Strange Beasts

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Story 1.

The Michigan Dogman

Somewhere out in the Northwoods darkness, a creature walks upright, and the best advice you may ever get is don't go out at night.

Whilst these words appear to have been born out of a harmless April Fool's joke, for the residents of Michigan's heartland, they stir a deeply rooted apprehension, a fear of a mythical beast, stories of which have been passed down through the centuries, a creature known as the Michigan Dogman.

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On the 1st of April 1987, WTCM radio personality Jack O'Malley and his production director Steve Cook were finally ready to hit play on a small project, which the pair had been working on as an April Fool's prank.

Cook had drafted a poem that chronicled the quasi-factual tales of a half-man, half-dog creature, a beast that prowled Michigan's dark forests, striking like clockwork every seven years, which was again due to make its expected appearance.

Cook had initially attempted to put his poem to some accompanying music, before finally opting to convert it into a proper song, with the intention of ginning up some harmless fear in the community.

But neither man could have imagined what would transpire following the broadcast of their composition, which they titled, The Legend.

It had been a few days since the song first aired, and disappointingly for Cook and O'Malley, their creation had so far failed to make any impact on their listeners at all.

That was until their phone lines suddenly began to light up, and a relentless barrage of callers began asking about that weird song, wanting to know when it would be played again.

The pair took a call from an elderly man who had allegedly seen something strikingly close to what Cook's poem described in his youth.

and was disturbed by the similarities.

Within only a month, the legend went on to become the most requested song on air and was also picked up by the national news media.

The composition was even updated and re-released in 1997 for a 10-year anniversary special.

Despite never having received a formal airplay distribution, and with all of the profits that were generated having been donated to various animal welfare efforts, The Legend has been heard by people the world over.

Towards the end of the poem, the listener is asked, have the dogmen gone away?

Have they disappeared?

Subtly encouraging the audience to come forward in order to relate their own creepy encounters with the fabled beast.

Over time, the good people of Michigan would go on to do exactly that.

There have been countless sightings of the dogman reported since Cook's poem first aired.

Many of these reports have been made in earnest.

and many more have been made in jest.

But as with all cryptid sightings, most of these tales are purely anecdotal, and however convincing they may sound, they exhibit little in the way of proof.

There have, however, been a handful of encounters which were supported by photographic evidence and are more difficult to dismiss.

One such sighting occurred in 1961 when a night watchman working at a manufacturing plant in Big Rapids, Michigan, was about to start his rounds of the premises.

As a perk, the guard resided in a house situated directly opposite the company he worked for.

This manufacturing plant was located alongside a large area of dense brushland, known to the locals as the Haymarsh.

The encounter was related by his son, many years after it took place, who remembered his father warning him many times not to play outside after dark.

He recalled how he'd acted skittish and claimed to have heard coyotes, bears, and other strange animals in the brush whilst walking the perimeter fence late at night.

As the story goes, the watchman was keeping an eye on the plant from his front porch, maintaining his alertness by sipping a cup of coffee and consuming a sweet roll.

It was around 3am and the shift had been uneventful, but all that would change in a matter of minutes.

There was a sudden movement along the chain link fence located at the rear of the property, and being so early in the morning, the guard suspected that mischief was afoot.

He drew his gun and continued to watch the fence line for a few minutes, until he realised that what he was looking at was in fact not human at all.

A fur-covered creature had emerged from the darkness that was far too tall to be a normal man.

It possessed broad and powerful shoulders, and alternated between walking on two legs and all fours.

as it moved silently along the fencing.

It appeared to have a canine look about it.

In disbelief, the watchman, an avid photographer, ran inside and grabbed his Kodak Signet 35mm camera.

When he returned to the porch, the creature was still prowling along the factory's driveway, directly underneath a lamppost.

He adjusted the camera for a long exposure as it was still dark.

and then steadied his hands to take the picture.

The photograph that he subsequently took shows a hunched figure standing upright on two legs, which is extremely broad and powerfully built.

