WEBVTT - Season 09 Episode 29: The Howling Woods 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.120 Hello, and welcome to Unexplained with me your host, Richard 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.160 McLean Smith, where each week we explore another true tale 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.000 of high strangeness. If you're new here and you're a 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:15.720 fan of expertly told atmospheric stories about the strange and unexplained, 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.840 then you've come to the right place, and please subscribe 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.440 to the show if you haven't already done so. I'm 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.200 very excited to be taking Unexplained to the Edinburgh Fringe 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.560 Festival this year. I'll be performing at the Space's Surgeons 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.840 Hall venue at ten oh five pm every night from 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.960 August seventh to the twenty ninth, except for the sixteenth 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.160 and twenty third. You can get tickets at THESPACEUK dot com. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.320 Forard Slash shows Ford Slash twenty twenty six, Ford Slash 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.120 Unexplained hyphen Live. For those watching on YouTube, you can 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.960 find the link below. With all that out of the way, 0:00:49.520 --> 0:01:04.960 this is Unexplained, Season nine, Episode twenty nine, The Howling Woods. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.919 When Marco Polo published his travelog in the year thirteen hundred, 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.480 it amazed the reading world, a rare popular success in 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.800 an era before printing and widespread literacy. The book chronicled 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.280 Polo's exploration of Asia and his time in the court 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.959 of the Mongol emperor Kubla Khan. The adventurous Venetian claimed 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.000 to have encountered all manner of strange sights, from unicorns 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:36.280 on the Indonesian island of Java to gigantic birds that 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.160 soared above the Indian Ocean, each large enough to grasp 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.319 elephants in their talents. But he wrote with particular horror 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.040 of the Andaman Islands, where he observed a very particular 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.800 native population. I assure you, Polo writes, the men of 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:57.440 that island have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise. 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.120 In fact, in the phase they are like big mastiff dogs. 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.040 They are a most cruel generation and eat everybody that 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.400 they can catch. Of course, it would be naive to 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.400 assume this is a literal description of actual dog headed humanoids. 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.760 Marco Polo wouldn't be the first person, and certainly not 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.960 the last, to depict others in racist and crude ways 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.079 in order to emphasize a perceived lack of civility. But 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.679 Marco Polo was far from the only writer in antiquity 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.120 to mention dog headed people. Back in the fifth century BCE, 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:39.120 the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote of dog faced creatures 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.959 who haunted the lands to the west of Libya. Again, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.560 it sounds like fantasy at best, xenophobia at worst. Yet 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.359 on a plateau in the western Libyan desert there is 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.720 a dried river bed called Woddy, Matt and Douche, where 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:58.200 the dusty banks and boulders are covered in graceful, dexterous 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:04.200 etchings of animals both known and unknown. Among the camels, giraffes, 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:09.640 and buffalo. There are depictions of humans sporting distinctly canine heads, 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.240 and the carvings are four thousand years old. Perhaps the 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.880 fullest description of dog headed men was recorded by the 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:22.560 Greek physician Tisius in four hundred BCE. He referred to 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.640 the race as Caino cephally, from Caino and cephale, the 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:31.239 Greek words for dog and head, respectively. Tesius describes them 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.119 as a cave dwelling tribe who lived in the mountains 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:38.400 of India and North Africa. Their teeth were larger than dogs, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.600 their nails longer, and they spoke only in a range 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.200 of guttural barks, he said. In the same era, Alexander 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:51.080 the Great wrote to his tutor Aristotle, claiming that he 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.480 had battled and captured a horde of dog faced men 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.119 in India who were little more than snarling beasts, as 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.120 he had it. Likewise, in the Welsh folklore, King Arthur 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.680 is fated for his battle with the vicious Cumben or 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.800 dogheads in what is now Edinburgh. As romanticized in the 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.120 Black Book of Carmarthen, Arthur and his knight Bedevere slew 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.599 hundreds of the Canid enemy in a supposed effort to 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:23.160 protect the realm from their encroaching savagery. This beastlike framing 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.799 of the chinocephaly recurs in cultural histories across the globe, 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.640 from European legend to Chinese Buddhist texts