WEBVTT - Season 06 Episode 33: An American Werewolf in America

0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.800
<v Speaker 1>Nd Godfrey surveyed the scenery one overcast November afternoon in

0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.040
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety one as she drove out of the little

0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:25.600
<v Speaker 1>Wisconsin town of Elkhorn along Geneva Street, Passing under Highway twelve.

0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.600
<v Speaker 1>The road took her out of town through gently rolling

0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:35.160
<v Speaker 1>farm fields peppered with patches of woodland. The trees were leafless,

0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.199
<v Speaker 1>and a faint mist rose up from surrounding patches of

0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:44.920
<v Speaker 1>scrubby marshland. The fields, which had been full of corn, soybean,

0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.960
<v Speaker 1>and hay only a couple of months earlier, were barren too,

0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:55.560
<v Speaker 1>now nothing more than stubble. Located in southern Wisconsin, just

0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.320
<v Speaker 1>north of the border with Illinois, the four mile stretch

0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.240
<v Speaker 1>of two lane blacktop that stretched off into the distance

0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.280
<v Speaker 1>was little more than a country lane. Bray Road was

0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.280
<v Speaker 1>a typical slice of what some Americans call flyover country,

0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.760
<v Speaker 1>seemingly no different from the myriad of rural byways that

0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:22.600
<v Speaker 1>crisscrossed the American Heartland. Named after a family of homesteaders,

0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:27.240
<v Speaker 1>The fifth generation descendants of the original Braid Brothers, still

0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.280
<v Speaker 1>farmed in the area. It seemed the most unlikely of

0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:37.960
<v Speaker 1>settings for a paranormal encounter. You're listening to Unexplained and

0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:49.160
<v Speaker 1>I'm Richard mclin Smith. Back in the autumn of nineteen

0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.840
<v Speaker 1>ninety one, Linda Godfrey was working as a reporter on

0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:58.280
<v Speaker 1>a local newspaper, the Walworth County week A decade earlier,

0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.080
<v Speaker 1>she'd moved to Walworth Camp with her husband to raise

0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:07.000
<v Speaker 1>their two boys in this seemingly tranquil rural setting. Since then,

0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.440
<v Speaker 1>Godfrey had turned her hand to news reporting, writing, and

0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.440
<v Speaker 1>drawing the occasional cartoon for the weekly paper. Forty five

0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.200
<v Speaker 1>miles southwest of the city of Milwaukee, the county seat

0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.440
<v Speaker 1>of Elcorn is the epitome of small town Bucolic America,

0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.640
<v Speaker 1>so much so that in the late nineteen fifties, the

0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:33.600
<v Speaker 1>Ford Motor Company had commissioned watercolor artist Cecil Johnson to

0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:38.040
<v Speaker 1>paint six images of Elcorn for its company magazine to

0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.320
<v Speaker 1>reflect the hometown image it wanted its brand to embody.

0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.760
<v Speaker 1>But over the last few years, reporter and writer Linda

0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.120
<v Speaker 1>Godfrey had become aware of a less cozy undercurrent to

0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.440
<v Speaker 1>life in that part of rural Wisconsin. That had been

0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:01.080
<v Speaker 1>whisperings of Satanic colt activity, as well as an increasing

0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:06.679
<v Speaker 1>number of apparent UFO sightings in the region. As autumn

0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.960
<v Speaker 1>was about to turn to winter, Godfrey's editor assigned her

0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:16.040
<v Speaker 1>to cover another emerging story. There had been recent talk

0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.160
<v Speaker 1>around Elcorn that a strange creature had been seen in

0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:26.000
<v Speaker 1>the vicinity of Bray Road. One eyewitness, high school student,

0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.200
<v Speaker 1>Doris Gibson, whom Godfrey was now on her way to meet,

0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.600
<v Speaker 1>had apparently been driving down the road alone on Halloween

0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.200
<v Speaker 1>night when she saw it. It all seemed a little

0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.760
<v Speaker 1>ludicrous to Godfrey, nothing more than a tall tale from

0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:49.480
<v Speaker 1>the overactive imaginings of a teenager. Before long, she was

0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.200
<v Speaker 1>approaching the spot where she had agreed to meet the

