WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in, but those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.839 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness Bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:05.439 On the first day of April nineteen eighty seven, a 14 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:08.560 disc jockey in Traverse City named Steve Cook put a 15 00:01:08.599 --> 00:01:10.560 song on the air that he'd written as a joke. 16 00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:13.400 It ran about four minutes, and it was about a 17 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:15.840 creature with the head of a dog and the body 18 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:18.200 of a man that walks the north woods of Michigan 19 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:21.280 and comes back every seven years. He'd made the whole 20 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:23.799 thing up over a weekend, and he figured he'd get 21 00:01:23.799 --> 00:01:26.519 a few laughs out of it. What he got instead 22 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:29.480 were phones that wouldn't stop ringing, and the people calling 23 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:32.799 weren't laughing. They wanted to tell him where they'd seen it. 24 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:36.079 Some of them were crying. One of them had driven 25 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:38.840 back up to a rented cabin outside Luther and found 26 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:41.879 the door gouged from top to bottom, with claw marks 27 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:44.359 starting higher off the ground than any dog he'd ever 28 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:47.519 owned could reach. This is the story of what a 29 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:50.200 joke dug up in Michigan, and what people up there 30 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:52.959 say has been walking around long before anybody wrote a 31 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.519 song about it. This is the next stop on the 32 00:01:55.560 --> 00:01:59.239 backwoods cryptid road trip. Michigan's a different animal, and it 33 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:01.040 comes down to how how much of it there is. 34 00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:05.079 The state has somewhere around twenty million acres of forest land. 35 00:02:05.599 --> 00:02:08.960 The state forest system by itself runs about four million acres, 36 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:12.000 which makes it the biggest in the country. Then you 37 00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:15.479 add the huron Manisty in the northern Lower Peninsula, the 38 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:19.400 Ottawa and the Hiawatha up in the Upper Peninsula, county land, 39 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:23.039 commercial timber, and all those big private hunting parcels that 40 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:26.280 get posted every fall. What you end up with is 41 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:28.479 a state where you can turn off a paved road, 42 00:02:28.919 --> 00:02:32.000 drive a two track for twenty minutes, shut the truck off, 43 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:34.560 and be alone in the way. That means nobody knows 44 00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:38.240 where you are and nobody is coming. The reports out 45 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:41.639 of there breakdown about three ways. Somebody driving a back 46 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:44.800 road at night, somebody in the woods to hunt, or 47 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:48.439 somebody inside a building after dark with the thing outside. 48 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:50.479 Almost all of them come from the top half of 49 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:53.159 the Lower Peninsula, and almost all of them come from 50 00:02:53.159 --> 00:02:56.280 people who were out there for a reason. Nobody in 51 00:02:56.319 --> 00:02:59.599 this episode went looking for anything. They were driving to work, 52 00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:02.520 ing up a camp, walking out of a stand, or 53 00:03:02.599 --> 00:03:05.599 checking a gas well. So let's start with the road. 54 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:08.879 Ray Kazlowski drove a truck out of Grand Rapids for 55 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.560 nineteen years, mostly food service, mostly over nights, which meant 56 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:16.560 he spent two decades on two lane roads at hours 57 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:19.360 when there was nobody else out there with him. It 58 00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:23.120 was the second week of November in twenty fourteen, somewhere 59 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:25.599 between two and three in the morning, and he was 60 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:29.479 running west on M fifty five between Cadillac and Manistee 61 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:32.800 with a loaded trailer behind him. If you know that stretch, 62 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:36.000 you know what it looks like, hardwood standing right up 63 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:39.800 against both shoulders, no lighting, nothing on the road but you. 64 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:43.199 He came out of a long left hand curve and 65 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:46.639 there was an animal standing on the center line. Ray said. 66 00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:50.039 It was around seven feet tall, dark hair all over it, 67 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:53.479 with a chest deeper and wider than the hips, arms 68 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:56.599 hanging long, and back legs that bent the wrong way 69 00:03:57.439 --> 00:04:00.199 the way a dog's back legs do. The head was 70 00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:04.080 a dog's head, long muzzle ears standing up in points. 