TYPE FILE · 11 CRYPTIDs
Dogmen & Canines
Upright dog-like beasts, phantom black dogs and mysterious wild canines.
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1987
Michigan Dogman
Northwestern Lower Peninsula, Michigan
A seven-foot, dog-headed creature said to walk upright through northern Michigan’s forests – a legend born from a 1987 April Fools’ radio song.
REGIONAL LEGEND DOGMAN & CANINE · 1991Beast of Bray Road
Bray Road, Elkhorn, Walworth County, Wisconsin
A wolf-headed creature that walks on two legs, reported along a farm road outside Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and made famous by reporter Linda Godfrey in 1991.
REGIONAL LEGEND
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1936
Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine)
Tasmania’s north-west and south-west wilderness
A striped, dog-like marsupial officially extinct since the last one died in a Hobart zoo in 1936 – yet over a thousand people say they have seen one since.
EXTINCT ANIMAL?
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1577
Black Shuck
Bungay and Blythburgh, Suffolk, and the coasts of East Anglia
East Anglia’s ghostly black hound, blamed for the deadly church storm of August 1577 in Bungay and Blythburgh and still said to roam the coast.
REGIONAL LEGEND DOGMAN & CANINE · 1700s (French colonial era)Rougarou
Bayous and cane fields of south Louisiana
South Louisiana’s Cajun werewolf: a cursed shape-shifter of the bayous, born of French loup-garou tales and now the mascot of Houma’s Rougarou Fest.
FOLKLORE DOGMAN & CANINE · 1886Shunka Warak’in
Madison Valley, southwestern Montana
A hyena-like wolf shot in Montana’s Madison Valley in 1886, whose mounted body – the “Ringdocus” – now draws visitors to a small museum in Ennis.
REGIONAL LEGEND
DOGMAN & CANINE · Pre-colonial roots; recorded 19th century
El Cadejo
Night roads of Guatemala and El Salvador
A spectral dog with burning eyes that follows night travelers in Central America – the white one protects them, the black one leads them to ruin.
FOLKLORE
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1764
Beast of Gévaudan
Margeride Mountains, Gévaudan, south-central France
A man-eating predator that killed scores of peasants in south-central France in 1764–67, defying the king’s huntsmen and inspiring werewolf legends.
EXTINCT ANIMAL?
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1991
Turner Beast
Turner, Androscoggin County, Maine
A dog-like “mutant” blamed for years of eerie cries in Androscoggin County, Maine; a roadkill carcass found in Turner in 2006 tested as 100% dog.
HOAX / DEBUNKED
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1898
Black Dog of West Peak
West Peak, Hanging Hills, Meriden, Connecticut
A silent, trackless black dog of Meriden’s Hanging Hills: see it once for joy, twice for sorrow, and the third time you die – or so an 1898 story says.
LOCAL LEGEND
DOGMAN & CANINE · 1965
Dwayyo
Catoctin Mountain and Gambrill State Park, Frederick County, Maryland
An upright, wolf-like beast from Frederick County, Maryland – born in a 1965 newspaper story and remembered as the Snallygaster’s mortal enemy.
LOCAL LEGENDVideos
ARCHIVE.ORG3:32
Gable Film
Mike Agrusa (hoax creator; Internet Archive upload)The notorious 2007 “found footage” of a creature charging a cameraman – later confessed as a hoax made by fan Mike Agrusa. Worth watching as a case study, not evidence.
▶ VIDEO
The Legend of the Michigan Dogman
WGVU35 (Living West Michigan)A West Michigan public-television look at how the Dogman legend began and grew.
▶ VIDEO
The Legend 2007
Steve Cook – TopicSteve Cook’s own recording of the song that launched the modern legend.
ARCHIVE.ORG4:07
The Bray Road Beast (featurette)
Small Town MonstersA four-minute preview of Seth Breedlove’s 2018 documentary, which features Linda Godfrey and local witnesses.
ARCHIVE.ORG0:22
Last Known Thylacine Footage (1935)
Sidney Cook (uploaded to the Internet Archive)Clip from the 1935 travelogue <em>Tasmania the Wonderland</em> – the last known moving images of a living thylacine, rediscovered in 2020. Historic footage, generally regarded as public domain.
ARCHIVE.ORG1:13
Colorized Tasmanian Tiger (1933 footage)
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (re-uploaded to the Internet Archive)The NFSA’s 2021 colourisation of David Fleay’s December 1933 film of a thylacine at the Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart.