Folklore in the making (part 1)

 

So I looked into Dogman...again. It seems the skeptics are mostly right about this one. While strange reports of doglike creatures are as old as civilization, the modern Dogman seems to be a piece of emerging folklore which can be traced back to an April Fool´s Joke in 1987 (Michigan) and to Linda Godfrey´s article on the Beast of Bray Road in 1991 (Wisconsin). Godfrey´s subsequent book (published in 2003) plus the Internet popularized the Dogman and also "streamlined" him. 

Previously, there wasn´t really a single Dogman phenomenon. Now, there is. The creature is virtually always depicted as large, bipedal, intelligent, extremely dangerous and obviously canid. It´s also a flesh-and-blood creature. Finally, note the difference between Dogman and werewolves: the latter are said to be humans who can shape-shift into standard quadrupedal wolves.

Of course, a paranormal explanation is also possible, and the Dogmen would then be fairies taking whatever form we expect them to...

Can you look specifically at the earliest Bray Road reports and list what each witness actually said about whether the creature was walking on two or four legs?

Yes. I went back specifically to the earliest material, rather than relying on later Dogman summaries. The picture is actually more nuanced than I suggested before: some of the earliest Bray Road-area reports explicitly involve four-legged movement, while others involve upright movement or a transition between the two.

The most important source is Linda Godfrey's contemporary December 29, 1991 article in The Week, because it records testimony and the Humane Officer's files at the time, rather than decades later.

Earliest reports, approximately 1989–1991

Witness/report	Approx. date	What was actually reported about locomotion
Lorianne Endrizzi ("Barbara")	1989	Kneeling, not simply standing. She saw the creature beside Bray Road eating roadkill. Its knees were bent "like a human would do"; elbows were up and it held the food in its hands/paws. She did not actually describe seeing it walk on two legs.
Scott Bray	~1989	Reported a very large dog/wolf-like animal. Later accounts describe it principally as quadrupedal. The available contemporary 1991 article does not give a detailed locomotion account for his sighting.
Russell Gest / Heather Bowey group	~1990	This is particularly interesting. Heather and the other children initially thought they were looking at a large dog. It then stood up, and subsequently ran toward them "kind of like a dog," with bigger leaps. Thus this account explicitly contains both four-legged and upright behavior.
Mike Etten	~1990	Reported seeing a large animal sitting on its haunches, holding roadkill. This is not necessarily evidence of habitual bipedalism; the posture could be interpreted as a quadruped sitting upright.
Doris Gipson (Pat in the original article)	Oct. 31, 1991	Saw the creature running toward her after she got out of her car. She specifically qualified her interpretation: "you could suggest that it was on two legs," because she could see its chest so clearly. Thus probably bipedal, but she herself expressed some uncertainty.
Other reports in Jon Fredrickson's "Werewolf" file	pre-Dec. 1991	At least one report involved a hairy, pointed-eared creature chasing a deer on two legs. Another involved a fast "man-like" creature. These were already in the Humane Officer's files before Godfrey's article.
Robert Bushman and wife	reported as 1991 in later chronologies	Four-legged animal, described as running/chasing a deer. This is consistent with the quadrupedal strand of the reports.

The Endrizzi report is especially revealing

This is the famous image that essentially became the visual prototype of the Beast of Bray Road.

Endrizzi did not see a seven-foot humanoid walking down the road.

She saw something kneeling beside the road, with its back toward her, eating something. Its elbows were raised and its claws/forepaws were turned outward. When she drove past, it turned its head toward her but didn't flee. She estimated it at about 5'7" and 150 lb.

Godfrey's original sketch consequently depicted a kneeling canine humanoid, rather than a conventional upright Dogman.

That is an important distinction.

And the children give us perhaps the clearest "shapeshifting" locomotion

The Heather Bowey account is particularly interesting because the creature apparently looked like a large dog while on four legs, then stood up, and later ran back toward the house in a dog-like manner.

Godfrey's 1991 article records Bowey saying:

"When it stood up, they looked bigger than a dog's or coyote's..."

And then:

"I looked back and saw it running toward us kind of like a dog would run but with bigger leaps."

So this isn't merely a later embellishment that somebody "couldn't tell whether it had two or four legs." The original 1991 reporting already contains an animal that alternates between the two modes of locomotion.

Gipson is somewhat different

Doris Gipson's Halloween 1991 encounter is probably the strongest early apparently bipedal report.

She saw the creature charging her after she had gotten out of her car. She could see its large, hairy chest and described its movement as extremely powerful. But importantly, she didn't say categorically, "It was running on two legs."

She said that one could suggest that it was on two legs because she could see its chest so clearly.

That's a useful piece of evidential caution that often disappears in later retellings, where the account becomes simply:

"Doris saw a seven-foot Dogman running upright."

