As for the creature’s physical description, it went like this: “It was about the size and build of a full-grown greyhound and of a drab color, its glistening sides being covered with black spots as large as silver dollars.” Its eyes were set close together and its pointed ears stood tall. But, then came the most remarkable part of the story: the long-tailed animal “had an almost human face, and a bristling red moustache ornamented the proper place upon its physiognomy.”
The story continued that the animal uttered a “piteous cry” and slunk away through the surrounding brush, turning back to look at the woman as it reached the top of a nearby hill. That’s not all, though. There was something far more incredible to come. As it stood atop the hill the beast “punctured the rarefied atmosphere with sounds that reverberated among the crags” and rose up onto its hind legs.
Not surprisingly, the sight of this menacing, screaming, bipedal dog-thing “compelled a pace on the part of the usually staid horse that was a revelation to the driver.”
As she crossed one particular bridge, the woman was shocked to see a “monstrosity” standing in the road.
So, what was it that the woman saw? The references to a long tail and black spots, and its size and build being similar to that of a greyhound, give rise to the possibility of a large cat of some sort. The human-like face, however—if not a fabrication or a genuine mistake—is far more difficult to explain. As is the ability of the creature to apparently walk on both four legs and two. And yet, this latter issue is something that turns up time and time again in many of the accounts that Linda Godfrey has uncovered.
Plus, the fact that the location of the encounter was a bridge is notable. Bridges often play key roles in creature cases of a definitively supernatural kind. Take, for example, Mothman’s association to Point Pleasant, West Virginia’s ill-fated Silver Bridge, which collapsed into the Ohio River, in December 1967. Then there is the spectral, hairy humanoid known as the Man-Monkey, which haunts Bridge 39 on England’s Shropshire Union Canal. And, as one more example of many, there is the Goat-Man of Denton, Texas’s Old Alton Bridge.
Everything about this case practically screams “high strangeness!” An early Dogman report? Maybe that’s exactly what it is.
MILITARY WEREWOLF
In 2007, I penned an article for my There’s Something in the Woods blog. The article was titled “Do Werewolves Roam the Woods of England?” It was an article that focused on a strange wave of sightings of hairy, upright bipedal creatures that looked like hair-covered humans and which were seen in the heart of England’s Cannock Chase woods. But there was one big difference: the heads of the terrible beasts closely resembled those of wolves. No wonder, then, that word very quickly got out that a pack of deadly werewolves was on the loose in the area. Such is the strength with which the old traditions and folklore still prevail in the U.K.; even the local newspaper, the Chase Post, gave the reports significant coverage. And they did so in serious, rather than fun-poking, tones. That the vast majority of the encounters occurred in the vicinity of an old cemetery only served to increase the anxiety that quickly spread throughout the local villages and hamlets.
When my article appeared online, it quickly provoked numerous comments. One of those comments came from a former member of the U.S. military who, in 1970, was stationed at a certain British Royal Air Force facility in the U.K. Using the name of “Wes,” he related the following:
“I encountered a werewolf (lack of better description) in England in 1970, I was 20 yrs. old when I was stationed at RAF Alconbury. I was in a secure weapons storage area when I encountered it. It seemed shocked and surprised to been caught off guard and I froze in total fright. I was armed with a .38 and never once considered using it. There was no aggression on its part. I could not comprehend what I was seeing.
“I was in a secure weapons storage area when I encountered it. It seemed shocked and surprised to been caught off guard and I froze in total fright.”
“It is not human. It has a flat snout and large eyes. Its height is approx. 5 ft. and weight approx. 200 lbs. It is very muscular and thin. It wore no clothing and was only moderately hairy. It ran away on its hind legs and scurried over a chain link fence and ran deep into the dense wooded area adjacent to the base.
It’s a chilling thought that werewolves are not merely the product of horror writers, Hollywood, and ancient folklore and mythology.
“I was extremely frightened but the fear developed into a total commitment of trying to contact it again. I was obsessed with it. I was able to see it again a few weeks later at a distance in the wooded area. I watched it for about 30 seconds slowly moving throughout the woods and I will never forget my good fortune to encounter it … and to know this ‘creature’ truly does lives among us.”
As incredible as it may sound, and taking into consideration the bizarre events of 2007 in the mysterious woods of the Cannock Chase, Wes is undeniably correct in his stance that such infernal monsters are “among us.” It’s a chilling thought that werewolves are not merely the product of horror writers, Hollywood, and ancient folklore and mythology. It would be wise to remember that if, late one night, you find yourself walking through dense and ancient woodland, or taking a short-cut through a creepy, old graveyard, and particularly so on a night when the moon shines brightly and full, pray you don’t hear a loud, animalistic howl.
MORPHING BLACK BEAST
In the summer of 2007, a falconer named Martin Whitley, of the English county of Devon, obtained a number of photographs of a very curious, black-colored, dog-like animal on the wilds of Dartmoor—where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set his classic Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. As Whitley noted, it was June 9 when the strange affair went down. In his own words:
“I was flying a hawk on Dartmoor with some American clients when one of them pointed out this creature. It was walking along a path about 200 yards away from us. It was black and gray and comparable in size to a miniature pony. It had very thick shoulders, a long, thick tail with a blunt end, and small round ears. Its movement appeared feline; then ‘bear-like’ sprang to mind. There was a party climbing on the Tor opposite, making a racket, but this it ignored completely.”
This is a 1901 illustration from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was set in Devon County, England, where a falconer observed a dog beast a century later.
Merrily Harpur, a noted authority on mystery animals in the U.K., offered her thoughts on the handful of photos of the creature that one of the Americans with Whitley took:
“Martin’s American clients took a series of photos. They show the Dartmoor landscape, the school party on the Tor, and in the middle distance an animal which seems to change shape in each frame, from cat, to bear, to pony, to boar, to various breeds of dog. Indeed, members of the BCIB [the Big Cats in Britain research group] invoked nearly the whole of Crufts [the British version of the Westminster Kennel Club show] in attempting to give the creature a ‘rational’ explanation, while the proximity of Hound Tor suggested to some a possible