Hello r/dogman. We've recently had an influx of old content that's been debunked making the rounds again, and frankly, I'm tired of explaining it over and over, so I figured it was time to put together a sticky that I will be updating with debunked content and hoaxes. Big thanks to u/arngfunction for collecting a lot of this data for me.
Hoaxers Sasquatch Ontario
Jeff Nadolny- known to post debunked and obviously false media (including an Onion article), credibly accused of hoaxing himself
NvTv- known to post debunked and obviously false media
Lobisomem- “true” videos they post are stolen from this man
Vic Cundiff/Dogman Encounters- does not properly vet any of his guests. Many are obviously lying, and since Vic doesn’t filter those out, all other stories are brought into question.
This post will be updated as I find debunked media, so check back every once in a while if you see something that looks a bit fishy. And feel free to comment in links to proof that other dogman content are hoaxes. The worst thing for this community is the spread of false information that can be easily remedied.
The Difference between Believing and Being Gullible
Alright everyone, I think this post has been a long time coming. Not only have I seen an uptick in people posting obviously fake media thinking it's real, but I keep seeing people talking about stuff that is clearly a hoax and believing it. There’s a thin line between being open-minded and being gullible, and I think a lot of you really need a post like this to help you understand the difference. It’s going to sound harsh, but the lack of critical thinking shown sometimes is astonishing, and it sucks to see someone falling for something so blatant. Moreover, getting sucked into baseless conspiracies is how people get scammed out of their money or roped into hate groups. Think of all the old people you’ve heard of getting scammed over the phone, or the pipeline from Covid denial to more serious alt-right BS.
So the best way in my opinion to explain all this is by example. I’m going to use some well known hoaxes and one that people still tend to believe to hopefully give you the skills to better spot when someone is trying to trick you. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s embarrassing to get duped, and it makes you want to dig in your heels and get defensive, but sometimes you need to take a good hard look at claims being made and explore all the evidence (or lack thereof) to really decide if you believe it. There’s no shame in being wrong, I’ve been tricked by hoaxes too, but now that I have the skills to recognize them, I don’t have to worry about that as much. Obviously you’re not going to be able to spot every single thing, but at the very least you won’t be embarrassed falling for a bad photoshop job.
Breaking down media
A lot of hoaxes are really obvious, but it doesn’t stop people from falling for them. Hell, Merrilyn Museum SAYS it's an art project and people still think it’s real. Sometimes though, all you need is to know what to look for and you can immediately start spotting them a mile away.
The first thing to think about is a costume. Does the face LOOK like a painted Halloween mask? Then it probably is. Like most of these tips, experience is really the only way to learn. I can’t explain to you what I’m looking for to think something is a costume, I just know at this point. It also helps that I work in entertainment production, so I’m around a lot of costumes. But I don’t think that would make it any harder for anyone else. Usually, you can tell when something is synthetic. Fake fur or a morphsuit tends to have a shine to it that real fur or skin doesn’t, so if you’re noticing that in a Bigfoot or Crawler video, it’s probably that. Another thing to look for is the movement and body proportions. You’ll see lots of videos of cryptids moving in ways that just don’t make sense. Take a look at this video. Notice how it's taking big trudging steps and holding its arms out as if to balance itself? There are plenty of videos like this, where the creature is too wobbly or clearly struggling with the terrain. This doesn’t match up with the reports that Bigfoot practically glides over difficult terrain nor the common sense that a wild animal that lives in the woods should have an easy time navigating it.
I also want to take a quick moment to talk about masks. As I already said, if it looks like a mask it probably is, but another big giveaway is shine and uniformity. Here’s a perfect example from our friend Sasquatch Ontario, who we’ll talk about again later. Now looking at this, these are quite obviously masks, yet people still believe it for whatever reason. So let’s break it down for those people. Firstly, the faces are both identical, look at the forehead creases. Second, look at those soulless shining eyes, not like any eyes you’d actually see in nature. Finally, you can see some black fabric he put either to hide the edges of the masks or to hold them up there. Also of note is that while it is all black, you can tell pretty easily there’s nothing behind the fence through the holes. You should be able to see a slight difference in the same way you see the difference for the masks.