0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:57.160
<v Speaker 1>young woman, the precise location where she had apparently encountered

0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:07.720
<v Speaker 1>the creature. It was early evening when she was driving

0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.520
<v Speaker 1>along the quiet country road, the eighteen year old high

0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:17.080
<v Speaker 1>school senior explained. Steering with one hand, Gibson was singing

0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.400
<v Speaker 1>along to a song on the car radio, tapping her

0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.120
<v Speaker 1>fingers on the steering wheel in time to the beat,

0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.440
<v Speaker 1>when one of her car's right tires jolted momentarily off

0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:34.320
<v Speaker 1>the ground startled out of her pop fueled reverie. Gibson

0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.760
<v Speaker 1>said it felt like she'd run over something. Slamming on

0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.440
<v Speaker 1>the brakes and putting the car in park. Gibson got

0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.440
<v Speaker 1>out at the vehicle and peered nervously behind her into

0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:51.240
<v Speaker 1>the night. With only a waning crescent moon just above

0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:56.080
<v Speaker 1>the horizon, Gibson's car's headlights and glowing red tail lights

0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:01.000
<v Speaker 1>eerily illuminated the faint mist that had risen around her.

0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.920
<v Speaker 1>I was thinking, please, don't let it be a dog

0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:11.599
<v Speaker 1>or a deer, explained Gibson, or worse, a person. But

0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.720
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't either of those things. Rounding the rear of

0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.560
<v Speaker 1>the car, she peered into the darkness, from out of

0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:26.960
<v Speaker 1>which something was emerging. This thing, she said, I don't

0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.600
<v Speaker 1>know what it was, but it was big, and it

0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:36.240
<v Speaker 1>started running for me. As the shadowy figure rapidly made

0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.839
<v Speaker 1>its way toward her, the terrified Gibson ran back to

0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:44.560
<v Speaker 1>her car, scrambling to close the door, forgetting to put

0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.520
<v Speaker 1>her seatbelt on, and shaking with fright, the teenager rammed

0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.719
<v Speaker 1>the car into gear. She later claimed that the shadowy

0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.279
<v Speaker 1>figure lunged at her vehicle. Gibson heard scratching sounds on

0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.960
<v Speaker 1>the rear of her car just as her tires got

0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.640
<v Speaker 1>traction and she drove off at speed. It wasn't long

0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.479
<v Speaker 1>after eight pm when Gibson pulled into the driveway of

0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.159
<v Speaker 1>her friend's house. Shaken by what she'd just experienced, the

0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.880
<v Speaker 1>short distance to the front porch seemed a lot longer

0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:21.440
<v Speaker 1>than normal. Pushing the lighted doorbell and hearing its two

0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.599
<v Speaker 1>notes ring out, she nervously peered over her shoulder and

0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.239
<v Speaker 1>heaved a sigh of relief as her friend opened the door.

0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.720
<v Speaker 1>A little over an hour later, Gibson, with her friend

0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.880
<v Speaker 1>now in the passenger seat, was back on the same

0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.760
<v Speaker 1>stretch of road, driving slowly toward the scene of the

0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:46.840
<v Speaker 1>earlier encounter. Both of the young women scanned the dark

0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:52.720
<v Speaker 1>surroundings intensely. Then Gibson's grip tightened on the steering wheel

0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.120
<v Speaker 1>as something caught her eye on the roadside just up ahead.

0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.159
<v Speaker 1>She hissed at her friend and pointed at a large

0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:06.120
<v Speaker 1>dark form crouching by the road, partly hidden by bushes.

0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.960
<v Speaker 1>With her friend begging her to slow down, Gibson fought

0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.280
<v Speaker 1>the impulse to press her foot on the accelerator pedal

0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:19.239
<v Speaker 1>and ease the car into a steady crawl. Moments later,

0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:24.040
<v Speaker 1>as they drew closer to it, the shadowy form vanished

0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:30.680
<v Speaker 1>into the night, Godfrey's reporter's instincts told her that the

0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.600
<v Speaker 1>eighteen year old was experiencing a genuine sense of fear

0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.360
<v Speaker 1>as she recounted the events. And then there were the

0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.960
<v Speaker 1>scratches on the trunk of her car that did indeed

0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.400
<v Speaker 1>appear to be consistent with two sets of claws running

0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:51.600
<v Speaker 1>down the trunk. Driving home in the late afternoon gloom,

0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:57.440
<v Speaker 1>Godfrey reflected that Pray Road might look completely innocuous in daylight,

0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:02.600
<v Speaker 1>but now in the gathering darkness, with the mist thickening,

0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.840
<v Speaker 1>the trees really did seem to lean in just a

0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:11.680
<v Speaker 1>little further and a little more ominously over the road.