71 00:04:04.680 --> 00:04:07.400 It looked at the truck. Then it took three or 72 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:09.960 four steps over to the north shoulder and walked into 73 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:13.560 the trees, and it never once came down on all fours. 74 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:16.759 He didn't stop. He drove on into the yard at 75 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:19.199 Manistee and then sat there in the cab for twenty 76 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.600 minutes with the engine running before he went home. He 77 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:24.959 told his wife about it two days later, and he 78 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:28.360 didn't tell another soul for six years. He kept running 79 00:04:28.360 --> 00:04:31.279 that route, and he'll tell you he never came around 80 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.439 that curve again without looking. What finally changed his mind 81 00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:37.959 about talking was his son taking a job that put 82 00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:41.040 him on the same road at night. Steve Cook was 83 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:44.480 a disc jockey and the program director at WTCM in 84 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:47.720 Traverse City in nineteen eighty seven, and he was also 85 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:51.040 a musician, which is the part that mattered. He wanted 86 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:54.199 an April fool's bit. He'd picked up scraps of a 87 00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:57.120 local story about a dog headed man in the north Woods, 88 00:04:57.600 --> 00:04:59.240 the kind of thing that comes up at a bar 89 00:04:59.319 --> 00:05:02.399 and then gets before anybody thinks hard about it, And 90 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:06.040 over a weekend he turned it into a song, recorded 91 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:08.160 it on cheap equipment, and put it out under a 92 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:10.600 made up name so nobody would trace it straight back 93 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:14.240 to the station. The seven year cycle was his own invention. 94 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:17.240 He needed a hook, and having the thing come back 95 00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:19.800 in years ending in seven gave him what he was 96 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:22.959 looking for, and it also gave him a punchline, since 97 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:26.879 nineteen eighty seven obviously ended in a seven. He worked 98 00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:30.360 northern Michigan place names into the lyrics because that's what 99 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:33.800 makes people feel like a song belongs to them, And 100 00:05:33.839 --> 00:05:36.560 he pinned the whole thing to eighteen eighty seven so 101 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:39.399 it would have a century standing behind it. Then he 102 00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:43.600 played it and the phones didn't stop. Here's the actual song, 103 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:45.800 just as it hit the airwaves in eighty seven. 104 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:51.519 A cool summer morning in early June is when the 105 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:56.319 legend began. At a naval slogan camp in Wexford County 106 00:05:56.560 --> 00:06:02.120 where the Manisty rivet ran. Lumberjacks near the Garland Swamp 107 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:05.240 found an animal. They thought it was a dog in 108 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:08.160 a playful mood, and they chased it around until it 109 00:06:08.279 --> 00:06:12.839 ran inside a hollow lag A longer named Johnson grabbed 110 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:17.360 him a stick, poked around inside. Then the thing let 111 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:23.839 out an unearthly scream and came out and stood upright. 112 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:33.839 None of those men ever said very much about whatever happened. 113 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:37.959 Then they just packed up their belongings left that night, 114 00:06:38.439 --> 00:06:42.439 were never heard from again. It was ten years later 115 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:46.040 in ninety seven when a farmer near Buckley was found 116 00:06:46.839 --> 00:06:49.959 slumped over his plow. His heart had stopped. There were 117 00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:54.560 dog tracks all around. Seven years passed the turn of 118 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:57.079 the century. This say had crazy old wit a headed 119 00:06:57.240 --> 00:07:01.360 dream of dogs that strickled her house last night. They 120 00:07:01.480 --> 00:07:02.279 walked black. 121 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:03.360 Men and screamed. 