Monsters

Scared by a Bigfoot in Tawas?

I swear that the following story about bigfoot is true. During my early years in college my good friend Brian and I went up to Tawas in northern lower Michigan. His parents owned some land up there and right next to theirs was some land owned by his uncle. It was pretty isolated. It was about 2 am and Brian and I were playing cards in the camper. All of a sudden we heard this horrible scream very close to the camper (and we weren't drinking) behind where I was sitting. It wasn't a human screaming. I was taking a primate behavior course and it sounded like a large primate.

Needless to say we were both terrified. Brian's face was white and so was mine. He looked at the door of the camper that was about 2 feet from my shoulder and asked if it happened to be locked. I could barely make my hand go over to lock it. We then turned out the light in the camper and we tried to look outside (without going outside--of course!). It was too dark to see anything and to tell you the truth I didn't look too hard--I was terrified of what I might see. We sat there for a long time not saying anything and we were trying to hear anything outside. We didn't. There were bunk beds in the back of the camper, so we went to the back. I had to pee so badly, but the only bathroom was an outhouse about 200 feet from the camper--and there was no way I was going outside!

So I spent the whole night waiting for morning to come. When it did, we left. We had planned on staying Saturday night, but neither one of us wanted to. We did look around for tracks, but didn't see anything. When we got back we didn't say anything to anyone. Brian's mom then told us that his uncle had been planting trees on his property one day and the next day he saw very large footprints (bigger than human) in the fresh dirt. She said that another neighbor had a chicken coop that was ripped apart. That was when we told her our story. And a week later, on the evening news, there was a story about some bigfoot sightings up in Tawas the previous week! Anyway, that is the closest I want to come to a bigfoot. I can still hear that horrible scream when I think about it. It sort-of ruined my desire to go camping!" - Kevin *******************************************************************************************

Kevin is a university lecturer in San Francisco

Dog Man Report (see more on Michigan Dog Man below)

For more on wolfman/dogman creatures see beastofbrayroad.com and bray update page on cnb-scene.com

JULY 2006

GUEST Column: A Native American's Perspective on the Michigan Dog Man...Related to Dog Soldiers? And, I must say, correlating well with the apparent no-kill philosophy on the part of the creature:

By permission of David Walks As Bear, former Michigan game warden and a member of the Shawnee Nation. Now an author, he has a web site at Walks-as-Bear.com

Bear¹s Den by David Walks-As-Bear

Ordinarily I work Halloween every year. It just seems to happen that way. It¹s never been a biggy for me as I don¹t get spooked by modern-day monsters. But man, sometimesŠ when I¹m driving deep in the dark woods, on a full-mooned nightŠ I fret a little about things changing, eh. November is American Indian Heritage Month. It doesn¹t get a lot of play like Black History or Hispanic Months do but I figure that¹s okay. Squeaky wheels get the grease and heck, we¹re not alone. Folks with Polish, French, Hungarian and other ancestry don¹t have rusty axles, either. Still, since I am Shawnee, I thought I¹d delve a tad deeper into Indian outdoor stuff.

So, there¹s the Legend of the Dogmen here in the Michigan north woods, eh. There¹s even a nifty song about them, eh. It seems like a shape shifting deal to me so, here we go. But first, if you want to learn more about this Mitten State mystery, go to Google and punch-in ³Michigan Dog Man². Now, as a rule, Indians are pretty generic. Like Americans, British or Lithuanians, their cultures and languages will vary a bit from region to region. But overall, everybody follows similar modes. That goes for Indian Warrior societies, too. Now these groups are made up of braves whose primary job is protecting their nation. And they often take the names of animals that they feel most symbolize their warrior prowess.

Back in the 1860s, there was a warrior group of Cheyenne called the Dog Soldiers or Dog Men. For many poor US Army troopers, they were the ³Special Forces² of their times. Like wolves or wild dogs, they were tenacious in their pursuit of their prey and would come back againŠ and againŠ and again until they won victory. Similar warrior societies using the dog or wolf can be found in almost every American Indian nation. The process for a warrior in this society is in learning how to become just as your totem, or symbol. And that lends its way into Indian shape shifting. Now I¹m speaking figuratively ­ not literally, eh.

