Werewolves where?

I tried to add the interactive map and it would not upload correctly. I will put it up on the All Things Cryptid social media pages. 

Transcript

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Did you know that 200 years before the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts court's in Europe or convicting men and some women of transforming into werewolves and mutilating and eating children? Did you know that we have werewolf sightings right here in North America today. And that there's a map online where you could track werewolf sightings at this very moment. Who else to talk about werewolves? I do. Hi, and welcome to"All Things Cryptid" I am your host, Amanda Winter, and today we're going to be talking about werewolves or dog men as they're called in the crypto world. Let's dive in. In history, the dog man of old was known in many cultures as the Cynocephali. Cynocephali is from the Greek, meaning"dog head". Cultures from Egypt, Africa, India, China, Europe, and England have legends of men with dog heads. In North America, the native Americans had their own versions as well. I'm going to talk about a few of those. So if you're sensitive to me mentioning the name of these, you may want to fast forward about 20 seconds. The Lamikkin is the term that they use to describe a"skin walker". Werewolves during the ancient American folklores were believed to be skin walkers. Lamikkin were not limited to the Wolf alone, however they could transform into any animal they want. The legends of the Lamikkin are normally heard in the Navajo tribe, Mohawks, Aztecs and the Hopi. Then we have the werewolf trials. They took place in parts of Europe throughout the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Driven by superstition religious and political clashes. And the desire to find scapegoats for harsh conditions. Many of the accused were beggars, hermits and recent immigrants to the area. Many confessed to being werewolves and committing heinous crimes, but only after being severely tortured. Historians suspect that some suffered from delusions or weren't intelligent enough to know what they were admitting to a few may have actually been pedophiles or serial killers, but the historical records are fragmented and exaggerated. Centuries later, it's difficult to untangle folklore from real evidence or what people believe to be real at the time. So. What is a werewolf? A werewolf cryptid is usually a humanoid creature with canine features. May cryptozoologist are hesitant to place the"werewolf" label on any suspected animals due to the beast ties with supernatural forces. Instead, most werewolf cryptids are at first thought of as big foot like creatures. However, in the current world of cryptids, that is changing and many cryptozoologist now use the term dog man to describe the beast that is huge, wolfer dog-like with the ability to walk upright. So let's talk about dog, man. And I'm going to start with the most famous case called the beast of Bray road from Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a Midwestern state with coastlines on two great lakes. It's state is famous for its cheese because it's the nation's leading dairy producer and it's famous for its beer, but it's also a state with a rich Native American history. Wisconsin also has its fair share of paranormal sightings, UFO sightings, big foot sightings, a water monster that lives in lake Winnebago and dog man sightings. Today, we're going to be talking about Elkhorn, Wisconsin, a small town with a little over 10,000 people. In December, 1991, Linda Godfrey was a newspaper reporter for a nearby county that saw that there were a number of people from her hometown of Elkhorn that were seeing what they described as a werewolf on Bray Road. Bray Road is a four mile stretch of road that dead ends into interstate 11. It is bordered by farmland and a few scattered trees, but not a scary road. Or a place that looks like it would have any kind of creature lurking on it. Thinking it was ridiculous. She mentioned this to the Walworth County animal control officer named John Fredrickson. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a manilla file folder labeled" werewolf". Linda was dustned. It was at that moment that she realized that this needed investigating. The folder was full of people who were calling and saying that they'd seen something or that they'd heard of a Wolf or a German shepherd type dog that stood and ran on its hind legs. Linda started calling the folks from the folder and found that they were from my wide demographic and seemed truthful to her. She wondered what they were seeing. They typically described the beast as a humanoid dog with a dog or Wolf type head five to eight foot tall, hairy, usually gray or brown humanoid hands with claws, two legs that bent backwards dog-like. But still able to stand and run on them. On Halloween night, 1991, a senior in high school. Doris Gibson was driving down Bray Road, when she felt a thud on her car. Fearing that she had accidentally hit someone's animal. She stopped to check. When she got out of the vehicle, she saw the werewolf type creature on the side of the road and it started running toward her. While trying to drive away the creature left scratches down the back of her car. And Linda's published article Doris wrote," it was October of this year on Halloween. I was going down Bray Road and it was kind of smoggy out. And my front tire got