Michigan Dogman

The Michigan Dogman legend entered public consciousness in 1987, when disc jockey Steve Cook of WTCM-FM in Traverse City wrote and recorded a song called "The Legend" and played it on air on April Fools' Day, according to the Skeptoid podcast. The song described a creature, half man and half dog, that had been seen every ten years in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan since 1887. Listeners then began calling the station with sightings of their own, and Central Michigan Life reported in 2017 that Cook was surprised by how many phoned in.

The reports that poured in shared consistent details. Witnesses described a creature standing 6 to 7 feet tall on its hind legs, with the body of a muscular man and the head of a canine, usually a German shepherd or wolf. The creature was covered in dark fur, had pointed ears, and moved with a combination of bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion. Its eyes were often described as amber or blue and seemed to reflect light.

The most frequently cited early encounter predates Cook's song by decades. In 1938, Robert Fortney reported being attacked by five wild dogs near Paris, Michigan. One of the animals reportedly stood up on its hind legs before the pack fled. In 1961, a night watchman at a manufacturing plant in Big Rapids, Michigan reported seeing a large, dog-headed figure standing upright outside the facility.

Dogman sightings are not limited to Michigan. Similar creatures have been reported in Wisconsin (where they overlap with the Beast of Bray Road), Ohio, Kentucky, and throughout the Upper Midwest. Linda Godfrey, the journalist who first reported the Beast of Bray Road sightings in 1991, has documented hundreds of Dogman encounters across the United States in her books.

In 2007, a short piece of 8mm film known as the "Gable Film" surfaced, appearing to show a large animal charging the camera operator. Skeptoid names Mike Agrusa as the film's maker, and Michigan Public reported in 2019 that he has since said it was a hoax.

Skeptics suggest that Dogman sightings can be attributed to bears standing upright, large feral dogs, wolves, or coyotes with mange. The power of suggestion following Cook's song and subsequent media coverage may have primed witnesses to interpret ambiguous sightings as Dogman encounters. Despite this, new reports continue to emerge from forested regions across the Midwest and beyond.