Drone footage reveals giant Abominable Squirrels in a remote part of Alaska. As you can imagine the found footage affords only a brief glimpse of these shy and elusive creatures!
Mysterious wood block knocking sounds in the deep, high forest of the Great Smoky Mountains have returned - is it the call or song of a Chipmunk or the rare, ever elusive "Cluckmunk" that is louder than thunder? First documented in 2013:
the noises did not occur in 2014, but have returned with a vengeance in September 2015 - crank up the volume and even a growing thunderstorm can't drown out these incessant calls that echo through the forest canopy. These bizarre creatures seem to enjoy making this sound for hours on end - and when two or three get going at once it is as strange a sound as you ever want to hear in the deep dark forest. Amazingly, I only hear these sounds in the forest not around houses where there are plenty of Chipmunks making the typical "chipping" call that is their namesake. The elusive "Cluckmunks" are not to be seen in the dense forest and one of the reasons their sound is so loud and carries so far is that it sounds like they are calling high up in the trees rather than on the ground. The mystery continues - I must get video of these critters making this sound in the high forest to prove the theory below - it is clearly not a response to danger or predators but highly seasonal.
The mysterious "Bigfoot". High in the Great Smoky Mountains in an Old Growth Eastern Hemlock forest at 4000 feet elevation lives a creature that has evolved to stand on two huge feet incredibly out of proportion to the rest of its body and attached to powerful legs to take advantage the unique primordial forest environment - it runs incredibly fast and makes amazing jumps to escape. I was fortunate to capture a video of its feet from just the right angle and have given this Creature the name of "Bigfoot"
What's knocking on wood in the primordial high-elevation forest of the Great Smoky Mountains? It seems to reverberate from all directions and is hundreds of yards away - or is it! After four days of investigating these strange, incessant and mind-numbing wood-knocking noises deep in the forest I was not able to find and film the mysterious creature(s). Having spent parts of 7 summers here this is the first time I encountered this phenomena to such a degree that it caught my attention. It was early October 2013 near 4000 feet elevation. An exhaustive Google search seemed to solve the mystery to my satisfaction. You probably have heard a Chipmunk "Chip", but have you ever heard the elusive "CluckMunk" Cluck? This bizarre knocking on wood phenomena has actually been researched, but is not well-documented. I managed to find the expert on the subject at: http://miracleofnature.org/blog/chipmunk-clucks-revisited
This fellow wrote a thesis on this "clucking"!
However, contrary to his theory of the Chipmunks making these "clucks" as warning calls for raptors in the trees, these bizarre "Cluckmunks" just seemed to enjoy making this sound for hours on end - and when two or three get going at once echoing through the canopy it is as strange a sound as you ever want to hear in the deep dark forest. What was odd was that they didn't stop making the noise when I was making noise walking through the woods. There seemed to be a difference between the many Chipmunks hanging around the cabin and the deep forest creatures. Is the mystery solved - or does the high forest hold more secrets?
Note that toward the end of the video there are two red squirrels - they are not making the noises - the knocking noise is from off-camera. I fortunately recorded both Chipmunk calls going on at the same time while filming the red squirrels.