Erik's foray into cryptozoology
Back in January I made passing mention of the Michigan Dog Man, and promised a future post on the topic, since I am vaguely obsessed with it. Being the day it is, and the year it is, now seems a most fitting time. You'll understand why by the end.
The Michigan Dog Man is a little known cryptid in the vein of the more famous Bigfoot, endemic to northwestern Michigan. It has never been videotaped, and rarely photographed, but sighting are numerous and have a very long history (The first sighting was in 1887), and footprints have been photographed and recorded on several occasions.
Dog men are humanoid canids that are completely covered with fur, and can move equally well on two or four feet (though they are apparently much faster using the latter mode). There is one report of a dog man swimming, in which it swam like a dog. In all modes of movement it is reported to be extremely fast. They stand approximately seven feet tall with estimates of weight usually in the low 200s, their footprints typically measure seven to eight inches, but are otherwise nearly identical with a dog print. They make growling and panting noises similar to a large dog, but also have an "unearthly scream" which has been reported in several different sightings. They usually are seen alone, but at least one sighting involved a pack, and another may have been a pack, or a single dog man leading a pack of wild dogs. They are reportedly very strong, and sometimes very violent. Nearly all witnesses report the dog man as hostile towards, and often actively hunting, the witnesses. There are at least two cases where dog men may have killed a human, and many reports of them killing livestock. When seen openly and at close range they are known to grin at people, which all viewers have found extremely unsettling.
For the most part dog men seem to be biological, and not supernatural, but there are two curious things that give them a supernatural edge. Firstly all reported sightings, without exception, are in the summer. This could be explained by an unusually long hibernation season, but another curious coincidence is that most sightings happen during the seventh year of the decade (e.g. 1887, 1997). There are exceptions to this (in fact there was a fairly well reported sighting last year in which as many as five separate dog men were said to frequent a specific area, and several students encountered them there on multiple occasions), but the majority of sightings fall on these years, and there has been no year ending in seven since the first reported sighting where they have not been reported.
The thing that fascinates me about the most about all this is that I believe my father may have had a dog man sighting. When I was a kid my brother and I once convinced him to tell us a scary bedtime story. He told a tale he claimed happened to him when he was a boy on a summer camping trip about a strange wolf-like man. He definitely described it as wolf-like, not dog-like, but it was seen only standing in silhouette through a tent wall, and running away of four legs. He also said it had a chilling unnatural howl. At the time, I assumed he made it up, and only pretended it happened to make the story scarier. It wasn't until I learned of the dog man that I rethought that. He did provide a specific year for the event, and a specific location, neither of which I can remember. He was barely a secondary character in the story, and I'm sure didn't see it himself, or had long ago convinced himself it wasn't real, but it is possible he was telling a story he had heard second hand. As far as I know he died having never heard of the dog man. I don't know if my brother remembers the story, he may have been too young. I did ask my mother about it, she does not remember ever being told the story. The last thing I will say on the subject is that I specifically remember that though he was unprepared to tell a scary story that night, once convinced he did so without pause or reference, and it sounded practiced.
The reason I picked today if you haven't guessed yet is that sightings begin in early June, and it is the seventh year of the decade...
If you are one of the Michiganians I haven't talked about this yet, and you are familiar with anything similar to this, let me know.
The Michigan Dog Man is a little known cryptid in the vein of the more famous Bigfoot, endemic to northwestern Michigan. It has never been videotaped, and rarely photographed, but sighting are numerous and have a very long history (The first sighting was in 1887), and footprints have been photographed and recorded on several occasions.
Dog men are humanoid canids that are completely covered with fur, and can move equally well on two or four feet (though they are apparently much faster using the latter mode). There is one report of a dog man swimming, in which it swam like a dog. In all modes of movement it is reported to be extremely fast. They stand approximately seven feet tall with estimates of weight usually in the low 200s, their footprints typically measure seven to eight inches, but are otherwise nearly identical with a dog print. They make growling and panting noises similar to a large dog, but also have an "unearthly scream" which has been reported in several different sightings. They usually are seen alone, but at least one sighting involved a pack, and another may have been a pack, or a single dog man leading a pack of wild dogs. They are reportedly very strong, and sometimes very violent. Nearly all witnesses report the dog man as hostile towards, and often actively hunting, the witnesses. There are at least two cases where dog men may have killed a human, and many reports of them killing livestock. When seen openly and at close range they are known to grin at people, which all viewers have found extremely unsettling.
For the most part dog men seem to be biological, and not supernatural, but there are two curious things that give them a supernatural edge. Firstly all reported sightings, without exception, are in the summer. This could be explained by an unusually long hibernation season, but another curious coincidence is that most sightings happen during the seventh year of the decade (e.g. 1887, 1997). There are exceptions to this (in fact there was a fairly well reported sighting last year in which as many as five separate dog men were said to frequent a specific area, and several students encountered them there on multiple occasions), but the majority of sightings fall on these years, and there has been no year ending in seven since the first reported sighting where they have not been reported.
The thing that fascinates me about the most about all this is that I believe my father may have had a dog man sighting. When I was a kid my brother and I once convinced him to tell us a scary bedtime story. He told a tale he claimed happened to him when he was a boy on a summer camping trip about a strange wolf-like man. He definitely described it as wolf-like, not dog-like, but it was seen only standing in silhouette through a tent wall, and running away of four legs. He also said it had a chilling unnatural howl. At the time, I assumed he made it up, and only pretended it happened to make the story scarier. It wasn't until I learned of the dog man that I rethought that. He did provide a specific year for the event, and a specific location, neither of which I can remember. He was barely a secondary character in the story, and I'm sure didn't see it himself, or had long ago convinced himself it wasn't real, but it is possible he was telling a story he had heard second hand. As far as I know he died having never heard of the dog man. I don't know if my brother remembers the story, he may have been too young. I did ask my mother about it, she does not remember ever being told the story. The last thing I will say on the subject is that I specifically remember that though he was unprepared to tell a scary story that night, once convinced he did so without pause or reference, and it sounded practiced.
The reason I picked today if you haven't guessed yet is that sightings begin in early June, and it is the seventh year of the decade...
If you are one of the Michiganians I haven't talked about this yet, and you are familiar with anything similar to this, let me know.