It appears to be at least 7 feet tall and is covered in a thick fur coat from head to toe, seeming to have an elongated canine snout.

Immediately after the photograph was taken, the creature slowly headed back into the hay marsh, this time moving on all fours.

As proof of the encounter, the guard's son provided the photograph's original negative, clearly confident in its authenticity as celluloid film is extremely difficult to tamper with.

Unfortunately, the picture is understandably blurry due to poor lighting and instability during the exposure, meaning finer detail is impossible to make out.

Nevertheless, the image is intriguing, and the entire event was enough to convince the watchman to always carry his rifle with him.

when patrolling after dark.

In 2007, a prominent politician from Benzie County was involved in a chilling encounter as he made his way home late one night.

Given the nature of his job, the story was recounted by his brother-in-law in order to maintain the witness's anonymity.

Whilst driving back from a friend's house along Cinder Road, near the town of Bendon, The man noticed a pair of eyes reflecting the light from his high beams several hundred feet away.

He began to slow down, expecting it to be a deer.

However, as he drew near, he realised that the creature was far too large, as the eyes appeared to be standing around six or seven feet off the ground.

He had slowed down to around 30 miles per hour, but the animal had not moved an inch.

Now only a few hundred feet away, he started to believe that the creature was an extremely large dark wolf.

However, he soon noticed that the animal was not standing on all fours, but was instead, reared up on two legs, towering over the carcass of a deer that was lying by the roadside.

When the witness brought his car to a stop, he could see the creature clearly illuminated in his headlights.

It had still not moved, and he was beginning to suspect that it may be a large stuffed animal put there to scare people, when it suddenly bolted off into the surrounding woodland.

Terrified, but needing to prove to himself as much as anybody else what he had just seen, the man stepped out of his vehicle and inspected the side of the road where the creature had been standing.

By the light of his torch, he noticed a paw print in the soft mud and took a photo with his digital camera.

The print is an extremely large, dog-like impression, which is nearly 8 inches across, double the size of an average wolf print, and pressed much deeper into the mud.

indicating the animal must have possessed a considerable weight.

The witness placed a shotgun shell inside the impression for scale, showing just how large it truly was.

This lone print is not much evidence in itself, but the politician was understandably unwilling to go further into the woods after seeing the creature head in the same direction.

When asked if the animal he saw might have been a bear, he vehemently disagreed.

Being an avid hunter himself, he was well aware of what bears look like at close range.

Bray Road is a quiet stretch of of country highway situated outside the rural township of Elkorn in Wisconsin.

Whilst not part of the dogman's traditional Michigan heritage, Wisconsin borders the Great Lakes state to the west and is in relatively close proximity.

Bray Road would become somewhat notorious during the late 1980s and early 90s after a rash of sightings of a werewolf-like creature by passing motorists.

So persistent were these stories that a local reporter named Linda Godfrey Godfrey was assigned to investigate the matter.

Whilst initially sceptical, she would go on to write a book on the subject, titled The Beast of Bray Road, Taling Wisconsin's Werewolf.

During one such encounter in late 2016, a young couple were sharing a cigarette on their porch, which was located adjacent to 300 acres of vacant land.

It was not unusual for wild animals to cross this open ground near their home, but on this evening, they caught sight of a large shape moving steadily through the grass towards them approximately 30 feet away.

This animal was flat to the ground, only rising to about a foot and a half off the terrain, but they estimated it was between 7 and 10 feet long.

As soon as the approaching creature realised it had been spotted, it turned and silently headed away from them.

When it reached the cover of a nearby tree, it suddenly reared up to its full height, revealing a muscular frame covered in light brown fur, before running off into the darkness on two feet.

The panicked couple ran inside to fetch a relative, who used a powerful flashlight to illuminate the brush in search of the creature, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Whereas the Benden and Brayrod monsters were described by the witnesses as being extremely animalistic, hunched over dispatched deer carcasses or stalking their prey through the brush, there are many different reports of these creatures behaving far more like humans than dogs.

