Years ago when I was in college I was over a friend's house watching TV in his basement. Out of nowhere we heard a loud BANG come from behind us and as best we could tell it had come from the window looking out into his backyard.

We couldn't see anything because it was dark out but we ran outside. It had just recently snowed and the ground covered in over an inch of fresh snow, smooth where no one had walked. We went around into his backyard and when we got to the basement window we noticed something odd: tracks appearing to lead up to the window.

Now, I'd describe these tracks like rabbit tracks except for two things: the "hind legs" were awfully close together and there were no tracks from the front legs.  In fact, the "hind legs" seemed a bit wrong in the shape and what it really looked like was a small horse's hoof, but with a separation running down the center.

As a kid I read all sorts of paranormal accounts and what sprang to mind just then was a story that took place in some small European town. Apparently these townsfolk came outside after a storm and found prints of a single cloven hoof running through the village — across streets, roofs and even apparently walking through a 15" stone wall at one point.

Not to be unduly influenced by the reported experience of others, I decided to work from the assumption that this was either a rabbit or some animal with similar prints. My friend and I traced the tracks back around the side of the house, down to the sidewalk and then lost them in the street.

This entire time we'd been cautious to note any anomaly in the snow on his property (there were none other than these tracks, the snow was pristine) and to be careful where we stepped so we could keep track of our own footprints. That's why this last detail bothered me so much and still does to this day:

We saw these tracks leading from the street, around the side of the house and straight to the basement window we'd been sitting behind, but there were no tracks leading *away*.

So while I thought the tracks themselves were odd, and I thought it was doubly odd that whatever made them seemed to deliberately take the shortest route from the front of the house to the window where we were, but the fact that it apparently vanished into thin air after it got to the window just really blew my mind.

Here are actual rabbit tracks in snow:

http://education.luther.edu/calendar/january/rabbittracks.jpg

That's very close to what we saw but in that photo you can see the front legs (the little dots behind the long marks) and we didn't see that; and as I said, in order for all of the evidence to support the rabbit theory we'd need to either see rabbit tracks leading away from the window or find a rabbit trapped in the window well — we saw neither.

As for a hoax, someone would have had to hop on one foot in and then hopped backwards through their own tracks on the way out; the tracks would have been much deeper and it would have been obvious.

Looking at that photo of rabbit tracks now though, I wonder if maybe the front legs just didn't make an impression and maybe there was dead rabbit with a broken neck down in the window well that we just didn't see because it was mixed in with dead leaves and whatnot.  We were pretty thorough but I suppose it's possible we missed something. 

Still, both my friend and I get freaked out to this day over this occurance.

Sorry about that, allow me to address your points individually.

Why "the devil"?  No reason other than that was what the townspeople in that story I mentioned thought: that the devil had walked through their village, crossed rooftops and even walked through a wall. Frankly, even if something paranormal truly occurred that doesn't require it to be done by "the devil" — I mainly just included it as window dressing to the story more than an actual explanation. 

What kind of sound? Good question, to me my immediate and subsequent impression was that someone had whacked against the window really hard, like maybe the sound a rabbit would make… if I thew it at a plexiglass window as hard as I could.

Hidden dead rabbit? I do throw that out there as a possibility but while I didn't turn the area into a crime scene we *did* look down into the window well and all around the surrounding area fairly critically because we wanted a rational explanation and as best we could tell whatever made that noise should still be right there since there were no tracks leading away.

Keep in mind this is a basement window, so at its tallest point it's about 10 inches off the ground — not exactly bird-flight altitude.  Also, it's only about 2 feet wide, so a small target to hit accidentally.

My friend and I never actually got involved in any sort of spiritual stuff whatsoever and prior to that neither of us had ever experienced anything.  Possibly worth mentioning: The lights were off in the room we were in because we were watching a movie on DVD (which was brand new at the time!) — not a scary movie or anything, I believe it was a comedy actually. I mention this because from the outside we're basically talking about a very small window, facing a backyard bordered by a tall hedge, and very little light coming through so it might as well have been the side of the house to any wildlife.

Also possibly worth noting though is that this was the first of a series of strange occurances that happened over a couple of years at that particular house, although all of the other events (which I may talk about at a later time) were less dramatic (if not less puzzling) and took place on the opposite side of the house and upstairs. 

I just came across something interesting that bears on this story. The original story I remember reading took place in a small town in Pennsylvania and was about the JERSEY Devil (a cryptozoological creature who's existence hasn't been proven), so that's why I associated the single-hoofprints in the snow with "Devil".