122 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:21.279 In nineteen seventeen, a sheriff who was out walking found 123 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:24.800 a driverless wagon and tracks of the dust like wolves 124 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:29.199 and the stock him near the roadside. A four horse 125 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:32.759 team lay dead with their eyes open wide. When the 126 00:07:32.839 --> 00:07:36.120 vent finished up his examination. Becau said it looked like 127 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:40.399 they died of fright. In thirty seven, a schooner captain 128 00:07:40.519 --> 00:07:44.800 said several crew members had reported a pack of wild 129 00:07:44.879 --> 00:07:47.879 dogs Roman Bowers Harmy. 130 00:07:48.759 --> 00:08:02.480 His story was never recorded. In fifty seven. 131 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:04.959 A man of the cloth found claw marks on an 132 00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:08.839 old church door. The newspaper said they'd been made by 133 00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:09.759 a dog. 134 00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:19.560 P'da had to stood seven foot four. In sixty seven. 135 00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:23.160 A van load of hippie stool a park ranger named Quenland. 136 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:26.160 They'd been awakened in the night by a scratch at 137 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:31.560 the window. There was a dog man looking in and grinning. 138 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:37.440 In seventy seven, there were screams in the night near 139 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:41.679 the village ship fell air. Could have been a bobcat, 140 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:46.360 could have been the wind. Nobody looked up there. Then 141 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:50.399 in the summer of eighty seven near Luther had happened again. 142 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:54.360 Had a cabin in the woods. It looked like maybe 143 00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:58.200 someone had tried to break in. There were cuts around 144 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:00.759 the doors that could only been made by a very 145 00:09:00.799 --> 00:09:04.600 sharp teeth and claws. He didn't wear his shoes because 146 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:14.720 he didn't have feet. He walked up just to paws. 147 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:19.360 So far this year those stories have appeared. 148 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:24.399 Have the dog been gone away? Have they disappeared? 149 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:26.799 Soon enough? 150 00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:30.120 I guess we'll know, because this is the time to 151 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:37.879 fear for another ten years has come around. The seventh 152 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:44.759 year is here, and somewhere in the north woods darkness, 153 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:51.200 a creature walks upright, and the best advice you may 154 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:51.919 ever get. 155 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:58.399 Is done go out at night. 156 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:05.559 The requests were the least of what came back. Inside 157 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:07.759 of a few days, he was taking calls and opening 158 00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:10.360 letters from people who had no interest in hearing the 159 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.840 song again and every interest in telling him what they'd 160 00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:18.600 already seen out there, farmers, hunters, a woman who wouldn't 161 00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:22.120 give her name. Some of those letters ran several pages. 162 00:10:22.639 --> 00:10:25.000 Some of them came with hand drawn maps and section 163 00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:28.000 lines on them. Cook has put the volume in the 164 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:31.399 hundreds over the years that followed. He's been consistent about 165 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:34.120 all of it for almost forty years now. He made 166 00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:37.759 it up. He's never claimed the song documented anything. He'll 167 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:40.519 tell you flat out he doesn't know whether the creature 168 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:43.720 is real. And he put the proceeds from the record 169 00:10:43.919 --> 00:10:47.200 toward animal shelter work in northern Michigan, which is a 170 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:49.919 strange and fairly decent thing. To do with money you 171 00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:53.399 made off a monster. He also kept the mail, and 172 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:55.919 that's the part that turned a novelty record into a 173 00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:59.480 forty year job. He had a filing cabinet going before 174 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:02.080 he had any idea he was going to need one, 175 00:11:02.159 --> 00:11:04.000 and by the middle of the nineties he was the 176 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:08.000 closest thing Michigan had to a clearinghouse for this, which 177 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:09.960 is a lot to hang on. A man who wrote 178 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:14.240 a joke song on a Saturday afternoon, and the letters clustered, 179 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:17.279 not around the years the song said they would, but 180 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:19.919 around the same fifty or sixty miles of the state, 181 