0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.320
<v Speaker 1>Soon after Linda Godfrey met the high schooler, more eye

0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:27.000
<v Speaker 1>witnesses came forward, also claiming to have glimpsed an unusual

0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:32.120
<v Speaker 1>creature on Bray Road. One was Laurie and Ritzy, a

0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:37.040
<v Speaker 1>twenty four year old Elkhorn bar manager. And Ritzy told

0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.040
<v Speaker 1>Godfrey that she'd been reluctant to go public with her story,

0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.760
<v Speaker 1>initially for fear of ridicule, but on hearing that other

0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.040
<v Speaker 1>people had reported a similar encounter, she now felt that

0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.240
<v Speaker 1>she might be believed. It was a little over two

0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.920
<v Speaker 1>years before. She said that she was driving home from

0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:02.040
<v Speaker 1>work down Bray Road when her attention was drawn to

0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.320
<v Speaker 1>an odd shape by the roadside. The shape appeared to

0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:11.240
<v Speaker 1>be part human, part something else, and it was crouched over,

0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.720
<v Speaker 1>looking as if it were feasting on some kind of

0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:20.080
<v Speaker 1>road killed animal. She described the creature as five foot five,

0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.120
<v Speaker 1>probably weighing around one hundred and fifty pounds, and with

0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:31.880
<v Speaker 1>brownish gray fur, glowing eyes, pointed ears, and fangs, Andritzy

0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.600
<v Speaker 1>claimed it also appeared to have fur covered hands and

0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:40.680
<v Speaker 1>long claws. The bar manager apparently observed the creature for

0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.280
<v Speaker 1>around forty five seconds before it locked a pair of

0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.120
<v Speaker 1>glowing eyes with her and then ran off into the night,

0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:54.600
<v Speaker 1>and the reports kept coming in. Laurie and Ritzy's mother,

0:09:55.120 --> 0:10:00.000
<v Speaker 1>Pat Lester, the local school bus driver, remembered over here

0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.400
<v Speaker 1>hearing one of her young passengers telling friends that she'd

0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.960
<v Speaker 1>seen the creature around Christmas time the previous year. When

0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.840
<v Speaker 1>Godfrey went to visit the passenger, an eleven year old schoolgirl,

0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.440
<v Speaker 1>she described how she'd been near Loveland Road, about a

0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.160
<v Speaker 1>mile and a half southeast of Bray Road, around four

0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.400
<v Speaker 1>thirty one afternoon with some friends when they spotted what

0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.559
<v Speaker 1>looked like a large dog walking along a creek in

0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:32.240
<v Speaker 1>a corn field, but when the children called out to

0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.959
<v Speaker 1>the animal, it suddenly stood up on its hind legs,

0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.600
<v Speaker 1>looked up at them, and took four wobbly steps before

0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:45.080
<v Speaker 1>dropping back down onto all fours and running straight toward them,

0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.679
<v Speaker 1>only to turn off suddenly and run away. Another woman

0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.120
<v Speaker 1>claimed that she was walking with her four children on

0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.920
<v Speaker 1>Bray Road when a deer ran across the road right

0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.680
<v Speaker 1>in front of them, chased by a large, fierce looking

0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:08.440
<v Speaker 1>creature walking not on all fours but on two legs. Meanwhile,

0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.520
<v Speaker 1>dairy farmer Scott Bray claimed to have seen a strange

0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.439
<v Speaker 1>looking dog in his pasture near Bray Road two years

0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.920
<v Speaker 1>earlier in the autumn of nineteen eighty nine, while another

0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.680
<v Speaker 1>local man, Russell Guest, also reported seeing a tall creature

0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:32.160
<v Speaker 1>walk out of some bushes on two legs nearby. Each time,

