NARRATOR: A
legendary monster may be lurking in the heartland. I could see a pair of
red eyes staring at me. I felt like my life
was actually in danger. NARRATOR: Those who dare
walk at night should beware. Sheer panic just
came right over me, and I had to get out of there. My uncle was never afraid
in the woods until then. NARRATOR: Long thought to be
imaginary, new evidence now suggests this creature
may be all too real. This didn't look like
any type of human being. Certainly there is
a primal fear to this. NARRATOR: Monster Quest
searches the woods of America. You hear something? Something down there moved. NARRATOR: For werewolves. This is unnerving. NARRATOR: People around the
world report seeing monsters. Are they real or imaginary? Science searches for
answers on Monster Quest. The Midwest is known as
the heartland of America. These 12 states are filled with
small towns, isolated farms, dense woods, and maybe a
terrifying myth come to life. I would say that it was
about 7 to 7 and 1/2 feet tall. The head was large, and
it didn't look like a bear. It actually looked
more like a wolf. It had to have been well
over three times my size. The facial features
tend to be more dog-like. The upper body features
tend to be more man-like. NARRATOR: Eyewitnesses report
seeing a menacing beast with dark hair, walking
on its hind legs, and standing over
seven feet tall. The creature is said to
kill using deadly fangs and razor sharp claws. It has the strength
to subdue animals as large as 1,200 pounds, and
it emits blood-curdling howls. Locals refer to the
monster as the werewolf. I'm thinking, what
in God's name is that? [growling] NARRATOR: It was the middle
of the night in late fall on a deserted rural road. Steve Krueger, a contractor
for the Department of Natural Resources, was removing a deer
from the middle of the road that had been struck by a car. I was filling
out the paperwork, and I felt a small shake
going on in the truck. And I assumed it was the wind,
so I didn't pay any attention to it the first time. NARRATOR: Then the
truck shook with force. It was a really
vigorous and hard shake. That one caught my attention. NARRATOR: Something was reaching
into the bed of Krueger's pickup. So I actually glanced
up in the rearview mirror, and I saw something
that looked like it was a cross between
a bear and a wolf actually leaning in towards
the back end of my truck. And it looked like
it was actually reaching for something. NARRATOR: Krueger had never
seen anything like it. Sheer panic just
came right over me, and I had to get out of there. I knew I had to throw it into
drive, and I stepped on it. NARRATOR: Krueger hit
the gas to escape. He got away, but
the beast managed to pull the deer carcass
out of the truck. It wasn't anything
I've ever seen before. It had a long nozzle, like
a bear, but only longer. It was black fur, really husky,
and it had large, pointed ears on the top of its head. NARRATOR: Peggy
Callahan, wolf biologist, is intrigued by
stories of werewolves. But she's skeptical that
what people are seeing is an unknown creature. Large groups of people can
be dead wrong on what they're identifying and
what they're seeing, And powers of
suggestion are dramatic. NARRATOR: She believes that many
eyewitness reports are simply a case of identification. Callahan says gray wolves, also
called timberwolves, once rare but now making a comeback, are
responsible for the sightings. People could definitely
identify a wolf jumping up on its hind legs. Maybe they're over guessing. Everybody does that. You get into the woods, and
your adrenaline takes over, and so maybe a wolf jumps
up on its hind legs, you see a 200 pound animal. NARRATOR: Callahan believes that
folklore and misidentification are breeding modern
day superstitions. As someone who has been
fascinated by wolves since I was a child, I gobbled up
werewolf stories as much as anybody else. When you start to
describe an animal that walks on its hind legs for
extended periods of time, it's not just brief steps, not just
jumping up, 5 to 7 feet tall, smells awful, and uses its
front paws almost like a human, I run into a wall
for explanation. It physically isn't a
possibility for a wolf and a human to blend together. The traditional werewolf,
I'm gonna tell you, it doesn't exist. NARRATOR: The Manistee
Forest in Michigan has become the epicenter
for reports of werewolves. More than 100 encounters
have been reported here in the last decade. The most compelling was one
captured on grainy 8 millimeter film that, if authentic,
defies explanation. Monster Quest will
start its search for the legendary creature in
this 800 acre national park, 220 miles from Detroit. The team has set up
