Believe it or not, Thursday was the 20th anniversary of my original news story on the creature I dubbed The Beast of Bray Road. Little did I know what it would lead to! And yes, although similar creatures are reported to me regularly from all over the US, the Beast is still spotted on Bray Road. The most recent credible report was from a middle-aged couple who saw it cross the road near Hwy NN and then easily hop a fence, all on two legs. They said its shaggy fur “flowed” in the wind.
My first book on the topic, “The Beast of Bray Road,” is now out of print but can now be had on Kindle (used book copies are quite pricey!) That was published in 2003, and fall 2012 will see my 5th book dealing with unknown, upright wolf-like creatures “Real Wolfmen – True Encounters in Modern America” from Tarcher/Penguin. No one is more surprised than I am at the creature’s longevity.
Will there be more? That depends entirely on whether enough new cases come to me or if some truly amazing evidence comes to light. I am starting to wonder if the mystery will ever be solved, but I do intend to keep investigating.
The year changes tomorrow as I enter my 21st decade of creature-seeking, and the hunt begins anew…
Today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel carries a very humorous column by Jim Stingl about the most unfunny stabbing of a man by two Milwaukee women. The stabber-in-chief said they were just trying to achieve a risque form of entertainment they called spirit werewolfism. Since many of my book titles include the word “werewolves,” I received a call from Stingl — of whom I am a fan — who wondered if I had any thoughts on the bizarre event.
I told him that it seemed like an eerie replay of a 1989 event where one Deborah Kazuck and a woman friend lured a man to their apartment and then ambushed him by leaping from behind the shower curtain with an ax. They chased him while shouting Redrum! (murder backwards). They explained later that they were trying to invoke the spirit of Jack the Ripper by “kacking” someone.The kackee survived, as did the werewolf spirit victim, but both suffered severe injuries. Stingl, in fact, wrote a 1996 column about Kazuck’s possible release from a mental hospital
The parallels seem amazing to me, as does the fact that both these cases are obvious instances of mental illness. In 1989 Jack the Ripper was popular as a violent power symbol, and right now it’s the werewolf. I’m not sure what the next big anti-hero fad will be, but I advise lonely single guys in Milwaukee to be very very careful of any woman’s apartment decorated with posters of, say, the devil. And for safety’s sake, they may want to consider dating upright canines or lady Bigfoot instead — at least no one I know of has been sent to the hospital by those creatures.
I’m a fan of fan art. I am always tickled when people send images inspired by my books on upright creatures, and am often amazed at how accomplished these efforts are. Here are two sculptures created by the Wentz family which runs a backyard haunted attraction in Ogden Utah. The first looks like a classic hellhound…
And the second is surely a Manwolf, although a bit nekkid. Kudos to the Wentz’s!
And then there is this painting by California eyewitness Anthony S. Chaney. It includes a lot more background than I reproduced here, and is a great rendition of the dogman described by many other witnesses.
I also receive many notes from writers, musicians and film makers that my research has inspired them to create something werewolfish. I applaud all original efforts and say go for it! After all, there is no more perfect metaphor for the tortured soul of an artist than the transformative loup-garou!
(Image copyrights belong to individual artists, used by permission)
The topic of UFOs is one that has fascinated me long before I heard of contemporary werewolf-like creatures. Two new books by my author friends Brad Steiger and Nick Redfern have reminded me just why I find aliens and Men in Black such compelling mind fodder.
Author Brad Steiger, or as I liked to call him, Mr. Thoroughness, never writes anything half way. This trait has endeared him to many of us who love to see as much as possible on any given topic in a book, and Real Aliens, Space Beings and Creatures from Other Worlds does not disappoint in its coverage of otherworldly entities.
Co-authored with Sherry Steiger, this 354-page tome takes readers on a meet-and-greet with intergalactic (or home-grown!) visitors of every type and description. There are the Blonde Nordics that look like us, the Reptilians that look like big lizards, and the robots that look like all sorts of things. There are creatures that want to probe us, some that seek to enlighten us and others that appear to view us as breeding stock. All of this unwanted attention begs the question: why are they so interested in humanity? The remainder of the book explores the unsettling possibilities.
