Strange sounds in Crazy Mountains, Montana

Joined
Sep 22, 2024
Messages
3
Hey everyone, long time lurker, first time poster here.

I’d like to preface this by saying I’m not the superstitious type, just an inquisitive mind looking for some guidance.

I’m trying to identify some sounds I heard while scouting for elk on the evening of 9/22/24. I was on the northwest side of the mountains. The forest was alive with the typical sounds of birds etc, and out of the blue I hear a series of sounds that I am entirely unfamiliar with. The best way I could describe them would be a set of low to high pitched “whooping” or sort of a “honk” sound. The thing that was strange, is that It was absolutely monstrous, like it sounded like it was happening everywhere around me. This happened for about 10 ish seconds maybe, and after that the forest went dead silent.

I’ve been around the mountains a lot, grew up the same as I’m sure you all have with hunting, fly fishing, backpacking etc, and have spent a lot of time around livestock as well. Ive never heard anything like it in my life, and I can tell you it sent shivers down my spine. I can say for certain that it was not a bird (unless it was some type of pterodactyl brought back from the dead).

I intend to return to the area and explore if I can determine what the cause was the following weekend, but I was just curious if any of you have experienced something similar, or if you have any idea as to the nature of the sounds. I’ll try to record the sound (and maybe catch some footage) of what I find.
 

hiker270

WKR
Joined
Nov 5, 2022
Messages
468
No help from me, bow hunted the west side of the Crazy Mountains 3 years ago but heard no sounds I considered strange. Plenty of elk though.
 
OP
G
Joined
Sep 22, 2024
Messages
3
Sandhill Cranes? They make a pretty wild sound


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They do indeed (and taste amazing) but I don’t believe so :/
Bigfoot or some devolved locals might be options.
Hahaha, I reckon I belong to that group of devolved locals.
google nighthawks they make a funny noise with their wings when they dive
I checked them out, interesting for sure but no dice.
Could have been a bunch of snipes
Snipes can sound wild, but I don’t think it was?


The reason why I preface that I’m not superstitious is because the only sound I’ve found which matches it is from a questionable source, and I’d like to try and rule out everything else before even considering something bizarre.
 
Joined
Sep 11, 2017
Messages
1,260
Location
Bozeman, MT
[QUOTE="
The reason why I preface that I’m not superstitious is because the only sound I’ve found which matches it is from a questionable source, and I’d like to try and rule out everything else before even considering something bizarre.[/QUOTE]

Spill the beans!! I’m invested now…And I’ve hunted the Crazies a bit, maybe I better add some stuff to the ol’ medicine bag before I head back in there…


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Joined
Feb 2, 2020
Messages
2,558
This needs to go into the creepy experiences in the Backcountry thread.

I had something similar happen a couple of years ago, but was just a single sound. It could have been a bird, but never heard a bird like it before and I paused for about 10 minutes waiting to see if anything around moved. Everything was extremely quiet, nothing moving, you could have heard a pin drop. I left pretty quickly. Never figured it out.


Please keep us updated after you go investigate!
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2022
Messages
1,311
Location
Western Montana
Another potential option I learned about in Libby as well…

The hero and legend below, was known to be able to induce a reaction from a female that resulted in guttural vocalizations similar to the description of the Crazies sound in question.
IMG_2679.jpeg
 
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