This happened a few years back on a high school camping trip. For a bit of background information: in Australia there's a bird called the Bush Stone Curlew which some people claim sounds like a woman screaming. I've lived around them my whole life so I can tell the difference easily, but others on this trip actually got a little scared when they started calling, that's where the story starts.
When I told them that it was actually birds making those noises, they were pretty amazed. I said I'd show them, it wasn't too dark so we could easily go find the birds without scaring them off. I didn't count on how well the camouflage worked in the bush though so it took a while longer than I thought, but we eventually found a few a short walk away from the camp. Once you knew what you were listening to it's pretty hard to mistake for screaming, so everyone felt better after that.
It had gotten pretty dark as we searched, the sun sets fast around here, so we began heading back to the camp as the curlews really went off as they do most evenings. At one point they seemed to actually sound really human though, which was unusual, but didn't bother me too much. It spooked the others again though, which was funny at the time. That night I was in bed early for a while listening to everyone talk and the occasional curlew, when there was a really weird sounding wailing. A few people said things like "Holy shit those birds are scary." but ignored it. I found it really weird and not much like a bird, but I ignored it. It happened a few more times before we all went to sleep, but nothing more ever happened.
The next evening I went for a bit of a walk to see if I could find that weird sounding curlew. I never spotted anything but I heard the weird wailing as I walked. On my way back I could swear it was following me, and started to get fairly paranoid as I tend to do, but it was dark and I never saw anything. The noise happened a bit more than it did the previous night but again, nothing else.
The next day was the day to head home, but I was now really curious. I hate leaving something behind that's weird and unknown (I was a major skeptic at that time, so I wasn't actually scared of anything out there) so I went for a walk with one of the girls who I showed the curlews. I told her how weird that noise was for a curlew, and she wanted to check it out too, even though I was fairly sure they wouldn't make any noise in daylight. We went to around about the same spot we found the first curlews and saw the family we found the other night and as expected, they weren't calling. In the distance though I heard the wailing, so we followed it for a little bit. Now I was convinced it wasn't a curlew and I was starting to get a little scared. Honestly I probably would have bailed if the girl wasn't with me, and she actually said the same later, but we went on instead. The wailing stopped quickly though, and after a little bit of half-hearted searching, we turned back. A minute later though, the wailing started up pretty much right in front of us and a girl wandered about 20 metres away from us. I swear the best description is one of those walking Witches from Left 4 Dead. I froze up and actually started crying silently. It was fucking terrifying. This girl wandered vaguely away from us and we bolted in the opposite direction until we realised the campsite was back the other way. I was pretty much bawling out of fear, and the girl I was with was hyperventilating badly. The wailing had stopped, but we took a huge loop around the spot where we saw her. We heard it again at one point and I swear we must have teleported back to the campsite we ran that fast.
The aftermath of that was fun. Two teenagers come screaming out of the bush crying about scary girls wandering around. We must have looked terrible because nobody out of 40 high schoolers was laughing at us. Everything was packed up and on the bus pretty quickly after that. I don't think many people believed us at all but the teachers wanted everybody the hell away from there before anything else happened. Mandatory counselling after that of course. As far as I know Kara is still maintaining that it was a fucked up prank by somebody or other but I "know" it wasn't. The ridiculous level of fear we both felt wasn't natural, and there was no way I could have missed somebody wandering around so much. Curlews still occasionally give me some sort of PTSD thing, but nothing like that has happened to me since, and I'd like to think I'm handling it well. I haven't been out bush since though. Probably never will again.
Credits to: Tridian
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