The Bray Road Beast is a wolf that stands on two hind legs and has opposable thumbs. Reports of this beast, also known as the Wisconsin Dogman.





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 claimed 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, but later became convinced of the sincerity of the witnesses. Her series of articles later became a book titled The Beast of Bray Road: Trailing Wisconsin's Werewolf.

Description

Most descriptions and eyewitness accounts are cataloged on Linda Godfrey's book, Hunting the American werewolf

The Beast of Bray Road is described by purported witnesses in several ways:
* A hairy biped resembling Bigfoot.
* An unusually large and intelligent wolf-like creature apt to walk on its hind legs, right up to 7 feet, on all fours 2-4 feet, and weighing 400-700 lbs.
* A bear-like creature.

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.

Explanations

A number of animal-based theories have been proposed. They include that the creature is an undiscovered variety of wild dog, a waheela (said to be a giant prehistoric wolf similar to Amarok), or a wolfdog or a coydog.

It is also possible that hoaxes and mass hysteria have caused falsehoods and sightings of normal creatures to all be artificially lumped under the same label. Concurrently with 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.