its base camp close to the location where the
film evidence was shot. This is what's called
Baldwin Luther Swamp. It's about three miles long, two
miles wide, very desolate area. NARRATOR: Mark Peterson,
a professional tracker, will lead the expedition
into the forest. And I made waypoint
things, where I think there's good natural
travel corridors for animals. NARRATOR: Peterson will be
joined by John Warren, a member of the Pottawatomie tribe
with an extensive knowledge of local werewolf legends. And is it a werewolf? I don't know, but I had
a sense of this entity even before coming here. NARRATOR: Raven Meindel,
a local cryptozoologist who has tracked the
sightings, will help navigate. I do think as a
team of researchers, we have a great chance of
finding something here. NARRATOR: They
begin their search by looking for physical evidence
that the monster is hunting in the area. What I would hope to find
would be at least large numbers of wolves in this area. So what we'll do is, we'll
look for their prey base. In other words, food
source, water source, travel corridors,
things like that. It's rugged country back here. It's really rugged. We can't stay on the outskirts. We've got to get in
the back country, so hopefully we can
get through everything. NARRATOR: The team will
start in the location where sightings
have been reported. They decide to set a series of
camera traps around the area, so they can monitor the
nighttime traffic of predators. The area's notoriously
poor weather has already been a problem. When I first got here
to scout and set cams out, the weather was just atrocious. It was solid, rain stormy,
which really hinders animal movements. And then there was one
trail I had to get back to. Upon looking at the maps, we
needed to get back to this one location. NARRATOR: But as the team
pushes into the woods, their truck becomes stuck. We're gonna have to get
pulled out of this one. That's a little deeper
than I expected. NARRATOR: The team gets
assistance from some hunters, who reveal that they have seen
the corpse of a giant wolf in the area. When I built my
log cabin up the road here, before got the
doors on, we came up and there was a wolf
laying in the cabin. And me and my buddy back here
had a 5 inch, 5 and 1/2 inch track. 5 and 1/2 inch? 5 and 1/2 inch track. That's a big wolf. OK, well, thanks a
lot for your help. I really appreciate it. I'll let you get going again. NARRATOR: The story seem
to reinforce the belief that the witnesses may be
misidentifying a real WOLF perhaps one of unusual size. Peterson decides to set up the
remaining camera traps close by. I've got one more cam that
I want to get up, while you guys are finishing up camp. NARRATOR: Three night vision
motion-triggered cameras are baited with
a scent attractor and placed along animal trails. This is wolf
urine in heat, OK? And then what I'm gonna do,
in hopes of finding a wolf, I take it out, and I
put a couple of drops right in front of the camera. Now, will they call to
others when they smell this? No, they would just come to
investigate what other wolf is in their area.
- OK. And especially
a female in heat will attract just
about any of them. [howling] We're gonna go out
tonight, and we're gonna do a lot of wolf calls. And we're gonna be out in
the dead of night, trying to get some sort of response.
How do you feel about that? I think they already
know we're here. Yeah. It's a real eerie feeling
when you're out here. You know, because we're
not scared of the dark, but humans by nature are-- It's a primal fear. It is. You are scared of the dark,
even if you don't think you are. See, I still think that we're
dealing with something that knows what our intentions are. What are your expectations? Well, I'm wondering if they're
interdimensional, spiritual. I mean, there's definitely
an eerie feeling that's attached to these werewolves. There's definitely something
that's above and beyond the normal, primal fear. I think if there's a werewolf,
that it's a shapeshifter, but maybe a little bit different
of a shapeshifter than what I'm used to. I'm curious, what is a
shapeshifter supposed to be? Basically, taking the
forms of owls, bears. they can use a cat. I feel like even talking
about them brings them on. [howling] NARRATOR: Monster Quest. To searching the
Midwest for evidence that the strange
sightings reported here might be proof of
a mythical beast. Tales of werewolves
or lycanthropes date back to ancient Greece. The word lycanthrope originates
from a cruel king called Lycaon, who tested the
wrath of the god Zeus by slaughtering children. Zeus, enraged by this behavior,
turned Lycon into a wolf. By the Middle Ages,
belief in werewolves had spread throughout Europe. Some believed that
