The Dogman Files: Encounters from the American Wilderness

For over a century, witnesses across Michigan and Wisconsin have described the same impossible figure – upright, wolf-headed, and aware of being watched. Some walked away with scars, others with a story they were afraid to tell for decades.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/dogman

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckpcp8s

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Across Michigan and Wisconsin, encounters with an upright, wolf-headed figure span more than a century – from nineteenth-century logging camps to farm roads, deer stands, and suburban backyards. Witnesses describe a creature with human-like hands, glowing eyes, and an unsettling awareness of being watched, several of them staying silent about what they saw for years rather than risk being disbelieved. Hunters, drivers, and at least one retired sheriff's deputy all report the same detail – something that watches back, and in more than one account, something that speaks.

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:06:13.435 = Show Open
00:08:57.805 = Part One
00:18:33.555 = Part Two ***
00:46:24.349 = Part Three ***
01:00:02.576 = Part Four ***
01:14:17.255 = Part Five ***
01:27:28.423 = Part Six ***
01:34:00.844 = Part Seven ***
01:46:18.276 = Show Close
01:47:34.794 = SONG: “Dogman of Silver Creek” by Dark Weirdness
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break

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SOURCES and RESOURCES:
PHOTO: 1961 photo of Dogman (at Strangeology.com): https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/muajp2my
BOOK: “The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin’s Werewolf” by Linda Godfrey: https://amzn.to/43xNkro
The InBetween with Carol Ann (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/@TheInBetweenTales
MichigansThumb.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p98vf2c
TetZoo.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4maj49wk
Hangar1Publishing.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yc29e65a
MythFolks.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8wdd24
DiscoveryUK.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p88uxkj
CreepyEncounters.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckncywh
ListVerse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mtybyttw
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Originally aired: March 22, 2025
Weird Darkness devotes a full episode to the Dogman, the upright, wolf-headed cryptid reported across Michigan and Wisconsin for more than a century, moving through firsthand encounters, a claimed government cover-up, a witnessed fight between a Dogman and two Sasquatch, and a side-by-side comparison of Dogman folklore against traditional werewolf mythology.It opens with the creature's documented history, tracing the first alleged sighting to 1887, when a group of lumberjacks in Wexford County, Michigan described a being with the body of a man and the head of a dog during the state's great logging era. Similar reports followed in Allegan County in the 1950s and in Cross Village, Big Rapids, and Manistee County during the 1960s, while Elkhorn, Wisconsin became the center of activity in the early 1990s. The segment also catalogs standalone incidents tied to the legend: four horses found dead with their eyes open in 1917, seven-foot-four claw marks reported on a church door in 1957, a farmer found dead at his plow surrounded by oversized canine tracks in 1997, a 2006 backyard sighting in Shelby Township, Michigan, and an army veteran's account of a wolf-headed creature pacing his truck through Manistee National Forest. Odawa oral tradition describing a two-legged, wolf-like being near Lake Michigan predates all of it, and the episode raises the theory that Dogman sightings cluster in years ending in seven.From there, the episode turns to the case that gave the cryptid one of its best-known names: the Beast of Bray Road. Lori Endrizzi's fall 1989 sighting on Bray Road outside Elkhorn, Wisconsin, first documented by researcher Linda Godfrey in the 2003 book "The Beast of Bray Road," describes a kneeling, brownish-gray figure with long claws that turned to meet her headlights. Two years later, on Halloween night 1991, Doris Gipson struck the same stretch of road and was chased by a clawed, upright creature that clung to her car's rear bumper as she fled. Walworth County Animal Control officer Jon Fredrikson began compiling reports in a manila folder marked "Werewolf," which grew to include a December 1990 sighting by a child witness, clawed tracks near Potter's Road that led locals to nickname the creature "Pottsy," a 1990 roadside sighting by Mike Etten, and two separate encounters reported by high school student Tom Brichta. The same story traces the legend back further still, to 1936, when night watchman Mark Shackleman encountered a six-foot, black-furred creature scratching at an Indigenous burial ground outside Racine, Wisconsin's St. Coletta Convent, a creature that reportedly spoke a single word, "Gadarah," a name tied to the biblical account of Jesus casting out demons at Gadara.Next, the episode moves to a February 2012 case from rural Chenango, New York, where Brandon Close and his neighbor Gene pursued the source of a scream that had left Close's cattle huddled against an electric fence, only to be chased through the woods by an eight-foot creature that kept pace with their all-terrain vehicle at highway speed. The account continues with an unmarked black van and armed personnel arriving at Close's property the following day, ultimately removing the memory cards from his trail cameras.A separate account follows a Big Rapids, Michigan night watchman's 1961 encounter with a six-foot, grayish-brown creature outside his home near the Haymarsh State Game Area, an incident the witness says he photographed under a streetlight.The episode then recounts an anonymous 1992 camping trip in which the witness watched a black, long-armed creature stalk him along a dry creek bed before a Sasquatch intervened, leading to a violent fight that ended when a second, larger Sasquatch killed the Dogman and dragged its body into the woods.Hunting-season encounters follow, beginning with Peter's October 16, 2012 experience in Pontiac, Illinois, where a wolf-sized creature bit his arm during a chase near his family's deer stand before inexplicably retreating. A separate witness describes two Dogman sightings twenty years apart, the first in Alto, Michigan in 1988 and the second in nearby Lowell, Michigan in 2008, when a blue-eyed creature that had followed him since childhood appeared on his roof and spoke a single word, "Don't."Another segment follows Derek, an Ohio mycology enthusiast, to a 2016 night-fishing trip along the Mahoning River in Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, where he encountered a crouching creature near an old train trestle that stood to meet his gaze before retreating into the brush.A Fitchburg, Wisconsin case follows college student Matt, who in 2006 heard a scream during a minor earthquake and glimpsed a wolf-headed, humanoid figure in a passing car's headlights. A separate story follows a man identified as Mark to his late grandfather's cabin in Sierra County, Ohio, where he discovered why his grandfather had banned the family from the property for years, after an unseen creature chased him back to the cabin and reappeared at the tree line with two others.A Reed City, Michigan hunting party's four-day encounter in November 2007 follows, in which Sam and his companions repeatedly crossed paths with a yellow-eyed, hunchbacked creature that left claw marks on a rifle stock and a cabin door. The episode then follows Gabe to a rural Montana property, where lightning revealed a broad-shouldered, upright creature in his yard, followed weeks later by a closer encounter near his satellite dish that prompted him to move.Retired law enforcement officer Laura Love's account follows, describing a nearly seven-and-a-half-foot, dark-furred creature that struck a truck near the West Weber Road overpass on U.S. Highway 31 before vanishing into roadside brush. A separate story follows Janet, who for years believed she had seen a deformed bear near Danbury, Wisconsin's Long Lake before her son's own Dogman sighting prompted her to reconsider what she and her sister-in-law Amy witnessed on Rustic Road.A November 7, 2016 account from Duluth, Minnesota follows, describing an anonymous graphic designer's sighting of a hunched, wolf-faced cr