0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:37.280
<v Speaker 1>as one after another recounted their sighting, Godfrey would marvel

0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.480
<v Speaker 1>at how white they would turn. Some even sweated visibly

0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.720
<v Speaker 1>at the memory of it. Not everyone in the local

0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:50.959
<v Speaker 1>community was convinced that there was anything unusual about the reports. However,

0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.800
<v Speaker 1>One local man, Jeff Hubbard, who'd hunted regularly in the

0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:00.240
<v Speaker 1>area for years, was unswayed by the graphic description of

0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.920
<v Speaker 1>a two legged dog or wolf like humanoid, stating the

0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.120
<v Speaker 1>Marshers are home to a lot of deer and coyote.

0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.079
<v Speaker 1>I've seen plenty while out hunting, but I've never seen

0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:18.080
<v Speaker 1>the creature. Meanwhile, the local sheriff's department joked about getting

0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:23.120
<v Speaker 1>some silver bullets made just in case, But after several

0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:28.679
<v Speaker 1>weeks collecting eyewitness reports, Godfrey was starting to wonder if

0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.079
<v Speaker 1>there was something to the story after all. Using her

0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.200
<v Speaker 1>skills as an illustrator, she made a sketch of the

0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.800
<v Speaker 1>creature corresponding to the accounts. Then she spent time at

0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:45.200
<v Speaker 1>the local library searching through wildlife books, trying to match

0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.840
<v Speaker 1>the image to pictures of wolves and other local wildlife,

0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:54.640
<v Speaker 1>but nothing fit. So Godfrey paid a visit to the

0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.440
<v Speaker 1>county animal Control officer to see if they might be

0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:03.240
<v Speaker 1>able to shed some light on it all. John Fredericson

0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.280
<v Speaker 1>was a fairly straight down the line kind of guy

0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.400
<v Speaker 1>who was typically kept busy following up on reports of

0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.160
<v Speaker 1>mistreated dogs and cats, So when Godfrey asked him what

0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.680
<v Speaker 1>he thought about the sightings, she was expecting to be

0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:25.160
<v Speaker 1>given short shift. What happened next caught her completely by surprise.

0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.439
<v Speaker 1>As John Fredericson explained to Linda Godfrey he'd been collecting

0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:41.040
<v Speaker 1>his own reports of a strange creature in the area

0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:47.600
<v Speaker 1>since nineteen eighty six. Godfrey watched, astounded as Fredericson then

0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.920
<v Speaker 1>wandered over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a

0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:57.400
<v Speaker 1>Manila folder. The one word label on it read simply werewolf.

0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.120
<v Speaker 1>There was some common characteristics to the reports which Frederickson

0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:08.360
<v Speaker 1>had compiled. Most people described a bipedal dog, but with

0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:13.920
<v Speaker 1>a humanoid appearance, hairy and with clawed hands rather than paws,

0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:19.800
<v Speaker 1>red or glowing yellow eyes, pointy ears, a long snout,

0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.760
<v Speaker 1>and legs bent backwards like a dog's. The creature was

0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.720
<v Speaker 1>often said to have stirred and run on its hind legs,

0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:34.560
<v Speaker 1>all in keeping with everything Godfrey had been told. Most

0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.600
<v Speaker 1>sightings seemed to occur between ten thirty pm and five am,

0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.400
<v Speaker 1>and although reports occurred all year round, they seemed to

0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:48.120
<v Speaker 1>peek between August and October, when cornfields full of yet

0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:53.920
<v Speaker 1>to be harvested crops would facilitate covert movement, and while

0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:59.080
<v Speaker 1>apparent witnesses seemed genuinely frightened by what they saw. There

0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.080
<v Speaker 1>were no reports lots of attacks on people. In fact,

0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.840
<v Speaker 1>when encountered, the creature seemed to want to get out

0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:12.120
<v Speaker 1>of sight as quickly as possible. On December twenty ninth,

0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:17.400
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety one, The Walworth County Week published Godfrey's story

0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.320
<v Speaker 1>as the Sunday's centerfold. It detailed the full testimonies of

0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:27.920
<v Speaker 1>Doris Gibson and Lourie Andretzy describing the wolfish looking creature