a bite from a wolf could make a man change
into a bloodthirsty monster whenever the full moon rose. The unearthly howls could be
heard for miles as the beasts hunted their human victims. The wolf was
something that was still very prevalent in Europe
and inspired a lot of fear. People were afraid of wolves. You have all the fairy tales
that still come down to us these days. Werewolfism was very
rampant in those days. NARRATOR: In France,
fear of the creatures led to deviant killers
being seen as beasts that could change from man to wolf. Thousands were convicted
of being werewolves, and many were
burned at the stake after being tried
for vicious crimes. Suddenly, small
children and babies began to disappear
from their cradles. They were never seen
or heard from again. [growling] Jean Grenier was a teenager
when he was arrested. Suspected as a werewolf, he was
blamed for the disappearance of more than a dozen children. People were being terrorized
by their children being kidnapped and found
later partially eaten. They thought that some
kind of wild animal was raiding their cottages. NARRATOR: Then the
survivor of an abduction came forward with an accusation. A young girl reported
that she had been attacked by a 13-year-old boy who
acted like a werewolf. NARRATOR: Grenier was
described as gaunt with a strange, pointed face. He was known to wear the skin
of a wolf across his back. He was apprehended and later
confessed to the townspeople that indeed he had
been killing and eating their young children. NARRATOR: The courts found
this self-confessed werewolf to be the victim of
demonic possession. Rather than being
sentenced to death, he was shut up in a friary. NARRATOR: After
his imprisonment, the abductions stopped. Jean Grenier died
soon after, still believing he was a werewolf. [growling] French pioneers later
settled parts of the Midwest and brought with them
stories of werewolves. They soon found that
tales of the creatures existed in the folklore
of native tribes. We would interpret them as
being more like a shapeshifter, a person or an entity that can
change into different forms. [chanting] Shapeshifting at one
time had a practical use. It was for our war bundles,
to terrorize and put fear into our enemies, and to
also protect our area. A lot of Native Americans,
it's taboo a little bit to talk about the shapeshifters. We don't usually
say shapeshifters. We say "Mendoza." And usually the more
you talk about them, the more you bring them on. It gives them like a breath of
fresh air or a breath of life. It makes them come
closer to you. NARRATOR: There have been
sightings in this region ever since. So many people
are all reporting largely the same creature
that they're seeing. And oftentimes there's more than
one person seeing the creature at the same time, which
rules out hallucination. They're seeing more
than one creature at the same time, which makes
you think perhaps there's some kind of a
population of them. STEVE COOK: A cool summer
morning in early June is when the legend began,
at a nameless logging camp in Wexford County,
where the Manistee River ran. NARRATOR: In 1987,
werewolf stories inspired Steve
Cook, a Michigan DJ, to write a song
called "The Dog Man." STEVE COOK: Then the thing
let out an unearthly scream and came out, and
stood up right. After the song came
out, it started to generate so much interest
in, is this thing real? Is this a real legend? And I started getting lots
of reports from people. They would come in
waves from people saying that this creature is real,
and we know it's real, because we have evidence of it. And I started
receiving photographs, drawings of what
people had seen, witness accounts,
things like that. NARRATOR: 2006, Cook received
a reel of 8 millimeter film. A lady had bought
it at an estate sale. She didn't buy the film. She bought a box of
junk at an estate sale, and the film just
happened to be in it. There was a little paper
tag that said "Gable Case", and it had a number on it. NARRATOR: The DJ dubbed
it, "the Gable Film." Just over three minutes
long, it appears it was filmed over several days. The contents of
the film lead you to believe that it was
something that was shot probably in the late 1970s, just based
on the style of the hair that people have, the
vehicles that are involved. And then it turns
into something else. NARRATOR: The final
frames of the film may be proof of what has long
been considered just a legend. Then it comes upon this thing
that is standing in the woods, appears to be standing
on all fours on a ridge. And suddenly this
thing takes off and comes at the
cameraman in what appears to be an aggressive charge. And it's really chilling. NARRATOR: Monster Quest has
