In November of 1983, my dad and his friend John decided they wanted both our families to spend Thanksgiving together in the mountains.

I was 15 years old that year. My two brothers were 13 and 11 and my sister was only three.

The other family, I'll call them the Smiths, had four boys ages 15, 14, 13, and 11.

We had rented two cabins, one for each family in Mentone, Alabama, and we all drove up from Birmingham the evening before Thanksgiving Day.

I think we're in a state park, but I don't really know for sure.

The next day, we all gathered at the family's cabin to cook and hang out together.

I remember the sound of football games, so somebody must have

had a radio. The cabins didn't have TVs. The dads were smoking a turkey and a goose and some other

stuff outside and a smoker they'd brought with them. We ate our Thanksgiving meal around 4.30

as the sun was beginning to set. The meal lasted a few

hours, followed by a few more hours of conversation. I think there might have been more football on the

radio. Eight o'clock, we began hearing a very loud howl or scream combination just outside the back of the cabin it had simultaneous

high and low pitches and tones within the same screen it's not a sound of human vocal cord could

recreate not that any of us thought this could be a human and the boys all concluded that it was a bear i knew what bear sounded

like from my elementary school days of watching after-school specials and tv shows like shazam shazam

that guy ran into a bear or mountain line almost every episode so So I also knew what mountain lines sounded like.

It must be hurt, I said. That's not what bears usually sound like. Well, what else could it be?

One of the Smith boys asked. We all discussed that it didn't sound feline or canine. There were no cougars in Alabama at that time.

And since then, the Florida Panther has migrated north into Alabama, but probably not that far north.

So the only possible feline might have been a bobcat, and their mating calls are are pretty loud but not as loud as this thing was

coyotes can also make loud sounds but this didn't sound like a coyote at all there are no wolves in

alabama alabama black bears are really small 150 to 200 pounds and this sound was massive. Bears in the Florida panhandle are much bigger,

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