The Beast of Bray Road

When I first heard of the beast of Bray Road, I thought it had to be an episode title for Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the X-Files involving a werewolf. I’ll take partial points because numerous reported sightings refer to it as a werewolf. The folklore dates back to 1936 where a night watchman claims to have seen the beast. I’m unable to find any concrete evidence that this tale of the watchman seeing the wolfman actually happened, but I find this to be an exciting part of the myth.

The Origin Story

The year is 1936. Elkhorn, Wisconsin is a small rural town surrounded by prairies, farms, and fields. A night watchman at St. Coletta, a Catholic convent, was making his rounds out near the fields when he heard a noise, and caught a shadow of something digging into a mound. It was dark, so what he claims to have seen could be quite different from what was out there. He said from the way it was digging, it was canine-like, but too large to be a dog or a wolf. The beast stopped digging and stood up on its hind legs. It stood over six feet tall, covered in fur, had a muscular human body, and a canine face with yellow eyes. The beast let out a low growl that echoed across the field, and the man claimed to smell rotten meat. The beast stood staring at him for a moment before running into the woods.

The next night, he saw the beast digging in the same location and he claims the beast growled in a way that it seemed to be speaking to him. It ran away again. The man never saw it after that, but the growl haunted him for years. It’s difficult to say what he really saw out there those nights. The darkness can play tricks on your mind and your eyes, but I believe he saw something. There aren’t any credible reports detailing what the beast was digging into or what was in the ground. The story abruptly ends there, and not much is heard of the Beast of Bray Road again until the 1980’s and 90’s.

Most reports are of the beast kneeling or squatting near the side of the road eating or picking at road kill. Skeptics shrug the sightings off as it being mistaken for a coyote. I understand the skepticism because most claim the beast will run off. Coyotes, at least from around my part of the country, are easily spooked by human presence and will quickly run away; which many sightings state about the beast. Coyotes don’t stand over six feet tall on their hind legs, nor have I ever heard of one walking on its hinds either. It’s said to have large feet, so I feel that we’re dealing with something much larger than a coyote.

Some sightings land on the side of scary. “One woman reported the beast attempting to break into her home and later injuring one of her horses, leaving a gash across its back. She claimed the footprints it left behind were over twelve inches long. A woman spotted it crossing the road in front of her car. Another driver saw it crouched on the side of the road, eating an animal. One young girl reported the beast chasing her through the forest.”

I’m no expert, and I’ve already ruled out coyote, but this quote below about a black bear with mange could be the culprit. It’s a large animal, it’s able to stand on its hind legs, and if you remember my piece on the Chupacabra, the effects of mange changes the appearance of animals in a drastic and unpleasant way that could make it appear like a dog man or wolf man in the dark.

Local officials told PBS that they do not doubt that people saw something, but they believe it was likely just an animal and not some crazy beast. Aside from coyotes, the area is home to black bears that could be suffering from mange.

There is certainly something on that stretch of road that people have encountered. Is it a werewolf, some other form of dog man, or mythological cryptid? As most sightings of cryptids go, they’re left open to discussion, and your own interpretation of what is or isn’t; at least until there is proof.