One such encounter, which went on to reach great notoriety in the fringe community, is that of Katie Zahn and two other girls, who allegedly witnessed multiple dogmen near the Avon Bottoms Nature Reserve, also in Wisconsin.

According to Zahn, she and her two friends were relaxing in a field in the summer of 2004.

when they heard the loud snapping of branches in the trees lining a stream nearby.

After trying to ignore the sounds for some time, the girls eventually decided to go and investigate.

Walking downhill through the tree line towards the creek, Zahn discovered three large dog-like creatures by the water's edge, drinking from the stream with hands cupped together as a human would.

She described the animals as being tall and muscular, covered in fur and with canine features.

One of the creatures turned to face Zahn and her friends, sending the trio sprinting back to their car, which they jumped into before speeding off.

Unfortunately, no visual evidence exists that might support Zahn's account.

However, it has been hailed by the community as being one of the more credible encounters, assisted by the fact that Zahn passed a polygraph test relating to the incident.

That said, it is worth remembering that polygraphs are not 100% accurate, and it is curious how Zahn was the only one tested, as surely her friend's statements would have been valuable too.

Assuming these encounters are true, there are a number of theories which speculate as to what these entities may be.

Some commentators believe that they are an ancient or extremely rare species of canid, for example a dire wolf.

Direwolves were a species of ancient canine, which were roughly 25% larger than the grey wolves which now inhabit the region.

They are widely considered to be extinct, yet there have been reports and even videos of extremely large wolves terrorising domesticated dogs.

That being said, dire wolves are only believed to have grown to lengths of 5 feet and were quadrupedal, so reports of 6 to 7 foot tall bipeds would seem a far cry from their reported stature.

They were also believed to resemble large wolves, rather than the hulking half man, half canine humanoid forms which are being witnessed.

Another prominent theory is that the dogman is simply a misidentification of other existing animals.

Whilst most people report seeing wolf-like creatures, as in the Bendon Road and Haymarsh sightings, several witnesses describe the beast as more bear-like.

Some sightings could potentially be the misidentification of bears which are common in the area.

Even the more dog-like reports may be accounted for using this explanation, as drastically underweight bears can be somewhat canine in appearance due to their similar skull shapes.

Bears are well within the described size range and are also known to rear up on their hind legs when encountered.

Misidentification of common creatures may go a long way to solving the question not only of the dog men, but also of other cryptids across America and around the world.

The tall hairy canine biped was first reported in Michigan.

but similar creatures have been reported all over the country, often linked to native tales told many centuries before.

But whilst this may be the most likely explanation for many of these reported sightings, photographs such as that of the haymarsh creature do not resemble a bear at all, as the rear legs are too long and slender in comparison to its torso.

Knowledgeable hunters, such as the witness of the Bendon Road monster, are adamant that what they saw was not a member of the Ursidae family.

The native Cheyenne people are reported to have established a group of warriors known as the Dogmen.

They would spend years becoming one with their spirit animal, taking on the strength and mannerisms of wild dogs and wolves, and according to legend passed down through their descendants, these men were able to transform into dogs, continuing to roam the woods and swamplands long after the majority of their people were wiped out.

Whilst this is somewhat far-fetched and impossible to prove, it is worth noting that none of those who claim to have had encounters with dogmen report being harmed in any way.

According to Cheyenne descendants, this is due to the Native American belief that evil must be brought onto oneself, and so none of the dogmen will attack bystanders unless they are provoked.

A far more sceptical explanation may be found in the sudden emergence of multiple dogmen encounters immediately after the release of the legend.

This would seem to suggest that what was being reported was somehow embellished, if not not fabricated entirely.

Steve Cook claims that his infamous creation was formed entirely in his own imagination, and that he only became aware of the original Dogman legends which predated his poem by centuries, long after its release.

Many hold the opinion that Cook's poem was simply the catalyst for the mass fabrication of the Dogman as an entity.