lifted off the ground. I'd hit something. So I kept going about 50 or 60 feet right before Sitler road. And then I got out of the car. I'm looking around the side to see what it was, cause I'm thinking I hit a small animal. I hit a bird that same night. So I'm thinking great. I just killed another animal. There was nothing on the road, no blood or anything. I didn't see anybody. And I felt like if I had hit it, it should have stayed there. I walked to the end of the car and here comes, this thing is just running up at me. You can see the chest of this thing because it was big and it was hairy. It was fast that's for sure, because I see this thing I get in the car and by the time I get inside the car, the thing had grabbed a hold of the car. I just put my foot on the gas pedal and I started going, maybe after I got going, I looked back, but at the time I was more interested in leaving. The way it was running, you could suggest that it was on two legs because you could see the chest so well, and it was pulsating as it was coming toward me. It was hitting the ground hard. I've never seen a human run as fast as that, and my uncle is a track star. If it got me, I probably would have been dinner that night. It was bigger than any dog I'd seen around here. We had a couple of rottweilers. And we had one that was real big and this thing was bigger than he was. And he had more hair. It was brown and you could see the hair dark colored. It wasn't black though, long straight hairs. Coyotes don't get that big, I've seen a coyote. They were suggesting it was a bear at my house, but I told them it wasn't that big. But it was bigger than any animal I'd seen around here. When the nails hit my car, it was like, mmmmph, she clapped her hands together forcefully). It hit the top of the trunk and it slid off the fog, made the car wet. But when it was going down, it scratched the car. This did not look like a German shepherd. I swear to that. I went back to pick up my mother's boyfriend's daughter. And on the way back, she saw it kneeling down eating or something she's 11. And I picked her up from trick or treating. So it was around 9:00 PM. She said," look at that thing". I said,"yeah, look at it" and I pressed on the gas. The mind tends to play tricks on people after you've been scared and I admit I was afraid I'm not going to say it was a werewolf. I'd say it was a freak of nature. One of God's mistakes. It's weird because you don't think something like that exist, but if you see a creature like that, It tends to leave the mind wondering". In the summer of 1992, Tom Brichta and Chris Maxwell were driving late one foggy night on Bray Road, when they saw the creature crouch by the side of the road, eating roadkill. The beast lunged at the car as they drove past scratching the pinstripe off the side of the car with its claws. Another story was that of a mother and her two children walking down Bray Road, when a deer ran out in front of them and chasing the deer was a creature that looked like a werewolf. In the fall of 1989, Lorraine Endrizzi was a young single mother driving down Bray Road on her way, home from a job as a bar manager. When she saw a hunched figure in the road, eating roadkill. She flipped on her high beams to see it clearer and realize that whatever it was knelt like a man and held the carcass in its hands like it had human- like elbows. In Linda's article. This is what Lorraine said: I was driving home one night on Bray Road, and I saw this thing on the side of the road. As I came up to it. In my car it's backwards to me. I saw it had ears and a whole bit. It was kneeling. It's elbows were up and it's claws were facing out, so I knew it had claws. I remember the long claws. And it was eating roadkill or something. And as I drove by, I saw all this, it looked right at me and it didn't run. It didn't get spooked or anything. And it had like glowing eyes which probably were a reflection of my headlights. It was right on Bray Road right before the Bray farm on the curve. I saw it. He was brownish gray. He had big teeth and fangs and he looked right at me. He turned his head to look at me. It was about the size of an average man, five foot seven, about 150 pounds. It was holding the thing and it was eating palms up. With the real long claws and pointed ears. He had a big long nose and a long chin like this on the picture, and she pointed to the drawing of a werewolf from a library book. After Linda Godfrey published her article"Tracking down'the Beast of Bray Road"' in the WEEK newspaper in Walworth County on December 29th, 1991. People started calling and writing her, telling her their stories and she soon found out that people had been seeing the beast nearby for decades. One of the earliest was from Jefferson county, a reporter for a newspaper there called Linda and told her that her dad had seen the creature in 1936. 