A 70-year-old bow hunter says he heard two howls at Lake Norfork, Arkansas that were neither coyote nor wolf. The sound-only report is BFRO Report 82619, Class B, filed on September 28, 2026 for the Diamond Bay area about 9 miles east of Mountain Home.
What He Heard
The witness was hunting alone from the south main lake point in Diamond Bay at about 7:30 a.m. It was sunny, around 60 degrees, with no breeze, so quiet he says he could hear a pin drop. Two howls came 15 seconds apart. He has hunted his whole life and has heard coyotes and wolves, and he says this was neither. He says he had heard the sound before on TV or YouTube Bigfoot shows where people recorded it. The habitat is hardwoods and cedar along the lake.
The BFRO’s Take
BFRO director Matthew Moneymaker, who followed up on the report, says the region has several large, slow-moving, lake-like rivers near the Missouri border, lots of deer, and many Bigfoot reports near those rivers. Lake Norfork is a dammed river, and he calls the area the type of place where howls like these would occur, or at least be noticed, at this time of year.
He adds that these fall howls carry a long way, so if they happen again over the next few days, they should be audible from anywhere near Diamond Bay. His request is simple: record them. Aim a phone toward the sound and shoot video to capture audio. He notes that on the first surprise listen, people are focused on figuring out what they are hearing, not on recording, and that the hunter will likely be more prepared next time.
The Honest Limits
I will be straight about this one. A single witness hearing two howls is about as thin as a Bigfoot report gets, and I would put it at 50 percent open. Howls in the early morning in fall could be coyotes, foxes, or other animals, and sound travels strangely over water on still days. The hunter’s confidence helps, since he has been in the woods his whole life, but he is also comparing it to what he remembers from TV and online clips.
What I do like is the plan. Instead of arguing about what he heard, the BFRO wants an actual recording, which would let people compare the howls against known animal calls. If you hunt, fish, or camp near Lake Norfork this fall and hear something, get your phone out. A real recording is worth more than a hundred stories, and it is the kind of thing that moves a Bigfoot report from “interesting” to “testable.”
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