Michigan - The Dogman. “50 States of Freaky!” Vol. 22 “Back in Time” Vol. 8

Michigan - The Dogman. “50 States of Freaky!” Vol. 22 “Back in Time” Vol. 8

Be sure you’re all caught up with these series! “50 States of Freaky" "Back in Time”

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Like the Loch Ness Monster, it seems that almost every country has it’s own ‘wolfman’ creature. Today we’re going to be talking about the USA’s ‘wolfman’ thanks to our next stop in our “50 states of freaky” tour! The ‘Michigan Dogman’ or just ‘The Dogman’, is a legend that dates back to 1887 in Wexford County, Michigan where a group of lumberjacks encountered a frightening dog-headed man creature. Ever since then, only a few reports of similar creatures had been reported. But, in 1987, Steve Cook, a disc-jockey for the WTCM-FM Radio station in Traverse City, Michigan played a staff-produced song called “The Legend” as an April Fool’s joke. The song was about the sightings of the ‘Dogman’ over the past century. The song didn’t gain much public reaction, until later that day when people started calling the radio station with claims that they’d actually seen the creature mentioned in the song. 25 years since the first broadcast of the song “The Legend”, Steve Cook said that he’d received over 500 reports of the ‘Dogman’. One of the more memorable reports was from a 13 year-old girl who said she’d never heard of the ‘Dogman’. She says that one day, she went out back behind her family’s home to sneak a smoke from her parents (smoking is bad children!) That’s when she says she saw a glint of light coming through the planks of an abandoned barn nearby. After watching for a few minutes, she realized that a 6 foot tall creature with a dog head was staring at her. She ran away in fear and later told a neighbor who said that they saw a buffalo sized dog in the same barn. But probably the most famous sighting of the ‘Dogman’ is the “Gable Film”. The mysterious film appeared on the internet in 2007 and was supposedly a digital version of an 8mm film. The film showed various home movie clips of a family playing in the snow on snowmobiles, chopping wood, walking, ect. But towards the end of the film a clip of the cameraman staring a big creature watching him is show. Then the creature begins to charge at him and the cameraman runs, but is caught and presumably killed. The video gained massive momentum and arguments on whether it was real or fake were started. Well, on March 24th, 2010 on the final episode of the History Channel show ‘MonsterQuest’, the video was revealed to be a hoax created by a fan of the song “The Legend”. Despite the film being a hoax, many still believe that the ‘Dogman’ is real and is still out there.

The first season of MonsterQuest was the only good season IMO. But we’re not here to talk about MonsterQuest, we’re talking about dog…people. OK, can we just call it a werewolf? Because that’s what it basically is, minus the need for a full moon. I’ve always been interested in the ‘Dogman’, but I’ve never actually believed in it. And yet, I really don’t have an explanation for what people are seeing. While I believe some, if not most, of the ‘Dogman’ sightings are made up, I do believe that a small group of people actually believe they saw something truly horrifying. I’m not sure if I actually believe their stories or if it’s just that I believe that THEY believe they saw something. I don’t know, but either way the ‘Dogman’ is still an interesting cryptid whether it’s real or fake. So where do you stand? Do you believe in the ‘Dogman’ or is it all just a legend that was made you long ago? And, what’s the best Werewolf movie you’ve ever seen?
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