Although the Steigers provide plenty of firsthand accounts of encounters with UFOs, abductions and other human-alien interactions, I like the chapters that interface with little-known historical details best. My favorite is titled Nazis and theAldebaran Aliens. It illustrates the amazing lengths – including outer space – der Fuhrer and his Nazi minions would go to in their quest for world domination. As it turns out, Hitler not only believed in aliens but coveted alien propulsion systems to the point of obsession. According to the Steigers’ research, part of Hitler’s plan involved highly trained psychics working in secret societies. The psychics said they received plans from aliens to make saucer-type vehicles that some say actually worked until rival aliens stopped them. The very complex story left me wondering how much we really know about our own history.
In the final chapters, the Steigers examine the true nature of these visitors, and suggest that far from being new arrivals, these so-called aliens may always have been with us. The Steigers also recommend that until the true nature of “grays,” “Nordics” and other non-Terrans is known for sure, we not invite personal experiences with them. I think that is probably wise.
The book includes a bibliography and comprehensive index, which makes it not only a compelling read but a valuable research resource. I give Real Aliens, Space Beings and Creatures from Other Worlds two opposable digits and three antennae up!
Men in black, mysterious figures in black suits that pop up at UFO sighting scenes like mushrooms after a spring rain, have become so solidly entrenched in pop culture that very popular – and imaginative – movies have been made about them. Nick Redfern’s new book tracks their history from the days when MIB were esoteric lore known only to UFO geeks, to today’s guys with cool shades who show up on your local theater screen. The real Men in Black are far more sinister than I had guessed.
The book was especially persuasive to me personally since it includes the experiences of colleagues I’ve come to know and trust over the years including Brad Steiger, Marie D. Jones and Raven Meindel. The terror they and many others experienced was subtle – compared to sightings of, say, Bigfoot or werewolves — yet very traumatic.
Sporting black suits and hats some have compared to those of the Blues Brothers, Men in Black started showing their pale and unexpressive faces in the middle of the 20th Century, around the same time flying saucers entered the public consciousness. Witnesses and researchers of the UFO phenomenon found themselves threatened and harassed – often in unexplainable ways – by the lurking strangers who usually drove shiny black cars. Scarily, MIB continue these terror tactics to present day, sometimes updating their transportation to black helicopters or other vehicles.
In my book, Strange Wisconsin, I reported an incident told me by a farmer in western Wisconsin who was deer hunting with his children when the three saw a UFO rise from a nearby tree top and then shoot off over a field. They were so terrified they decided to forget hunting and just leave, but as they exited the woods they saw a convoy of shiny black pickup trucks heading single file across the field in the same direction the UFO had gone. Just the sight of so many new trucks in the sleepy area was strange enough, but where did they suddenly come from and why would they all take off across someone’s field in mid-November? What was their connection to the silver, discoid craft and how did they know it was there?
Readers will discover similar weird anomalies in every tale in Redfern’s book. And after grounding readers in many frightening examples of the MIB mystery, Redfern spends the second half of the book wrestling with possible explanations for the creepy figures. Redfern notes that strange people clad in black have appeared to those dabbling in occult studies and practices throughout history. If this is true, perhaps the MIB are not connected to aliens from space at all. Redfern explores such disparate possible origins for them as elaborate thought- forms created by human imagination, time cops from far in the future and perfectly human secret agents.
Author and MIB researcher Colin Bennett is quoted extensively in the book, and he comes to the conclusion that the MIB entities appear to “eat” human energy generated by the fear they provoke. This was interesting to me because I have often said the same thing about the unknown, upright canines I have studied and written about for the past 19 years. Are strange creatures, MIB, UFOs and other scary phenomena part of some massive, unknown entity that exists just one step above us on the psychic food chain? Perhaps unreality bites.
