FA+
Shop
Alien Dinosaurs
8 years ago
Last night, I went out at 9pm on my nightly jog. It's a nice, quiet area in southwest FL, woodsy, scenic, no cars or people down the stretch I take, though, it can get very dark sometimes and I am a moderate nyctophobe. Still, I love it, especially in the "winter" months (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks there). Another thing I like about it is that it's typically an uneventful area. *Typically.*
I was about a quarter of the way into my jog when I got a hankering to listen to a particular old song I hadn't heard in a long time. I couldn't remember the exact name of it for the life of me. The title wasn't something obvious, it wasn't a popular or well-known song, and I have hundreds of other songs to sort through. So I slowed down to see if I could find it. Sorted by band, by genre, by artist, by playlist- couldn't find it. I wondered if I had deleted it by accident. Stopping on the side of the road, I redoubled by efforts. It was principle now. I was going to find that damn song if it took me all friggin night.
OVER THE TOP of the dubstep I was listening to, I heard a sound that can only be described as the metallic demon shriek of a creature the approximate size and shape of a Giganotosaurus. I swear, I jumped a full two feet off the ground (which is saying something because we fat chicks don't usually get much hangtime when we jump), yanked my earbuds out, scrambled back a few feet, and froze like a terrified deer in the headlights. I stood there unmoving, listening for the direction of the sound so I could fuck off as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
Doleful nightbirds piped their lonely psalms against a soft backdrop of chirring crickets and creaking frogs. Wind whispered through the trees and sighed through the tall grass. I heard nary a sound outside the typical Florida night serenata for a fair while. I began to wonder if perhaps my MP3 player had malfunctioned or maybe I'd heard the unfortunate demise of a Boeing 747 crash-landing into a pile of nails on a chalkboard. I even began to feel kinda silly. That happens sometimes. As an artist, my imagination occasionally gets away from me, especially if it has darkness and shadows to play with.
But then came the sound of water. It was not splashing, no, and it was not a tide or a current either. This is a particular sound that human beings recognize on a deep, instinctual level as it has been inscribed into our DNA through eons of evolutionary success, the very same success consequent of our instinct to run the fuck away when we hear sounds like this- sounds like something *big* moving towards you through water.
The Peace River is maybe a minute's walk from where I was standing. If I was to go off-trail and walk a straight line, it would be less than half a minute. The dinosaurian screech coupled with my knowledge of Florida wildlife brought my mind to the only logical conclusion…
…
…..
…….
Dinosaurs. LAUGH ALL YOU WANT but you did not hear this @#$%^&*ING SOUND. Having survived Florida for a solid 15y, I knew damn-well that alligators do not make *that* kind of noise. They rumble, they hiss, they can even roar, and those are all very impressive sounds. I would know. I went to Corkscrew swamp once and heard it all up-close and pants-shittingly personal. That "rumble" they do vibrates through your whole body and sets your nerves on fire for sure but THIS WAS NOT THAT. This noise was something else entirely. And I was convinced that it was dinosaurs. Or aliens. Maybe alien dinosaurs.
I stood there frozen, half expecting the Indominus Rex to come tromping out of the river, and I heard it again, this time, with perfect clarity, shrieking like a rusty freight train full of banshees careening off the rails. I might not have had my shittin pants on but I did have my running shoes and I could haul ass if I had to. Granted, I'm a fat chick and that's a lot of ass to haul but trust me, I can run faster and longer than you might think.
The Shriek mounted to a crescendo reminiscent of some unspeakable horror from the Cthulhu mythos amidst violent splashing, grass rustling, and sticks snapping. Fuck that. I'm out. Later bitches! As I began to jog away, the Cthulhean call waned into a dry, shearing denouement, only to be punctuated with one…
Small.
Single.
Sound.
…
…..
…….
Honk.
I stopped in my tracks and turned around as if someone had said something very rude behind my back, like; "ex-fucking-skeoooooose me?"
Honk.
I stood frozen in shock with WTF sirens blaring in my head as I tried to figure out which kind of Cthulhean abomination would think it appropriate to follow up an abject, unbridled, pants-shittingly horrific screech with a fucking honk. Like, is this your average, everyday friendly neighborhood Gug riding a bike and letting everyone know that he's just passing through on his way to murder and eat the neighbors? Honk honk! Or maybe it's a Night Gaunt wearing a clown nose and randomly honking it into the darkness of night because that's his fetish. Honk honk! Or maybe it's the great Cthulhu himself arising from the swampy Floridian depths except he's secretly a muppet and that's how he communicates with his henchmuppets, instructing them to corrupt the hearts and minds of children around the globe through Sesame Street. Honk honk! I suddenly remembered a sound from my childhood back in New York when I used to walk through the cemetery which featured a fairly sizeable pond inhabited by…
Geese.
Is that what I was hearing? A goose? Really? ARE. YOU. !@#$%^&ING. SHITTING. ME!? I was about to run home like a little bitch, leaving a trail of terror-shits across Deep Creek… OVER A !@#$%^&*ING GOOSE!? *Honk!* I AM GOING TO HUNT YOU DOWN AND HONK YOU RIGHT IN THE !@#$%^&*ING HEAD, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!
At that point, I was so embarrassed, I felt like I had to earn back some bravery points just for my own peace of mind. Like, I would not be able to sleep at night knowing that I had reacted to a !@#$%^&*ing goose like it was the second coming Cthulhu. I had to go see this Cthu-goose for myself just to make sure. It was a full moon out so the darkness wasn't bothering me that much… just so long as I did not stare overlongly into the creepy "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" pine forest or the "Children of the Corn" underbrush.
I walked down the trail leading to the river, listening, waiting for Cthu-goose to jump out at me. The trail ends in a small, steep bank overlooking the water. It seemed calm and quiet on the surface but there are actually alligators in there so I didn't get too close. People have died that way. I peeked around the corner and there on the shore, a little ways off, sat the Cthulhean horror that had nearly sent me screaming home in terror….
It was a !@#$%^&ing pair of Canadian geese. They were just kinda sittin there, chillin, lookin around. I took my glasses off, facepalmed, put them back on, and walked home in shame. But hey, if Doctor Grant from Jurassic Park is to be believed, they really kinda are dinosaurs in a way, and being that they are *Canadian,* you could say they are aliens. So if anyone asks why I got back from my jog so late last night…
Alien dinosaurs. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I was about a quarter of the way into my jog when I got a hankering to listen to a particular old song I hadn't heard in a long time. I couldn't remember the exact name of it for the life of me. The title wasn't something obvious, it wasn't a popular or well-known song, and I have hundreds of other songs to sort through. So I slowed down to see if I could find it. Sorted by band, by genre, by artist, by playlist- couldn't find it. I wondered if I had deleted it by accident. Stopping on the side of the road, I redoubled by efforts. It was principle now. I was going to find that damn song if it took me all friggin night.
OVER THE TOP of the dubstep I was listening to, I heard a sound that can only be described as the metallic demon shriek of a creature the approximate size and shape of a Giganotosaurus. I swear, I jumped a full two feet off the ground (which is saying something because we fat chicks don't usually get much hangtime when we jump), yanked my earbuds out, scrambled back a few feet, and froze like a terrified deer in the headlights. I stood there unmoving, listening for the direction of the sound so I could fuck off as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
Doleful nightbirds piped their lonely psalms against a soft backdrop of chirring crickets and creaking frogs. Wind whispered through the trees and sighed through the tall grass. I heard nary a sound outside the typical Florida night serenata for a fair while. I began to wonder if perhaps my MP3 player had malfunctioned or maybe I'd heard the unfortunate demise of a Boeing 747 crash-landing into a pile of nails on a chalkboard. I even began to feel kinda silly. That happens sometimes. As an artist, my imagination occasionally gets away from me, especially if it has darkness and shadows to play with.
