awoke at night

[MissJatti]

A few years ago, I would go to bed and sleep really really early. But in one particular night, my eyes opened (guessing 9-10pm) and heard what I initially thought a baby crying. I tried to go back to sleep, but the crying was getting more eerie, eerie enough to spook anyone. The noise was very close and very loud, and it seemed to come from outside. I could not hear anybody comforting the crying. The crying went on and on. I wanted to check it out, but since many eerie things happens to me over the years I decided not to. The following day, I went investigating and no one else heard what I heard.

A work colleague suggested that it have been a cat, but I believe that not the case, since our house, is a lone house in the countryside. And we never seen a cat, in or around our property since we moved here back in 2002. Also since we are a tight community, no one in over a half mile radius had a cat at that time. People had dogs and other pets, and there were farm animals.

I was wondering as anybody experienced, what I experienced....

[*Frank*]

A fox? They make horrendous noises at night.

[JesseCuster]

A fox? They make horrendous noises at night.

Yup, I've heard foxes at night, they can make some really eerie high pitched cries and wails and foxes are active at night. When I first heard it, I was convinced it was something paranormal, until it was explained to me.

Foxes are widespread in the British countryside and regularly make their way into urban areas at night to scavenge (I was living in an urban area at the time and had once seen a fox on the streets at night when coming home from the pub).

BTW, just because you aren't aware of cats in your area, doesn't mean they don't exist. Wild and feral cats can be active at night (or during dusk and dawn, cats are quite adaptable to widely different patterns of activity), so you never know what is wandering over your property at night.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Archimedes

[MissJatti]

the fox and even cats and all other living animals for the world do make horrendous noises.

But I am skeptical if there is such an animal that could 100% mimic a baby crying, prehaps a baby colic crying

[JesseCuster]

the fox and even cats and all other living animals for the world do make horrendous noises.

But I am skeptical if there is such an animal that could 100% mimic a baby crying, prehaps a baby colic crying

But was it really a "100% mimic" of a baby crying? Or was your tired mind that had just awoke confused by the sound and identified it as a baby crying because that was the immediate thing that came to mind? Our minds are strange things and we regularly convince ourselves of things that are patently untrue.

It's only natural, a fleeting or confusing or frightening or unexpected event is poorly remembered because of the nature of the events. Afterwards we try to make sense of it and our mind's guesswork as to what happened becomes cemented as a factual account of things.

A somewhat related story: My parents and some of my family were involved in a traffic incident where a dangerous driver ran a red light at high speed. He clipped another car which overturned and slid down the road and came to a stop right beside my folks car.

There was a police investigation in the event and the driver was eventually charged with something along the lines of reckless or dangerous driving. Anyway, one of the cops came to my parents house and interviewed them during the investigation. No-one could agree entirely as to descriptions of the event. It was a blue car. It was a red car. It came from the right at the junction. It came from the left. It was a hatchback. It was a saloon. Etc. But everyone at the time of being interviewed was confident they had an accurate recollection of events. A cautionary tale about the reliability of people as eyewitnesses to events.

So ask yourself, what convinces you, now, that the sound you heard was in fact a "100% mimic" of a human baby crying, given the well known and well recorded fact that human memories can be incredibly misleading, especially if the event happened while we were tired, drunk, confused, frightened, etc. And after time, those memories that were possibly hazy and confusing at first became molded into something we are convinced is exactly what happened, even though it might not be particularly accurate.

Note that even in this thread, your story isn't completely consistent, you have gone from something that you "initially thought was a baby crying" implying some uncertainty on your behalf and that you later thought was something else, to a description that if it wasn't a baby crying, it was a "100% mimic", which implies very strong certainty about what you heard.

Which is it, did you hear something that was 100% identical to a human baby crying, or something that you merely initially thought was a baby crying?

The easiest person to fool is ourselves.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Archimedes

[JesseCuster]

BTW, I've 2 similar incidences similar to the OP's story.

One was a late night session on my computer, playing video games or browsing the web or something. It was in a downstairs room, when I heard what I described at the time as a baby crying just outside the window beside me, like it was sitting on the window sill crying (not too loudly), a few feet away from me. I froze. Quite literally. The crying sound went on for a short time and went away. But I couldn't move. For a period that I can't tell you was how long I was frozen to the spot. Scared witless until I quietly and slowly made my way to bed and lay awake until the morning.

Dunno what I actually heard, but I thought it was a baby crying at the time.

The other occurence was hearing a noise at night that sounded vaguely like a woman in distress, screaming in a very weird almost unearthly high pitched wail. Someone told me at the time I may have heard a banshee! It was only some time later when I heard the same noise with someone who was familiar with it who explained it was one of the strange and disturbing noises foxes can make.

The strange thing about the "banshee" story, which is another idea of how we fool ourselves, is that I didn't believe the story, but some years later, I remember piecing it together and realising that it occured around the same time an elderly neighbour of mine died. I remember the time of year because a friend of mine came to my home town on holidays at the same time each year (for the month of July or August, I can't remember which), because he was in my house for a sleepover at the time, and I knew the date of the death of my neighbour. I heard a banshee...

But then some time later I figured out I was wrong. Putting together some more information, it turns out my friend didn't start coming here on holidays until a couple of years after my neighbour died. But I had convinced myself for some time, I think because I wanted to believe it, and therefore some sloppy "investigation" lead to an utterly wrongheaded conclusion.

Turns out that was a fox after all.

Also, I'm sure I have somehow made a balls of that story because I can't remember the exact details, I'm sure I've gotten some things wrong, but the overal gist is true.. I've learned not to put to much trust into my memory of events of long ago.

[MissJatti]

thank you archimedes, I totally understand what are you trying to say to conclude the outcome to what I have experienced that night, but I did lack some details on this original post...sorry.

But when i said i initially thought a baby was crying, i meant initially as in about 45 secs to a minute. Also when I said the crying went on and on.. I'd say about 8 to 10 minutes of constant crying (no breaks)

The sound did not change from the time I first heard it, to the time it stopped.

When I say more eerie, the sound was the same, but more distressful.

But I cannot say for sure, but I believe l was in woke up mode and very alerted pretty quick that night

[MissJatti]

lol i heard the banshee too, but ended up being the wind passing though multiple holes in a recycled materials house in thailand