Next let’s think about CGI. Like costumes, a lot of it is just experience and knowing what to look for. In particularly bad CGI, it's obvious: the lighting is all wrong and it just looks out of place, or the movement of the creature doesn’t make any sense. However, with AI out there, CGI is harder to catch than ever, but with a trained eye you can still see it. Typically, the shading will be wrong and that’s how you can tell. Think about where the light is coming from in the photo. Then look at the creature’s shadows and its outline. If they don’t match up, that’s CGI.
Finally, the humble photoshop, tricking gullible people since 1990. Basically the same rules as CGI, check the shadows. Most of the time, you can easily tell it doesn’t belong. Another obvious tell is when the pose of the creature doesn’t make sense. Take a look at this photo.
First, notice the shading. The light source is coming from the left, yet the right facing side of this creature has just as much lighting as anywhere else. Could be another light source behind him though, so let’s move on. Next you might think to yourself that it just doesn’t seem to fit on the background correctly. It’s weirdly fuzzy around the edges and the coloration seems strange. Next, take a look at the pose. Nobody just stands there like that facing a lamppost. Now maybe it's in motion and that’s why it’s so off. If that’s the case, then why is it just letting the cameraman take a photo as it walks by without tearing him apart? Fortunately, we have the actual source for this image, it’s concept art from one of the Narnia movies. We won’t always get this lucky, but with this source image we can start to paint a really good picture of how it was hoaxed. In this case, they flipped it, added some kind of color filter to it, and then blurred it a bit to hide what makes it obviously art.
There are plenty of other ways to hoax a video, but these are the most prominent, and the logic still applies. Essentially, if it looks out of place, put some healthy doubt into it and look closer.
Something else to help debunk a claim is to look at the context and the filming itself. Be on the lookout for common found footage horror tropes. “Alone in the woods and heard weird sounds so I started recording”, “There was something following me home” etc etc. Sometimes people give really flimsy reasons for turning on the camera, and that should instill doubt. Obviously it's not a perfect system, but it should set you on alert to check for any other suspicious circumstances. Sasquatch Ontario just happened to be taking a picture of two towels on a fence (already unbelievable) and there were 2 sasquatch there? Think about how ridiculous that sounds. This sort of logic can also be applied to written encounters. Obviously, encountering a cryptid that officially doesn’t exist is already “unbelievable” but then consider the other details, such as that Sasquatch comes by their house every day yet they have no pictures, that they raised a baby Dogman from a puppy, stuff like that. If the premise of the story sounds too good to be true, that’s usually another hint it is. Usually liars who just want internet points are going to make their stories more outlandish or impressive.. A story about a guy who shot a dogman and then got harassed by the government is going to get a lot more attention than one about a guy who saw a dogman walking across the road in the dark. Or think about where the cameraman is standing. Refer to the picture above and think about how the cameraman seems to just be standing in the middle of the road taking a picture of this giant monster werewolf. Seems weird that it’s just standing there while this guy in plain view is able to get a picture, right?
Another dead giveaway is the “Point the camera at a thing for a split second and immediately wave the camera all around” thing. Of course, if you come face to face with something supernatural you’re going to be terrified so that seems completely normal. However, once you’re looking for it you can really tell when it's being overdone and forced.
Evidence Evidence Evidence
Something I cannot stress enough is that if someone is going to make an unbelievable, earth-shattering claim they need to provide evidence for it. You should not just believe something someone on the internet says at face value, especially if it's something outlandish. I’m going to be completely honest, it is downright stupid to put your full faith in someone because they “sound trustworthy”. If I tell you that I know about a super secret government operation where the US government works with werewolves in order to find the hidden treasures of Atlantis before the vampires do, I’m going to be embarrassed for you if you don’t ask me for evidence. Let’s use Sasquatch Ontario as an example again. This guy claims there’s a whole advanced civilization of Sasquatch that he’s friends with that is being covered up by the government, and they occasionally write him notes and let him take pictures to give to the people piecemeal. Now, to give him some credit, he DOES attempt to give evidence for this in the form of images of said Sasquatches (see above). However, that’s the only evidence he gives, a handful of low effort pictures and the occasional bad audio recording. But he never gives any evidence of this coverup or this civilization. Why should we just take his word for it? Especially when everything else he gives us is so suspicious?