30 something. Mark Shackleman was the nightwatchman the the St Coletta School For Exceptional Children outside Jefferson. The school had extensive grounds that included wide open fields that held several preserved Native American burial grounds. Crossing the fields one night when doing his rounds, Shackleman saw a shadow digging into one of the mounds, much like a canine would. The beast then stood to about six feet tall and looked at him, it's large body covered in dark fur and smelled of rotting meat. Shackleman took a step back startled and the beast abruptly turned and ran into the woods, Shackleman reported seeing it again the next night, but never again. In November 9th, 2006, Steve Krueger was working as a contractor for the Winsconsin DNR, and it was his job to pick up deer carcasses with his truck across six counties. A, DNR officer is a conservation officer, her works for the department of natural resources, but other names include fish and game warden, wildlife conservation officer, district, wildlife manager, and fisheries enforcement. This DNR officer had removed the carcass of an 85 pound DOE from a road in Holy Hill, Wisconsin. As Kruger set in the cab of his truck, filling out the required paperwork for the removal. He felt his truck shake. Thinking it was simply the wind he ignored it. A second harder shake caught his attention, and he looked out the back window of his truck to see a shadowy figure, standing at the tailgate of his truck. Kruger shined his flashlight through the back window to get a better look and saw a six foot tall animal with a Wolf like face reaching into the bed for the deer carcass he had just removed from the road. Startled, Kruger threw the truck in drive and sped away, allowing the beast to drag the dough off the back of his truck. Present day Lee Hampel a retired math and physics teacher from Illinois, owns a 35 acre hayfield near Elkhorn. Over the years he has conducted research on his property and among the cryptid he's seen on his land are a dog man, which he estimates to be over six foot tall, which he thinks is the beast of Bray Road and a hyena like being with an awkward walk. In addition to directly observing these creatures, Hampel is identified numerous tracks belonging to them and patches has been found of remains of deer partially eaten by them. Hampel also claims to have captured on camera's UFO's unexplained, orbs, and figures, and a thick mist that often obscures visibility. Winsconsin isn't the only state with a notorious sighting. Michigan has it share of sightings as well. And some of the research I've done, it's stated that the dog man's sightings actually started in Michigan and then later spread to Winsconsin. Michigan is cited as the state with the most reported dog, man sightings. The legend of the Michigan dog man originated in 1887 and it is become part of Michigan's folklore and popular culture. In 1887 in Wexford county, two lumber Jackson, counter creature. They described as having the head of a dog and the body of a man. Thus the Michigan dog, man legend was born. Another interesting story. I came across while doing research was from 1961 in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was a story that a son was retelling about his father. It was around three in the morning, in the Michigan town of Big Rapids, where this gentleman was up late at night at his home.He lived right across from the manufacturing plant that he worked at as the nightwatchman. The plant set right next toHaymarsh State Game area, and this is where the source claims to have seen someone or something, making noise by the chain link fence, bordering the property. Thinking it was an intruder, the narrator goes from his work to his house to grab a gun. But when he returns outside, he instead sees a six foot tall, grayish, brownish, upright dog, like creature shambling about in his driveway. Thinking quick on his feet, this guy rushes into his house to try and grab his camera instead. When he returns outside the dog man was already out of his driveway and further into the dark street. However, at one point, the creature did move near a streetlight.Where the anonymous source was able to snap one or maybe four or five alleged pictures of the Michigan dog man, before it ran off into the night. In 2009 in Shelby, Michigan in the middle of the frigid, Michigan winter on a cold night, 30 minutes to midnight retired law enforcement officer Laura Love was riding shotgun with a friend of hers. For the sake of this story, we'll just call him. C, because he wished to remain anonymous. The two were heading north on us 31. Near theWest Weber Road overpass,when they had got a look at something that looked like a werewolf on the cold, moderately snowy road."We saw a large, tall, dark, and oddly shaped creature run from the left side of the overpass" claimed Love."And it hit the rear quarter panel of the small truck in front of us causing the truck to fish tail. The other truck didn't even stop to check for damage,it just sped off". However, Love and her companion, were able to get a really good look at it. She describes it as being almost seven and a half feet tall,dark furred bipedal figure,with backward looking knees and nearly a lion mane’s worth of fur sitting on its neck like a fancy fur collar from the twenties.. She also claimed that the dog man had a face like a Border Collie. The creature didn't stop to put on any further show for its audience of two, it ran off disappearing into a patch of weeds and trees. Love andC, drove home silently stunned and didn't discuss their encounter until they were in the safety of Love's home. Only then were the two able to admit to each other that they had both indeed seen The Michigan dog, man. There are so many interesting dog man stories that I could make a whole podcast just on them. There are even dog man sightings still today throughout the United States. In the show notes, I've included an interactive map where you can track dog man sightings.. I thought I'd read a couple of stories from the interactive