to the tribal 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:36.480 memories of the Ural Mountains. Dog headed men, it seems, 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:41.320 haunted the fringes of the entire ancient world. With time, 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.240 these stories have steadily dissolved into folklore, or have been 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:50.240 interpreted as fearful depictions of the other, or simply rationalized 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:55.600 away as misinterpretations of baboons and lemurs among other animals, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.320 and the world moved on from such tall tales. However, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.839 there does remain one corner of the modern world, in 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.200 which the so called dog man has not yet been 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:12.800 explained into extinction, where rumors persist of strange shapes seen 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.359 prowling between the trees, eyeshine glimpsed at the edge of 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:22.080 the campfire glow, and where dog is anything but man's 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:28.840 best friend. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.440 but most people. The story begins in nineteen eighty seven 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.839 as an April Fool's prank in Traverse City, Michigan, a 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:47.520 young DJ named Steve Cook hustled into the WTCM radio 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:51.520 studio with a grin. The station always ran an April 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.839 Fool's joke, but that year they'd been short on ideas. 0:05:55.880 --> 0:06:00.159 That morning, post Jack O'Malley had played things straight, and 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.039 he'd been relieved when Steve finally arrived. Steve was a 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.040 lover of the weird and the absurd. He, more than 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.760 anyone at the station, had the right kind of mind 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.320 for the occasion, and he hadn't let them down. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:13.760 This year. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.240 He'd written a song. Jack read through the lyrics and 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.440 felt it seemed a little more Halloween than April Fall's. 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.640 But without anything else to hand, it would have to do. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.760 A few minutes into his show, Steve played the song 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.719 to his unsuspecting audience for the first time. It was 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.520 called The Legend, a rather grandiose title for such a 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.520 crude effort, but one that would prove far more fitting 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:43.640 than Steve could ever anticipate. The Legend is a rhythmic 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.960 poem set to a backing track of timpany drum and 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:51.920 allulating since it opens with the story of eleven lumberjacks 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.760 working in Wexford County close to the Manestee River. The 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:01.200 men chase and torment a strange doglike creep until it's 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.040 finally provoked into standing upright on its hind legs, at 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.840 which point the men flee in terror, never saying much 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.440 about what happened to them that night. Each verse of 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.960 the song takes us through history, decade by decade, with 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.280 the reemergence of the creature in every spring and summer 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.880 of every year that ends with a seven. In nineteen seventeen, 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.360 a sheriff finds his band of horses dead from fright. 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.640 In nineteen fifty seven, a pastor is alarmed by claw 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.920 marks carved deep in his church door. The song tells 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.080 us that though the newspapers said they'd been made by 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:43.640 a dog, he'd have to have stood seven foot four. Finally, 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.240 Steve reaches the current spring of nineteen eighty seven and 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.559 confesses that no stories or sightings have yet appeared that year. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.920 Have the dog men gone away? He asks? It was 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.680 supposed to be a bit of fun, but no. Sooner 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.520 had the final beat the song faded to static, then 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:13.600 the calls began. Incredibly, after Steve Cook's song went out 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.920 on air, local listeners of WTCM Radio began ringing in 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.440 with their own sightings of the very creature it described. 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.760 One woman reported that she'd grown up hearing similar tales 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.720 from her uncle. But first Steve just laughed it off. 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.040 He put it down to the success of his storytelling 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.560 and his lucky amalgam of all the things that frighten 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.040 you in the night, as he put it, just coming 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:43.719 together at the right time. But Steve's song, unwittingly had 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.080 done much more than that. It appeared to have opened 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.480 a sluice gate in the pool of local law and memory. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.559 Over the next week, the DJs at WTCM Radio heard 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.200 from many more people claiming first hand experience of the monster, 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.560 and then they were weirdly specific. Callers told Steve and 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.320 his colleagues over and over that the canine thing was 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.040 an upright hairy bipedal creature, but crucially, it was not 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.040 a werewolf. Of that they were clear. Its body was 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:21.320 specifically defined as being part human and part dog. Over 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.840 the years, Steve Kirk estimates that he's been told well 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.120 over one hundred distinct accounts of what has come to 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.920 be known as the Michigan dog Man. They span a 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.480 century or more and came in from all across the state. 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.600 There is a locust, though, and it matches Steve's song. 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.440 Mapped out the supposed dog man encounters reveal a clear epicenter. 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.160 The majority of sightings occur in or around the Manistee 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:55.080 National Forest. This sprawling mosaic of hardwood trees and hardy 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.480 townships covers nearly a million square acres and is popular 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:04.520 for high king hunting, fishing, and cross country skiing. Of 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.040 the thousands of adventurous souls who venture into the red 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.960 pines of the Manisty, most return with memories of a 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.280 fine day out, but there are some who bring back 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.000 stories of meetings They are never quite able to explain 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.000 of being pursued by something that walks like a human 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.040 and looks like a dog, but is in fact neither. 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.960 It was the summer of nineteen thirty eight. Down on 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.680 the banks of the Muskegon River, on the edge of 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:44.000 the Manistee Forest in Paris, Michigan, Seventeen year old Robert 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.320 Forney was enjoying a rare day of peaceful fishing from 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.800 a quiet spot behind the local fish hatchery. Robert had 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.200 watched the day glide past at the end of his 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.560 fishing rot. By the afternoon, the breeze was moving briskly 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.360 through the foliage along the banks. As the sun danced 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.000 on the shallow, slow moving water. As it had on 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.560 and off throughout the day, Robert's attention slipped from the 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.960 lure on the end of his rod to whatever a 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.080 young man had to daydream about in nineteen thirty eight, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:21.080 when something suddenly punctured his reverie, a disturbing clamor of 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.320 growls and barks, accompanied by the crackle of undergrowth that 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.120 seemed to be drawing nearer. It sounded like a ravenous 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.640 pack of wild dogs or coyotes. Even Robert glanced at 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.679 the rifle lying by his feet, and then quickly snatched 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.920 it up. But as he well knew as he angled 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.920 the barrel toward where the sound seemed to be coming from, 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.840 there were limits to how well even a crack marksman 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.679 can wheeld one weapon against a pack of feral animals. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.920 Robert was far from that, and the dogs sounded full 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.920 of fury. The terror of rabies was just slipping across 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:00.960 Robert's mind when the first of the dogs breached the 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.679 tree line on the opposite bank. Dark furred and of 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.360 no determinate breed, it bounded straight into the river toward 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:13.040 him without hesitation. Robert's heart caught in his mouth when 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.600 the rest of the pack burst through moments later. There 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.720 were five of them in total, all running and snarling 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.160 into the water. Robert hurriedly raised his rifle and pointed 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.800 it vaguely in their direction, not entirely sure how he 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.680 was going to handle this, But as he peered down 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.559 the scope, it couldn't help but be distracted by one 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.320 of the dogs. In particular, For a start, it was 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.560 larger than the others, much larger, with a broad black 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.680 back and longer limbs, and in the treacle slow down 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.560 of time, Robert noticed there was something very strange about 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.640 this animal, but sheer size didn't account for. It was 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.880 something about its proportions and the way it moved. Then 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.360 suddenly he snapped back to the present because the lead 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.360 dog was already halfway to his side of the river. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.760 With trembling hands, Robert raised his rifle and fired a 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.760 single shot into the sky. A flurry of birds blasted 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.760 from the trees, and the dogs snapped to a halt, 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.880 then turned to flee. Robert exhaled in relief as the 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.880 dogs quickly turned and scurried back into the trees, but 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.280 his relief was short lived because one of the dogs 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:43.280 didn't flee. Robert stood deathly still, keeping his eyes fixed 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.720 on the strange creature before him. The dog, if that 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.640 was what it was, stood its ground two dozen feet 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:56.200 from the stricken boy. Robert slowly took up the rifle 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.960 again and pointed it toward the panting animal, his finger 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:06.320 poised on the trigger. Get gone, Robert said, But the 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:11.120 dog didn't flinch. It simply stared Robert down with eyes 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:16.480 that Robert only then noticed were an almost preternatural icy 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:23.400 blue in color. And then the dog stood up as 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.680 Robert would later recall it didn't stand like a dog 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.120 trained to do so for treats or tricks. It stood 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.880 up like a human, as Robert had it. It had 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.960 shoulders and arms that dangled to its waist, ending in 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.640 a clawed appendage that was somewhere between hand and poor. 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.960 Its feet were submerged in the river, but its legs, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:50.120 which he could see, were apparently bent backwards at the knee, 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.120 not at all like a human or a bear, as 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.640 some have theorized it might have been. And once those 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.680 legs were fully extended, the figure is said to have 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:04.760 stood roughly seven feet tall, a vicious looking giant covered 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.360 in dense black fur. The head was said to have 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.480 been almost entirely canine in nature, with a long muzzle, 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:17.760 erect ears, and hideously sharp teeth. Only those deep blue 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.240 eyes struck him as being close to human, and it 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.880 took all the will that Robert had to pull his 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:29.400 own gaze away. Robert fired another shot, wildly and without 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:35.360 proper aim, but again the strange doglike creature didn't flinch. Instead, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:41.760 it bared its teeth in a distinctly uncanine manner. Decades later, 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:46.440 after DJ. Steve Cook's song had renewed interest in earlier 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:49.600 accounts of the creature. Robert said that he thought the 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.200 dog Man, as he came to call it, may have 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.000 been smiling at him, but he wasn't sure. So much 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.880 time had passed, but he remembered the distinct way in 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.880 which its lips had curled up, in a way that 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.680 was unlike any dog he'd ever seen. Finally, the dog 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.440 like creature turned on its hind legs and followed the 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:16.120 pack back into the trees, still apparently striding upright as 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:27.480 it passed from Robert's sight. After Robert Forney told select 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.200 friends and family about his frightening encounter, it wasn't long 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.440 before word got around, as it does in small rural towns. 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:41.280 For years more, anecdotes circulated of strange figures seen in 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.440 the woods around the town of Paris and in surrounding 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:49.960 counties bordering the Manistee Forest. One day, some time after 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.760 his song had aired, Steve Cook received a handwritten letter. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.720 He was from a young man named Brian, who remembered 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.560 how his father had forbidden him and his sister to 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.520 venture out of the house after nightfall. Brian, who was 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.280 from the town of Big Rapids, six miles south of Paris, 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.840 claimed to have grown up hearing his dad cursing the 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.080 coyotes and wolves that he sometimes heard at night. He 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.600 used to assume day were the reason why his dad 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.399 had been so uncompromising with him and his sister. Only 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.360 later did Brian discover that it was something else entirely 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.840 that his dad was afraid of. Bryan's family lived across 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.119 the road from a manufacturing plant where his dad worked 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.240 as a night watchman. Both the house and the factory 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.960 abutted a stretch of wilderness known as the Haymarsh State 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.840 Game Reserve. Back in the summer of nineteen sixty one, 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.840 Brian's dad was working another of his night shifts. Sometime 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:54.040 around three am. During a quick break, Brian's father headed 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.720 home to make a pot of coffee, one of the 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.399 perks of living so close to the job. With coffee 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.720 in hand, he took a seat in the rocking chair 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.360 on the porch and gazed out toward the plant, faintly 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.520 visible under the soft, cool whip glow of the moon. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.320 As he traced his gaze along the chain link fence, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.720 he caught a flash of movement, causing him to sit 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.920 up Suddenly, someone appeared to be moving along the road 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.640 that ran between the house and the factory. Brian's dad 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.960 knew instinctively that anyone moving about at that hour of 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:33.320 the morning most likely had nefarious intentions. Brian's dad put 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.880 down the coffee and quietly rose from his seat. Then, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.000 with one hand on his gun, he tentatively made his 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.560 way back to the plant. Halfway there, he froze suddenly 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.920 in utter horror. The figure was neither a vandal nor 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.800 a thief. It wasn't even human. Brian's dad would later 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.000 tell his son that the thing he saw was taller 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:01.280 than any man, with a muscular body in dense fur, 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.080 maybe gray or black, he couldn't quite tell in the 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:16.640 dim light, but it was walking on two legs. As 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.400 Brian's dad apparently continued to stare at the strange creature 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.960 in utter amusement, it dropped momentarily from a bipedal stance 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.719 to scurry about on all fours like a dog, before 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.399 rising back onto two legs like a human again. It 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:37.119 seemed to be searching for something gently. Desperate not to 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.120 attract attention, Brian's father rushed to retrieve a camera from 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.399 the house an old Kodak that he had some skill with. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.439 Brian's dad knew how to handle the lighting, how to 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.000 account for the soft light of the moon and the 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.080 street lights that created deep pools of shadows between them. 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.480 So he waited until the creature stepped into an island 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.080 of light, and then a rusted the lens for a 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:05.760 long exposure. With trembling fingers, the man snapped what is 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.399 thought to be the first and most compelling photo of 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.959 the so called dog man ever taken. It shows an 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:18.359 empty street topped by an arching canopy of trees, with 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.240 the chain link fence in the background. In the foreground, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.080 a street light casts its harsh glow, and beneath it, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.959 half obscured by the light phole itself, is a figure 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.280 that looks for all the world like an upright dog 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.800 or wolf court on the cusp of movement. Its shoulders 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.560 are thick and heavy, surrounding a distinctly canine head, while 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.119 its torso narrows to a pair of legs angled like 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.600 those of a dog. A heartbeat after the photo was taken, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.399 the creature is said to have dropped once more to 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:57.120 all forts and sloped off through the trees and into 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:02.560 the Haymarsh Beyond, Brian included a print of the photograph 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.159 in his letter to Steve Cook and offered to provide 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.880 the original negatives. As the so called dog Man has 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:13.480 grown in notoriety over the last forty years, naturally, Brian's 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.119 photograph has been at the center of the debate. Although 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.000 the film Stark has been authentically dated to the early 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.439 nineteen sixties, to the modern eye, in an era of 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.920 digital manipulation, the image at the center of it may 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.919 seem a complete farce. However, as many experts have argued, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.400 if indeed it were a hoax, any tricks that would 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.960 need to have been employed to achieve it were much 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.200 harder to pull off, if not practically impossible in nineteen 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:52.240 sixty one. Of course, there are many who consider the 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.840 all too convenient synchronicity between Steve Cook's dog Man Song 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.040 and the sudden emergence of apparently historical dog Man encounters 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.760 to be proof of a hoax. To skeptics, at least, 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.840 it's clear that it was simply the fraw around the 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:12.520 song that birthed all the outlandish backstories. Yet it's hard 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.040 to dismiss the earnestness and speed with which Steve's first 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:21.359 callers responded to the legend For a start, several called 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:23.760 the station within minutes of hearing the song for the 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:28.000 very first time, eager to share their own encounters, with 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.239 little to no time to have manufactured their stories. And 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:37.080 what then, of the encounters that came after Steve's song 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.480 ends in nineteen eighty seven with an acknowledgment that the 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:44.719 creature had not yet been cited that year. In nineteen 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:49.160 ninety seven, on the tenure anniversary, Steve Cook re released 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.879 the legend, but this time there was an extra verse. 