Here’s another example: Joe Barger, the trucker who claims that he shot and killed a dogman . He then goes on to say that once he initially went public, the feds arrested him and intimidated him for killing their “asset” and harassed him in several other ways. He said they froze his bank accounts. Cool, so you can provide us with the paperwork to prove that right? That would be something you could easily prove, yet he never did.
Here’s a more generic one, not tied to anyone in particular that I can tell.
It sure is asserting a lot of facts without anything to back it up. “There are twelve species of Bigfoot in the US alone”? “Bigfoot has psychic powers”? “Bigfoot and Chupacabra work together to hunt their prey”? That’s some wild claims, yet there’s not a single citation here. Another reason now to trust this, besides the crazy claims, is that they seemingly KNOW Bigfoot have psychic powers, but they aren’t certain they bury their dead. Really?
I could list a million other examples, but hopefully you guys get the point. If someone is going to make a big claim, they need to back it up. “The government is covering up XYZ”. Okay, where’s your proof that this is true? “I was raised to be a secret black ops agent to talk to aliens”. Alright, show us something that confirms that. “I babysat for a Bigfoot family for years”. Awesome, so you have pictures of the babies then? It boils down to critical thinking. If someone is going to try to tell you everything you know about the universe is wrong, they need to back that up. If you don’t see the problem, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
I Want To Believe
I want to leave you all off with one final idea. It’s okay to believe in the supernatural. You could absolutely read this and think that I think you’re a moron for believing in aliens or Bigfoot or whatever but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. 99% of the time you’re just going to hear a story about a guy who claims he saw Bigfoot while camping, and it’s fine to take what he says at face value. If you want to be more discerning in who you believe, apply these concepts. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter if Reddit-Noob-69 is telling the truth. If you believe in Bigfoot, the veracity of that account doesn’t matter. Knowing if a story is true or not can help if you want to try to “solve” what a cryptid is or otherwise learn about the supernatural, but it’s not necessary. Where it IS important to figure out fact from fiction is when people are trying to sell you on media or some new worldview. If you just believe everything you see, you’re going to look like a fool at best, and get scammed out of your money at worst. It’s easy to want to believe in some silly hollow earth conspiracy theory or that there’s a secret alien council ruling the world to escape our shitty everyday lives, but that kind of thing can really bite you in the ass when push comes to shove and you have to use critical thinking for something that really matters.
I’m a senior at Masco, and I had just transferred there last year from another high school. My dad moved to Topsfield about 5 years ago, but I’m only with him about a quarter of the time, therefore I don’t have a huge history of being in the tri-town. Today I went to the Topsfield fair with some friends and was giving them a ride home. I dropped the first friend off in topsfield, then went down some very small wooded roads to get to my other friend’s house in Boxford. At about 9 PM I had one friend left who lived in Middleton that I had to drop off before heading home to my mom’s house in Peabody. It was my first time dropping off the second friend, so I was on very unfamiliar roads (I’ve also only been driving for about a year). I have very dark headlights, so I keep my high beams on when I can around the darker areas of the tri-town, but I was on a relatively main road in Boxford right before Middleton where people were coming toward me so I turned them off. I’m driving carefully and slowly when I see something in the corner of my left eye. It was only about 3 seconds, but from what I can remember I saw, in somebody’s dark, massive front lawn, what looked like a man on all fours crawling toward the street. It was pretty far away, and it was barely caught in the corner of my tiny dim headlights, but my eyes caught the movement. As I approached I slowed down to get a look and was struck with fear immediately. My immediate first thought was fear that it was a man crawling toward the street. A split second later I tried to rationalize, and I thought it may be a strange, large dog, but the more I looked at it the stranger it looked. My rational mind was telling me maybe it was some strangely shaped dog, or a coyote or some other animal. However, the shape was so human that I started thinking it may be a halloween prank, that someone was dressed up and going to jump out in front of my car to spook me. At this point the figure is almost completely in shadow, but the closer I get the brighter it becomes. Then, a second later, as if realizing it was going to be lit up, it began crawling backwards back into the dark. Not turning around, but slowly stalking back into the shadows. In that third second I finally snapped out of the stun of my fear and as I was about to pass it, I screamed to my friend “What the hell was that?” (I used less PG language). He had been changing the music on my phone, and by the time he picked his head up to look, I had already driven past. I explained to him what I saw, some humanoid, animalistic creature on all fours, and he said
“Oh, the dogman?”
