Dogman

In 1987, a radio DJ invented a monster for April Fools' Day. Then the sightings started.

Steve Cook wrote "The Legend" to prank his listeners in Traverse City, Michigan. Within weeks it was the most-requested track on the station. Then the phone calls came. People said they had seen it: seven feet tall, a dog's head on a man's body, eyes that caught the light, a scream that sounded almost human.

Soon, the story started reaching backward. Reports appeared that seemed to predate the song. A Wisconsin werewolf came with its own line of witnesses. A piece of "found footage" frightened the internet. A creature born on local radio ended up on national television.

Dogman traces the documented story behind the legend: how it was built in real time, and why so many ordinary people still swear they met something in the dark.

Inside:

• The 1987 prank that started it, in the DJ's own words
• The older sightings that complicate the story
• Grand Haven, 1993: a wave of encounters centered on one witness
• The Gable Film and how a hoax became evidence
• Wisconsin's Beast of Bray Road and the reporter who couldn't look away
• What people may be seeing in the dark, and why the answer matters either way