acquired a copy of the film. And image specialist
Peter Schmitz will analyze it
for the first time to determine if it is real. You can see lint and
other debris on the-- which is pretty common from my
experience in old 8 millimeter film. From what I reviewed in the
video that was given to me, it definitely looks like early
to mid-'70s, based on vehicles, including the snow machines. NARRATOR: Schmitz then
analyzes the creature itself. As the creature actually
jumped from one direction to another, and then
changed direction again, this didn't look like any
type of human being in a suit. It was just too
natural, too fluid. The leg pattern, the front
legs and the back legs just moved too well together. If indeed it was a human in
a suit, they did a great job. NARRATOR: Many of the Midwest
eye witness accounts center on strange, howling cries. They told us not to go looking
for the source of the howlings. [growling] NARRATOR: It was a full
moon when this couple heard a terrifying sound
outside their farmhouse. It's almost like a combination
between a wolf and a scream at the same time. NARRATOR: Soon a stomach-turning
odor overtook the couple. It smells like sort of a
dead animal with maybe blood. NARRATOR: Davis opened the
front door to investigate. And just before
I went outside, I looked through the window, and
I could see a pair of red eyes staring at me from the corn. I just locked eyes
with it, and it was like I lost all
will to go outside. NARRATOR: What he saw was a
massive, wolf-like creature standing on its hind legs. I would say that
it was about 7 to 7 and 1/2 feet tall, because
the corn at that time was a little over nine foot. NARRATOR: The creature
disappeared into the cornfield, but the couple
could still hear it. I could hear at least
two things going off through the corn, kind
of snapping and startling each other, sort
of the way dogs do. You could tell from the
pitch and the volume that it wasn't anything
like regular dogs or coyotes or anything. [growling] NARRATOR: The expedition
team is call blasting wolf cries into the darkness
surrounding their camp. [howling] Boy, did I just get shivers. Yeah. [howling] You hear something? I heard something down there. Sounded like something
walking down, down the bottom of
that hill there. NARRATOR: They have
set up camp in an area where multiple sightings
have been reported. I know we're waiting
for a response, but something down there moved. Any movement's good movement. Is it? Absolutely. [howling] Oh, gosh. [howling] That didn't sound like a coyote. No, that was not a coyote. That sounded like a wolf. That sounded
like a wolf to me. Yeah, yeah. Holy moly. [howling] He's getting closer. Whatever it is,
it's getting closer. He's getting a lot closer now. NARRATOR: Monster Quest has
traveled to the Midwest, where witnesses say werewolf-like
creatures are lurking in the shadows. And my uncle was never
afraid in the woods until then. [growling] NARRATOR: Dave Schimmeleski,
an avid outdoorsman, was bow hunting in a remote
wooded area near the Manistee National Forest. His niece tells the
story of his encounter. As he was getting close
to finishing his hunting, it was getting dark, dusk, he
heard noises, like something was following him. NARRATOR: Something was
moving in the brush, but it moved only when he moved. And it sounded large. There was something out
there that was very big, and it was following him. And all he had was
a bow and arrow. NARRATOR: Shimmeleski
he took off as fast as he could for his car. And the next day, he was
very curious about what might have been following him. NARRATOR: Shimmeleski
returned to the site and found enormous
three-clawed footprints. He made casts of the
prints, and took them to the Michigan Department
of Natural Resources. They could not
definitively say what it was that was following him. He always wondered for years. [growling] [howling] Boy, did I just get a shiver. Yeah. NARRATOR: The expedition
team's call blasting has provoked responses
they can not identify. [howling] You hear something? I heard something
down there along the-- sounded like something
walking down, down the bottom of
that hill there. NARRATOR: The strange
wolf-like cries die down, and the team moves
deeper into the forest. [howling] Something responds. He's getting closer. Whatever it is,
it's getting closer. [whispering] He's getting a lot closer now. Oh, yeah. The howling, I'm sure of it. What is that? A man? [howling] NARRATOR: Coyotes and
wolves are natural enemies. They have been known to
fight and kill each other. The call blasts have triggered
an aggressive response. Something seems to be