“The what.”
I had heard this same friend bring up the dogman before, but I forgot about it because it sounded like some dumb legend people come up with when they’re bored of living in a farming town. But when he said “dogman” I froze, because that almost exactly described what I saw. Not quite a dog, not quite a man. As I write this, I have done little to no research on the dogman just so that this can be exactly from the horse’s mouth. I don’t want to give myself any biases or accidentally change my memory in any way to fit the narrative, this is just my own personal experience. The scariest part however was that I had another friend who had almost the exact same kind of experience less than a mile up the road from where I saw it. I dropped off the last friend and had to call some other friends to keep me company because I was so incredibly terrified. I am not the kind to make things up, I don’t even believe in bigfoot. But what I saw I’m having a very hard time rationalizing, especially when this is something other people have seen.
First post is linked. I'm driving across the country researching cryptids for a book I'm writing. Just camped four nights in the southern portion of Manistee National Forest in Michigan. The few people I mentioned it to weren't very familiar with Dogman, but haven't carried out any real interviews yet.
My first night in the woods, though, I heard very heavy footsteps across the dirt road from where I'd parked, crinkling the leaves. Much heavier than a deer. But very slow, deliberate, almost dragging its feet. I couldn't say how many seconds between steps because my adrenaline was going and that messes with time perception, but slow, deliberate.
I froze and had a very tense, wary, watchful, in-danger feeling. The wind changed. Silence for a few seconds. Then dogs barking energetically in the distance. Then I felt better, not as tense. And didn't hear any more footsteps.
Sure, there may be 10,000 possible natural (ie non-cryptid) explanations. I'm just relaying what I heard and felt. The believer in me says that when the wind picked up it blew the dogman's scent to the regular dogs, who started baying when they smelled it, and then it decided to leave me alone. Or maybe all it wanted in the first place was to see me, and it did.
I don't know. I was alone out there. Somehow I got the sense that was the only time I was going to hear those footsteps, that first night-- I fell asleep easily in my hammock soon after-- and I was right, I haven't heard anything since.
My car's clock was off by four hours the next day. I corrected the time when I noticed it, and then it was screwed up again by evening. Fixed it and it's been good since. My second night in the woods I couldn't get into my car at first because it had activated 'security mode' from the inside, which I googled and it seems like that can be caused by electromagnetic interference. I've read that cryptids can have that effect. Who knows.
At the end of the day, I told myself 'the king's pact binds them.' These things can't speak to us or touch us. And that's the sense I got. Afraid, but not like it was about to rip my throat out. Just... watching. Or maybe it was just a very heavy deer. Lol.
Hopefully I stay alive a couple more months to finish this damn book
I’ve been following the Dogman phenomenon for a long time, and after listening to thousands of witness accounts across countless podcasts and storytellers, I think I’ve finally found the one that genuinely terrified me.
It’s an encounter from the Land Between the Lakes (LBL). I’m sure the story has been shared on other podcasts, but something about this particular telling really got to me. The witness came across as incredibly genuine and believable, and the way he described everything was chilling. I honestly had trouble sleeping last night after listening to it.
I’ve heard plenty of scary encounters over the years, but this one really stuck with me. Figured I’d share it with anyone who hasn’t heard it yet.
The Confessionals — Episode 514: Terror in the LBL.
I don’t even like going in my small local Woods. Because of the lands history, and the stuff I’ve personally experienced. The woods play tricks. The trees are alive. I think all woods have a story, something more than we will ever know.
With how money hungry the world is I’m surprised they haven’t taken over many of these places. I guess to them a few missing hikers every year is a small price to pay to keep the unknown the unknown. But how do they keep these creatures from leaving the Parks?
Love to research and walk trails near me, particularly James a reed and monkey mountain in grain valley. Was curious if anyone has had any experiences near these areas?? Thanks in advance
It seems like an underappreciated movie topic. I've seen some of them. Dog soldiers, the howling, in London, and my favorite the one with the blind guy forgot the name. Anyway hoping to find some I've missed that are good.
Hey Everyone - so I have uploaded this image to MULTIPLE (7) A.I. image detector websites, and every single last one says that this is most likely a REAL image, with only a 6% chance of it being A.I. What do you guys think?! Is it authentic?!
