Beast of Bray Road

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beast of Bray Road
Creature
Name: Beast of Bray Road
AKA: Bray Road Beast
Classification
Grouping: Local legend
Sub grouping: Therianthrope/Werewolf
Data
First reported: 1936 (sighted later in the 1980s)
Last sighted: early 90s (but there was one in Hebron,

north of Whitewater, Wisconsin, in

February 2002.)[citation needed]
Country: United States
Region: Elkhorn, Wisconsin
Status: Local legend

The Beast of Bray Road (or the Bray Road Beast) is a cryptozoological creature first reported in the 1980s on a rural road outside of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. The same label has been applied well beyond the initial location, to any unknown creature from southern Wisconsin or northern Illinois that is described as having similar characteristics to those reported in the initial set of sightings.

Bray Road itself is a quiet country road near the community of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. The rash of sightings in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted a local newspaper, the Walworth County Week, to assign reporter Linda Godfrey to cover the story. Godfrey initially was skeptical of the events, but later became convinced by the sincerity of witnesses. Her series of articles later became a book known as "The Beast of Bray Road : Trailing Wisconsin's Werewolf". Now a serious cryptozoological researcher, Godfrey has become a renowned authority on what she calls "upright canids," and regularly appears in print articles and on radio and television shows.

Contents

[edit] Description

The Beast of Bray Road is described by witnesses in several ways:

  • A hairy biped resembling Bigfoot
  • An unusually large and intelligent wolf apt to walk on its hind legs,right up to 7 feet,on all fours 2-4 feet,and weighs 400-700lbs
  • Different hybrid forms between the two aforementioned.

Although the Beast of Bray Road has not been seen to transform from a human into a wolf in most of the sightings, it has been labeled a werewolf in newspaper articles.

[edit] Theories

Paranormal researcher Todd Roll said that there may have been a connection with the werewolf to the occult activities and mutilated animals (which may have been animal sacrifices) in Walworth County.[citation needed]

A number of animal-based theories have also been proposed. They include:

Another paranormal theory is the Native American legends of the skin-walkers.

It is also possible that mass hysteria has caused different creatures to be artificially lumped under the same label, since the Beast of Bray Road does not look the same from one sighting to the next. However, during the same time as the sightings in Wisconsin, there was a rash of similar encounters in the neighboring state of Michigan. Following the release of "The Legend," a popular song about the Michigan Dogman in 1987, author Steve Cook received dozens of reports, including photograph and film evidence of the creature. There is no known link between the sightings in adjoining states, other than the similarity of the creature described.

[edit] Popular Culture

The Beast of Bray Road appears in the television program Mystery Hunters as well as several books and a motion pictures. Articles about it have appeared in Weekly World News. The sightings spawned a 2005 indie movie directed by Leigh Scott entitled The Beast of Bray Road. The History Channel's TV series MonsterQuest launched an investigation on the beast, in which all witnesses were subjected to lie detector tests. The polygraph administrator could find no indication that any of the witnesses had fabricated their stories.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Cryptozoology and cryptobotany
Core topics
Cryptozoologists
Books & TV
Cryptids by continent
Africa
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America
Botanical cryptids
Languages