lurking in the woods. That looked kind of-- is it? They're close, too. They're real close. They're getting further away? There's our loan pack answer? That was good. That was a bunch of them. Yeah, that was 25 or
30 coyotes for sure. They're running away
from here, aren't they? They're getting further away. They heard us. They're coming right this way. Soon as they heard us talking. They could be sneaking
up to see what we are. Yeah. OK. They have to find out
what we are before doing it. Oh NARRATOR: The science team has
been studying the Gable Film. Wolf expert Peggy
Callahan believes the creature on the film is
not from the canine family. It's a very primate stance. This is not bear. This is not wolf. This has a primate build. It really, for all intents and
purposes, looks like a gorilla. And it really has got the
massive shoulder build, head position. There's nothing
canine to this at all. There's nothing that looks
like a natural North American mammal in this at all. Nothing. NARRATOR: Image expert
Peter Schmitz's analysis has found something
strange about the footage. Possibly that the cameraman
is actually making a run for it, and in a second
here you'll see what appears to be teeth chomping
down on the lens of the camera. There doesn't appear
to be any video from-- leading into this. You don't see half of the
teeth coming into view. It's there. Next frame, it's right on us. We get another frame. It looks like it's a little
further into the animal's mouth. You get a black frame. Could this be something
that was cut and spliced into this digital recording? That's a possibility. What I would really
like to find out is where this film came from. Is the film still in existence? There is what appears to
be a young man recording. You can see his reflection
in the rearview mirror. This is video shortly before
the creature was actually imaged on. There's also a longer haired
gentleman who's chopping wood. So there's several individuals
that appear in this video. Where are they? Who are they? And what do we need to do
to find out more about them? And what is the motive? If the attack did take
place, my question is, where is the other person
that was in the vehicle? There's more study that
needs to be done on this. I'd want to see the actual film. NARRATOR: Monster Quest
is exploring the forests of Michigan, investigating
reports of werewolves. I kept thinking
in my mind, you know, what could do so much
damage that a homeowner would call up and say, hey, something
tried to get into my house? [growling] NARRATOR: Sheriff's
deputy Jeff Chamberlain was sent to a remote
cabin to investigate a report of vandalism. Well, I get up here, and
the bottom of the screen door has been completely
ripped off with claw marks and chew marks, puncture from
what appears to be teeth. NARRATOR: Deep
scratches were found on the cabin's wooden
siding, seemingly made by an incredibly large animal. For the height of the slobber
marks and blood marks of what had to have came from
its mouth, the mouth had to have been
well over my head. When I originally got here, the
slobber marks and everything weren't dry. They were still fairly wet. NARRATOR: Chamberlain filed
a report with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources,
who found canine footprints at the site. Whatever it was that did
it had to have been still somewhere, still
close to the area. [growling] NARRATOR: The expedition
team is in Luther, Michigan, looking for strange claw marks
and oversized canine prints. The Luther swamp that
I was telling you about? - Right.
- It's right back here. We're gonna go back here
to a little clearing that I wanted to check out.
It's just a little high spot. I saw on the topo map. We need to set up a
number of cameras. So let's go look around and
see what we can find back in this spot right here. OK, cool. So, Mark, since we're
looking for an upright canine, how do you think it
would hunt different from a normal quadruped? We've got two types
of hunting, basically. Ambush or chasing it down. Wolves, for example, do both. They're good ambush hunters. At the same time, they have
the capability with endurance and stamina, and because
they're in a pack, they can also chase
down their prey as well. Just be very aware
of your surroundings. You know, look for tracks. Look for strange things,
like horizontal branches, horizontal trees. Whenever you come
by puddles, it's great-- because of the
wetness, obviously there's wet everywhere, but always
look, because it's a great place to find tracks. You guys, hang on a second here. Remember on the way in here,
I had to hold this limb up for you here? Yeah, right, right, right. It's gone now. So something has
come through here and knocked it out of here. It's laying right, the stick. Yup, that's it.