In other words, there had always been folklore and campfire tales of dogmen in the region, similar to how most places have some kind of mythical cryptid, which subconsciously inspired Cook and informed his creation.

However his poem, unintentionally or otherwise, grouped together Michigan's collection of cryptid tales, converting them into a single immortal identity.

As with all cryptids, Definitive evidence and reliable witnesses are exceedingly difficult to come by, but thanks to Cook's poem, The Dogman will likely be a scary story to entertain others around campfires for many generations to come.

Whether a case of life imitating art, or pure fabrication in the wake of the media spotlight, tales of dogmen continue to emerge from the upper peninsula of Michigan and its neighbouring states, and large communities are steadfast in their belief that somewhere in the northwoods darkness, a creature walks upright.

And the best advice they will ever give is is never

go out at night.

Story 2

The Beast of Java Don

During a three-year period period of the mid-18th century, a mysterious creature was responsible for the gruesome slayings of over 100 people living in a small region of southern France.

This week on bedtime stories, we ask, what was the beast of Je Voudon?

The small detachment of dragoons had ridden hard through the the night until they had finally reached the outskirts of the settlement where the latest attack was purported to have taken place.

Eagerly dismounting from his horse, their lieutenant had immediately hurried off into the depths of the village, leaving the rest of his men behind.

As the inevitable murmurs of discontent began to spread throughout the assembled riders, the sergeant moved swiftly to silence them.

These men were hardened soldiers, soldiers, invaluable on the field of battle, but in peacetime they proved difficult to keep motivated and engaged, particularly when their new commanding officer was barely an adult and from some rich Parisian family.

Ordering two of the men to stand watch with the horses, he led the rest through the narrow streets towards the main square.

where a small crowd of villagers had assembled.

In the middle of this throng knelt their lieutenant, a gloved hand clasped across his mouth and fresh vomit on his boots.

Sighing to himself, the sergeant deduced that the two corpses laid out on the ground before them were probably the first that the young officer had ever seen.

He moved forward, holding out the canteen for his superior, before kneeling down himself to inspect the bodies.

Having drawn back the first blood-soaked sheet, he he found himself recoiling before quickly replacing it.

Despite having fought against the British and their allies in India during the recent war, he had never seen such savage brutality inflicted upon a human body.

Looking around, he noted the mixture of fear and hatred in the eyes of the villagers as they quietly surveyed their new arrivals.

It seemed the distance between the city and countryside grew wider with each passing year.

Although these people now depended on the likes of him and his fellow soldiers for protection, the contempt they felt for their new guests was palpable.

Prior to their departure, the battalion commander had read the men a personal message from the king, promising a fortune in gold to whomever amongst them ended the reign of terror this supposed creature had imbued.

With the disturbing visions of the bodies he had just seen still racing through his mind, the sergeant considered riding straight back to Paris and telling the sovereign where to shove his reward.

Emerging from his thoughts, he began to bark familiar orders to the rest of the dragoons.

They were to check their weapons were in working order and then form a perimeter around the village until the arrival of the Bloodhounds the following morning.

If the beast was sighted, the men were not to fire upon it, for fear of driving it away.

Instead, attempts would be made to entice it inside the perimeter, where it could be cornered and dispatched by volley fire.

As the cavalrymen reluctantly filed out towards their positions, he scanned the assembled villagers for a priest.

Whoever the poor souls were that now lay dead at the centre of the village, The manner of their passing dictated that they should receive benediction before moving on to the afterlife.

As As much as the sergeant did not want to admit it, he knew deep down that he and his men would not be leaving this place anytime soon.

The legend of the beast of Jevoudon began towards the end of the summer in 1764.

A 14-year-old girl named Jeanne Bouleis had been left by her family tending to a flock of sheep on the outskirts of the village of Les Zoubac when she was later found killed.

Her throat had been torn out, but bizarrely, the animals she had been tending to had been left unmolested by the perpetrator.