But depending on your point of view, shape shifting canŠ ³change². For Indians, shape shifting is applied in hunting, song and dance, healing and warfare. A brave will study his spirit animal for many years to learn all of its uniqueness and mannerisms, trying to become one with it or ­ just like it. Ordinarily, Indian shape shifting couldn¹t be more different than the modern horror crud. But there can be exceptions where this homily plays out close to modern day Dracs, and Frankysteins, eh. And maybe, the Northern Michigan ³Legend of the Dogmen² is one such instance, hmm?

The Cheyenne Dog Men supposedly were wiped out by the US Army. But there are stories, carried over from the elders, that tell of some of the Dog Men actually shape shifting into the 'real dogs' that they mimicked in battle. Thus, these few escaped the US Army¹s planned killing of them all back in the ³Battle of Summit Springs² in Colorado. Now, be you a believer of this or not, it¹s worthwhile to note that unlike the horror junk you see in movies and on TV, the Dog Men are not going to rip you apart and devour you, eh. They couldn¹t even if they wanted to. That¹s because even if they were bad spirits, most Indians know that you cannot be harmed by evilŠ of any kind unlessŠ you invite it into yourself. Christianity and every other religion on the Earth Mother teach the same thing, eh.

Equally though, the Good Book and all of those other beliefs also speak of spirits that have manifestations here among us two-leggeds, too. Angels are one such example of good spirits and demons are the opposite in that they¹re evil. Well, Shapshifters are usually considered as good, a tad mischievous maybe, but not evil. The same can¹t be said for their opposite ­ skinwalkers, eh. If the Michigan Dog Men are shapeshifters, then they¹d be spooky, alright, as they¹re other-worldly. But not evil, though. So it could be that the ³Dog Men of Michigan² are just old Michigan Indian warriors, going through their seven-year routine of shape shifting. Who can say? But speaking of routineŠ I do personally fret a bit when I¹m driving deep in the dark woods, on a full-mooned night and thingsŠ changeŠ know what I mean? - David Walks as Bear

(Note from Linda: bold prints are my emphasis. I sure wish I'd had this letter to add to the sections on shapeshifting in Hunting the American Werewolf. Many thanks to David for allowing me to print this here. Lots of food for thought! And all could apply to Bigfoot as well, I might add. More on this later.- LG)

June 13, 2006

NEW MICHIGAN DOGMAN SIGHTING; BY 4 PEOPLE,

This sighting by four Michigan college students and continues under serious investigation.. The student who wrote me about it says that one of his sightings buddies had seen the beast previously and brought the other three out to the sightings vicinity. The young man who e-mailed me (name withheld for now) said that he came home so freaked out that he googled Dog Man, since that was what his buddy had called it, and came up with my Weird Michigan site.

He also asked that I keep the exact location confidential since it was on private land and the four were not exactly invited to be there, but I can say it was in the vicinity of Reed City, which is in the northwestern part of the lower Peninsula, exactly where most of the other Dog Man sightings have taken place. I've left the report in his own words as much as possible, taken from his email and a subsequent phone interview. Hopefully this will develop further:

Sighting 6-7-06, Interview 6-8-06 by phone, Location: near Reed City, Michigan

"I¹m a college kid and I live in Big Rapids, and I heard people saying there is this (building) around Reed City where this thing hangs out.

We arrived there at 2 30 in the morning and there we sat. After about half an hour something caught our eye. About 50 yards to the right of us we saw something moving. We didnt think anything of it until we heard big twigs start to snap. I got out my maglight and shined in the area...I saw somthing that was not human. There were crickets all around and all of a sudden they all stopped. I kept on seeing something move over in the woods, kind of a silhouette.. I thought it was deer until we shined the light on it. Must have been 6 foot nine, it was huge tall! It was a humanoid, I could see below the midsection, could see thighs but not feet. I¹m believing it¹s bipedal. The hair was either dark brown or black, probably dark brown. must have covered most of the body, maybe an inch long. We did see one arm, one of my friends saw it. It was behind a tree, in a little wooded area, and it stood half behind the tree and half exposed, didn¹t move at all when we had the light on it. His arm was longer than a human's. When we saw it in the light when it was standing still it looked a little hunched.

