Over the years, hunters, hikers, campers and other outdoors lovers have reported hearing terrifying sounds in the woods. A famous case is the Sierra Sounds recorded in the 1970s.
What are they hearing?
There’s certainly not just one answer.
On the first episode of season 2 of Dark Outdoors the podcast we dive deep into the topic, play some of the sounds including a primate verified to dwell in the Texas outdoors.
And we also talk about the mysterious Sierra Sounds with Ron Morehead who recorded them back in the 1970s.
This is a show I have wanted to do for a long time and I thought it would be an interesting way to kick off season 3 of the award-winning Dark Outdoors podcast.
We have forthcoming shows on missing people in East Texas, a natioal forest murderer, hog attacks and more. You can subscribe to Dark Outdoors directly on Podbean or via Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and all major podcasting platforms.
Have you heard terrifying screams in the woods? Do you have audio? We would love to hear. Send to chester@chestermoore.com.
Chester Moore
Thanks to Quicksounds for the mountain lion and elk audio.
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In the latest installment of our 8 part series on Black Panthers In America, we discuss jaguars.
Are there hidden jaguar populations in America? Learn about never before publicly shared sightings and an intriguing fact about jaguars and their propensity to be black.
Jaguars are my favorite animal and have written several articles on them here.
On the first episode of season 2 of Dark Outdoors the podcast we dive deep into the topic, play some of the sounds including a primate verified to dwell in the Texas outdoors.
And we also talk about the mysterious Sierra Sounds with Ron Morehead who recorded them back in the 1970s.
Strange sounds in the wood are something that I have always been intrigued by and when you listen to this episode you will see why.
Chester Moore
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Greg Smith positioned himself against a tall oak in the lonesome Louisiana wilderness in hopes of bagging a mess of squirrels for dinner.
This particular set of woods was loaded with them and he hoped as daylight cracked, his position would give him a good shot at success.
As the line peaked through the trees, he heard a few squirrels chattering in the distance but didn’t see any near him. He sat there for nearly an hour before deciding to move.
And just as he began to get up, he saw something.
What he described as a 3 foot plus tall monkey walked in an opening in the brush in front of him. At first he only saw the tail moving and then as it moved, the creature came in for a full view.
It moved at a moderate pace through the forest and then disappeared.
A reader submitted feral monkey photo from near Dilley, TX. There is a population of Japanese macaques in the area that are frequently seen by outdoors lovers.
He described the animal as grayish-brown and very furry.
In Texas near the town of Dilley is a feral population of Japanese macaques that have been there since the 1970s and there are verified monkeys living in southern Florida.
Could there be feral monkeys and perhaps even apes living in the United States?
Photos taken in 2000 in Florida of an animal called the “Myakka Ape” look similar to an orangutan. Our friend Loren Coleman broke this story and published the photos that were sent to a police department anonymously. It has been linked to Florida’s “Skunk Ape”. Was it a feral orangutan or something more mysterious?
It’s something I am intrigued by and would like your help with.
If you have any stories of seeing monkeys or other primates in the wild, email me at chester@chestermoore.com.
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In part 3 of our Black Panthers In America series, we delve into what may be the most mysterious cat of the Americas-the jaguarundi.
You can watch it and the first two videos of the series on the Chester Moore Wildlife Journalist & Investigator YouTube channel.
The jaguarundi is a unique cat. Learn more in our latest video.
Special Expedition
Our Wild Wishes® program is teaming up with our Higher Calling Wildlife® outreach to do special wildlife encounters at Bear Creek Feline Center in Panama City, FL.
We will be putting together special gift packages for 12 kids and also have expenses to cover with travel, etc.
I’m running a special promotion for both podcasts. If you subscribe to both Higher Calling Wildlife and Dark Outdoors and email me at chester@chestermoore.com with your mailing address, I will send you decals for both podcasts.
Your subscribing with my podcasts is a huge help as it is a massive undertaking to create all of this in-depth content. Please subscribe via Spotify, Apple Music, IHeartradio, Amazon, etc.
Or you can subscribe by clicking here on the Podbean link for each show.
It kicks off with an eight-part series on the black panther phenomenon with episode one tackling the topic of escaped exotics and the infamous stories of circus train wrecks.
You can watch the episode below. Please subscribe to our channel.
The next episodes will cover the following topics.
*Black Mountain Lions
*The Jaguarundi
*Black Bobcats
*Feral House Cats
*The Black Longtail
*Jaguars
*Hybridization & Other Strange Theories On Black Panthers
Don’t miss the series kick-off and stay tuned for weekly episodes of Higher Calling Wildlife on Youtube.
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Happy Halloween from Dark Outdoors and The Fouke Monster!
This is our second year of the Dark Outdoors podcast and the tradition is to do a spooky special Halloween edition involving movies for fun.