That's the one. We've only been back
here for about an hour. NARRATOR: John Warren, a member
of the Pottawatomie tribe, tells the team they
are on sacred ground and must proceed with respect. [non-english speech] I'm here today because I
know I'm invading your home. So I bring you this little
offering today, just a real little meager and
humble shell wrapped up on some wool as an offering. As we invade your home,
we don't mean you no harm. We just want to be
welcome guests here. If there's anything you want
to reveal to us or show us, that's good. We want to do this
in a good way. And we're here to share
with you some of ourselves, as long as you're willing
to share yourself, too. If not, that's good, too. There's a little
trail coming off here, and this is just a
small ridge line. So that the deer pop
out on the road here, follow the road for
about 50 yards that way, and then they're gonna
follow that ridge line again. So what's really interesting is,
even though that they can zig around anywhere
they want, they're gonna use the path
of least resistance based around these
ridge lines, yeah. NARRATOR: The terrain shows
evidence of animal trafficking. There are deer tracks visible,
a sign of a possible food source for large predators. That's a buck right there, OK? Now, this is going to be
a very high travel traffic area for white tails. Hence this would
be a great food source for a large creature. For any predator at all, this
would be a great food source. NARRATOR: And the
team finds evidence of predators in the area. I'm gonna say right off
the bat that's wolf scat. Well, let me ask you this. Could this belong to
something roughly 250 pounds? I'm gonna say that by the
size of this right here, this is only about half the
size of some of the wolf packs I've seen, the
wolf scat that I've seen in northern
Minnesota in other areas. So I don't think this is a
monster wolf, so to speak, a really large wolf. But it's definitely wolf. NARRATOR: Monster Quest
learns of another film said to depict the aftermath
of the original Gable Film encounter. The science team has
questions about both films. Steve Cook, the owner
of the first film, claims to have no
knowledge of a second film. I thought that the
timing of the release was rather suspicious. There were just too many things
that didn't add up about it. Steve, we've had an expert
film analyst look at the Gable Films, and he sees
a lot of red flags. We don't take any position
on any of the evidence that's presented here. I'm gonna just give this to you. I'm gonna act as the reporter. Here is what I've seen. You look at it, and you
decide for yourself. Well, it's a very big
controversy in the field. And many people do
believe that it's genuine. I put it out there mainly
because it was interesting. It was just an
interesting piece of film. Let's just start
at the beginning. How did you acquire
this piece of film? Well, the backstory
on the films is that they were purchased at
an estate sale by an elderly-- You said "backstory." Does that mean this isn't true? The film isn't what
it appears to be. NARRATOR: Monster
Quest is investigating mysterious reports of a
seven foot tall werewolf seen by witnesses
throughout the Midwest. This man says a werewolf
tore a dead deer out of the back of his truck. These investigators have
recorded eerie howls they believe may come from
a werewolf-like beast. And this DJ posted a video that
may be evidence of a werewolf. The traffic on my website
immediately skyrocketed into thousands of
hits every day. And within a week, it was
on dozens of web sites. It had been taken, and people
had copied it off YouTube, and it was on web
sites all over. It just ran away. I decided that it was probably
between what had happened on the internet and
what will happen as a result of this
show, it was time to say this has gone far enough. NARRATOR: Steve Cook, who
claimed that the Gable Film on his website was
found at an estate sale, has changed his story. He now says it came to him from
a local machinist named Mike Agrusa. Steve Cook's song generated
a lot of mass hysteria in 1987. It made the summer of '87 fun. It made people scared
to go out in the woods. So I took it upon myself in 2007
to elaborate upon the story, to try to bring back the mass
hysteria that it had in 1987. NARRATOR: Agrusa
reveals to Monster Quest that he used a vintage
8 millimeter film camera and studied home movies of
the period to create the hoax, using vehicles from his
personal collection. I felt that this film really
needed to look like it was made in the '70s, so I've already got
all these antique toys sitting around. And my old snowmobiles that I
have been collecting for years were also age appropriate. And how were those
used in that film? All my children were
driving them around while dad filmed them
driving the snowmobiles. And it looked very
immature home movie-ish. NARRATOR: Agrusa says whose
family helped him stage everything in the film. Home videos and home
films are typically only interesting to
the family involved, and I wanted that look to
come across in the film. And so this was just a
dad shooting his kids, shooting the family stuff
until something a little more unexpected happens, and they ran
into a creature in the woods, and they followed it around,
and unfortunately, it attacked the cameraman. NARRATOR: Agrusa wore
the costume himself. I had actually found a suit
online just off the rack. It's called a ghillie suit. And I thought it looked more
