Growling in Coos County, Oregon

Something was pounding on something like a log. That brought one of my brothers into the house to alert the rest of the family to "Come hear this." We went outside & stood in the driveway, and heard the most frightening guttural roar you can imagine! This accompanied the pounding on the wood object. This lasted several minutes. The evening was clear, warm, without wind. I do not remember a moon. Neither brother could explain what was happening and I recall being scared out of my wits! When the sounds subsided, the family returned inside. The incident was not discussed in front me again. As a child, I was privledged to live in this remote beautiful area and allowed to run free. Sometime later, a boy friend & I observed what we were told must have been a bear in a thicket of alder trees near the house. The feces found there later contained crawdad shells and berry seeds, with a horrible odor, but the creature we saw was not a bear. The hard dry ground showed no tracks. Our fathers were loggers and we were well versed in the local wild life. While this all happened a very long time ago, I still get cold chills remembering those sounds. Years later, my fiance & I were driving North on Oregon's Hwy 101 near Cape Perpetua North of Florence, OR. The highway is narrow, two lane, with Pacific Ocean on the West & steep rock cliffs on the East. I was watching the moon over the ocean, turned sidewise, facing the ocean. A very large black creature rose from a cleft in the cliff and towered over the little car we were in. My fiance yelled "What the hell was that?" I only caught a glimpse of the thing through my peripheral vision, but it was huge and very fast. I suppose we surprised it as much as it surprised us. It terrified me. My fiance searched for a place to turn around as he wanted to go back, and I refused to let him. We were armed with what suddenly seemed to be a very small weapon, considering the size of the creature! When we returned home, my fiance told his father about the encounter. His father told us of the rancher at the foot of the Capes (Also on Hwy 101) who had been riding to check on his cattle when he heard a cow bellowing in agony. His horse became nervous but he forced it on and found a very large hairy animal chewing on the live cow. He carried a 30.06 rifle and shot the creature. It stood up and ran off on two legs. He followed until he lost the trail of blood in the rocky terrain. This is the first time I have ever heard of someone shooting and wounding one of these creatures. It is also the first time I've heard of this creature eating meat of any kind. Our encounter was in the late evening with clear skies and a full moon. My fiance saw the creature in the headlights and had a great view of it. He knew it was not a bear, and didn't think it was human in a fur suit. Facial features did not have a snout and the arms were too long for a bear's front legs. I was too terrified to grasp any features. I have never felt fear like that before or since. The rancher's encounter was in broad daylight, clear skies, rocky terrain, no trees.