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:22.759 over and over and around the same short list of 182 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.559 things happening. Something on a road, something at the edge 183 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:30.519 of a field, something at a door. What Cook built 184 00:11:30.759 --> 00:11:35.000 without meaning to was a container. Before nineteen eighty seven, 185 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:37.559 a man in Wexford County who saw something upright in 186 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:40.480 Canine on a two track had no word for it, 187 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:43.639 no category to put it in, and no reason on 188 00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:46.039 earth to think anybody else in the state had ever 189 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:49.759 seen the same thing. After nineteen eighty seven, he had 190 00:11:49.799 --> 00:11:51.879 a name for it and a phone number to call. 191 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:55.559 Now that cuts both ways. When you hand people a template, 192 00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:59.039 you're going to get reports that fit the template. Memory 193 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:03.000 isn't a recording, it's a rebuild, and it rebuilds using 194 00:12:03.039 --> 00:12:05.840 whatever material happens to be laying around at the time. 195 00:12:06.679 --> 00:12:09.080 So a man who catches a dark shape at the 196 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:12.720 edge of his headlights in nineteen ninety after he's heard 197 00:12:12.759 --> 00:12:15.399 that song on the radio forty times is going to 198 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:17.720 walk away with a memory that has a little bit 199 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:21.120 of Steve Cook's lyrics baked right into it. I watched 200 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:24.879 that happen in interview rooms for sixteen years. It isn't lying, 201 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:28.360 and honestly, that's what makes it such a problem. The 202 00:12:28.399 --> 00:12:31.559 origin story always comes out the same way. You've got 203 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:35.120 two lumberjacks working up in Wexford County in eighteen eighty seven, 204 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:37.519 and they come across an animal that they take for 205 00:12:37.559 --> 00:12:40.879 a dog, right up until the thing stands up. One 206 00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:43.120 of them hits it with a stick or a club, 207 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.240 depending on who's telling it to you, and it turns 208 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:48.200 around and looks at them with a face they could 209 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:51.559 only describe as human. I went looking for the paper 210 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.559 on that one, and I went looking hard, because if 211 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:57.919 there's an eighteen eighty seven Michigan newspaper out there, describing 212 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:01.440 a dog headed man outside of Catalot. That changes this 213 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:04.799 entire case. It would mean the tradition beat the song 214 00:13:04.879 --> 00:13:07.879 by one hundred years, and Steve Cook backed into something 215 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:11.480 real without knowing it. I couldn't find it, and as 216 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:13.679 far as I can tell, nobody else has either, and 217 00:13:13.720 --> 00:13:16.480 that includes Cook, who says right out that he doesn't 218 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.360 know where the eighteen eighty seven story came from and 219 00:13:19.399 --> 00:13:23.000 can't source it. The date is in the song, It's 220 00:13:23.039 --> 00:13:26.120 in every article and every video, in every forum post 221 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:29.080 written since the song. Where it isn't is in an 222 00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:33.200 eighteen eighty seven newspaper. That doesn't mean nothing happened out there. 223 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:37.039 Michigan lumber camps were full of stories that never got 224 00:13:37.080 --> 00:13:39.559 within a mile of a printing press, and a lot 225 00:13:39.559 --> 00:13:42.600 of those little papers from that era only survive in pieces, 226 00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:46.080 if they survive at all. But a date doesn't turn 227 00:13:46.120 --> 00:13:49.759 into history just because it has been repeated ten thousand times. 228 00:13:50.519 --> 00:13:52.440 And you run into the same problem with the thing 229 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:55.440 you'll hear constantly, which is that the dog man comes 230 00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:59.080 out of Odawa or Ojibwe tradition. I've seen that claim 231 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:01.480 made in dozens of places, and I've never one time 232 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:04.840 seen it attached to a named source or a community member, 233 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:09.840 or a recorded telling or an ethnographic collection. The Innihionabe 234 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:13.559 peoples of Michigan have deep and complicated oral traditions, and 235 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:16.559 it's entirely possible that something in them relates to this. 236 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:20.399 But taking a modern monster and gluing an indigenous origin 237 00:14:20.519 --> 00:14:24.159 onto it without a citation is something