The original account is more qualified.

So your original impression was correct

Looking specifically at the early evidence, I'd characterize the phenomenon this way:

1989–91 Bray Road reports were not consistently of a permanently bipedal humanoid.

Instead, there were several morphological/locomotive patterns:

quadruped → large wolf/dog-like animal

crouching/kneeling → Endrizzi

sitting on haunches → Etten

stands upright → Bowey group

moves on four legs, then stands → Bowey group

apparently runs upright → Gipson

explicitly runs on two legs → one of the reports in Fredrickson's file

That is considerably more interesting than the later standardized "Dogman" description.

One further wrinkle: pre-1991 reports

Godfrey herself later said that when her December 1991 article appeared, people came forward with additional accounts and told her that some sightings had occurred as much as ten years earlier. She also mentions a possibly related 1936 incident in Jefferson County, roughly 40 miles away.

So there really are two separate questions:

1. Was the Beast of Bray Road originally reported as a biped?
   Yes, unequivocally.
2. Was it originally reported exclusively as a bipedal Dogman?
   No. The earliest material contains a mixture of quadrupedal, crouching, sitting, transitional and apparently bipedal behavior.

And I think this is relevant to our previous discussion about the pre-1987 Dogman reports. The Bray Road material doesn't look like a simple case of people copying a pre-existing "Dogman = seven-foot wolf-man" template. The earliest witnesses were actually describing something considerably more ambiguous: a strange, unusually large canid that could apparently behave like an ordinary quadruped but sometimes adopted a remarkably human-like posture.

That makes the locomotion itself one of the most intriguing features of the case..

October surprise

 

The release date for "Capturing Bigfoot" is October 20. In case you give a damn. Trust me, *many* people do. This is the documentary supposedly proving (once and for all) that the famous Patterson-Gimlin film is a hoax. That is, the best and most iconic evidence for Bigfoot´s existence. If the film falls, it´s over. Or so skeptics hope. 

The docu has already been shown on some film festivals, but the yuge public release will be in three weeks. Apparently, October 20 is the 59th anniversary of Patterson´s and Gimlin´s original encounter with the elusive beast...

Bring out the pop corn, guys.  

Mythicism triumphant?

 

Prominent Jesus Mythicist Richard Carrier claims that Mythicism has won. Or is about to do so.

Why is a historical Jesus an obsolete paradigm?

Deceiving spirits

 

Here we go again. I actually wondered about this myself: if even the Anti-Christ makes miracles, how can miracles prove the Catholic Church? Or Christianity in general? How do we know *they* aren´t the Anti-Christ?

From MythVision, commenting the recent conversion/reversion of YouTube personality Joe Schmid to Catholicism. 

Juan Diego mythicism

 

Claim: Juan Diego never existed. You know, the guy who supposedly saw Marian apparitions in 1531. The Lady of Guadalupe.

Hmmm... 

Candle in the dark

 

A Catholic debunks an Orthodox miracle. Hmmm...

Social experiment

 

I admit that I never heard about the famous Princeton philosopher Joe Schmid before. Perhaps because he is just a random guy on YouTube who happens to study philosophy somewhere at Princeton? Recently, Schmid shocked his fellow atheists/agnostics by converting (or strictly speaking reverting) to Catholicism. Or did he? 

Some suspect he is just trolling. His video does look unserious, but perhaps he is just the hyperactive autistic type? Anyhow, this is the current drama on YouTube right now. 

Do I care? Nupe. But in case you´re interested, the first video above is Schmid´s conversion story, while the second is a critique from Derek of MythVision. 

Materialist Monday (OK, Tuesday local time)

 

Is dead, stays dead? 

In case you´re interested...

The infamous missing third fragment of Mark was a prank!

Teal is blue

 

"Paranoid Protestants" is a three-hour long video about the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) from a skeptical (probably atheist) perspective. It´s interesting, to be sure, and it´s obvious that the narrator (who sometimes doubles as himself!) has done some heavy reading on the history and theology of this particular denomination. I actually learned some new stuff about both Adventists and others from this documentary.

However, there are also some rather obvious problems with this production. For instance, the Branch Davidians headed by David Koresh are prominently featured. But what on earth is the *real* connection between the cult at Waco and the SDA Church? Not that much, really. It´s like making a docu about atheism and throw in Jim Jones and the People´s Temple (who were "Marxists" and sometimes sounded like atheists). 

The content-creator also believes that apocalyptic Protestantism (including the SDA) is the main cause of so many Americans believing in conspiracy theories. But a more likely explanation is that both apocalypticism and conspiracism have a common cause independent of both, or that they are parallell phenomena influencing each other. 

With that, have at it!

Väääänta ett slag

 

Spökraket?

Wait just a minute here, jag trodde spökraketerna var debunkade och att de faktiskt var sovjetiska??? Observera också att någon i USA var intresserad av fenomenet!

