Witness sketch, submitted by Nick Gluchman
“I never heard of the Bray Road Beast until 2007 or 2008,” wrote a northern Wisconsin man named Nick Gluchman who lived in southern Walworth County until 1994. “I thought I was the only person to see it until I heard about it on TV. The minute I heard Elkhorn mentioned I felt exonerated. I’ve only told maybe four people what happened and you can imagine the responses I got. I was 34 when it happened, I’m now 65. I figured I better tell my story while I’m still above ground.
“It all starts the end of November 1987. I lost my temper and punched a door. By December 2nd my arm was swollen and turning colors, time to go to a doctor. I woke my wife up and headed toward Lakeland Hospital [outside Elkhorn, Wisconsin]. It was a clear night and and a large moon. My wife was asleep next to me as we headed north on Hwy. 12. I was in the right hand lane, well north of Lake Geneva, at 60 mph, no traffic at all, when I saw something running along the right-of-way fence which was ten to fifteen feet off the shoulder, four or five hundred feet ahead.
Diagram contributed by witness Nicholas Gluchman
“As I got closer, I thought it must be a bear, then I was confused. My bright lights were on, and I could see it was large and running on two feet so I punched it and zoomed in on it. When I was within about 100 feet it abruptly stopped and froze in its tracks. Immediately I pulled onto the shoulder and slowly moved towards it, maybe five mph. I was within twenty to thirty feet and stopped. I still couldn’t make out what it was, it was completely lit by my lights. It looked like a pile of fur coats.”
“All of a sudden it started rising. I could see massive legs, gigantic calves and thighs, hairy butt cheeks, no tail. It was still facing north, torso bent forward at the waist, about eighteen inches. I couldn’t see its head yet, now I’m really scared, must be a Squatch. I flashed my lights at it. It rose up further and without moving its feet, turned slowly at its waist to its left to look at me…
“Its legs were still bent at the knees, still leaning forward and already over six feet tall. I was mesmerized. It turned around to face me, it was no Squatch! Let me say at this point it never stood totally erect or stopped leaning forward throughout the experience. It had no facial hair although the head was covered in hair, all around face was clean. No wolf head. Wolf ears with a tuft like a lynx, large eyeballs, slightly jaundiced with what looked like red spider veins surrounding pupils. They were bulging out of sockets slightly glowing from within, like it had a light bulb in its head.
“It had a short muzzle, maybe an inch and a half, not like a dog all skin, not covered in hair. Bright pink, human-type mouth, two or three times wider than a person’s, outlined in red like lipstick. No hair on chest, two nipples visible, sparse hair on stomach, all pink. Super six-pack abs, no visible reproduction organs. Very long arms, with very long fingers that tapered to points, arm in begging position like a dog but out to side. Fingers pointing down and could see some pink on palms. I wasn’t able to see feet.
“The torso was short…this animal was a lot more legs than torso. The muscles in arms and chest did not match the awesome-looking legs. The thighs were about twenty inches front to back, calfs were cantaloupe size. Enormous!
“This animal looked at me with extreme hatred and malice. As its face contorted, its mouth opened in a sardonic sort of smile. The corners of its mouth went almost from ear to ear. Its mouth opened about four inches. It didn’t have canine teeth, more like large shark teeth . These teeth were for removing large chunks of flesh, not puncturing, in my opinion.
Instead of standing erect to look at me, it had to tilt its head way back to see me. I don’t think it was capable of standing totally erect. Its chest was heaving up and down with large blasts of vapor from its nose and mouth. It was tired of flight and ready to stand its ground and fight. It was moving its head back and forth to the right shoulder, then left. I’m sure it was making some kind of sound or howl. The windows were up and I couldn’t hear. I’ve never been that scared or more fascinated. I didn’t want to blink for fear of missing something. My heart was beating hard. We just looked at each other, I figure about thirty seconds or more. I was in a trance-like state.
“My foot unintentionally relaxed off the brake pedal and the truck eased forward a few inches. Instantly it jumped straight up and landed on the other side of the right-of-way fence. The fence was fifty inches off the ground. I know this because erecting fences is what I did for a living. It cleared it with a couple feet to spare. It took a final look at me. I started yelling for my wife to look and shook her, as it ran in a zig-zag pattern for the tree line, which was about 100-125 yards away. Linda, it ran at a speed no biped will ever achieve. It was cartoon-like; it was a blur. No animal on earth runs a zigzag pattern, they run straight for the woods. [His wife did not wake up in time to see it.]
Diagram submitted by Nicholas Gluchman
“That animal, in my opinion, had human intelligence, like it thought I had a gun. If I thought someone was going to shoot me that’s what I’d do. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about this, for the last thirty years. My description of the animal is spot on. Everything I’ve told you is the truth. I feel great getting this off my mind. I’ve learned one thing from this: There are things that go bump in the night.”
It thought it was better than me…
I talked to Nick later and he added a few more details about the creature’s facial expression. He said,
“It thought it was better than me; it had a human aspect in its face.” He also added that he felt the creature weight was about 400 pounds and that it stood six and one half to seven feet tall and would be taller if it it had been standing straight up. The eyes with red veins glowed yellow, he said, and the hair was dark to light brown and stiff, and the ears were upright like a German shepherd’s.
Regarding its movements, he said, “When it was running and came to a stop, it tucked its arms in, bent its head down and made itself small. “It didn’t know I saw it,” he said. And he emphasized that the evasive running pattern was made with sharp turns, not circles (see his drawing of this.)
Nick also said that he was uncertain that the month of the incident was November, so he asked Lakeland Hospital to check their records for the night his arm was treated and it was December 2, 1987, just as he had said. That was four years before my original article on The Beast of Bray Road was first published.
Nick added his own drawing of the creature which does look much more like a canine than a Bigfoot. The exact location must have been about four miles from where Hwy. 12 crosses the southwest end of Bray Road in Elkhorn. It may have been heading from the Lake Como area just north of Lake Geneva.
There are a few things such as the shorter muzzle and heavier weight that are a bit out of the norm for dogman descriptions, but nothing that hasn’t occasionally been mentioned elsewhere. His report is one of the most detailed I’ve ever received, and I think the location is close enough to the other Elkhorn area sightings to count this one as an official “Beast of Bray Road.”
I’m glad he decided to share it after 30 years, and I can’t help but wonder how many other untold sightings are still out there waiting to be heard.
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