Couple Startled by Noises in the Night Find Animals Can Be a Real Scream

Friday, September 5, 2008

Okay, a bear was recently snared near Annapolis, we've had a beaver in the Tidal Pool and deer outnumber sport-utility vehicles in some of our suburbs. But what animal was shrieking like a woman in distress in this Bethesda back yard?

In the still of a moonlit night, my wife and I were awakened at 3 a.m. by a ghastly scream, then a series of screams. As I fumbled to put in my contact lenses, I thought the voice resembled Janet Leigh's in that famous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." I tried to see what was going on in our neighbor's back yard, but I couldn't see much.

"Oh my God, someone is getting murdered next door," my wife said, before remembering that the neighbors were away on vacation. She decided to call the police.

"It's a series of screams. Can you hear it?" she said as she raised the phone speaker to the window.

"We'll send someone right away," the police dispatcher said.

"But the screams all sound the same," I protested. "A human scream would not be repeated so neatly."

After about five minutes, police cars arrived: three of them, sirens off. The officers inspected our neighbor's yard with their flashlights. By then, the screams had ceased, and only the laughter and conversation of the police disturbed the summer air. They did not knock on our door to demand an explanation.

The next morning, a Saturday, I was determined to find the source of the screams. If it's not a human scream, it is an animal's, I concluded. Elementary, as Sherlock Holmes would say.

How to solve this mystery was the challenge. First, I turned to Google and typed in "animal screams."

Here is the query I found on allexperts.com:

"Hi, I have been hearing an animal scream, it is very scary. . . . I would like to know where I can compare a few animal sounds to find out what this may be. It almost sounds like a woman screaming. I live in Virginia."

The expert replied:

Dear Teri:

One possibility is the bobcat. Several sites indicate that bobcats scream like a woman. . . . [Alicia Bateman's Web site] has examples of screams and says that foxes and cougars produce a vocalization somewhat similar to a woman screaming. [Another Web site] gives details of people claiming to see cougars in Virginia, so it is possible that you heard a cougar. The fisher can also make a screaming sound and [another Web site] says there are reports of fishers living along the border of Virginia. . . . I think the most likely candidates are the bobcat and fox, but you may have been lucky enough to hear a cougar or a fisher.

Lucky enough? You bet.

Anyway, I began with bobcats. But wait, are there bobcats in Bethesda? A few blocks from the D.C. line? Or cougars? And what in the world is a fisher?

Fishers eat porcupines, I found out, and they live in the Adirondacks. They are related to the weasel. They have been found as far south as Hopewell Township, N.J. Hmm, not likely.

I turned to YouTube, typing in "red fox."

Let me see: "Red fox katusha?" That's not it. "Red Fox Inn." Isn't that the place in Middleburg where Liz Taylor used to hang out with Sen. John Warner? "Urban Red Fox: Meet the Foxes" takes place somewhere in London. In the film clip, this heavyset bald guy with a big rifle shoots one through a window, kills it and then waits for its mate to arrive. Shoots him, too. I am no raving-mad member of PETA, but this is a very disturbing video, although it helped solve my mystery. The shriek of the fox that found and sniffed around its dead mate resembled the chilling cries from the night before.

Then I typed in "fox scream" on YouTube and there it was, the same chilling series of screams in the night. The videotape shows two glowing eyes in the dark, and then the outline of the red fox became visible. This was what I was looking for.

Our neighbors returned from their vacation. My wife told them about the screams from their back yard. "I'm not surprised," the woman said. In her mother's back yard, just a few blocks away, a den of foxes was found. Wow, right here near the D.C. line.

The case is indeed closed. There will be no more thoughts of Janet Leigh shrieking in the night. The next time I hear the screams, I hope to remember images from the Walt Disney movie, "The Fox and the Hound."

-- Kunio Francis Tanabe, Bethesda