Further savage killings followed, with witnesses claiming that the assailant was a gigantic canine creature.

It was described as being longer and broader than a wolf, russet in colour and possessing an oversized head, with a mouth full of sharp and wicked-looking teeth.

The creature only targeted the faces and throats of its victims, seemingly materializing out of nowhere and giving no warning of its approach.

As the number of fatalities steadily increased, all attempts to capture and kill the monster met with dismal failure.

It seemed capable of detecting and avoiding poisoned bait and traps, and possessed the ability to sense large groups of people lying in ambush.

Survivors who had injured and driven the creature away claimed that the wounds they inflicted had mysteriously healed, and that bullets which hunters had fired at the beast seemed to bounce off its thick hide, causing no visible damage.

In Paris, newspaper editors keen to report on something other than the country's dismal foreign affairs enthusiastically seized upon the story.

The colourful descriptions of bravery and tragedy which they published soon found their way to the court of Louis XV himself,

and it was the tale of a young farm boy named Jacques Portifé that finally prompted the king to send help to his citizens.

Ten-year-old Jacques and several other boys were herding cattle across a field near to some woods when the monster appeared from the tree line.

Ignoring the large group of cows, it instead made straight for the youngsters, who instinctively banded together and fended it off using their pikes.

Several of them, including Jacques, sustained severe injuries, prompting the king to reward their bravery by pledging to fund their future education and dispatching several parties of cavalrymen to the region to kill the creature.

These dragoons were led by Captain Jean-Baptiste Duhamel, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, who saw the posting as a possible means to atone for the army's recent string of military defeats.

Duhamel made efforts to conscript the rather reluctant local populace, ordering them to deploy across the countryside in large groups, with the intention of herding the beast towards his limited resources.

He also attempted to dress male villagers up as women, to act as decoys and lures, given the monster's propensity for attacking females.

Unsurprisingly, the region's inhabitants reacted to these demands with varying degrees of disinterest, further frustrating the already exasperated officer.

It was whilst Duomel was attempting to coordinate these efforts that one of the most famous incidents involving the monster took place.

19-year-old Marie-Jeanne Valley was crossing the River Dege with her younger sister when the beast attacked.

Using a knife affixed to the end of a wooden stave, she speared the creature through its chest and drove it away, earning her the nickname of the Maid of Jevoudon.

When Captain Duamel's methods failed to prevent the rising death count,

the royal court dispatched two professional hunters, a father and a son by the name of Dinval, to kill the creature.

Believing their quarry to be a wolf of some kind, they took a very different approach to that of the army, using bloodhounds to scour the countryside, and then setting concealed hides near to any trail they detected.

Four months later, yet more innocent citizens had been slain, and the hunters had little to show for their efforts.

Enraged with their failure, the king ordered his personal gunbearer to resolve the situation once and for all.

François Antoine, the most famous marksman in the land, subsequently arrived at Le Melesieux in June of 1765.

Three months later, he would write to the king declaring that the horror was finally over.

On the morning of September the 20th, Antoine and his entourage cornered a pair of wolves and their offspring, near to the Abbey de Chaz.

The animals were considered large for their species, with the male particularly oversized.

Without hesitation, Antoine dispatched the male, ordering that its remains be stuffed and sent back to the king.

He then set off in pursuit of the rest of the pack.

When the body of the wolf arrived in Paris, it was discovered that it possessed a double set of dew claws, suggesting that it could be the descendant of some form of wolf and dog hybrid.

Antoine returned shortly afterwards to a hero's welcome, having gone on to kill the wolf's mate and one of its cubs.

The king rewarded him handsomely, publicly declaring that the beast's reign of terror was finally at an end.

But back in the south of the country, the deaths continued.

Over the next 18 months, the bodies of a further 30 men, women and children were found with their heads and throats torn to pieces.

The authorities desperately pleaded with the court to again send assistance, only to be told that the beast was considered dead, and whatever was taking place now was their problem to solve.