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:56.760 Then in the summer of eighty seven. 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.439 Then in the summer of eighty seven near Luth it 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.119 happened again at a cabin in the woods. It looked 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.399 like someone had tried to break in. There were cuts 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.760 around the doors that could only be made by very 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.639 sharp teeth and claws. He didn't wear shoes because he 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:20.080 didn't have feet. He walked on just two ports. Startlingly, 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:23.680 this was no make believe edition that Steve had grasped 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:26.520 out of thin air, but was in fact taken from 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.040 an apparently very real sighting that was documented in the 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:35.320 local paper on July twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, in Luther, 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:38.320 a small town close to the northern arc of the 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.840 Manistee River, a pair of summer tourists were woken in 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:45.560 the night by a commotion near their cabin. When they 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:49.159 peered nervously through the window, they apparently saw a large 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:54.480 shape moving about their property. Two Intimidated to investigate further, 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:59.640 they simply hunkered inside until whatever was prowling outside left 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:03.879 them alone. In the morning, they ventured out to find 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:08.720 the walls scarred with claw marks. Suspecting a bear attack, 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:12.320 they called the Department of Natural Resources and a pair 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:15.680 of agents were dispatched from the nearby Baldwin office. 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:20.080 So the officer and I went out there to take 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.480 a look at it. You know, it was obviously it 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:25.800 wasn't a bear, because you know, he just tried to 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.080 chew in around the doors, and you could see a 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:34.240 dog print alongside the windows still there, and so it 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:35.879 was obviously a dog. 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:39.920 It looked as though something had been trying to claw 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:44.680 its way inside the cabin. The Department of Natural Resources 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.919 agents discovered paw prints on the windowsills and on the 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:53.199 ground all around the cabin, but they were huge, bigger 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:57.240 prints than either agent had ever seen before. When word 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:00.440 of the assault on the homestead got out, locals quick 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:02.680 to link it to the song that they'd so recently 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:05.560 heard on the radio, and what had been a bit 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:09.520 of local color took on a darker hue. But that 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:12.119 was far from the last sighting of the so called 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:26.240 Michigan dog Man. Since nineteen eighty seven, there have been dozens, 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.159 maybe hundreds, of sightings of a hair suit towering figure 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:34.560 prowling the edges of the Maynaeste. Often it's no more 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:38.200 than a glimpse between the trees that line Michigan's county roads, 0:25:38.800 --> 0:25:42.000 a fleeting Did you see that moment from a car window? 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:45.960 There have been more up close and personal encounters, though, 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:49.400 like the ones a deer hunter named Sam was said 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:52.080 to have had in November of two thousand and seven. 0:25:53.000 --> 0:25:56.919 That year saw a particularly high number of dog man sightings, 0:25:57.400 --> 0:26:00.760 but few, if any, were as telling or fry as his. 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:04.679 At the time, Sam was on a week long hunting 0:26:04.720 --> 0:26:08.200 trip with two friends in the woods outside Reed City, 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.119 to the immediate east of the Maynastee. Over the course 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:15.000 of a long chilly day, all three young men had 0:26:15.040 --> 0:26:19.480 separated to take up positions in their respective tree stands, 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:23.399 essentially extended high chairs that hunters can sit on for 0:26:23.480 --> 0:26:27.879 better cover. As four o'clock came and went, the sun 0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:32.000 began to descend fast on the snow covered forest. Sam 0:26:32.040 --> 0:26:35.240 thought it was time to regroup and go home. He 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:37.520 had one foot on the ladder to get down from 0:26:37.560 --> 0:26:41.000 the tree stand when he became suddenly aware that all 0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:44.960 sound in the forest had ceased. Even at just twenty 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:48.159 years old, Sam was experienced enough to know that that 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:52.280 meant something predatory other than himself was in the area. 0:26:53.320 --> 0:26:55.879 Trying to stay calm, he stepped back up to the 0:26:55.960 --> 0:27:00.080 chair to wait and see what might happen next. Within minutes, 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:03.200 the spell was broken as the sound of soft crunching 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:06.760 snow was followed by the appearance of two fair sized 0:27:06.800 --> 0:27:12.040 bucks in the clearing below. But the deer were not alone. 0:27:12.200 --> 0:27:16.520 Sam watched in disbelief as a very different animal slinked 0:27:16.520 --> 0:27:21.840 out of the trees behind them, tall, powerfully built, covered 0:27:21.840 --> 0:27:26.320 in hair, and standing on two feet. At first, he 0:27:26.400 --> 0:27:28.720 thought it was a bear, which were known to rear 0:27:28.880 --> 0:27:31.679