white cryptid writers 238 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:26.600 have been doing for one hundred years, and they do 239 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:29.679 it to borrow authority that the story hasn't earned. So 240 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:32.039 I'm not doing it here. Send me a source and 241 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:33.559 I'll read it on the air and tell you I 242 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:37.039 was wrong. Robert Fortney told a story late in his 243 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:39.519 life about something that happened to him back in nineteen 244 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:42.159 thirty seven when he was a teenager out near the 245 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:47.039 Muskegon River outside of Paris, down in Macosta County. Five 246 00:14:47.159 --> 00:14:50.240 wild dogs came at him. He fired a shot and 247 00:14:50.279 --> 00:14:52.919 four of them scattered, but the fifth one stood up 248 00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:55.679 on two legs and looked at him. The part Fortney 249 00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:58.120 carried around for the rest of his life was the 250 00:14:58.200 --> 00:15:01.600 eyes stay tuned for more bad back Wood's Bigfoot stories. 251 00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:06.679 We'll be back after these messages, because he said they 252 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:09.000 were slanted, and they didn't look like anything he'd ever 253 00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:12.720 seen before or since. Now. That account didn't exist in 254 00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:16.960 nineteen thirty seven. It surfaced decades later, after the song 255 00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:20.080 had already been playing on the radio for years. But 256 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:23.600 the background underneath it holds up just fine. Michigan in 257 00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:27.360 nineteen thirty seven had a genuine problem with feral dog packs. 258 00:15:27.759 --> 00:15:31.480 Counties were losing livestock to them. The depression had turned 259 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:34.360 a whole lot of animals loose on the landscape because 260 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:37.679 people simply couldn't feed them anymore. So a teenage boy 261 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:40.720 running into five wild dogs along the Muskegon River in 262 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:43.480 that year is about as ordinary a thing as you 263 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:46.480 could ask for. The strange part is one of those 264 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:49.000 five standing up and staying that way after a gun 265 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:52.519 went off. The next cluster people always point out as 266 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:55.240 nineteen sixty seven, and it's a lot thinner than the 267 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:58.600 way it gets repeated. The accounts hung on that year 268 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:01.960 involved Mannesty and a little place called Cross Village, which 269 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:04.399 is up on the Lake Michigan shore in Emmett County, 270 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:07.960 and the Cross Village version usually has something coming at 271 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.000 a vehicle or a group of people and getting driven off. 272 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:14.200 I got the exact same result there that I got 273 00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:18.399 with eighteen eighty seven. Everything I found was a retelling, 274 00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:22.039 and every one of those retellings sits downstream of the song. 275 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:26.440 I'll say this much in fairness. Northern Michigan in nineteen 276 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:29.879 sixty seven was full of little weekly newspapers, and most 277 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:33.200 of them have never been digitized. There could be something 278 00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:36.200 sitting in a bound volume at a historical society in 279 00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:40.120 Pataski right now that nobody has opened in fifty years. 280 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:44.919 If somebody listening has access to that material, I'd honestly 281 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:47.879 like to hear from you. The only reason the sixty 282 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:50.759 seven cluster matters at all is because of the cycle, 283 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:54.200 and Steve Cook made the cycle up. So the question 284 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.600 isn't whether it's real folklore. The question is whether the 285 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:00.919 reports actually pile up in years in in seven. Once 286 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:04.000 you get enough of them together, they don't. What you 287 00:17:04.039 --> 00:17:07.640 get instead is October and November, which is deer season, 288 00:17:08.119 --> 00:17:10.519 when you've got tens of thousands of people sitting out 289 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:14.480 in the Michigan woods before daylight and after dark. Then 290 00:17:14.519 --> 00:17:17.079 you get summer, when the campgrounds fill up and the 291 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:20.519 seasonal places open back up, and then you get a spike. 