Accepting that no help would be forthcoming, the people of Givoudon finally took matters into their own hands.

The coordination of their defence fell to a local nobleman named the Marquis Depsier, who organised small groups of men with extensive local knowledge or suitable skill sets and backgrounds.

Many of these men were hunters or military veterans, and some were local criminals.

And it was just such an offender who had been set free that ultimately vanquished the beast of Jevoudin.

On the 19th of June 1767, one of the hunting parties was attacked by a huge canine on the slopes of Montmouchet.

Amongst their number was a farmer by the name of Jean Chantel, who had been thrown in prison two years previously by Captain Duamel for refusing to assist in the hunt for the beast.

Chantel secretly believed that the monster which was now charging towards him was some form of werewolf or similar mythical creature.

Standing his ground, he fired upon the beast using a large calibre bullet, which had been tipped with silver.

With a deafening roar, the rampaging creature stumbled and went crashing to the ground, where it then lay still.

The body of the beast was taken directly to the Château d'Apshey, where it was cut open and human remains were recovered from inside its stomach.

It was then stuffed and held on display at the castle for doctors and surgeons from across the land to inspect.

Whilst those who viewed it could not agree on exactly what the creature was, what they did agree upon was that it was not, simply, a large wolf.

Over the centuries that have passed since the beast of Jevoudon was finally slain, there have been many theories as to what kind of creature it may have been.

Amongst the most colourful of these was that it was some form of lycanthrope, possessing extreme strength and the power to heal itself, as well as being able to call upon its inherent human cunning in order to evade capture.

This was certainly what the newly freed Jean-Chantel believed, as he incorporated silver into the manufacture of his ammunition.

And whilst many of his compatriots may not have shared his views on lycanthropy, Some did believe that the beast was the instrument of a powerful and evil force.

To the God-fearing Catholic citizens of 18th century France, it was clear that the devil, or one of his worshippers, must have ultimately been responsible for the creature's actions.

Whether the beast was an agent of the devil himself, or under the influence of some malevolent mage or warlock, the savagery with which it killed its victims was clear evidence of satanic influence.

Other, more rational, but equally conspiratorial theories were also proposed.

One suggested that a serial killer was at work, either using the beast as a means of dispatching their victims, or as cover for their own activities.

Allegations abounded that the killer may have recently returned from the Americas, adopting the traditions of their native populations and hunting victims wearing animal skins in order to hide their true identity.

This would surely have accounted for the beast's alleged supernatural qualities, its surviving victims mistaking its very human behaviour for what would be considered mysterious and incomprehensible in an animal.

Others alleged that the monster was some form of hunting dog, protected by an armour of animal hide that had been fastened to it, which might account for the ineffectiveness of the guns fired upon it.

Whilst it was known for some hunting dogs to wear armour in pursuit of dangerous quarry, such as wild boars or stags, the practice was far from common and was restricted largely to the upper classes.

Did this murderous creature once belong to the nobility?

Had it then escaped and run amok well beyond their control?

If not an armoured hunting dog, was it some form of exotic pet imported from abroad, which had escaped from a private collection?

It is along this line of thinking that the majority of commentators have settled, seeing in the various colourful descriptions of the monster the characteristics of a striped hyena, or potentially, even a sub-adult lion.

Unfortunately, the carcass of the animal killed by Chantel has long been lost in the mists of time, so it is unlikely we will ever know its true identity.

Over the three years in which it was active, the beast of Jevoudon is alleged to have killed more than a hundred people, injuring a further 50.

It is clear that both the manner in which the slayings were recorded and the mechanics of the attempts to capture it were both coloured by the politics of the day.

The fact that no further attacks took place after 1767 and no similar incidents have ever been reported since suggests that whatever the creature was, it was most likely the only one of its kind.

Whether a now extinct form of primeval predator, a hunting animal that had been trained or adapted, or something more paranormal, it would appear that the beast and its legend both perished on that fateful day on the slopes of Montmouchet.

Bedtimes glories.