The Ohio Howl: the Columbiana County Bigfoot recording

Columbiana County sits in north-east Ohio, along the Ohio River. Its county seat is Lisbon. Its landscape includes the Little Beaver Creek watershed, with Beaver Creek State Forest, Beaver Creek State Park and Sheepskin Hollow State Nature Preserve, and Yellow Creek State Forest in the south.

In the mid-1990s Matt Moneymaker was at law school in eastern Ohio. In 1995 he founded the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the BFRO. Years later he would co-host Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot.

Late autumn of 1994, near the Ohio River, Moneymaker recorded something in the distance. No exact day, time or weather has been published. The BFRO's own map points to Wellsville, while others place it in the Ohio River highlands north of Wellsville, or near East Liverpool. Nobody saw a creature, and there is no description of size, colour or eyes. There is only the tape.

The BFRO describes it in a few words. "An unidentified howler at a distance." "A series of three long, moaning howls." In the background, a neighbor's barking dog. The clip appeared online around 2002, under a BFRO.net copyright notice.

Later listeners heard a "loud, eerie moan." One writer described an "often undulating moan" that "takes on a siren-like sound." Another heard a "guttural quality" that "doesn't sound like any known animal in Ohio."

In 2011 the Sasquatch Bioacoustic blog took the howl apart harmonic by harmonic. "Moan howls have a characteristically long, gentle arch shape to them," the author wrote. Bob Densford of Texas had spotted that the lowest tone was weaker than the one above it. And just after the 7 second mark, partly hidden by dog barks, the author picked out a "softer, flat howl." Perhaps, the author suggested, a second animal answering, a theory that was never confirmed.

The same blog admitted the arch shape "could also be produced by man or canine." Coyote calls were "more erratic and shorter," wolf calls "often very flat and long." Cows came close, but were "deeper and shorter." One online commenter offered a simpler answer. A neighbor's dog, locked out, once sounded the same.

In 2019 Brian Dunning turned to classic Bigfoot audio in Skeptoid episode 656. He called this one of the "most classic" recordings and invited listeners to "compare it to this pair of timber wolves." Dunning argued that supposed Bigfoot sounds are too varied to come from one animal. No government, wildlife agency or university has examined the recording. No hoax allegation against it has been found.

The Ohio Howl became a template. The BFRO lists it first among its Authentic Bigfoot Howls. Wikipedia's Bigfoot article cites it among alleged vocalizations. Researchers use it for call blasting, playing it into the woods in the hope of a reply. The name now covers a whole type of call, reported from Kentucky, Georgia and north Florida to the Pacific Northwest.

Newer recordings followed. Charlie Page captured one in Cuyahoga Valley National Park around 2015. Howls recorded in the Mohican area in 2021 and 2022 were judged most likely coyotes by a state-park naturalist. Alongside the Sierra Sounds of the 1970s, the 1994 clip remains one of the classic Bigfoot recordings. A few seconds of sound, three howls and a barking dog.