realistic as a creature. I was trying to be a werewolf. When I got the film
back for the first time I freaked when it
looked so real. The charging of the camera
man, it looked so much like an animal. I was very pleased with
the way it turned out. NARRATOR: Agrusa then
took the footage to Cook. I kind of
blindsided Steve Cook. He had no idea that I
was making this film. He didn't know that I
existed until I contacted him after trying to
promote it myself. He was surprised. I'm not sure he knew
what to make of me, but when Steve finally realized
that I had no malicious intent, I showed him the film, and he
was rather pleased with it. NARRATOR: The hoax continued
with a second film. I thought it'd be a good
idea to make a sequel, and so I filmed Gable 2
in the spring of 2008. And that was just a
police investigation of the attack scene from
the first Gable film. An amateur filmmaker
just happened to lend his services
to the police and get some film
footage of the scene. I felt it was important to see
what happened several hours later. This is the body. NARRATOR: Agrusa
demonstrates how he created the mutilated
body seen in the footage. A lot of people
have speculated that those were actually
animal entrails hanging out of a dead body, but that seemed
a little too gory for me. NARRATOR: The entrails were
actually made using the spray foam insulation. So I just stuffed the rubber
body with rags and painted it. And it looks pretty gross. A lot of people have speculated
that the body on the ground was simply a mannequin. And some people have
actually gotten it right, that it was a guy in a hole in
the ground with an apparatus on his back. And that was right on the nose. I just dug a hole,
climbed into the hole, and had my actors assembles
the body behind me. And the shirt was actually
hiding the transition from the real body to the
fake foam rubber body. NARRATOR: Agrusa
still believes there may be some truth to the
legends that inspired him. I like to keep an open mind. I'd like other people
to keep an open mind. These things could be there. Just due to the fact that I
made a fictional film doesn't necessarily prove that
these things don't exist. NARRATOR: The science team has
analyzed the strange casts that were made by an eyewitness who
was stalked by a large animal in the Manistee Forest. This footprint that
this hunter found, it's in terrific shape. The first thing
I'm gonna tell you is, it is a member
of the dog family. There's nothing else that
has this distribution with the toenails
and the heel pad. This is clearly a member
of the dog family. And it could be
a very large dog. And it could be a wolf. I'm gonna compare
that to a track that we took from a known
origin western wolf. So you can see some of the
differences between them. This is a longer track. It's in very deep mud. It's in deep substrate. In order for him to get the
entire toepad and everything, when you step in mud, your
footprint is exaggerated, no matter what you are. NARRATOR: They determine that
the print is from a wolf, though they can't
identify the species. Wolves follow people. We know that. They're very curious. They do it all the time. And based on the behavior, the
description of the behavior, that sounds very wolfy. NARRATOR: But it's uncertain
if the hunter was ever in any real danger. If I were to assess the
risk that this hunter was in, based on statistics, I would
say, no, he's not at risk. They can kill an
elk on their own. So if they wanted to catch
us and kill us, they could. I think we need to be very
careful about not assigning motive to the behavior
of these critters. NARRATOR: The expedition
team reviews the footage from the
motion-activated cameras. We've had really good
success on this expedition around the swamp area. We've gotten bear,
coyote, a number of deer. We've had really good
activity out in the woods, which is amazing,
because the first three days of this expedition
were rainy and stormy, and the animal movement
went down to nothing. I thought I was
connected to the earth. You know, I thought
being a Native American, I thought I was
really connected. And I found out
from this expedition that I'm not as
connected as I thought. There's things out there that I
don't think my little mind can ever explain or comprehend. Certainly, there is a primal
fear to this, definitely. This is eerie. We all had little things
that we brought to the table, and we put them all together. And quite frankly, I mean,
I think we did very well. We found a lot of wildlife, a
lot of food and prey source, scat. We found a lot of stuff, proving
at least that there are wolves in the area. NARRATOR: This
investigation has uncovered some interesting facts
about the legendary werewolf of the Midwest. The science team investigated
the controversial Gable films and found them to be a hoax. The large footprint
found in the area was determined to most
likely be that of a wolf. Yeah, that's wolf
scat right there. NARRATOR: And the
expedition team proved there are wolf and coyote
populations in an area where witnesses have had encounters. [howling] It's something big. Who's to say that there
isn't something that's out here that we haven't seen because
it doesn't want to be seen? Humans are nothing
without our imaginations. And we need something to
feed that from time to time. If there is a
werewolf, I would say, from my point of
view as a native person, just leave it alone. If this creature
does exist, I say it doesn't want to be exposed.