🤯🤯🤯
I’m driving across the country to research a book about American folklore, currently driving toward Allegheny, PA, and then to Defiance, OH and Michigan… I’m very excited to look for the dogman. Interviewing locals as well as backpacking deep into the woods/night hiking.
Do any of you guys have tips for me for specific places to go, or people to talk to? I’ve already found the well-known sighting areas in my research, but I’ve found that grassroots info gathering often finds more…
Greetings fellow Dogman aficionados. I found out about the Dogmen from reading Vicki Regan’s “The Dogman of Blackrock Creek”. This novella is a wickedly good read. Werewolves got nothing on the Dogman. Warning you may find yourself being extra careful next time you go hiking. Check it out on Amazon.
I need help identifying a werewolf movie I saw several years ago. I remember in the movie there was a scene where someone went into this bedroom and there was a person torn apart in the bed. There was another scene where a few people were hiding in the attic and the werewolf grabbed and bit one of the people's legs. Then towards the end of the movie there was a showdown in the kitchen with the werewolf and the person who got bitten and was transforming and it ended with the bitten person and one of their relatives driving off into the wilderness because they wanted to hide the person being bitten.
I know the details are vague, I apologize. I am just hoping someone can help me figure out the name of the movie so I can watch it again.
I know it's not "Dog Soldiers" I know it's not "A Howling"
This Video covers three dogman encounters that are quite recent and definitely different than the usual ones I have come across throughout the years! Enjoy!!
My documentary is finally available on Amazon Prime. A small area in north central Indiana that’s had years of different sightings of dogman, Bigfoot, and a lot of other high strangeness.
I am writing a novel (a cozy horror, young adult fiction for this spooky season) based on the legend of Michigan Dog Man. It's not for publication or anything, just a hobby as I am interested in dog man and werewolves. The story takes place in a fictional backwoods suburban town near Michigan. So far I have wrote three parts but for the forth I need to know more about the origins of the Michigan Dog man and dog man sightings and legends in the US in general. So I thought I would ask you guys for help.
I have never been to the US before and English isn't my first language (I am a South Asian) but I have always been fascinated by the cryptids, Native American legends, the geography and the national parks and wildlife in the US.
I also want to know more about the history, how life is like in the Midwest, what geographical features (like forests, swamps etc.,), native vegetation and wildlife would a small mid western suburban town would have. For the upcoming parts I am planning that the characters would go to a camping trip in the woods where the protagonist would encounter our Dog Man (again) and I would like to know about possible real locations I could use, vocabulary associated with camping gears and stuff, and details about the terrain. Information about the native American tribes, like their lives, history etc., in the Michigan area would also be immensely helpful.
I would also love to hear about encounters you guys have had so that I can incorporate them into my story with your permission(if you are willing to share that is).
And if you guys have cool or obscure facts or elements that you would like to share or think would be interesting for the story, I would be very grateful for that too!
I wanted to know if anyone has dreamed of dogman but never saw one in real life. Like I understand dreams after hearing stories could just be my own mind but I used to have dreams of them before I ever heard about dogman. Specifically the dreams from my childhood were a hyena type that would follow me through the windows of my house and tried to get me to lure me outside. The dreams freaked me out enough that I still remember them to this day.
I've been digging into dogman reports across New York lately and the ones that always stand out are from upstate — the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Tug Hill region, the back roads around the Hudson Valley. People describe the same thing independently: a large canine walking upright, way too tall, eyes that don't react like an animal's.
I'm trying to collect firsthand accounts from people in NY who've actually had one of these encounters, and I'd rather hear them straight from the people who lived them than recycled through secondhand retellings.
If you've seen something like this in New York — whether it was years ago or recently — I'd genuinely like to hear about it.
A few things I'm curious about:
Where in NY (general region is fine, no need for exact spots)
What time of year / time of day
What it was doing when you first noticed it
How it moved — bipedal the whole time, or did it drop to all fours?
Anything about the eyes, the size, the smell
What you did, and what it did
And honestly — if you've never told anyone because it sounds crazy, that's exactly the kind of story I'm hoping to hear. Most of the good ones never get shared because of that.
I'll be reading and replying to everything that comes in. If you'd rather not post publicly, my inbox is open here, or you can reach me at michellejayne89@proton.me.