This is the only time of year we talk about these topics so if you’re into this stuff, this will be a real treat for you.
This year we have an epic episode with author/tv host and all around good dude Lyle Blackburn on creepy cryptids including the Fouke Monster and Pamula Pierce Barcelou, daughter of Legend of Boggy Creek director Charlies Pierce. This is an absolute can’t miss episode!
Checkout my review of The Legend of Boggy Creek Blu-Rayhere.
And today I have a second debut to share. I am proud to be lending my narration talents to the epic first episode of the Wild Man of the Woods series produced by Paul Fuzinski.
The first episode of this extremely well-produced program tackles the famous alleged Bigfoot sightings at Ohio’s Salt Fork State Park.
Season 3 of Dark Outdoors begins Feb. 2024 and it will have some seriously deep, dark investigations we are conducting now.
Thank you for supporting the podcast and my work. We are doing lots of great things for kids facing special challenges through our Higher Calling Wildlife outreach and the Wild Wishes program. You can learn more here and maybe we can help a kid you know.
After 50 years, the iconic nature docudrama highlighting spooky encounters with a Bigfoot-like creature in the swamps of Southwestern Arkansas is being released in a form befitting the film’s massive impact.
It has been remastered in beautiful 4K Ultra HD and now includes Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound for an immersive viewing experience.
“It’s like watching an entirely new movie,” said Pamula Pierce Barcelou, daughter of the film’s late director Charles B. Pierce.
“This format perfectly masks the original Techniscope wide-angle film and really makes it come to life in exciting ways.”
Barcelou has overseen the film’s restoration and said it has been a labor of love for the legions of fans of the film.
“I am constantly blown away with how much this film touched people’s lives and I’m excited for a new generation to be able to see it in such an exciting format,” she said.
One of those people impacted was author and television personality Lyle Blackburn.
Author of The Beast of Boggy Creek and Boggy Creek Casebook, he provides film commentary as one of the bonus features.
Another bonus is original film outtakes edited by Justin Beahm of Reverend Entertainment.
It also features a redesigned package with an o-ring slipcover that highlights legendary Artist Ralph McQuarrie of Star Wars fame’s original movie poster artwork.
The Legend of Boggy Creek when adjusted for inflation is the highest grossing nature film of all time. It has inspired generations of researchers to pursue wildlife mysteries around the world and serves as one of the few films that is genuinely scary but still has a level of innocence.
“I’m so proud this is a true G-rated family-friendly film. But that doesn’t take away the spooky factor. So many people have shared with me the moments that made them jump out of their seats when first they saw it,” Barcelou said.
Get The Legend of Boggy Creek and enjoy the groundbreaking film as it has never been seen at www.legendofboggycreek.com.
My Review
The Legend of Boggy Creek had a huge impact on me growing up.
I wasn’t born quite yet when it was first released but my Dad saw it and told me of the Fouke Monster and it’s terrorizing southwestern Arkansas a few years later.
He always seemed to talk about the scariest parts when we were in the woods.
I didn’t see it until I was about to be wheeled into surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital as it was playing on the local cable station in my room and it blew me away.
The idea of such a mysterious creature potentially living only a few hours away from my East Texas home made my world somehow seem bigger.
So, when I heard about the Ultra 4K 50th Anniversary Edition I was excited.
The restoration is brilliant.
I (like everyone else who loved the film) had various VHS and DVD copies that looked grainy and dark. Now, some of that added to the vibe but I am happy to report the vibe is still there but it looks radically better.
Watching it still feels like your’e traveling through the dim swamps but now with the surround sound it has become an immersive viewing experience.
And it’s the sounds that are probably the scariest things in the movie.
When the creature’s infamous growl sounds off as the little boy is running across the field in the beginning, the narrator speaks one of the best lines.
“I was seven years old when I first heard him scream…it scared me then, it scares me now.”
I was seven when I was first saw it and I must concur.
Director Charles B. Pierce
Director Charles B. Pierce was wise enough to keep the actual creature far enough away from the camera that we didn’t see many details and that still holds up although you can definitely notice a little more detail.
It’s still obscured enough that the viewer can project their own fears onto the shaggy beast. And that air of mystery is part of the genius. of the film.
Bonus tracks include a compilation of outtakes and a commentary by Beast of Boggy Creek and Boggy Creek Casebook author and researcher Lyle Blackburn. Lyle is a great storyteller and his commentary unlike many out there never gets in the way of the film but ads to it.
Chester Moore with the new Ultra 4K release.
If you want to get a deeper appreciation of the film get Lyle’s books and turn on the commentary after you watch it the first time. You can get them here.
Although it’s legitimately scary, this is a G-rated film.
You can easily watch this with young children and yes they might have bad dreams but there is no intense violence, blood or sex to be concerned with which are a mainstay in horror.