0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.240
<v Speaker 1>they'd seen on Bray Road. The piece also included the

0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.920
<v Speaker 1>sketch that Godfrey had made from reports of the creature,

0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.440
<v Speaker 1>depicting a werewolf like animal kneeling in the road clutching

0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:46.680
<v Speaker 1>a hunk of meat. Avoiding the more dramatic and incendary term,

0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:53.840
<v Speaker 1>Godfrey named the phenomenon the Beast of Bray Road, acknowledging

0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.720
<v Speaker 1>that the stories seemed more like something you might read

0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.760
<v Speaker 1>in the National Enquirer. Linda god Godfrey fully expected that

0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:08.479
<v Speaker 1>not long after its publication the story would simply fade away. Instead,

0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.760
<v Speaker 1>it launched a media frenzy, and the word where wolf

0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:23.560
<v Speaker 1>was on everyone's lips. At the end of nineteen ninety one,

0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:29.000
<v Speaker 1>newspaper editor Joe Shackleman was relaxing at home watching TV

0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:33.160
<v Speaker 1>one evening in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when he became aware of

0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.840
<v Speaker 1>the newsreader talking about the Beast of Bray Road. When

0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.520
<v Speaker 1>Linda Godfrey's sketch or the creature appeared on the screen,

0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:47.640
<v Speaker 1>every hair on Shackleman's body stood on end. He recognized

0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:52.520
<v Speaker 1>that image. Rushing to the next room, he searched through

0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:57.920
<v Speaker 1>stacks of documents until he found his sketch. Then Shackleman

0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:05.320
<v Speaker 1>called Godfrey to relay his father's story. In nineteen thirty six,

0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.520
<v Speaker 1>Joe's father, Mark, was in his early thirties and working

0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.679
<v Speaker 1>as a night watchman at the Saint Coletta School for

0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:19.680
<v Speaker 1>exceptional children on the outskirts of Jefferson, Wisconsin. Shackoman was

0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:24.879
<v Speaker 1>out patrolling the sprawling grounds, which included orchards, gardens, and

0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:29.439
<v Speaker 1>several Native American burial mounts, when he apparently saw what

0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.919
<v Speaker 1>appeared to be a shaggy, dog faced creature with a

0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:38.840
<v Speaker 1>muscular human torso kneeling on one of the mounds, digging

0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:44.600
<v Speaker 1>into the earth slowly. Shackoman backed away and spotting him,

0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.560
<v Speaker 1>the creature did the same for a few paces before

0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:53.639
<v Speaker 1>running away on two legs. When Shackoman went back to

0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.680
<v Speaker 1>the mound the next morning. He later said that the

0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.560
<v Speaker 1>earth looked as if it had been raked over by

0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:05.320
<v Speaker 1>a claw. The following evening, Shackelmann was again walking the

0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:09.080
<v Speaker 1>grounds around midnight when he encountered the creature for a

0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.879
<v Speaker 1>second time, but instead of running off this time, he

0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:18.240
<v Speaker 1>claimed that it stood to face him. The watchman described

0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:22.359
<v Speaker 1>the beast as covered in thick, dark hair and smelling

0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.760
<v Speaker 1>like long dead meat. He said that it had fangs

0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:32.080
<v Speaker 1>and was over six feet tall. Its thumb and forefinger

0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:36.720
<v Speaker 1>seemed shrunken, so that it appeared to have only three fingers,

0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.240
<v Speaker 1>He claimed. The creature then looked him in the eye

0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.200
<v Speaker 1>and spoke in what seemed to be a proto human language,

0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:53.040
<v Speaker 1>uttering what sounded like gard ah Rah Gadara is a

0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.840
<v Speaker 1>place mentioned in the Bible where a man was filled

0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:02.719
<v Speaker 1>with demons a deal Catholic. Shackelmann later told the story

0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.040
<v Speaker 1>to his wife, making her promise to keep it a secret.