Whatever MIB may be, Redfern and the many experts he consults agree they are not desirable company. There is one simple weapon that seems to work against them but I won’t give that away here. I’ll just say that to be forewarned is to be fore-armed, and that you will want to read this book to know what to do before the MIB come calling on you.
I love communicating with other authors, aspiring or established. Along with artists and Lhasa apsos they are my favorite people. But I recently received an email from a would-be author, of the kind that makes me say, “Oh, fudge,” and then go eat about a pound of said substance. The email was from a distant relative’s acquaintance who heard I’d had a few books traditionally published and wanted me to tell him how he could get his book traditionally published, too. I wish I knew!
Well, actually I do know. Do a mountain of work and research to make sure your book is well-written, compelling and has an audience, and then do a lot more hard work and research to find agents or publishers who are looking for that type of book, and then do even more hard work and research to learn how to properly sell it to them. And don’t expect it to happen by next Tuesday. If it happens at all.
I learned all this the hard way, and it entails far more than I could cram into one e-mail. Besides, I’m not necessarily worthy! Just having books published doesn’t make me anyone’s career expert or a fairy godmother even if I do like magic wands and pixie dust. And I’m still learning, meself.
But luckily for him, me and everyone else, in the past three or four years many first-rate agents, writers, and publishers on the blogosphere and social media sites have created a cyber-university wherein anyone can earn a virtual doctorate in Book Authorology by absorbing all the amazing FREE advice and insights a humanoid brain can hold, plus so much more it will slop right out onto your Live to Write t-shirt! I cannot post loudly enough about what a valuable development this is for every aspiring writer. I surely wish it had been there ten years ago when I was beginning my own adventures with books. Its vastness, however, can be daunting.
To get started, I told the emailer, mine the gemmy topics listed in the sidebar of top blog dog Nathan Bransford. Go deep. Then there are the perennially fresh and useful insights of agent Rachelle Gardner. I also subscribe to blogs like those of Victoria Mixon, Guide to Literary Agents and the crazy-useful Querytracker which puts powerful search-and-record tools at your callused fingertips. The esteemed pros at literary agencies such as Dystel and Goderich, including my own incredible agent, Jim McCarthy, also often take turns sharing their wisdom. All of these sites include favorite industry links that you may combine exponentially to create your own How to Succeed in Publishing and Subsume the Universe Manual.
What makes all of this even more helpful is the opportunity to get personal. Most
True Jedi Enlightenment
sites have comment sections and/or community forums filled with posts from other intelligent folks. Also, search for and follow members of the huge writing community on Twitter and then interact in real time for true Jedi enlightenment. So many people are already doing this that I can’t believe everyone doesn’t know about the depth of the Web-Lit explosion, but the emails I receive – and I’m not even an agent or editor — from unaware beginners tell me they either have no clue or have failed to take full advantage. (Another came in while I was writing this!)
I knew that this wasn’t what the nice and understandably hopeful e-mailer wanted to hear. What he – perhaps unconsciously — wanted me to say was, “Sure, even though I don’t know chickpeas about you or your book, let me set you right up!” It makes me feel bad that I haven’t the power to get anyone else’s book published, and that in turns makes me eat more fudge. And sooner or later I’ll end up on a reality show for obese writers called Pride and Fudge-udice, or The Biggest Wordsmith.
So that I may avoid such a fate, I encouraged this potentially best-selling author to delve into all the wonderful things mentioned above, and then come back with specific questions I still might not be able to answer. I haven’t heard back, so either he is unhappy OR he has become one with the online writing world and is even now empowering his own path to publication. I do hope he chose the latter.
Mystery cat taken in Rock County several years ago
The DNR’s investigation into the Deerfield horse-killing Dec. 29 is concluded today with the release of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory necropsy, said DNR Deputy Spokesman Robert Manwell in a phone interview. He sent me a copy of the lab’s report, which said the wound was not consistent with an animal attack at all.