I only got a small view of its face. I could tell that it was very hairy but it didnt remind me of a dogs face. The way the eyes set made me think of a human face, I could not see the ears, I remeber the mouth to be narrow but I dont recall seeing a nose on the end of the "snout". All I could really tell about the eye color was yellow, and the eyes were a little slanted. I think it may have been some light reflection off its eyes. It has a very big forehead. When I saw the picture on your website of the sketched dogman, It didnt really look like that.

This freaked us out so bad that we had to leave in the car. We left and then said we have to figure out what this thing is ...stupid college kid idealism. After abput half a mile we decided we had to go back and see what it really was. We pulled back up to the church and sat for about 5 min. before strange things started to happen. First of all we head noises all around us, I cant explain these noises but they put shivers down my spine. Then as soon as the noises stopped, a motion light on the building turned on and we heard somthing run away very...very fast. I was so scared I couldnt even move. (We are in in the car this whole time mind you). All of the sudden my friend spots somthing behind us. I push my clutch in and slowly roll back to get a closer view. My friend shined the light on him and two yellow eyes stared at us. I thought it was a regular road reflector until I saw it blink. Then a feeling came over me, I felt that this thing wanted to harm us. I could tell that this thing was on two legs at the time we saw the eyes. I fired up the car and floored it, we must have of been going 40 mph and I could see in my brakelights that something was chasing us on 4 legs. Eventually I lost the thing and had to pull over down the road to calm myself and my friends down. I dont know if this is a dogman or not but this thing is NOT human, is NOT natural, and is NOT friendly. I dont think that this is a figure of my imagination for two reasons. 1, I didn't belive in the supernatural and 2, three other people saw the exact same thing as I did. I really belive this thing could be a dogman.

We were sitting in the car after we saw it comparing it to our own bodies. We didn¹t really see the face until we came backŠwe were in the car the whole time, we could all see from the car. There was a motion light on the side of the (building), which was abandoned but someone was trying to remodel it. Motion light came on and that freaked us all out quite a bit and we listened and we heard something moving very very fast behind the church but we couldn¹t see it clearly, it moved ungodly fast. I looked in my rearview mirror and I thought I saw something go by a lighted tree, then we lost it for a little bit. After we were shining the light on it, I was holding the mag light and I was shaking so bad dI actually dropped it

My buddy who was sitting in back of my hatchback car said what¹s that, and in tall weeds on the side of the road were two yellow eyes, kind of slanted in a way. It didn¹t have a long snout like a dog, but the snout was narrow. It wasn¹t human and wasn¹t dog. It wasn¹t flatfaced like human, all I saw was hair underneath what I presumed to be a jaw. Like a cape or mane. From what I saw, it was kind of slender in stature, not beefy, I would guess 210-220 pounds. The head reminded me of a canine shape, the kind of triangle-looking head. It was looking completely straight on at us. It could have had ears but was too dark to see them. So whether they sat farther back or not I¹m not sure. I¹ve seen pictures of Bigfoot but I don¹t think this was Bigfoot.

That night I got home and I was so intrigued and freaked out I sat down and Googled "Dogman" and got your website. I had the distinct feeling that this thing wanted to hurt us. Maybe it might be the fear of the unknown.Might have been the fact that it was slightly hunched. . I was a skeptic before last night. Four guys saw the exact same thing. Another rthing the second time when we left the eyes were behind the car, the guy looking back thought he saw something come and go from two to four legs.

This is not the first time a friend of mine has seen it. He¹s been there two times, he showed us where it was. He was very very quiet. It was not a human in a suit or a bear. I¹ll put a Bible on what I just said. Two reasons it wasn¹t a human. It could maneuver well on four legs, and just moved so fast. (The building) didn¹t have graffiti on its exterior. Never saw the back of the building so didn¹t notice if any was there.

I believe there is a swamp somewhere around there. I heard there was more than one of these things. Some person said there were four or five of them. One of my friends that went with us said him and a couple of buddies were driving by in a Firebird very slowly and they saw the eyes and it chased after them and put scratches in the trunk of his car. But I didn¹t see that. This is really, really goofy. I¹d like to go back with a video camera. I am majoring in radiology, so I know enough about the body systems and anatomy to tell about the features. I didn¹t notice any reproductive organs, there was a lot of hair in that area. This thing didn¹t get any closer than 40 feet, but when I fired the car up the guy in back said it went down on all fours and went really fast. I didn¹t see the eyes until we flashed the light on it. I don¹t think this was paranormal, it was biological. Not ghostly.

