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Minnesota Howls-23 Minutes


Northern Lights

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. This field has lots of garbage, so we all end up walking cautiously.

Yep, ......Northern Lights, Something I do when I hear new audio like this that is sort of "over the top" is to sit down with the audio and a good sound editor program to see if I can make the sounds more familiar by altering "pitch or playback speed". It is an easy thing to do, and is an ability that is more common than in years past. I grabbed a few howls from these back when they were first released. I found that with the pitch brought up to 170% they were a dead ringer for coyote howls. I don't mean to accuse anyone of tampering with these recordings, but it is something we all have to check for when we receive recordings from someone else and can't vouch for the exact circumstances they were obtained. Tampering can get complex with not just altering pitch, but also mixing a set of sounds with background noise.

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Northern Lights, Thanks for posting your audio files... I have signed up to follow your webpage. I appreciate your stance on what may or may not be the origin. I too record my field experiences. I have come to the realization that collecting and cataloging a volume of different sounds is the most important contribution. It doesn't matter what You or I think the origin is because that can be determined by those with more knowledge or field experience.

I want to commend you for being affiliated with Sasquatch Bioacoustics. Monongahela has been a good friend and mentor to me. Our paths crossed 3 years ago and we have forged a great relationship. He is an excellent mentor. Through his tutelage I became aware of how to study sound files through visual analysis. I see that you have your audio file available to review using spectrographic analysis on your web page. I would encourage those interested to log on and review.

You may be interested to know that I have a sound file that is similar to yours. A distant vocalizer that eventually excites two suspects to return the calls. I recorded them from an active study site that has had multiple sightings from multiple witnesses. The vocalizers very well could be canine in origin. In my neck of the woods it is less likely that we have wolves and more likely that somebody has a wolf hybrid. All that said I do find my file interesting on several levels. I thought you might as well. If you want to PM me I will send you a copy of the file.

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I don't mean to accuse anyone of tampering with these recordings, but it is something we all have to check for when we receive recordings from someone else and can't vouch for the exact circumstances they were obtained. Tampering can get complex with not just altering pitch, but also mixing a set of sounds with background noise.

We do know the exact circumstances of how these were obtained and chain of custody. Sorry if for some reason that wasn't clear. There was no tampering with the recording and we recieved the raw data files directly from the recorder.

Galahad-I would love to hear more about those files. I will be heading out of town for the weekend and won't be able to be back to you until next week, so please hang on and I will be back to you. Thanks all and hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

NL

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Guest FootDude

I found that with the pitch brought up to 170% they were a dead ringer for coyote howls. I don't mean to accuse anyone of tampering with these recordings, but it is something we all have to check for when we receive recordings from someone else and can't vouch for the exact circumstances they were obtained. Tampering can get complex with not just altering pitch, but also mixing a set of sounds with background noise.

Besides what Northern stated about these files being taken directly from the recorder, you can actually here faint wolf howls in the background during 1 or 2 sequences of the recording responding to the louder 'Sasquatch' howls in question.

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Northern , you mentioned that you have a Olympus VN-4100PC recorder, but I seem to have missed what type of recorder was used in the original recordings here or how the recordings were uploaded to a computer. The site says Jim saved the files off the recorder after breaking the 20hr. file into smaller segments. Was it dubbed via a patch cable using the playback feature on the recorder or was it transferred digitally?

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Sorry Art, not even close to what's on the recording. The MN recording howls had much more depth and tone. Not to say they weren't wolves, but certainly not domestic dogs, IMO. :)

Hey TM.. just to clarify, i didnt mean to suggest that all of the howls were canine in origin, but surely some of them are.

My point was more about that if some were/are canine, it doesnt necessarily have to be wolves. Not knowing what the area is like, whether there are farms around, or residences were dogs (and people) live, that it could be regular old dogs as well.

I have listened to the whole 30 minute recording 3 times now, and I do agree there's defintely some of the howls that seem different than any wolve/other canine howls, but i also think Saskeptics orginal point is relevant. There can be alot of variety, and range differences between canines, just like there are many different pitches and ranges in human vocal capabilities...

To me, as I believe you mentioned, some from the 17- 19 minute mark were very odd indeed. I think at the very least, they're extremely interesting because of a guttural quality, and they do sound awfully "deep"- like something bigger than a canine, but that's just my opinion.

I also found the "whacking" noises very compelling, and i dont think it sounded anything like a bunch of footsteps hitting the snow/ground, as someone mentioned. They're very sharp sounding whacks, and it sounds like whatever was smacking stuff around was really wound up.