292 00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:23.799 Every single time a television segment airs or a local 293 00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:27.720 station runs an anniversary piece about the song. Cook has 294 00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:31.400 never once defended that cycle as fact. He built it 295 00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:34.279 as a device, and then he spent forty years watching 296 00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:37.680 people treat it like data. The reports that came in 297 00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:41.200 after the song ran heavy in two counties, Lake and Wexford, 298 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:44.240 in that corridor of state and federal forest that runs 299 00:17:44.279 --> 00:17:49.279 between Baldwin, Luther Cadillac, and Maynistee. If you've driven it, 300 00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:53.559 you know that country. It's rolling hardwood and pine with sand, 301 00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:57.200 two tracks running off everywhere, and oil and gas access 302 00:17:57.279 --> 00:18:01.160 roads and seasonal cabins and long, unlit stretches where the 303 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:04.599 only buildings you go past are hunting camps. Lake County 304 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:06.920 is one of the least populated counties in the whole 305 00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:10.640 Lower Peninsula, and something like two thirds of its public land. 306 00:18:11.559 --> 00:18:14.359 Baldwin has a few hundred year round residents, and it 307 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:18.200 swells up every fall. The Pair Marquette and the Little 308 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:20.880 Mannistee both run through there, and they bring fishermen in 309 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:24.440 from April all the way through October. There are thousands 310 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:26.880 of little parcels up in that country with a camp 311 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:29.640 sitting on them, and nobody living there eleven months out 312 00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:31.839 of the year. So the people who are in that 313 00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:35.559 corridor at any given hour are mostly passing through, and 314 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:38.839 they're mostly outdoors, and they're mostly out at the edges 315 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:41.799 of daylight, and most of them aren't from there. That's 316 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.640 who's producing the reports. The Luther case got more traction 317 00:18:45.759 --> 00:18:48.279 than anything else, and it's the only one in this 318 00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:51.400 entire file where somebody claims to have had a thing 319 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:55.359 you could put your hands on. In nineteen eighty seven, 320 00:18:55.640 --> 00:18:58.480 not long after the song hit, a cabin near Luther 321 00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:02.720 was found damaged. There were deep parallel gouges running down 322 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:05.319 the outside of the door, and there was damage around 323 00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:08.480 the frame, and in some tellings the inside was torn 324 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:11.920 up too. Photographs got taken, and Cook has said he 325 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:14.880 was given copies of them. What made it famous was 326 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:17.519 how high up the marks went and how far apart 327 00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:20.640 the claws were, because the spacing was wider than any 328 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:24.559 big dog's paw. I've never seen the original photographs. What 329 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:28.079 circulates now as copies of copies, And there's no ruler 330 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:31.759 anywhere in the frame, and there's no measurement off the threshold, 331 00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:34.319 and there's no record of who shot them, or when 332 00:19:34.519 --> 00:19:38.400 or under what circumstances. The door itself is long gone, 333 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:41.960 and nobody have asked knows where it ended up. The 334 00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:44.839 skeptics landed on a black bear standing up at that door, 335 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:47.880 working at food inside the cabin, and Lake County is 336 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:50.799 bear country, so that's a fair place for them to land. 337 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:54.480 It has been the standard answer for forty years, and 338 00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:58.119 the folks making it aren't quiet about it. What sits 339 00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:01.240 right alongside it. And Cook's tai is that the man 340 00:20:01.319 --> 00:20:04.319 heard something moving around the outside of that building first, 341 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:06.680 and he heard a sound he couldn't put a name to. 342 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:11.279 In September of twenty eleven, three people from downstate drove 343 00:20:11.359 --> 00:20:15.079 up to disperse camp in the Manistee National Forest. Aaron 344 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:17.519 Voss was thirty one and he'd been camping in that 345 00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:20.599 forest since he was a little kid. His brother in law, 346 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:23.960 Nick was twenty six, and Nick's girlfriend Bethany was twenty 347 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:26.319 four and she'd never in her life slept anywhere but 348 00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:29.759 a developed campground. They took a two track off of 349 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:32.000 a forest road and set up in a little clearing 350 00:20:32.039 --> 00:20:35.559 about a quarter mile in. They had two tents and 351 00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.680 there was an old fire ring. Somebody had built years before, 352 00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:41.359 and they had a cooler in the bed of Aaron's truck. 