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I figure the best way to start out a blog about My paranormal experiences is with My first ever article from the Grimstone Gazette. This debuted in the Summer 2012 issue of the Gazette, and it spawned my desire to research and write more and more about the paranormal.

Paranormal Urban Legends: The Legend of the Michigan Dogman

On April 1, 1987, a mere 5 days before I was born, a Traverse City, Michigan radio station, WTCM, ran a song written by Steve Cook as a spoof about the dogman. Later that year, a cabin in Luther, Michigan got attacked by an animal that authorities could not identify. There were claw and teeth marks on the door frames seven feet off the ground, and there were canine tracks and slobber marks everywhere. The dogman was blamed and a local legend was born.

Further research reveals that dogman sightings have been prevalent in this area since the late 1700s when French fur traders dubbed the animal “loup garou,” or “werewolf” in French. In 1887 in Wexford County, two lumberjacks were reported to have seen a creature with the body of a man and the head of a dog.

Local Native Americans tell of the legend of the “wendigo” or “shapeshifter,” which they blame for the sightings. The wendigo, as described by the Chippewa and Ojibwe tribes, is a man who consumed the flesh of another human being. The human was transformed into a cannibalistic monster which roams the forests searching for prey. More recent sightings have been flooding in ever since 1987 when the song first aired on WTCM. That very first day, the station got a call from a Robert Fortney of Traverse City who told the story of how he was attacked while on a fishing trip by a pack of five dogs, one of which stood on its hind legs.

The creature is reported to look like a large, strange dog which suddenly stands upright, rising between sixand eight feet tall, and taking on the appearance of a half-man-half-dog. The majority of sightings seem to center around Michigan and Wisconsin, but reports have come in as far as Alabama. Reports of sightings come primarily from heavily wooded areas in Northern Michigan.

Many skeptics think that the sightings, if not fabricated, are simple cases of mistaken identity. Other large, furry creatures which occasionally stand on their hind legs, such as a bear or even in rare cases, wolves. But witnesses and believers say that people have seen enough bears, wolves, and deer to be able to tell the difference. Some witnesses have even taken polygraph tests, proving that they truly believe they have seen the dogman.

Cook remains unconvinced, calling the whole thing, “kind of fun”, and encouraging people to buy dogman DVDs, CDs, and other merchandise in order to support local Michigan animal rescue charities. As of 2010, Steve Cook has donated over $60,000 to these local charities courtesy of dogman funds. The phenomenon has also spawned a documentary entitled “Dogman” which was filmed in September, 2011.

So what is the Michigan Dogman? Is it a werewolf akin to the sightings in Europe? Or is it perhaps something more closely related to the yeti or bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest? Or is it, perhaps, just the fruit of a collectively overactive imagination, spurred on by an April Fool’s joke made 25 years ago? Whatever the true origins of the Michigan dogman, the sightings aren’t likely to stop any time soon, and where there are reports of these strange beasts, cryptozoologists and paranormal investigators will be there to research and find the truth