It’s Like A Jacksepticeye “Let’s Play” Come To Life!

I’m a park ranger. One night, around 10:30 pm or so, we got a call about a hiker in distress. There’s no such thing as a “routine” hiker in distress call, and this one was no exception.

The location was about twenty-five klicks from the nearest aid station, so it wasn’t exactly the middle of nowhere, but it was a fairly long hike. We drove as close as we could and then started hiking the rest of the way.

As we approached, we heard noises that certainly sounded like a distressed — though non-verbal — human, or possibly a distressed animal. We paused for a moment to discuss which it might be and what our options were. My partner’s face suddenly went pale.

Partner: “Did you hear that?”

Me: “What?”

Partner: “It’s a repeating track. Listen.”

We listened for a bit, and sure enough, the noises were exactly repeating themselves at roughly five-minute intervals as though it was a sound playing in a loop.

We radioed in a potentially dangerous situation and left as rapidly and safely as we could.

The next morning, as soon as there was enough sun to do so, the helicopter crew went out to the area in question and found tire tracks, the remains of what MIGHT have been a hunting blind made with local branches and rocks, and fragments of mounting hardware left on some of the trees as though speakers, cameras, other manmade devices had been mounted to them and had been hastily ripped off.

We’re not sure if we almost stumbled into an illegal animal hunting operation using the sounds as a lure or an even more illegal human hunting one.