0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.560
<v Speaker 1>It was some twenty two years later, in nineteen fifty eight,

0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.960
<v Speaker 1>that Mark finally told his son Joe about it. At

0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:20.240
<v Speaker 1>his father's insistence, Joe started to draw what his father

0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:25.120
<v Speaker 1>described being corrected over and over again until the sketch

0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:30.520
<v Speaker 1>matched his father's memory. The apparent wolf like man had

0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.439
<v Speaker 1>ears that looked like pointed devil horns, a row of

0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:39.639
<v Speaker 1>prominent fangs, and no visible tale hair hung off his

0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:45.320
<v Speaker 1>arms and legs like dark lichen. Satisfied finally with what

0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.640
<v Speaker 1>Joe had drawn, his father looked down at the image.

0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.840
<v Speaker 1>That damn thing came straight out of hell, he said.

0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:06.160
<v Speaker 1>As Joe Shackleman recounted his father's story to Linda Godfrey,

0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.640
<v Speaker 1>she was reminded that several eyewitnesses had commented that they

0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.720
<v Speaker 1>thought what they'd seen was some kind of Satanic entity.

0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.000
<v Speaker 1>A committed Lutheran. Godfrey wondered if there was a connection

0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.480
<v Speaker 1>between the Beast of Bray Road and reports of Satanic

0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:29.040
<v Speaker 1>rites and devil worship in the area. The idea had

0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:33.960
<v Speaker 1>also been mooted by county animal control officer John Fredericson.

0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:40.359
<v Speaker 1>He'd heard rumors about individuals posing as animal control officers

0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.399
<v Speaker 1>in search of stray dogs. Then in the summer of

0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:49.439
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety one, Fredericson came across roughly a dozen animals

0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:53.800
<v Speaker 1>in a ditch along Willow Road, a quiet country lane

0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:59.240
<v Speaker 1>near Bray Road. Some had ropes secured around their legs.

0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.440
<v Speaker 1>Their throats had been slit, others had been decapitated entirely

0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:12.679
<v Speaker 1>or dismembered. One dog's heart had been removed. Several of

0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:18.160
<v Speaker 1>the deceased animals matched the description of missing local pets.

0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.680
<v Speaker 1>To Frederickson, it certainly looked as though the animals had

0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:27.960
<v Speaker 1>been used in some kind of cult ritual. Then one

0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.400
<v Speaker 1>law enforcement officer told him that several counties in Wisconsin

0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:37.960
<v Speaker 1>were notorious for satanic cult activity, and that Walworth County

0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.520
<v Speaker 1>was one of them. Meetings were rumored to occur in

0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:47.680
<v Speaker 1>some of the county's forested areas, but when Fredericson brought

0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:51.000
<v Speaker 1>his findings to the attention of the local police, his

0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:56.040
<v Speaker 1>suspicions were dismissed. The local police chief insisted that the

0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.879
<v Speaker 1>animal corpses were part of a boneyard for local livestock,

0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.960
<v Speaker 1>and shortly afterwards they bulldozed over the ditch where the

0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:10.959
<v Speaker 1>dead animals had been found. The satanic trail had gone cold,

0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.480
<v Speaker 1>and as the months then years passed, sightings of the

0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:22.080
<v Speaker 1>strange humanoid dog like creature dried up and interest died down.

0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.960
<v Speaker 1>Then in two thousand and two, a mysterious three minute

0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:32.600
<v Speaker 1>video came to light, presented by someone called Steve Cook.

0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.040
<v Speaker 1>Back in nineteen eighty seven, Kirk wrote a song that

0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:41.920
<v Speaker 1>fueled interest in another apparent creature, known as the Michigan

0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:46.480
<v Speaker 1>dog Man. Kerk initially claimed that he'd found the footage

0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:49.480
<v Speaker 1>on an old reel to reel tape purchased at a

0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:53.440
<v Speaker 1>garage sale, purporting to have been made back in the

0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:58.440
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventies and known as the Gabled Film. It depicted

0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.439
<v Speaker 1>the camera operator driving his pickup truck down a rural

0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.680
<v Speaker 1>dirt road, then suddenly being attacked by a huge, four

0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:11.720
<v Speaker 1>legged beast. For nearly ten years, Cook claimed the film

0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:16.000
<v Speaker 1>was real and not altered in any way, until finally

0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:19.840
<v Speaker 1>admitting to Linda Godfrey on an episode of the History

0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:31.360
<v Speaker 1>Channel's Monster Quest that the film was fake. In twenty thirteen,

0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:36.840
<v Speaker 1>Linda Godfrey was contacted by Lee Hemple, a retired maths

0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:40.680
<v Speaker 1>and physics teacher from Illinois who'd bought a forty acre

0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:46.160
<v Speaker 1>hayfield close to Bray Road, Impressed by stories his neighbours

0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:49.600
<v Speaker 1>told him about the so called Beast of Bray Road

0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.280
<v Speaker 1>having been seen on his property, who set up camera

0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:58.240
<v Speaker 1>traps documenting the mutilation and disappearance of dozens of animal

0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:02.720
<v Speaker 1>corpses in ways that he claimed defied the laws of nature.