353 00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:45.440 There was nothing unusual about the spot at all. Aaron 354 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:48.119 had camped within a mile of it a dozen times. 355 00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:51.559 Around eleven that night, the coyotes started up somewhere off 356 00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:54.400 to the north of them, and it spooked Bethany pretty good. 357 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:57.839 So Aaron explained to her that four coyotes sound like 358 00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:01.079 twenty of them, which is true, and she settled down. 359 00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:04.200 They put the fire out around midnight and everybody went 360 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:08.119 into the tents. Sometime after two, Aaron woke up because 361 00:21:08.119 --> 00:21:11.480 something walked past his tent. He'd been asleep maybe an 362 00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:14.160 hour and a half. There was no moon that night, 363 00:21:14.599 --> 00:21:16.680 and the fire had been dead long enough that there 364 00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:18.920 was nothing left in the ring to see anything by. 365 00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:22.839 He never saw a thing, and he's never once claimed 366 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:26.319 that he did. What he had was footsteps in dry 367 00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:29.079 leaf litter, about fifteen or twenty feet off of his 368 00:21:29.160 --> 00:21:32.960 tent wall. It was two steps and then a pause, 369 00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:38.319 then two more steps and then another pause, slow, and 370 00:21:38.359 --> 00:21:41.920 even the whole way around. Then Nick's voice came out 371 00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:45.359 of the other tent, real quiet, just saying his name. 372 00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:48.519 The steps worked around the north side of the clearing, 373 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:51.480 and then stopped for close to a full minute. Then 374 00:21:51.519 --> 00:21:54.319 they started back up, heading east, and then they quit 375 00:21:54.359 --> 00:21:56.880 for good. And somewhere in the middle of all that, 376 00:21:57.079 --> 00:22:00.440 the coyotes had gone completely silent. And Aaron and tell 377 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.119 you when around three point thirty he couldn't take it 378 00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:05.119 anymore and he got out of the tent with a 379 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:08.680 flashlight and there was nothing out there to find. The 380 00:22:08.680 --> 00:22:11.839 ground up in that country is sand underneath the leaf litter, 381 00:22:12.039 --> 00:22:14.720 and it won't hold a track. Then in the morning, 382 00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:17.599 before anybody had said one word to her about any 383 00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:20.319 of it, Bethany asked which of them had walked past 384 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:23.480 her tent during the night. She said she woke up 385 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.400 at some point and heard something breathing outside the fabric 386 00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:28.920 right by her head, and she figured it was Nick 387 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:32.319 going out to relieve himself. But Nick never left his tent, 388 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.559 and Aaron hadn't gone out until three thirty, and when 389 00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:39.319 he did, he went the other direction. Aaron got everybody 390 00:22:39.319 --> 00:22:41.640 into the truck before he did anything else. That morning, 391 00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:44.480 the tents came down with the poles still in them, 392 00:22:44.680 --> 00:22:47.000 and went in the bed loose, which is something he 393 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:50.960 had never done before, and hasn't done since. They stopped 394 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:53.559 for coffee at a gas station in Wellston and Nick 395 00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:55.559 asked him if they were still coming back up in 396 00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:59.240 November for deer season. Aaron told him he'd think about it, 397 00:22:59.400 --> 00:23:02.319 and then he started talking about the truck's transmission, and 398 00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:04.599 they talked about that transmission the whole rest of the 399 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:08.839 way home. They didn't go back that November. Aaron still 400 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:12.319 camps the Maynistee. He's never gone back to that two track. 401 00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:15.920