to note the time as 12:15 A.M..
I tried to determine the exact direction that the sound was coming from and i had the impression that it was was coming from Holson valley on the opposite side of the ridge from us; although I am not at all certain about
the direction.
This long pitiful wailing sounded absolutely human and I felt a very strong compulsion to go to the aid of whomever it was.  but since it was pitch dark in a very large forest I knew how very important it was to locate the exact direction of the sound BEFORE I began moving.  After a very long time I realized there was something very wrong about this voice.
It had continued for over a minute and a half without stopping to inhale.  Then it deviated for a brief moment from a true human voice and immediately corrected the error.  This reminded me very much of whenever as a boy I used to imitate crows to call them in, but sometimes my voice would falter.  But the voice sounded so very human nothing else could have made it.  Yet the sound went on well to long without stopping.  It was like an inexperienced hunter who overcalls turkeys by calling to often and what at first they approached they later flee because they realize real turkeys don't call that long.
After about 2 minutes and 45 seconds I had the distinct impression that the creature was climbing the north face of the ridge and crossing from  the valley over a gap to our east near Potato Hills Vista.  Then it changed the it's calling from exactly human to something very unhuman and very much like something which I heard on one of the WAV files on Cybersquatch.  From this it transitioned to an almost canine, almost grey wolf kind
of wolf call imitation, then it made another sound unlike anything else I have ever heard.
By now it seemed as though it was descending down one of the gorges near Hell hollow which opens out onto the valley between The Kiamichi mountains and the Quachita Mountains.  I believe it was headed toward the Potato hills which are situated at the mouth of this valley through which the Kiamichi River flows.

The sound stopped after 4 minutes and 20 seconds without the creature pausing to inhale a breath.  I know this sounds unbelieveable but it is true.  Whatever this thing was had some really huge lungs!

I had already decided after the human voice had first quavered and corrected itself not to tell anyone lest they think I was unbalanced, but halfway through the yell my wife who is a small woman gripped my upper harm so tightly the bone hurt and whisperered to me 'What is that?!!'  I told her I thought I knew but that I would tell her in the morning.  She became quiet and we both listened until it stopped.

Every hair on my body had stood up during the entire episode and I didn't sleep much until after the sun was up and people were moving about.  Our kids never heard it, and we didn't tell them for nearly a year because we love to camp in the Ouachitas since it is the most beautiful place there is.

I knew that night that I would never enter that forest again and i suppose that my wife also knew that I was frightened away from the forest I loved so well.  So she said lets all walk over to the Potato Hills Vista on the trail, and we did.

Later that days iasked a few of the poeple camping around us whether they had heard something last night.  They said "No. Why?" And I just said "Never mind".

I later obtained a copy of John Green's excellent book "Sasquatch the Apes Among Us" and I noticed several references of large hairy manlike gorillalike creatures from this area.  I most especially was relieved to read in it that a number of people used to report a large hairy manlike creature that used to come through that area every year travelling toward Northeast Texas which made sounds at night like a man in terrible pain.

A year later I returned to camp over in Holson Valley with a friend on a backpacking trip in the hopes of hearing the creature again while hoping that we wouldn't.  We heard nothing unusual.
 
The same friend and I camped later near Potato Hills vista and stayed up late listening.  But no success.

I even tried hiking in a couple of miles from the Pashubbe trailhead near the Kiamichi River in the hopes that it would be less intimidated by a lone hiker at night and it's curiosity might get the best of it.  Nothing again.

Next my friend and I tried the Honobia/Three Rivers area of the Kiamichi mountains across the valley.  We found some very rugged terrain but we heard nothing.

Then this spring a different friend and I camped at the north end of Forest Road K38A north of the dirt road with leads to the Pashubbe trailhead.  About midnight we began hearing a strange sound which was not so frightening since we were both near a fire in a clearing and i had a 44 magnum with hard cast heavy bullets.  This creature would call a few short times then move.  Sometimes we could hear it crunching pine needles as it walked around circling our camp yet staying out of range were we to turn on a flashlight.  It circled our camp calling for quite a while.  This was not any sound I have ever heard before and it was a completely different sound from what we had heard at Talimena State Park.  This went on for several hours and it circled our camp several times, sometimes moving, sometimes not.  But always when it did move it was clockwise.  i assume it just picked a direction and kept going.  Or maybe it was right-handed?

I finally found this strange sound at a link on CYBERSQUATCH which was called KLAMATH SCREAM.
I believe that it is the same sort of creature whatever that may be.
 
 

There is also a portion of the mountains that is usually without potable water.   There had been recent rain and we could hear a large chorus of small pond frogs which my friend astutely pointed out became very quiet each time the creature was apparently moving past that general area.  The area is at a point where a flat existed near the base of a long mountain ridge and is very heavily forested, having been cut over before in the past.  it was just beyond the Kiamichi National Wilderness.
 

Description of Creature: Many occurances explained in great details within report and other notes.
 
 

Activities of Witness:   Sitting on camp stools near a campfire listening to my friend tell me how it was hard
for him to believe that there could be creatures such as sasquatch or that I could have heard them.
 
ng .
Other Notes: I once crossed this K38A by moonlight on an all day all night backbacking trip to try to get to a our cars before a forecast snowstorm arrived.  I had a very intense feeling of being watched it this vicinity and that whomever was watching me was unhappy.  The feeling was so intense that I actually drew my pistol and carried it in my hand for about 300 yards until the feeling left me.

There are several published accounts from this part of the state and even a few from this range of mountains in particular.  John Green told me that he had reports from Coon hunters who saw a large black biped right in this area.

Oklahoma is experiencing record breaking deer populations, particularly in that portion of the state.

As a child In East Central oklahoma a friend told me he had seen a bigfoot, so I went over to his house the next weekend and we both saw a very large white something trying to hide behind a tree about 200 yards away.  Whenever we got the courage up the next day to go over to the tree and look there was nothing there which was white and whatever had been there the day before had been taller than me standing on my motorcycle seat and reaching as high as I could.  It was well over 7 feet tall.
 
Researcher Notes:  We also want to note from the GCBRO that this portion of Oklahoma has a very long history of Bigfoot activity.  We enjoy going into these areas, due to the sheer beauty of the territory as well as the creatures hidden within all the beauty.  ?;>)