Who knew that Bigfoot was camera smart?:smack:
Senegoid When you tell a story, you really tell a story. I was afraid your San Francisco friend was bleeding to death under a pile of shattered wine bottles. Good for you and the police for following up. But, gee, the motorcycle accident. So many “what ifs”. I’m sure the ambulance driver got a call and turned around. I keep hearing Rod Serling welcoming you to the Twilight Zone.
dizzee dee Given the rumors of police raid and drugs surrounding the guy in the woods, I’d much rather think the voice was someone on a bad trip. I just hope I never hear what sounds like a dog in distress.
This was my first thought exactly.
Not injured but couldn’t get up? Was he buried under an enormous pile of wine bottles or feces? 
Just too generally feeble and/or drunk.
About six months after that, he really did break his hip-bone falling over a pile of wine bottles and was in rehab for a long time after that. Then he got prostate cancer, with radiation therapy that turned out really really badly.
This isn’t exactly the same situation, but it’s related.
I had a long-standing friend who lived about 100 miles away from me. We used to speak on the phone / e-mail about once a week.
I knew he was going through a bad patch (trouble at work - but he gave no details), so offered to help. He thanked me, but said he was fine.
Then his mother (his only remaining relative) died.
The only mourners at the funeral were him, me, another mutual friend and his elderly neighbour.
Soon after, he stopped replying to any contact.
So I rang his local police and explained I was worried. (I knew my friend hadn’t gone on holiday for years.)
The police said I had done the right thing and sent a car to visit his house.
They phoned me back soon afterwards and said there were worrying signs (I assume mail building up etc.)
Shortly afterwards they phoned again to say they had broken in and found that my friend had passed away in his sleep.
I explained there were no known relatives and the local authorities took charge of the funeral.
I was driving late at night in a rural area outside of Ann Arbor. I was going pretty fast when out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a person lying near the side of the road. It was pre-cellphone, and by the time I thought about it, I was quite a distance away with no good spot to turn around (expressway). Besides, I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to be looking for a body, alone, in a desolate setting. I sped up because I knew there would be a phone at the next exit. As luck would have it, I came across two cop cars that had someone pulled over. I made as much noise as possible as I approached the cops, but still managed to startle them. I explained what I saw, and to their credit, they treated it very serious, told me to jump in the back and we flew back to where I saw the body.
During the ride, I told them I wasn’t 100% sure, but they kept reassuring me that it was okay if we didn’t find anything. They would rather people be safe and waste a little time then ignore someone in need. They turned on their spotlight and began searching, but we weren’t seeing anything. Part of me kept thinking there better be a dead body, or this’ll be embarrassing : )
Anyhoo, we find the body. Turns out to be some kid who’s really fucked up and passed out like 2 feet from the highway. The cops figured given the remote location, someone dumped his ass out of their car. They had to cuff him because he woke up and was becoming agitated. My only thought was that they were going to throw him in the back with me, or that he would overpower the cops and steal the car with me in the back. They simply called an ambulance and took me back to my car.
The thing that surprised me was how thankful the police were. They were basically saying that not everyone would do what I did. I’m thinking who wouldn’t tell the police they saw a body on the side of the road?
I was going to mention that. Never sounded quite like “Help!” to me, but like a person screaming something.
Anyway, I think I’d do the same thing. It was dark, nothing much else you could do on your own.
It never ceases to amaze me how paranoid some people are these days. Yes, a few psychos attack Good Samaritans, but that is exceedingly rare on a statistical basis.
Besides–you’ve got to die sometime. There are a vast number of worse ways to die than trying to help somebody.
My related story was a kind of reversal of the op.
I was walking my dog in the woods around 11PM behind my apartment building. Every few minutes I thought I heard someone calling for help but couldn’t quite tell over my feet and the dog crunching leaves so I would stand still, and the calls would stop. So I would start walking again and then hear a faint call again. Pause. Nothing. Walk. Hear something. This went on for about 5 minutes until I made it back to the pavement. Finally I heard a woman calling “Would you pleaassse help me!”, so I finally answered “Where are you?”. At which point she starting crying.
It turns out she was in a third floor apartment and had come out onto her screened in deck and the door to the apartment had locked behind her. So she had been stuck on her deck since about 5:00 and since it was fall no one else was out on their decks to hear her yelling. I called the emergency maintenance number and she was freed within an hour. But what a predicament to be in.
Peacocks can have a vocalization that can sound amazingly like a human calling for help, and I have heard it carry for a mile or so. It actually sounded more like “Help!” at long distance than when near the birds.
Edit: And then I read the rest of the replies. Never mind.
Years ago while camping, my husband and I parked next to some woods in a state park on a dark night to enjoy the Milky Way, which was especially bright that night. As we sat there, we heard a horrible screaming in the woods. It sounded like a woman being tortured. My husband called out, but there was no answer, and the screaming continued. We drove away to find a ranger but couldn’t (this was pre-cellphone days), and returned to our campsite at a loss.
Years later, I was watching a nature special on PBS and it was about foxes. One of the scenes was of a vixen screaming and by God it was exactly the same sound we heard that night. If you’ve ever heard one, it’s an unearthly and frightening sound.
So that’s what the fox says! Mystery solved.
I was once watching TV (football, I think) and I heard that sound coming from under the floor. Foxes in the crawlspace.
When I first moved into my house, I kept hearing an occasional screaming noise outside, usually at night. I never could figure out what it was for months, until I finally spotted a fox making the scream. Short and sweet, this is actually what is sounds like: Scream of the red fox - YouTube
And you’ll hear that noise, I swear, in the first 15 minutes of every British country house or rural mystery show.
A friend and I went exploring a bit today. The two-track leading into the woods was pristine. No tire tracks or footprints. I expect the cops shone a flashlight around, yelled a few times, and then left. After all, it was quiet by the time they arrived.
I didn’t sleep much last night, dithering over this and that, but by this morning I was mostly ok. The road’s just not as friendly seeming as it always has been. Or maybe I’m just getting old.
Thanks for all the stories and support. Y’all are really good people.
Yep. I’d have run home, and called the police from there.
I live in a forest, and in the summer often hear that scream near - really near - my house. Always in the middle of the night. Never ceases to scare the crap out of me.
We were tent camping in a mixed use campground. There were a fair amount of lights in the area illuminating the roadway. Anyway, at 2:00 AM or so I heard this terrible sound and all the lights went out. It was dead quiet after the “crunch”. No one else in the campground stirred but I was bolt upright. I then heard a faint call for help. “Shit!”, I thought this is going to be bad. I woke up the Missus and jumped into the car to find the crash scene. We drove a short way down the country road and came upon a car up on its side of the shoulder of the road with a power line draped over it. The driver was sitting on the side of the car with his legs dangling over the side. He was, basically, unhurt and alone in the car. He had veered to miss a deer, left the road snapped a pole, and rolled a couple of times ending up on his side. Not drunk, either. That was one lucky guy.
That thought also crossed my mind, but I read way too many murder mysteries.