UFO-experten om "spökraketer" i Sverige: genuint gåtfulla

Expert om UFO-släppet: "Väldigt svårt att förstå"

Skeptics overruled

A one-hour presentation c/o Richard Dolan on the most recent (fifth) "tranche" of previously classified American UFO files. While they don´t "disclose" anything about aliens, certain clear patterns are nevertheless emerging. One such pattern is the discrepancy between military interest in the UFO phenomenon and public denials by the very same military. Behind closed doors, the US military freely admitted that many cases were real but unexplained, and attempted to investigate them. 

And not just the military. In 1963, a UFO with a humanoid inside allegedly crashed in Brazil. The case was investigated by the White House space officials, who concluded that it was a hoax. But note the implications: the US president´s staff knew about UFO cases in Brazil. The reason was that the American embassy reported on them!

Another pattern is that the flying objects seem aware of humans tracking them. In one case, the tracking devices onboard a naval vessel mysteriously started malfunctioning in the middle of a major UFO event. In another, the UFOs changed course and flew away immidiately before the military fired at them. 

More broadly, the phenomenon has been remarkably consistent in its behavior since the 1940´s. This despite technological advances in weapon systems, tracking devices, and so on. Yet, the military and others are still faced with luminous fast-flying objects espousing seemingly intelligent behavior. And they are still just as elusive.

I suppose it´s *possible* that the US air force has access to super-advanced drone technology and that the UFO angle is just disinfo. But if so, why haven´t these weapons been used in a war? Do the Russians have them, too? Or has Moscow strongly indicated that any attempt to use the secret super-drones will be met with a nuclear first strike? And why disclose anything at all about these craft? 

The other possibilities are all very exotic. A human breakaway civilization? Aliens? Asuras? But sure, maybe it´s all just a toxic brew of misidentification of birds and weather balloons, and we can all just go back to sleep...

But somehow I kind of doubt that.

Lack of belief in Australia

 

I linked to some of MythVision´s skeptical-minimalist Bible documentaries before. Here, he discusses what would make him go back to Christianity. Spoiler: probably nothing at this point.

I would be convinced that "God" or "the supernatural-spiritual" exists if I had a very strong experience suggesting just that. Not sure what would convince me of Christianity specifically, though. Or American evangelicalism in particular. Even a strong experience of Jesus could be interpreted in a pluralist manner, after all. Especially if he comes draped in the Star-Spangled Banner! I mean, why not the flag of Vatican City, huh?

For discussion purposes. The floor is open.

This sentence is a lie, that is the truth

Overheard on the interwebs: "If you don't read the papers you are uninformed, if you do read the papers you are misinformed."

Overheard on the interwebs

 

LOL. 

Ahem

 

No? 

Giant problems

 

Recently, I got sick and tired of this dude, but...I can´t help linking to this video. "Dan Dedunking" argues that the Smithsonian Institute did find giant skeletons, but subsequently covered them up for...racist reasons! In other words, Dan takes the Woke argument against Atlantis / alternative history ("they are objectively White supremacist") and uses it against the Woke establishment. There! Egg in face. 

For a similar perspective, see my old blog post below (unfortunately, the link to the "Incredible History" channel is dead).

I don´t know. I long suspected that the stories of Giants and Dwarfs might have *some* truth to them, so maybe somebody should try and locate those damn bones... 

A giant conspiracy?

A mere lack of belief

 

Credit: XKCD

Skeptics and angry atheists on the web, like all the time. Or no? 

Can all skeptics please go home now?

 

Credit: Richard Dolan / YouTube

From the fourth tranche of released UFO files...  

Compromised

 

Is Avi Loeb "compromised"? It seems he finally decided to debunk a pro-UFO research paper...one that he isn´t behind himself! It just happens to be the Swedish Nordita papers about so-called transients, which (at least at first glance) looks like the best evidence for UFOs ever published. 

"The Angry Astronaut" (the content-creator behind the video linked above) is right that it´s somewhat absurd that Loeb - who makes many "far out" statements - all of a sudden turns skeptic and gives short shrift to Villarroel´s research. My guess is that it isn´t a conspiracy, but simply (un)professional jealousy. Academic politics is a thing even on the fringes, it seems... 

A pox on both your houses?

 

Credit: Alain6963

Mariamman is the Hindu goddess of smallpox. She was worshipped to cure smallpox or avert smallpox outbreaks. Why? Because she was believed to cause them! 

Did worship of Mariamman stop smallpox? No. Modern science stopped smallpox by simply eradicating the smallpox virus. I´m sure materialist atheists might draw certain conclusions from this.

But let´s assume the spirit-world is real. Maybe Mariamman is "real" in some sense. What does *that* tell us? Say about the character of the spirit-world...