One witness described the creature he saw as resembling those in the movie, “Dog Soldiers.”
Two detailed and interesting dogman reports showed up in my e-mail this past week; one from New Jersey and another just a couple of hundred miles north of that near Bancroft, Ontario. Both occurred in 2015. They’re also both quite lengthy and the submitters asked me to withhold their names. I am still communicating with the writers about certain usual questions, but here are (still subject to change) my somewhat abbreviated versions of their reports:
The Weird Wolfman of Worthington State Park, New Jersey
A 55-year old man who works as a physical therapist, does not drink and says he has never had paranormal experiences decided to walk his malamute dog in Worthington State Park on August 23, 2015 at about 12:30 am on a bright night. The weather had been too humid and warm for the dog in the daytime, he said, and they had set off on a pleasant park trail with no problem viewing their surroundings.
Suddenly he spotted something strange as they neared a pond. There were two figures; one lying on the ground and the other crouching over it. As he watched, the crouched figure rose onto its hind feet. He quickly pegged the prone figure as a dead deer, but squinted at the now upright beast to identify it. He quickly ruled out another deer or a bear. Its large head featured tall, pointed ears and a long muzzle, and he described its torso and upper legs as “densely muscular,” with a thin waist. “I was an avid bodybuilder for years,” he said. “The creature’s physique resembled a ‘roid-rat,’ as we called them.”
He also noticed that it walked on its toe pads as a canine does, and estimated the creature weighed something over 200 pounds and stood at between six and seven feet tall. He noted that the creature seemed poised and balanced on its hind legs, “as if to step over the deer and deliberately, adroitly, attack.”
The well-trained malamute had been sniffing intently as it waited for a cue from its owner, and did not quibble when the man backed carefully away until they reached a spot where they could safely run to the car.
“The creature is out there!” he wrote. “I do not know what I saw as far as an exact species, but I absolutely know it is something that is not recognized by professional zoology. Again, it was real but also surreal at the same time.” He did not notify park authorities, and now walks his dog near home.
Odd Ontario Canine
A man who went fishing for brook trout alone on the night of July 7th, 2015 near Bancroft, Ontario, found much more than he bargained for as he returned to his cabin via a gravel road. It was light enough out that he could see fifty feet ahead of him even without his truck headlamps on when he saw what he thought was a person standing in the middle of the road about 20 feet away. He slowed down and flicked his four roof lights on.
“It was a creature about seven feet tall, black with greyish-silver parts, hunched over with a dead rabbit in its hands,” he wrote. “Yes, hands with fingers and claws as far as I could tell. Its feet seemed to be bent backwards. It turned its head and shoulders and looked right at me. I could see its yellow eye shine.” [Typical for canine eyes, I might add.]
He could also hear it growling at him in a “low, low” tone that made the hair stand up on his neck, and at that point stomped on the gas in panic, half-bracing for impact and closing his eyes for a brief second. The creature either jumped to the ditch or laid down to let the truck, which rides 22 inches off the ground, roll over it. The man saw nothing in the rear view mirrors, however, and just kept going. He compared the creature to those in the movie, Dog Soldiers. But the episode was not over.
He made it safely back to his cabin and sat down trying to calm himself, when he heard something large walking around outside his cabin. He thought there may have even been two of them but wasn’t sure. He had a cell phone but did not have signal coverage. He did have the presence of mind to put it on camera setting and then aimed it through the slats of his window shutters. It took 3 photos of something that admittedly looks like a shadowy, dog-shaped head. I am awaiting permission from him to share those pictures.
After spending a long, anxious night, near dawn he finally thought of turning on his vehicle alarm from inside the cabin in hopes it might scare the creature away. As the alarm beeped, he made a mad dash for the truck, jumped in and drove for home, a five-hour-plus trip. He says he still has bad dreams about it.
Many thanks to both of these witnesses for sharing their experiences!
The image of a creature part man, part goat is one of the oldest in the history of civilization. It brings to mind the ancient nature god, Pan, those licentious Greek and Roman satyrs, and has long served as the basis for illustrations of the Christian devil. Most people think of anything resembling these creatures as mythical allegory. But every now and then, sightings of upright goats with sharp horns and bad attitudes show up in contemporary reports of encounters with unknown creatures. Wisconsin author J. Nathan Couch has written a well-received book, “
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