But then came the sound of water. It was not splashing, no, and it was not a tide or a current either. This is a particular sound that human beings recognize on a deep, instinctual level as it has been inscribed into our DNA through eons of evolutionary success, the very same success consequent of our instinct to run the fuck away when we hear sounds like this- sounds like something *big* moving towards you through water.
The Peace River is maybe a minute's walk from where I was standing. If I was to go off-trail and walk a straight line, it would be less than half a minute. The dinosaurian screech coupled with my knowledge of Florida wildlife brought my mind to the only logical conclusion…
…
…..
…….
Dinosaurs. LAUGH ALL YOU WANT but you did not hear this @#$%^&*ING SOUND. Having survived Florida for a solid 15y, I knew damn-well that alligators do not make *that* kind of noise. They rumble, they hiss, they can even roar, and those are all very impressive sounds. I would know. I went to Corkscrew swamp once and heard it all up-close and pants-shittingly personal. That "rumble" they do vibrates through your whole body and sets your nerves on fire for sure but THIS WAS NOT THAT. This noise was something else entirely. And I was convinced that it was dinosaurs. Or aliens. Maybe alien dinosaurs.
I stood there frozen, half expecting the Indominus Rex to come tromping out of the river, and I heard it again, this time, with perfect clarity, shrieking like a rusty freight train full of banshees careening off the rails. I might not have had my shittin pants on but I did have my running shoes and I could haul ass if I had to. Granted, I'm a fat chick and that's a lot of ass to haul but trust me, I can run faster and longer than you might think.
The Shriek mounted to a crescendo reminiscent of some unspeakable horror from the Cthulhu mythos amidst violent splashing, grass rustling, and sticks snapping. Fuck that. I'm out. Later bitches! As I began to jog away, the Cthulhean call waned into a dry, shearing denouement, only to be punctuated with one…
Small.
Single.
Sound.
…
…..
…….
Honk.
I stopped in my tracks and turned around as if someone had said something very rude behind my back, like; "ex-fucking-skeoooooose me?"
Honk.
I stood frozen in shock with WTF sirens blaring in my head as I tried to figure out which kind of Cthulhean abomination would think it appropriate to follow up an abject, unbridled, pants-shittingly horrific screech with a fucking honk. Like, is this your average, everyday friendly neighborhood Gug riding a bike and letting everyone know that he's just passing through on his way to murder and eat the neighbors? Honk honk! Or maybe it's a Night Gaunt wearing a clown nose and randomly honking it into the darkness of night because that's his fetish. Honk honk! Or maybe it's the great Cthulhu himself arising from the swampy Floridian depths except he's secretly a muppet and that's how he communicates with his henchmuppets, instructing them to corrupt the hearts and minds of children around the globe through Sesame Street. Honk honk! I suddenly remembered a sound from my childhood back in New York when I used to walk through the cemetery which featured a fairly sizeable pond inhabited by…
Geese.
Is that what I was hearing? A goose? Really? ARE. YOU. !@#$%^&ING. SHITTING. ME!? I was about to run home like a little bitch, leaving a trail of terror-shits across Deep Creek… OVER A !@#$%^&*ING GOOSE!? *Honk!* I AM GOING TO HUNT YOU DOWN AND HONK YOU RIGHT IN THE !@#$%^&*ING HEAD, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!
At that point, I was so embarrassed, I felt like I had to earn back some bravery points just for my own peace of mind. Like, I would not be able to sleep at night knowing that I had reacted to a !@#$%^&*ing goose like it was the second coming Cthulhu. I had to go see this Cthu-goose for myself just to make sure. It was a full moon out so the darkness wasn't bothering me that much… just so long as I did not stare overlongly into the creepy "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" pine forest or the "Children of the Corn" underbrush.
