52. An Expert’s Ear
I was camping with a friend at a campground just outside Portland—so well-traveled, fairly urban, lots of RVs around. It was raining and we were both in my tent dozing off. We heard—I kid you not—a LOUD animal scream, very close by. I’m an ecologist and know all the typical campground animal noises and this was not something I could identify at all.
It sounded like it came from something pretty big, but it wasn’t a coyote or a raccoon or anything. My closest guess is maybe a cougar, but I wouldn’t expect them to be so close to people in an urban campground. My friend heard it too and we just waited in silence. A few minutes later, another one screamed back from across the lake. The next morning when we got up, every dog in the campsite was totally terrified. We saw a few that had been leashed outside and were still hiding under RVs. To this day, I maintain it was either Bigfoot or a massive cougar.