0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:07.399
<v Speaker 1>Hemple had been filming the carcass of a sixty pound deer,

0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.880
<v Speaker 1>which he'd placed in full view of one of his cameras.

0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:17.240
<v Speaker 1>The carcass disappeared overnight, but when Hemple examined the camera footage,

0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:20.159
<v Speaker 1>at some time in the middle of the night, a

0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.800
<v Speaker 1>mist had formed, obscuring the carcass from view. When the

0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:30.800
<v Speaker 1>mist cleared in later footage, the deer was gone. After

0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:35.399
<v Speaker 1>this incident, Emple claimed to have found unusual tracks that

0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:40.000
<v Speaker 1>appeared to be the hindset of canine like prints crossing

0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:44.159
<v Speaker 1>his land, taking the evidence to the local Department of

0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:47.960
<v Speaker 1>Natural Resources, they told him that it was nothing but

0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:54.440
<v Speaker 1>an abnormal coyote. Over the intervening years since the original

0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.879
<v Speaker 1>Beast of Bray Road reports put Elkhorn on the map,

0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:02.720
<v Speaker 1>the town has done relatively to capitalize on its beastly legend.

0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:09.760
<v Speaker 1>Local opinion remains divided on whether the apparent beast is real, imagined,

0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:15.840
<v Speaker 1>or a case of mangy mistaken identity. Linda Godfrey spent

0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:19.679
<v Speaker 1>the latter part of her career researching and writing about

0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:26.000
<v Speaker 1>the Beast of Bray Road, werewolves and other cryptozoological phenomena.

0:25:26.480 --> 0:25:29.720
<v Speaker 1>She said it was something that she never felt comfortable

0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:34.840
<v Speaker 1>joking about or dismissing. Everyone wants to believe in, something.

0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.600
<v Speaker 1>She wrote in her two thousand and six book Hunting

0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:43.399
<v Speaker 1>the American Werewolf. What if you see something you don't understand.

0:25:44.240 --> 0:25:47.600
<v Speaker 1>The fear lies not in the beast itself, but in

0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:52.480
<v Speaker 1>not knowing what to make of it. Linda Godfrey died

0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:57.320
<v Speaker 1>in November twenty twenty two. No physical evidence of an

0:25:57.400 --> 0:26:05.840
<v Speaker 1>unknown canid creature has so far been found in Woolworth County.

0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:11.600
<v Speaker 1>Thank you to Paula Udelitche for suggesting this week's episode.

0:26:11.640 --> 0:26:16.560
<v Speaker 1>This episode was written by Diane Hope. Unexplained is an

0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:22.000
<v Speaker 1>av Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All

0:26:22.040 --> 0:26:25.520
<v Speaker 1>other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also

0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:30.480
<v Speaker 1>produced by Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook,

0:26:30.880 --> 0:26:34.200
<v Speaker 1>featuring stories that have never before been featured on the show,

0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:39.919
<v Speaker 1>is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes,

0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:45.440
<v Speaker 1>and Noble Waterstones, among other bookstores. Please subscribe and rate

0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:48.400
<v Speaker 1>the show wherever you listen to podcasts and feel free

0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:51.000
<v Speaker 1>to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding

0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:53.639
<v Speaker 1>the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have

0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:56.239
<v Speaker 1>an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You

0:26:56.240 --> 0:27:00.359
<v Speaker 1>can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, Twitter

0:27:00.640 --> 0:27:05.360
<v Speaker 1>at Unexplained Pod, and Facebook at facebook dot com, Forward

0:27:05.400 --> 0:27:07.399
<v Speaker 1>Slash Unexplained Podcast