I was not aware that others things like this were going on at the time I saw this thing. The only reason I refer it to a dogman is the fact that I have heard through local legend that it was a dogman. So, I really had no idea that there were other sightings of dogmen or the body style it had." - John

Unknown Biped...Michigan Dogman?...near Manistee, Michigan, 1986, Received February 2006

This happened in the fall of 1986, when I was stationed in Manistee. I left the Manistee Army recruiting station late and was driving home, to Ludington. I always took the back road, as US 31 takes too long. It was early fall and was dark. The deer was out, so I had to be careful while I was driving. This was farm country and the deer graze in the fields. I saw a reflection of my headlights off to the left of me in a darkened field. They appeared to be eyes. But, they stood too high to be deer and too far apart, also. I saw it run across and the leap was incredible. It leaped only three times. Far greater a leap then any animal could. And leaped across the two lane road easily. It was too dark to see a shape, but from the position from the eyes, there is no animal that it could be. I know that this was not a deer. And from what I could tell, it was a lot taller then me. I am 6¹2². I do not know if anybody has or had any experience like this.

As for the color of its eyes,  somehow, the color yellow comes to mind.  Remember that it was almost 20 years ago when I saw that.  I am an outdoorsman (although in recent years, I have not been out) and know animals.  So, when I saw that, it surprised me of the leaping ability.  And the eyes, I do remember that they were not like any animals that I have seen before.  And the height of the creature was a lot higher then any animal.  I do remember that I saw both eyes, as if it was looking at me, the whole time.  That, along with the leaping ability, is what I will never forget.- Ray Greenway

The Ridgeway Monster

A most curious spate of monster sightings happened in the tiny town of Ridgeway, near Tecumseh in southeastern Michigan, according to a 1986 Tecumseh Herald story. Reporter Nancy Niemann claimed a Tecumseh realtor told her that not only was a particular Ridgeway house home to a very active poltergeist, but that a red-haired, green-eyed "monster" had been spotted peering into its windows by several Ridgeway residents. Also, a Tecumseh native happened to spot the monster while driving through the town. No explanation was ever found, evidently, and the realtor refused to reveal which house had received all the paranormal manifestations. Presumably the creature was fairly tall and probably humanoid if it was able to stand and look into windows. Bigfoot, perhaps? If you know anything about the Ridgeway monster, please write! (The Wisconsin town of Ridgeway is also famously haunted.)

The Michigan Dog Man

excerpted from "The Beast of Bray Road" by Linda Godfrey

Michigan may be known for its wolverines, but far stranger and more terrifying beasts roam its deep forests. The Dog Man, as he has come to be known, has terrorized all those who have encountered him in the state's northernost logging camps and woods. The Dog Man existed only as backwoods folklore until 1987 when Traverse City radio deejay Steve Cook, wrote a song he called The Legend, with lyrics pulled straight from the tales of dogman encounters.

Drawing made by winner of a radio contest for best drawing of the Michigan Dog Man, provided by Steve Cook

" I've always been a folklore collector," Cook told me in a 1992 phone interview. He first played his ballad on April Fool's Day, 1987, on WTCM radio in Traverse City and was not prepared for the reaction. People who had had their own close encounters with the dogman got the shakes when they heard Cook's song. Then they picked up their phones. "People were calling in and saying, 'Where did that song come from? My dad saw this thing,' " said Cook. The song began spreading to other Michigan stations, and local newspapers expanded the story.

Here are the lyrics to Steve Cook's (a.k.a. Bob Farley) original The Legend,

The Legend by Steve Cook

A cool summer mornin' in early June is when the legend began,....At a nameless logging camp in Wexford County where the Manistee River ran. ....Eleven lumberjacks near the Garland Swamp found an animal they thought was a dog. ....In a playful mood they chased it around ...'til it ran inside a hollow log..... A logger named Johnson grabbed him a stick and poked around inside... Then the thing let out an unearthly scream and came out ...and stood upright. ...None of those men ever said very much about whatever happened then. ....They just packed up their belongings and left that night and were never heard from again.