I walked down the trail leading to the river, listening, waiting for Cthu-goose to jump out at me. The trail ends in a small, steep bank overlooking the water. It seemed calm and quiet on the surface but there are actually alligators in there so I didn't get too close. People have died that way. I peeked around the corner and there on the shore, a little ways off, sat the Cthulhean horror that had nearly sent me screaming home in terror….
It was a !@#$%^&ing pair of Canadian geese. They were just kinda sittin there, chillin, lookin around. I took my glasses off, facepalmed, put them back on, and walked home in shame. But hey, if Doctor Grant from Jurassic Park is to be believed, they really kinda are dinosaurs in a way, and being that they are *Canadian,* you could say they are aliens. So if anyone asks why I got back from my jog so late last night…
Alien dinosaurs. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
someone had to say it.......might as well be me.
Maybe the geese were watching the dinosaur as it went back into the river?????
honk.
This is how we remain polite.
they were pretty and very brave the toms would gobble in front of cars that were tryign to move it was interesting to watch them form my window
only to find someone sawing sheets of wooden board with an electric saw.
they escaped undetected.
, Quiet lanes and manicured lawns attracted flocks of fat, stupid, Canada Geese. They were unafraid of people, cars, and dogs,thanks to the migratory bird act. So they would crop the lawns all day, hiss at passers by, and leave horse-like green curry paste all over the bike paths, streets and sidewalks of the tech park. Occasionally you would see a dead one, looking like a dirty pillow in the street, a victim of it's own fearlessness of cars. One day going into work, early enough, that the "marine layer", (often referred to as "fog", in the Bay Area) was thick enough to produce a fine drizzle, I traveled along a wet bike path towards work, when one of the fat birds waddles into my path. It looked up t the last moment in an exprzzion of dumb surprise, just as I love kex up my brakes on the Bike. The melting blobs of green goose shit, all over the wet path did not help my braking, and I slammed into te surprisingly heavy bird, sliding it off it's feet as it wrapped around my front wheel. It gave out a harsh noise and battered itself away, flapping towards it's compatriots, who all looked over at me. Luckily, I kept upright, and resumed pedaling toward the safety of the buildings, as the the impacted bird saw my travel, as a possible rout, and was preparing to give chase. I made it safely to the building, and by lunch h time the sun was out and most of the geese he moved elsewhere. I still fine them obnoxious pests.
Eeeeeeeewwwwwww! XD Yuckie! I don't have too much experience with them but from your description, they sound pretty obnoxious.
Is that. a bottle of ketchup?
It was probably a goose. Maybe indeed one getting grabbed by a predator and letting out the loudest baleful saurian scream it could produce. I've heard geese make all sorts of noises you wouldn't expect.
Heh, indeed. Hell, just look at an emu or a cassowary. Fuckers legit look like dinosaurs.
Thank you for sharing.
The sound you heard was probably geese arguing with each other. One came too close to the others roosting area, and it gave a Fuck Off Shriek at it. Animals make all kinds of surprising vocalizations that you usually never hear. I remember camping one summer and being woke in the middle of the dark dark night by sounds I was certain meant that an angry Bigfoot was behind my tent. It turns out it was just a fucking deer.
(though i don't recall hearing them doing so). there were a mob of them at the picnic a year and a half or so ago.
blocking traffic (which was fine with me) but a few brave souls herded them back to the lake. (actually they weren't belligerant at all,
just a 'critical mass' of them, and i don't mean a couple dozen, more like a couple hundred, all congrigating in the middle of the road)
and yah, their little wasabi packets all over the damd pavement.
Well, nighttime swampy goose sex can be quite terrifying for the uninitiated.
Next time you go through the area wear a hockey mask. Canadian geese can't touch ya if you're wearing a hockey mask.
And a stick!
Don't forget the stick.
Works on perverts too.
It's a good thing those where only the small alien cousins of dinosaurs in the end
I know stories like that, though. One time at midnight I stepped on the screaming hole to hell on a small dark alley with tall trees
all by myself. I jumped that time. it was a gully cover in the middle of nowhere