Werewolves in the Trees? A Montague Man Reports Three Encounters on 30 Acres in 2016

A snowstorm, a loud splash in the creek, then a pair of amber eyes next to an oak. And then the sound of treetops clanging together, as if something were travelling through them.

That is encounter one, from an email researcher Linda Godfrey published on February 10, 2017. It is also the first public record, which matters: the story is dated from the 2016 events, but it didn't exist as a report until nearly a year after the first of them.

The first encounter, about February 8

A man in Montague, Michigan, says he lives with his father on a family farm of 30 acres of "woods, creek and marshlands," roughly an hour to ninety minutes southwest of Big Rapids and Reed City. In Godfrey's post, "Werewolves in the Trees?", he writes that at about 3:52 a.m. on or about February 8, 2016, in a heavy snowstorm, he was shovelling the driveway when he heard a loud splash in the creek about 25 yards away. He saw "a pair of yellow/amber eyes about 7 1/2 to 8 foot tall standing right next to a huge oak tree."

It took off "with a super burst of speed to the west," he says, then leapt, and "all I heard for the next few seconds was the tree tops clanging against one another. It was like it was riding the treetops." He saw it for six or seven seconds. It stood on two legs "that looked like a dogs hind legs," with a wolf-like head, a snout, and ears like a German shepherd's, and fur he describes as grey with some white.

The second, about March 24

At about 2:38 p.m. on or about March 24, he says, he was clearing brush up the creek, about 450 yards in, when he noticed that the woods were unusually quiet, with no birds. About 55 yards ahead, what looked like the back of a black bear was digging in the bank. When he snapped a branch, it stood up on two legs: 8 feet tall, with a wolf-like head and all-black fur. It then dropped to all fours at 5 to 5½ feet, snarled, and "took two giant leaps toward the east … that's about a 25 foot distance," before jumping toward the treetops and vanishing. His father, he says, told him he should get his head checked.

The third, May 29

At about 8:52 p.m. on May 29, he says, he went behind the pole barn for firewood. He heard rustling and a low growl "like dogs are playing" that stopped as he arrived. The woods went silent. He describes a sound like a zipper, a putrid smell "of rotten guts and urine," a deep growl, and red eyes about 5½ feet off the ground. Then "this thing stood up on two legs, this thing was really tall 8 to 8 1/2 feet," growled and "walked away to the south." The next day, he says, he found only a deer skin, with the rest of the deer gone, including the head.

What else he adds

He says two neighbours who have lived nearby for 50-plus years heard "very eerie howls" from his family's woods at dusk; that a herd of about 50 deer has thinned to one or two; and that apples he leaves out weekly were all gone one day, with a rock in each place. He says he found tracks "that look like a huge wolfs," and had a trail camera running when he wrote, hoping for pictures. Godfrey reports none. He also says a friend's cat was trapped 60 feet up a tree for three days in a recent storm. In all three encounters, he says, the creature "reminded me of a werewolf."

Godfrey's reading

Godfrey flags two unusual features. The first is the treetop leaps. In her words, "canines are not built" to swing through branches, so "that is not known canine behavior," though "dogmen have been seen making tremendous leaps and bounds." The second is what she calls the "Oz Factor," "a general bubble of silence" she says often appears alongside cryptid sightings. She notes it in two of the incidents; in the witness's text it is the second and third. She also writes that local residents think the woods hold ancient Native American burial mounds, which is local belief and not documented in the email. The witness himself says only that he was told by a family member the acreage is "Indian burial grounds."

What is and isn't on the record

There is one anonymous witness, whom Godfrey says would not allow his name. There is no photograph, track cast or second person who saw the creature. The neighbours' howls and the thinned deer herd are claims inside his own email. The deer skin was found by the witness alone. The dates and hours are his own, given as "on or about" and "approximately," and nobody has independently confirmed them. The email was sent months after the last encounter, and Godfrey published it as received, with "minor edits."

Related reading on the site: The Michigan Dogman and The Beast of Bray Road.

Bottom line

Per Linda Godfrey's February 10, 2017 post, a Montague, Michigan man says he met a tall, wolf-headed upright creature on his family's property on or about February 8, March 24 and May 29, 2016, including a leap through the treetops in a snowstorm. Everything rests on his own email. No image or second witness has been published.

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Attribution / source table

• Claim: All three encounters: dates, hours, heights, behaviour; neighbours, deer, apples and rocks, tracks, trail camera, cat; burial-ground remark
  Attribution: Witness email as quoted by Linda Godfrey, Feb 10, 2017
  Link: Godfrey
• Claim: Treetop leaps "not known canine behavior"; "Oz Factor"; burial mounds as local belief
  Attribution: Linda Godfrey (author commentary), same post
  Link: Godfrey
• Claim: Related Michigan and Wisconsin background
  Attribution: Monstrum Athenaeum, 2014–2015
  Link: Michigan Dogman; Bray Road

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Legal / disclaimer footer

Entertainment and cryptid-news commentary only. Nothing here confirms a dogman, a werewolf or any other creature. The witness account is given as Linda Godfrey published it, and each claim belongs to its source. The witness is unnamed, and the map location is approximate to town level.