Artist interpretation (not forensic sketch) by Linda S. Godfrey, all rights reserved
Celeste Brady belongs to a small group of people in the world of cryptid witnesses; those who have seen saw an unknown canine, and then years later had a second encounter. Celeste’s experiences occurred near Dowagiac in Cass County, Michigan, near the state’s southern border with Indiana. Celeste recently sent me the story of her second encounter so I’ll lead with it here (still discussing the first), and will continue to add later posts from two other Michigan witnesses that have come separately in just the past few weeks.
Cass County in Michigan’s far southwest corner may seem an unlikely spot for large creature sightings, but Dowagiac is a small town surrounded by rivers and small lakes, with a Native American burial grounds just five miles or so to the southwest. Celeste described the landscape near her sightings as “very rural, very vacant.” The town’s name, Dowagiac, is from a Potawatomi phrase that means “foraging ground,” an indication of plentiful food sources. With her permission, I’ll share the story in Celeste’s own words:
It was 2008, most of the leaves were gone from the property.
I came home late at night and when I pulled into the driveway up towards the garage, I had to make a sharp turn. It was then that I saw it.I had a low spot in back with water in it, a steep hill going up in the other side. It was on the ridge across low spot. Two glowing yellow eyes. I stopped with the lights on it. The figure was hard to make out. It was the eyes that freaked me out. They were low, then they went high…very high. Then back down like the creature was crouching then standing up. It didn’t run it just kept moving up and down. I watched for about 10 minutes and got scared.
I pulled into the garage. Door down and all locked. Put my beautiful secluded home up for sale that summer and moved. The location was surrounded by woods fields and swamps. The creature I saw was very big, black with a wolf head. But bigger than a wolf. It was a werewolf. The body resembled a hyena. I know Dogman is real. Saw it in 2001.
Celeste also told me in a follow-up interview that for years prior to this sighting, she would periodically hear “a screaming noise like a hysterical baby.” And, as she added, Cass County was also the site of a well-known cluster of Bigfoot sightings in 1964 not far north of Dowagiac. It seems this area of Michigan is still a place of good foraging for more than one kind of large predator.
Celeste’s first encounter in 2001 was shared by her stepdaughter, and was also in autumn. She said, “All the leaves were gone. My stepdaughter and I were looking out the french doors to see a creature….black in color, like a big bear with haunches and the head of a wolf. It was walking up the hill behind my house. It was on all fours and walked like a panther…stalking. I had never seen anything like it in my life. The only word that describes it is werewolf.”
There is no way to know whether it was the same creature, of course. But either it was a fairly long-lived wolf or wolf hybrid, or there was a breeding population–or some other, unknown source. The next encounter was also in Michigan, with multiple elements.
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Mar 23 (7 days ago)
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