Real Wolfmen
True Encounters
in Modern America
by Linda S. Godfrey
Tarcher
Modern werewolves have no bite.
“Twilight” turned our man-wolves into brooding and lovable heroes. “Finding Bigfoot” stamped out any aura of mystery surrounding Sasquatch. How can we be scared when packs of “wolf” teens in Texas willingly pair their Hot Topic chain pants with fake fangs and clip-on tails?
Maybe the real world has become so scary that supernatural beasts no longer trouble our dreams. Or maybe we’re in denial.
Linda S. Godfrey, author of “Real Wolfmen,” believes the latter. It’s clear from her book that she thinks we’d be foolish to discount centuries worth of wolfman folklore in our modern age.
Since man could speak, he has shared tales of half-human creatures. The people of the British Isles believed that their enemies transformed into wolves to attack livestock; Native Americans whispered about medicine men who transformed into animals; Europeans in the Middle Ages were warned to look out for people who had made a pact with the devil to become werewolves.
How did such far-flung groups come up with the same myth? Is this just an outgrowth of a collective unconscious, or is there some truth to the tales?
Godfrey draws on dozens of eyewitness accounts that were recorded as recently as last year.
“Something is out there, and while its trail may be old, it is far from cold,” she writes. “Creatures resembling wolfmen do walk among us!”
This strange odyssey began in 1992, when Godfrey was assigned to write a piece for The Week on werewolf sightings in Elkhorn, Wis. Though at first skeptical, through her investigations she began to become a believer.
She spoke to one person who saw a canine too big to be a dog crouching by the side of the road holding road kill in its paws. Around the same time, a bus driver ran from a beast who barreled toward her on its hind legs. A dog-like animal, far too big to be Fido, chased down a group of children.
It only whetted her appetite for more wolfmen stories.
So she continued her quest across the country, compiling a list of what she felt were the most legitimate examples of wolfmen sightings in America.
In Holly, Mich., a repo man named Jeff Cornelius was trying to repossess a truck when he ran into an “upright creature covered in thick gray-and-black fur, growling at him in a rolling pitch that ranged from low to high.”
In 2007, five teens in Milwaukee encountered a “fur-covered, dog-like creature that rose from crouch to standing position and began to move toward them on its hind legs.” This one even left footprints behind, pictures of which Godfrey includes in the book.
The Garden State, as you might expect, is a hotbed of such sightings.
In East Hanover, NJ, a mere four years ago, three 18-year-olds came across a animal with a “dog-like head” who “ran with its forelimbs at its sides,” much like an ape. An EMT en route to Bayonne from Jersey City took the turnpike ramp off and saw a large creature on all fours with legs much longer than a dog’s should be.
So, how come these man-wolves have been around this long yet no human has been mauled and no beast has been caught?
Godfrey doesn’t have an answer for this.
The book — though fun — lacks in scientific explanation for the phenomena, relying singularly on eyewitness accounts, the least convincing type of evidence.
She does try to make a scientific case for the existence of dogmen, but her attempt falls flat.
In a short, two-page explanation, she outlines the ways that evolution might have selected for bipedal, half-human dogs. Walking upright, she writes, would allow them to see longer distances. Having two hands free would allow the man-dogs to handle and eat more food. The icing on the cake? Walking upright would make them smarter by stimulating neural pathways in the man-dog brain.
The evidence for these conjectures — and the supporting research provided — is non-existent.
But at least she’s trying to give the bark back to our werewolves and bring the supernatural beasts back to our woods. They don’t just have great abs — they’re ready to gnaw on your flesh.
Sure, if you’re not a believer, you won’t be one after reading this book. Still, it makes for some freaky reading, perfect stories to tell in the dark.