I'm by no means any kind of auditory or animal sound expert, and so like many other's all i can offer is an opinion based on other recordings ive listened to (both of known creatures, and supposed Sasquatch ones as well). It's my opinion that a good deal of the howls do sound canine, but I am ok with at least considering the idea that several of the parts recorded could be something else, and combined with that couple of minutes of knocking, I find the whole recording to be very intriguing...

During the last time I listened through it, a little while ago, I sat here with my headphones on, closed my eyes, and just imagined myself sitting on the edge of a field, in the middle of the night, listening to this stuff- and it honestly made me a bit uncomfortable, and glad that i was sitting in my living room, and not at that location...!

hairy.gif

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Northern Lights....I also have the VN-4100PC and tried to play and download to my PC. My PC did not recognize the recorder and said I needed to put digital wave player on it and I could not find it on the Olympus website. On my laptop, I have digital wave player installed and can listen to my recordings easily, but neither of my PC,s show the recorder when I look under my computer, even when it's plugged in the USB slot.

I did download audacity and can listen to my files there, but have no idea how I can share them. Basically, the ply way I cld get my files into audacity was to click and drag them out of digital wave player and insert them in the audacity window. When I did that and tried player a file, they all played at the same time.

Can someone give me an idea how to embed them in a post or do I need to use another hosting website to share them? Man, I hate computers.....

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UPs I suggest that you go to sasquatchbioacoustic.blogspot.com there is a large amount of info on useing Audacity and exporting files. I would suggest that you use a host website like soundcloud for your audio files, it makes audio sharing simple for the forum. Hope this helps :)

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One of the interesting things here, is that although we hear canine howls in the background, at no time do any of the 'main' howls break into the more definitive canine 'chatter' or growls that we quite often hear when canines howl in groups. Just the opposite actually. Instead we hear them break into primate sounding vocalizations. The most convincing of these is the first moan vocalization at the 1:37 mark at the 6-9 minute breakdown. The 1st yell/moan at 3:06 of the 8:30-12 minutes breakdown, and the final 6 yells/moans in the 17-19 minute breakdown. These 6 yells in succession especially, have a deep primate sounding 'woooo-ahhhh' tonality that is worthy of noting.

IMO one way some of these vocalizations could have been faked is to record canine howls, 'slow' them down so they deepen, and then call-blast the previously recorded altered howls. In order to make the hoax noteworthy, the hoaxers would have had to have known someone was recording them. However I don't think slowing down canine howls could account for the previously mentioned 'wooo-ahhhh' or primate sounding yell/moans.

I'm always surprised by the conclusions drawn from recordings. Everyone agrees that there are canine sounds for most of the recording, many minutes indeed; yet cherry-picking 5% of it and saying "we haven't heard that before" does NOT mean it was BF.

The logical conclusion is that you haven't heard canines who are admittedly present make those sounds before. Well, now you have ;)

Actually not. Most agree that there are some qualities in the howls somewhat similar to those found in wolf or canine howls.

However due to the absence of definitive canine chatter and or growls, and the presence of a primate signature in these vocalizations, moans and yells, IMO the logical conclusion is that animals other than canines are more than likely making these sounds.

Edited by FootDude
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I am raising major big eyebrows at anyone who thinks that everything on here can be reasonably laid to known animals. If some of these aren't sasquatch, you will not be able to tell me what they are. I would have to watch a canid actually making some of these sounds to believe one could do it. Check out:

9:16 to 11:16

17 to 19

...at least, but there are others at various points.

I would not trust the opinion of anyone - regardless experience or education - who didn't consider anything on here as a potential sasquatch vocalization, and presumed nothing even potentially unusual.

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UPs I suggest that you go to sasquatchbioacoustic.blogspot.com there is a large amount of info on useing Audacity and exporting files. I would suggest that you use a host website like soundcloud for your audio files, it makes audio sharing simple for the forum. Hope this helps :)

Thank you Nathan and I will try it.

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why does it have to be wolves ? (if assuming canine)

What about regular old dogs... ?

Here's two great examples of similar to what i heard lots of on the recording...

First one- skip to the 1:28 mark for the howling...

2nd clip, relevant howling starts at :08 seconds...

Fire whistles, police sirens, and TRAIN HORNS have been known to set them off howling...

Yea I'll be honest, there was some funky stuff in that recording, the smacking noises, and some of the howls did indeed sound "different", and while I enjoyed listening to it, and found the howls to be haunting, regardless of their origin, the best that we could say it that its possible...

Thanks for putting it up for discussion though, and please pass along our kind regards to the person who took the recording...

I'd say that nothing I heard on these clips sounds anything like the howls that interested me on the Minnesota recording. These sound like, well, dogs.

Edited by DWA
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I'm not sure if this was mentioned earlier? Wondering roughly where abouts in northern Minnesota were these recordings captured? Understand if the location does not want to be given away..

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