The official description: “The distance from the soles of the front feet to the midpoint of the wound
is four feet (120 cm). The laceration is consistent with that produced by a sharp linear or curvilinear metal edge, entering the ventral aspect of the neck with considerable force at an angle. The wound is consistent with a single, large laceration. The cause of death is exsanguination.”
It sounds to me as if some warped human tried to cut off the poor horse’s head with a big knife or sword, failed, and then the animal bled to death. Why? In October, 2007, someone beheaded a juvenile alpaca on a farm near Delavan for no apparent reason. Until the culprits are caught, it is only possible to speculate about such brutal acts. And there should have been boot or shoe prints in the snow.
I should mention that the tan quarterhorse weighed over 1,000 pounds and should not have been an easy target.
Paulette Stelpflug, co-owner of Freedom Stables in the town of Deerfield in eastern Dane County, Wisconsin, experienced a sad and shocking holiday week when a stable worker found a seven-year old tan quarter horse dead with its neck torn out on December 29. Something powerful enough to take out the carotid and jugular with one “swipe” was the culprit, according to veterinarian Rene Reynolds. He added that the cut was too deep for the horse to have accidentally cut itself on something, and that no structure or machinery that could have caused such an accident was found in the vicinity.
There were, however, some good-sized animal tracks nearby in the snow. Stelpflug said they included “pokey marks” made by claws, according to a series of nbc15.com articles by reporter Zac Schultz. She believed they were cougar tracks, not an unreasonable assumption given the fact there have been confirmed cougars in southeastern Wisconsin in the past several years.
There are several potential problems with the cougar theory, however. For one thing, cougars nearly always walk with claws retracted, although claw marks could possibly show up in a track made just as the big cat was about to pounce. DNR wardens examined the entire property the following day and said the only tracks were “dog” tracks, perhaps due to that very reason. No measurements of the tracks were given by the owner or DNR.
DNR official Greg Matthews also said the attack was uncharacteristic of a cougar because no other marks were found on the horse, and no part of the horse was dragged It didn’t have to be a cougar; there are other large predators around. Black bears and timber wolves might make occasional forays into this part of the state, but a bear would have left distinct footprints. Wolves normally hunt large animals in packs, but do leave large, dog-like prints. A huge, feral dog would best fit the tracks. But none of these possible culprits seems to fit the facts of this case very exactly.
All of this reminded me of an incident in 1972 about two miles from Jefferson, Wisconsin, and only about fifteen miles east of Deerfield Township. In this instance, a horse received a thirty-inch slash in its neck and survived. But according to a DNR official I interviewed about 20 years later that had been on the scene, the horse owner saw an unknown, upright, hairy hominoid on her property immediately before the attack. The former warden, David Gjetson, told me she seemed very credible and sincere.
The woman first called him to report that she had seen a large, upright “apelike”
illustration by Nate Godfrey - hominoid bringing down a deer
creature walking in her farmyard. He investigated the site but found nothing. Two weeks later, the creature returned and boldly walked up on her front porch and rattled the front door of her house. It left deep scratches in the siding seven feet off the ground. It then walked to the woman’s horse shed, and the woman heard her horse whinny in fear. The creature then crossed the farmyard and trampled her vegetable garden where it left foot-long tracks (no description of their appearance was given). When the woman finally dared run outside to check on her horse, she found it had a deep, 30-inch gash on its neck.
Gjetson said he remembered the incident very well, and that he had been able to provide no official explanation for the attack, and could not explain what the woman saw.
These are not the only strange creature sightings recorded in the vicinity. Jefferson is also the site of the former St. Coletta Institute where in 1936, night watchman Mark Schackelman encountered a tall, unknown hominoid with long claws digging in an ancient burial mound. The beast produced a polysyllabic utterance that sounded like “Gadarrah” to the man. Gadara is a region of old Judea where the New Testament says Jesus cast spirits out of two demon-possessed men (Matthew 8).