map for fun. This one is from Hawthorne, Nevada. I grew up in a town called Hawthorne, located in Nevada. Hawthorne is located right next to Walker lake. The main highway leading from Hawthorne to Reno is highway 95, which is view use Google earth. You could see runs right between Walker, like and a mountain range. This creates a small area of highway that is affectionately known to locals as" the cliffs". When I was 14, my grandparents, mom and I were coming home late from a long day of doctor's appointments in Reno. My grandfather was driving and we hit"the cliffs" a little after 11:30 PM. I was in the passenger seat to help keep my grandfather awake. But I still think it was just so I could sing folk songs with him. Anyway, about one third of the way around the cliffs heading towards Hawthorne, there is a small area where the road pulls away from the mountain and creates a small out Cove area. As we started to come up on it, we saw a large animal crossing the road, dragging another animal in its mouth, and it stopped in this OutCo. Grandpa thought at first that I might get my first look at a lot of mountain lion. So he slowed down. When we got within a hundred feet of it, he turned on the bright lights, the car to our surprise it was no mountain line. We only had a couple seconds to look at it after grandpa turned on the brights, because right after the light hit, whatever the hell, that thing was, it turned to look at us one second. And then in the next it leaped straight up the side of the mountain. And out of sight. Leaving the mangled body of a Fox. Grandpa hit the gas and the old Buick we were in jumped, waking the women in the back seat. I'd never seen my grandfather truly scared before, but even he was physically shaking afterward. I remembered the sheer bulk of the thing and the fact that it looked like a really large bodybuilder when it jumped in the same fashion as a human with its arms, reaching up toward the rocks almost over its head. I had long thick fur, but you can see the muscle definition. I don't remember the facial features, but I remember the pure terror when the thing turned and looked at the car with shining yellow eyes. I even pissed myself. I have come practically face-to-face with a polar bear and I wasn't as scared as when we saw this thing. Now I don't believe in werewolves and I haven't seen anything like it since, but I hope I never do again. Here's one more. To enjoy. And this is from Hampton County, Massachusetts. Since it was summer break from my school, I was lazily lounging at home watching TV. I got bored. So I went outside to see if I could do anything with my chickens, like feed them worms and snails. Before I go into more detail, I should explain the area I live in. My home is on the outskirts of the city. I live in. I had about five or seven chickens at the time and we hadn't expanded the coop. So it was a small pen connecting, two sides of the coop. Which is wooden in sturdy. The only ways to get into the coop is either through the trap door attached to the big door. And the three windows, one window is on one side of the door and the second window is on the other side. The third window is a large window. Keep in mind that they all have traps connecting to them so they can be closed. We have seven acres of Woodland that we call"the back pasture". And if you've ever been back there, you can see that it's a popular habitat for the local deer. There was also a wild boar that was roaming around at one time, but I don't know how it got there. We had been having trouble with poacher for a while, considering the population of deer in the woods. One poacher had set up a trail cam that was motion activated. There was an old rusty deer stand that had been put on a tree a long time ago. And the tree had begun to grow around it. Beyond our acres of woods. There's a large corn field owned by our neighbors. And beyond that is a forest. I don't know what the forest is like beyond the field, since we've never been out there. I went outside to do something with my chickens. And I'd brought along. I bucketed corn for feeding the deer after. When I walked out of my home I saw a doe was sitting in the tall grass. I thought it was sleeping since its head was down and it wasn't moving. I, being the curious little nut that I was decided that I would sneak up on the deer, get a picture of it to show my mother when she got home from work. I crept as silently as I could across the yard that has separated me from the deer. I should also mention that we had a clearing with a burn pit in it that was filled with Cedar branches. I was creeping across my yard toward the deer when I had cleared the burn pit and was about 10 yards from it, I realized that the deer wasn't asleep, but it was actually dead. It was the most disgusting sight I had ever seen. Its intestines were completely gone. The flesh on the body of the doe was shredded to pieces and blood absolutely everywhere. It looked as if it had been sitting there for a while and it smelled like it too. Most of the blood was dry. The air reeked of the stench of the rotting flesh, urine, and what seemed like a hint of wet dog. Something that creeped me out about the scene was that, although it was a rotting carcass, there was no insects at all around it. It was as if the usually lively forests was deader than the deer. Not even the neighbors cattles made a sound. It looked as if the poor deer had simply been left after being brutally