No, Pierce created a truly iconic film with many of the people who experience the events depicted here, a small budget and a ton of talent.
The Legend of Boggy Creek along with seeing stills from the Patterson/Gimlin film in Argosy magazine made me a lifelong fan of the pursuit of mysterious animals as it did Lyle Blackburn and many others.
I’m happy to see it still holds up after all these years and truly stands out as the greatest film of its kind.
Whether or not there is something unusual roaming the swamps of southwestern Arkansas is up for debate.
But I dare you to watch this and then take a stroll out there after dark.
People are turning up missing at alarming rates in America’s national parks, forests and in other public wild lands.
Delia D’Ambra iis an investigative journalist and host of the Park Predators podcast and has been studying the issue since she came across alarming disappearances in her line of work.
Are these disappearances linked to mountain lions, bears and other wild predators or predators of the human kind?
There was actually once a moose in Texas according to a 1989 story in The Oklahoman.. I included this in a story in the Fish & Game report last week.
Here’s one of the highlights from The Oklahoman.
A wandering bull moose that has been seen on occasion in the Oklahoma Panhandle apparently is in deep trouble in western Kansas.
Kansas wildlife officials said the big bull is in poor body condition and appears to be suffering from severe parasite infestation.
The animal, sporting an impressive set of antlers, was first observed in South Dakota in October 1987. Since then it has traveled through Nebraska and Kansas, across the Panhandle and into Texas. It later returned to Kansas and took up residence in the Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge before beginning another journey last fall. It was seen in Oklahoma last September, near the Optima Wildlife Refuge
This stray moose came over from Colorado and shows that wildlife do not respect maps and boundaries we put on them. Have you ever seen animal that is not supposed to be in Texas?
Chester Moore
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A woman claims she spotted a mysterious animal resembling the long-extinct Tasmanian Tiger while out on a bush walk with her son and sister according to a report in The Daily Mail.
Jessie Milde was on the hike in Belair National Park in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, when her family noticed a strange animal ‘lolloping’ around.
Ms Milde first thought the creature was either a ‘weird looking kangaroo’ or a ‘really scraggy looking dog’ but her sister was convinced it was a Tasmanian Tiger.
The thylacine has been considered extinct since the 1930s although a fair amount of reports exist.
They are without question in my opinion the most intriguing of possibly still alive-considered extinct creatures. The video (linked above) is interesting, but what interests me more is there seems to be an uptick in sightings and possible videos in recent years.
My good friend Todd Jurasek has made several expeditions into Australia and New Guinea. He believes there is a high chance of thylacines still existing.
“I think there are definitely still some thylacine living in Australia and Tasmania,” he said.
Sept. 13 Higher Calling Wildlife the podcast and this blog will begin a three-part series on mysterious wildlife. The thylacine will be the subject of one of these episodes. We will also cover the ivory-billed woodpecker, blue and black tigers and some other obscure animals.
It’s going to be a fun fall with super cool topics.
Defending Against Guys Likes This In The Great Outdoors
In this epic, hour-long episode, Dark Outdoors host Chester Moore dives into the iconic unsolved Moonlight Murders and the Phantom Killer made famous in 1976’s classic “The Town That Dreaded Sundown”.
The Phantom Killer as portrayed by Bud Davis in The Town That Dreaded Sundown.
This show examines how the phantom operated and compares it to dangers lurking today in sububan forest areas from similar predators.
It begins with a personal brush with danger from me and then goes into an interview with John Tennison, a cousin once removed from one of the chief Phantom killer suspects.
Hear a super rare and historic revelation of an eyewitness to seeing a white-masked figure in the night of Texarkana during the Phantom’s reign of terror.
We also interview Pamula Pierce Barcelou, daughter of “The Town that Dreaded Sundown” director Charles B. Pierce. She shares fascinating insight into this cult classic and her Dad’s role creating it nearly 50 years ago.
And learn why we should be super cautious in urban and suburan parks, greenbelts and forests.
The San Francisco Mountains south of the Arizona border in Sonora, MX, barely receive 3” of annual precipitation according to officials with The Wild Sheep Foundation.
WSF Photo
WSF, along with $10,000 from the Dallas Safari Club Foundation, has contributed $82,500 to drill a well to supply water to local people and provide a close and reliable water source for transport to fill water tanks for desert bighorn sheep and other desert-dwelling wildlife.
Before this well, water had to be trucked daily 30 miles to supply the 78 families living in the area according to WSF reports.
For nearly 25 years, residents have worked to conserve and re-populate desert bighorn sheep in this ejido. As a result of their program’s success, desert bighorn hunting on the ejido has expanded, as six permits were offered in 2020. Four of these permits were sold to generate money to pay for additional transplants of free-ranging desert bighorn sheep.