I listed a total of about a dozen separate sightings of Bigfoot-like (as opposed to dogman-like) creatures that have occurred mostly within a corridor that runs from southwestern Jefferson County south into the western side of Walworth County and extends westward into northeastern Rock County. These incidents began with the 1936 St. Coletta sighting and span the decades until the most recent — which occurred at about 4 p.m. on July 15, 2010 just east of Fort Atkinson in 2010.
The entire region is filled with lakes, marshes and rivers and lies at the southwestern tip of the Kettle Moraine State Forest, Southern Unit. A few miles north of Jefferson and about 15 miles northeast of Deerfield is the restored ancient Mississippian village now known as Aztalan State Park with many ancient mounds, some of them flat pyramids. Nearby Rock Lake, Lake Ripley and Red Cedar Lake have all been rumored to harbor lake monsters, and a lane east of Jefferson called Paradise Road is a local spook lane where a large, winged humanoid was spotted in 2005.
In fact, my 2006 book Hunting the American Werewolf calls out a 13-square-mile area I dubbed the Jefferson Square of Weirdness because of these anomalies and more, concentrated in such a small area. Deerfield Township lies just west of my imagined square. It includes several small lakes and marshes which are present in a high percentage of anomalous creatures – but of course also provide hunting habitat for other predators.
I do NOT mean to imply that I think Bigfoot attacked Stelpflug’s horse. Bigfoot would, after all, have left those famed, ginormous tracks. Something canine seems more likely, although it would need to be a very large canine. The snow-prints from whatever it was have already disappeared due to a few days of unseasonal high temperatures, but I am hoping someone took pictures.
Although I try to be a fairly serious researcher most of the time, around Christmas the sightings slow down and — for the sake of a holiday card design — my creature thoughts turn fanciful.
This year my inspiration came from the chorus of a 1969 Tommy James and the Shondells song, Crystal Blue Persuasion. The chorus words, “There’ll be peace and good, and brotherhood,” were sticking with me like an earworm, so I decided to pass them on. Here is the resulting artwork, starring my two fave cryptids.
copyright 2010 Linda S. Godfrey
In case you are too young to know the song, check out the video on YouTube
I did have one second thought about featuring the song. Many tunes of the late 60s had something — ok, a lot — to do with altered states of mind and to be honest, I had no idea whether this one did or not and I didn’t want to be pushing LSD on my Christmas card. I was pleasantly surprised when I found the answer in this interview with Tommy James at SongFacts http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1884
It turned out to be appropriate, indeed. The funny thing is that my creature-mapping indicates more and more that most Bigfoot and Dogman sightings occur in specific, separate territories within given hotspot habitats, which should make them rather bitter enemies. But in the spirit of the season, I prefer to think of them in temporary truce mode. It works better for a card than trying to portray a crypto-turf war, anyway. Sets a better example for humans, too.
UPDATE: As of July 8 2011 please note that I now have reason to doubt the complete truth of the information given me below so I am removing names but leaving the story for now – reader beware!
Bray Road is a popular place on Halloween, usually for little reason since the original sightings heyday. But this year, on Friday October 22, four of six 20-somethings cruising around 1:30 pm saw not one but two furry upright canines about 200 yards away in the middle of a muddy field. The group from the Union Grove area were headed toward the Hwy 11 end of Bray Road (the other end joins Hwy. N in Elkhorn) when the 22-year old driver of the Pontiac Grand Am and another passenger spied a tall, brown-furred creature vanishing into some brush to their right. The photo below was in this vicinity but taken earlier.
They turned in the nearest driveway and sped back. Twenty-two year old C. soon yelled at the driver to stop because he now saw the tall creature — and a companion — in the middle of a muddy field behind the brush. He and his friend, 24-year old A., saw them at the same time. The creatures walked on “three-jointed” doglike legs clearly silhouetted in the bright moonlight, and stood an estimated seven feet tall with long slender arms. When the car stopped so did the creatures, which turned their heads to reveal long canine muzzles and tall, pointed ears. One of them had eyes that glowed a faint yellow.