attacked and half eaten, which it most likely was. I left the bucket at the beginning of the trail, thinking that I would come out later with my mother and grain the deer when she got home. Then I started to walk back to my house. I had barely taken a few steps when I heard a low snarling growl that sounded like a Wolf. Although it seemed distorted as if it were being played on an old radio. Sorry. That's the only way that I can think of describing it. Against my better judgment. I turned my head around and I saw what looked like the biggest freaking Wolf I had ever seen. It was on all fours it's for was black and matted in places. It's face was what you'd expect the Wolf to look like. Although it was broad and the muzzle seemed a little short, although the way it was curling, its lips made it look as if the snout was plenty long and its eyes were yellow, not a bright yellow, like the yellow of a flower or the sun, but a dim amber red, yellow, if that makes any sense. It's ears look like that of a Doberman pincher with the cropped effect. Its front legs were long and it looked as if it were a bodybuilder it's paws, if you even call them paws looked like huge hands with long claws at the end of them. It stood up. And I heard the most sickening popping sound you could ever imagine. It sounded like the popping of joints, but it seemed amplified as if it were being played through a microphone and the sound was coming out of loudspeakers. Its body looked like a bodybuilder pumped up on steroids. It was so big. It had no tail that I could tell. And it seemed to tower over me, although I was a good 10 meters from it. I was about five foot, four inches at the time. And I came nowhere close to its height. It was so tall that the tip of its ears could almost touch the top of the young Cedar. I'll let out a loud howl, which sounded more like a roar and it charged at me. Doing the only thing I needed to do while hyped up on fear and adrenaline, I began to run away from it. I remember clearing my yard and what seemed like hours, what was most likely only a few seconds and running inside slamming and locking all the doors and windows.As I calmed down a bit I had realized that if it had really wanted to kill me, it could have. That, what I had experienced was not an attack charge, but a bluff. I was lucky to get away with my life. Although this happened almost two years ago, it still terrifies me to think about it. The deer was gone the next day. And every, since that evening, I have been weary around the woods only going in them in broad daylight, only when I absolutely had to and never without a weapon. Sadly, I cannot say that I'm one of those people who have stopped experiencing things after the encounter, although are only had nightmares for a month after that day in June. Nothing really started to happen again until about two months ago when I was staying up at night, playing on the laptop. I'd started to hear things moving around on the porch and turn on the light to see the shape of something huge disappearing behind the corner of my house. There was also one of the rare times I went into the woods after the first encounter, when I was helping my mother clear brush from the hunting clearing. I was going to get the mower and was walking the trail to do so. When I heard bipedal footsteps, following me off to my side, they stopped whenever I stopped and I eventually ran out of the woods and I haven't been back since. I asked my late grandmother about the creature I'd seen in the woods. And she informed me that there was something called the wolf head, manman that stalked the Kansa tribe, preying on small children that strayed too far from their tepees. Later I was informed by my history teacher, that my house had actually been built on a travel burial ground. And I have since been wondering if that had anything to do with it. I hadn't heard about the wolf head man, before she told me about it. When I saw that there was several eyewitness reports that were proven to be truthful, it made me feel a lot better about coming out about with this information. I had attempted to tell people previously to this submission, but everyone either said I was stupid, crazy, or a plain liar. One thing's for certain am not stupid, am not crazy. And I am most definitely not a liar. I know what I saw and what I saw was dog man. This was submitted on June 8th, 2015 at about 3:45 PM. I have really enjoyed reading these stories on this interactive map, and I hope you do too. I hope you continue to read them. What dog man signings are in your state? Wrapping up this episode, I'd like to make a quick side note that after Linda Godfrey started doing a research for and published her article, she would then go on to write"the beast of Bray road tailing. Wisconsin's werewolf". And become the foremost expert on the subject of dog men. Linda then went on to write several more books on where wolfs, monsters and other cryptids. Linda S Godfrey passed away on November 27th, 2022. I'd like to dedicate this episode to her and her extraordinary contributions to the world of cryptids. Thank you so much for listening to all things. Cryptid I hope you enjoyed the episode. Feel free to email me your cryptid or ghost stories. I'd like to eventually do a show with just your stories. You can send those emails to allthingscryptid13@gmail.com. I hope you have a great rest of your week. And remember to keep believing in the unknown. Until next time.