It was ten years later in '97 when a farmer near Buckley was found... Slumped over his plow, his heart had stopped. There were dog tracks all around. ...Seven years past the turn of the century they say a crazy old widow had a dream ....of dogs that circled her house at night. They walked like men and screamed.... In 1917 a sheriff who was out a walkin' ...Found a driverless wagon and tracks in the dust like wolves had been a stalkin'.... Near the roadside a four-horse team lay dead with their eyes open wide.... When the vet finished up his examination he said it looked like they died of fright... In '37 a schooner captain said several crew members had reported... a pack of wild dogs roaming Bowers Harbor. His story was never recorded....

In '57 a man of the cloth found claw marks on an old church door... The newspaper said they were made by a dog. He'd a had to stood seven foot four.... In '67 a van load of hippies told a park ranger named Quinlan... they'd been awakened in the night by a scratch at the winda... there was a dog-man looking' in and grinnin.' In '77 there were screams in the night near the village of Bellaire... Could have been a bobcat, could have been the wind. Nobody looked up there...Then in the summer of '87, near Luther it happened again.... At a cabin in the woods it looked like maybe someone had tried to break in...There were cuts in the door that could only have been made by very sharp teeth and claws...He didn't wear shoes cause he didn't have feet; he walked on just two paws... So far this spring no stories have appeared. Have the dogmen gone away? Have they disappeared?... Soon enough I guess we'll know cause summer is almost here.... And in this decade called the 80s, the 7th year is here.... And somewhere in the northwoods darkness a creature walks upright And the best advice you may ever get... Is don't go out at night...

Sightings and stories of the dog man

"Fear gripped Robert Fortney as he shot and killed one of five dogs that lunged at him as he stood on the banks of the Muskegon River in 1938," wrote Sheila Wissner in the Record-Eagle on April 25, 1987. "But fear escalated to cold terror as the only dog that didn't run off reared up on its hind legs and stared at Fortney with slanted, evil eyes and the hint of a grin." Wissner said the man from Cadillac, Michigan, found himself recalling that traumatic incident when he listened to "The Legend." Fortney's encounter took place near Paris, Mecosta County, which lies about halfway between Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay. Although Fortney said he "wouldn't want to call it a dogman," neither did he know WHAT to call the black canid that fearlessly locked eyeballs with him.

An ending to the tale wasn't reported, but evidently the creature and the human finally backed off from one another, since Fortney lived to tell the tale some forty-nine years later. Wissner also interviewed a history buff from Manistee County, Michigan, which borders Lake Michigan in the northern third of the state. The "buff," Clarence Gillispie, had collected several stories of dogman sightings in that county. Gillispie told Wissner that he heard one story from an old lumberman who had gotten it from two friends of his. Gillispie was able to record the gist of their story.

They had been fishing near Manistee on Claybank Lake one day just as the sun was setting, when an animal swimming toward their boat caught their attention. Taking it to be a coon hound that one of them owned, they ignored it until it got close. It was at that point the two men realized that the "swimmer" had a dog's head and a man's body! The men, very frightened, did the natural thing and began to row away. Fast. But to escape, they first had to emulate former President Jimmy Carter's famous "club the swimming rabbit" maneuver (Carter was also in a boat when "attacked" by a dripping cottontail near the end of his term...who knew rabbits could swim?) and whop the creature a few times with an oar.

Like Carter, they managed to keep it from climbing into the boat with them, and made their escape. The reporter did contact one of these men but he would not talk to her about it, insisting that he didn't know what it was he saw, and that he "didn't want to go into it."

In the weeks that followed April Fool's Day, Cook's song became the most requested title on WTCM radio, bested only by the immortal Ray Stevens Hit, "Would Jesus Wear a Rollex on His TV Show?" Cook said he chose to use the word "dogman" instead of "wolfman" because it sounded more familiar and "homey."

Other dogman sightings occurred in Manistee County and Luther, a small town in northern Michigan.woods of Newspapers around the country picked up the story. Paul Harvey spoke of the Michigan Dog-Man in his news and comments, and people from as far away as Germany clamored for copies of the song. Back in Luther, bartender Cavender told Mencarelli that although a few brave people drove out to the town of Baldwin, they later confessed they were too frightened to leave their cars.