First one canine, then the other, dropped to all fours and ran off into the darkness. Two of the other passengers with C. and A. saw part of the incident, and the last two passengers missed the whole thing before they could scramble into good viewing positions.
I interviewed C.and A. by phone and also spoke with A. in person. They both remained consistent and convinced by what they saw.
Does this mean the Beast is back? It is hard to say whether this was a glimpse of habitation or just two creatures passing through. It is doubtful the alleged creatures were hoaxers since rain earlier that night had turned the fields very muddy, and humans would not be likely to navigate it as quickly as the creatures were observed to do, even if they were out in the field for some reason. Humans also would have been unlikely to have run away on all fours. I am still talking to the witnesses but so far they appear credible. (ed. note: not sure this is still the case)
Because I adore all things gnomish — especially after having spent a year writing a YA novel about a warrior gnome’s quest to follow his beloved across the US even though he is too short to drive — I’m pretty excited about Chuck Sambuchino’s new book, When Garden Gnomes Attack.
I am even more excited that it is going to be featured in the upcoming issue of Reader’s Digest. I am taking this as an implicit promise that this venerable publication will next feature werewolves, and then perhaps (in turn) faeries, goatmen, mothmen, Bigfoot, hellhounds and ogres. Considering that these subjects are my bread and nectar, bringing gnomes to the forefront of public consciousness bodes very well for me and for other writers of Strange. Chuck Sambuchino, I salute you!
Besides, I own a few garden gnomes myself (although Oskar, hero of my novel The Kobold finds them ghoulish) and several times I swear I have seen the one holding the sharp spade twitch a bit when the dog or I walked past.
For the record and for comparison between the garden variety gnome and the real thing, my reference drawing of Oskar the Kobold is below. His story is complete and available, in case anyone wonders.
Sure, almost every character has shot or been shot by another character (or both), and people pop in and out of comas like the little heads in a Whack-a-Mole game. Affairs and kidnappings occur with the regularity of a Boomer on a fiber supplement, and every scene ends with one character staring vacantly into the camera so that the audience will come back for The Response.
This is what soap operas DO, and I am distraught that As the World Turns won’t get to do it any more, come September. This neverending charade of misery has been my guilty pleasure on and off since my mother hooked me in high school during summer vacation, and I am going to miss Carly, Barbara, Jack, Lucinda, Margo, Emily, Kim, Bob, Lily, weird Paul and even perky Katie and stolid Holden like I would miss a big pack of familymembers that suddenly disappeared.
I don’t get to see it every day but most soaps can be caught up with in about the first ten minutes every five years or so. It’s one reason they are so popular. They never make you feel dumb.
Besides, ATWT has hatched such stars Meg Ryan, Marisa Tomei and Julianne Moore and scored enough daytime Emmies to fill the party goods warehouse where Barbara has recently been held hostage by evil Iris Dembrowski. That’s proof enough it’s quality entertainment.
Besides, this show has entertained daytimers for 54 tear-stained years. With backstory like that, the characters in ATWT are so multi-dimensional that they frequently shapeshift from beloved heroine to hated villainess and back in the same episode. Of course, often that gets them committed to mental health institutes (I hope Meg gets out before the show ends).
Watching ATWT has even taught me a few things that have come in handy in my own work: mainly, that people will watch (read) anything if they care enough about the characters, and that a writer must never leave a scene without a gasp uttered, a secret learned, a body discovered, an illicit kiss stolen, a villain snickering, a hero passing out, a patient’s amnesia starting to lift, a pregnancy test stick turning pink, or a note carelessly tossed into a wastebasket from which it is sure to be retrieved.
But don’t misunderstand; I am not trying to justify having watched ATWT all these years – I am pretty much over the guilty part of the pleasure. I merely mourn the passing of old friends who wear designer gowns to the local burger joint and get really great facelifts every few years so that they never seem to age.
