Screaming or howling in Pierce County, Washington

Personal information edited out by the investigator to protect the privacy of the witness. Names have been changed to initials. Timeframe: The following series of incidents occurred starting in April of 2012. Possibly as early as April / May of 2011. Private, full-time residence and immediate surrounding area. Rural. Heavily wooded rugged terrain, south-west of Mount Rainier National Park. There is nothing behind (north) of this location for many miles. There are numerous logging roads thru this area both maintained and old. Many drainages, streams and game trails There are no homes or residents throughout the area north of us. It is mountainous and wild. Wildlife: Large deer and elk population, bear, cougar, owl, fox… all seen on the property. If it is native to this immediate area, it’s likely here. Incident Descriptions: April 27, 2012 - Witnesses: PC and neighbor FP. Around noon on the 27th both witnesses heard exceptionally loud and continuous screams for approximately twenty minutes moving from east to west in the tree-line to the south of their homes as though something was “being chased” and “in fear of its life”. Both witness’s are in their eighties. PC grew up in the area and returned here to live 2.5 years ago. FP has lived in the area for over twenty-seven years. Both are familiar with the sounds of wildlife in the area and both state that they “have never heard anything like this before”. The screaming was described as human like, but not human. Moving rapidly as though being chased. The sound “went through them” and “scared the life out of” them. When asked why they didn’t call 911 they both said that they should have, but did not know what or how to report what they were hearing and thought they would be “laughed at”. I (LC, PC's son) was out of town during this incident, but it was reported to me by my mother during a phone call that same day. During that call I told her that both FP and her had likely heard some elk running through the woods. May 18/19, 2012 – Witness LC (reporting source). I had just returned home from playing hockey in Seattle and was unloading the car behind my house at 3am. I felt I was being watched. It was pitch black out and the Baard Owls were going crazy all around the house. Then the owls stopped like a switch had been thrown. After a brief pause something yelled at me from about 100 to 150 yards away (?) in the woods… somewhere between me and the stream behind us anyway. I have never heard anything like this in my life. It was human like, but not human. The sound went right through me. It felt like a less than lethal crowd control weapon (I spent 25 years in the military / civil service with multiple overseas tours and had been exposed to these). The hair on my body stood straight up, I felt chilled and distinctly “warned off”. I left my hockey sticks in the car (anyone who knows me knows that I do not leave my sticks anywhere!) and went strait inside the house. I told J (my fiancé) that “I was done… something just yelled at me out there” and called it a night. The next afternoon my mother, PC, asked if I heard that thing outside last night. I told her yes and she said that was exactly what she and FP had heard for twenty minutes a few weeks before. It was not any animal that I have heard before and I’ve heard weird owl calls, strange cougar sounds, fox etc. This was at a volume and resonance that was off the chart. I could literally feel the sound pass thru me. For the next few weeks while out back, I was feeling watched… not all the time, but frequently. May 28/29, 2012 approx. 11pm to 2am – While laying in bed I could hear a faint sound like what was heard earlier in the month. It sounded as if it was on or near a ridgeline to the north of the house. Around 2am J said she heard it too and it was “really weird”. Aug 12, 2012 – I was mowing the lawn in the back (north) of the house when I hit a rock with the lawnmower. I still have the bruises from where the rock hit my leg as I write this. Aside from being injured, I was annoyed that there was a rock in that portion of the yard as I had been continuously clearing the area of rocks for quite a few weeks and had that specific area clean. As I looked around the area I found that there wasn’t just one rock, but nearly a hundred rocks all about fist sized laying around the area, about five to fifteen feet from the wood-line. There are no kids in the area and I do not know of any animals that distribute rocks on the ground as if thrown. Aug 19, 2012 – While visiting with GJ and TJ, a part-time neighbor who has a cabin approx. ¼ mile to the east of us I asked “have you heard the screaming man?” When I asked this GJ turned almost white. He said that both he and his wife TJ had in-fact heard what I was describing “a few months ago like May, maybe”. They said they had not reported it because they had “no idea of what it was”, but that it had scared them too. Note: I have been hesitant to write this report, but was convinced to do so by this final report from GJ and TJ. I started this report by indicating a possible 2011 event. This occurred from Late April to mid-June of 2011, so the same approx. timeframe of these recent incidents, though separated by one year. All I can say is that both J and I heard “talking” between what sounded to be a male and female human back in the woods on multiple nights (after midnight usually). This was strange as there is nothing back there. But we both remember hearing only “mumbling”, no clear speech. But that mumbling had to have carried for at least a hundred yards –plus for us to have heard it. I wrote it off at the time as potentially game control officers looking for poachers. But looking back now I also considered it very strange. If nothing else, I hope this report adds a few more data points to your efforts. There have been multiple events in this area over the years, but people are very reluctant to discuss them. You can feel free to contact me and I have the permission of all reporting sources to include their names in this report. They have also indicated a willingness to share their stories with any follow-on investigation of this report.