Theater of the Mind

"Simulated Werewolf Hunt Amazes, Angers Listeners," growled headlines in The Grand Rapids Press February 16, 1992. Reporter Ruth Butler called it "an exercise in theater of the mind" when WCUZ disk jockey Ron Bailey took listeners on an imaginary hunt for werewolves. The odd thing is that the hunt was inspired not by the Michigan Dogman, but by Wisconsin's Beast of Bray Road! Bailey had read the Associated Press accounts of Walworth County¹s creature, and immediately requested a radio field trip to Wisconsin. Denied travel permission, Bailey did the next best thing and enlisted the Grand Rapids Radio Players who helped ³flesh out² a story.

The group did their broadcast from a park outside Grand Rapids, while pretending to be just outside Elkhorn, Wisconsin. They invented a slew of characters including a skeptical veterinarian, a teacher who was attacked after school, a thirteen-year old girl, and an Elkhorn restaurant owner whose main quote was "the sightings are the biggest thing around here since girl's basketball in Œ88." The players added sound effects such as crunching snow and snapping twigs, while exclaiming over sights such as mauled, dead deer and glimpses of dark things running through the woods. People began calling the radio station immediately after the ruse was admitted. Some had believed they were hearing a true, live account and felt both disturbed and betrayed. Others compared it to Orson Welles' 1939 War of the Worlds broadcast, when Welles pretended to be reporting a Martian invasion, said Butler.

The Dog Man lives on.

A quote from one of the men who investigated the canine break-in at the cabin near Luther was added to the beginning of a new version of The Legend released on CD the year the creature was prophesied to return, 1997. Cook later said that almost simultaneously with the CD's release, strange coincidences began. In Kingsley, Ellsworth, Gaylord and Cross Village, said Cook, farmers began reporting numbers of small livestock snatched and "gone missing" overnight. In 2002, the station issued another CD, this time of their annual broadcast of spooky Halloween stories called The Haunting of Northwest Michigan. This was their fifteenth anniversary edition, and it contained five stories. The first was an expanded version of The Legend, and the other four were well-told ghost tales that were revealed as fiction at the end of the CD. However, the cut containing The Legend was declared to be entirely true.

Bigfoot Stomps Wolverines

Michigan is a Bigfoot state, claim many sharp-eyed observers. Even Michigan native and TV and film star Barry Watson (Matt on 7th Heaven) recently announced in an AP article that he saw Bigfoot as a kid when he lived near the Northern Michigan/Canada border. "..I still believe it to this day," said Watson in the article by Mike Szymanski, Zap2it.com. "I saw a big thorny man outside my window." Appropriately, Watson stars in the recent horror flick, "Boogeyman."

Posted 4/28/06

Possible Dogman Sighting posted 4/28/06 :

My friends and I about 20 years ago had a very strange encounter when walking late at night down a rural road not far out of town. It's farm country and there was a corn field to the west of us and also to the east of the road. There was something in the corn making panting noises like a large dog that is very hot. It crossed the road behind us and seemed to marking pace with us as we went north. It was late, around 2 am, and it frightened us to say the least because it was so dark we couldn't see far in front or our own faces and just the dark outlines of the corn fields and close road shrubs. There was a moon but there was very few peeks of light because of the cloudy early summer night and I remember it was very warm out, can not recall if there was a full moon. We could hear it moving through the field. One of the guys had enough and chucked a fist-sized rock chest high straight at where he thought the sound was coming from and made a direct hit with something very solid that yelped and then howled like a injured dog. Then it growled, LOUDLY, a bit further off. We took off running because the house we were heading to was close now. Before that, we did see some yellow eyes at one point that we thought were in a low tree when the moon had peeked out and though I did not see it myself, one of the guys thought that it was standing upright under the tree and not in it, about the height of a tall man. And there was a roadkill kind of smell in the air. That was one long walk, about a mile and a half and when I see the people who were with me, less now that we're older and have moved on with our separate lives, we still nervously mention it to each other. . And yes, we had a few drinks, that's why we were walking in the first place, but I know I was not at all drunk because I hate alcohol, I just couldn't drive a stick-shift, the only car my boyfriend had at the time, so we had to hoof it. It appeared to be a canine, but I never got a look at it, my supposition is from the sounds it made.

The writer asked that the exact location not be posted, but it occurred in southwestern Michigan, not near the usual northwestern sites.

More on Bigfoot and other critters to come...SEND YOURS