I live in northwest Illinois, and my eldest daughter lives near Atlanta, Georgia. So, when I drive down to see her, I generally go through Illinois (which is a L-O-N-G state), through Paducah, Kentucky (isn’t that the greatest name?), and then along Highway 24, skirting the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.
I’d never thought much about the area until the Small Town Monsters folks decided to put together a documentary on the area called “Dogman Territory: Werewolves in the Land Between the Lakes*.
This is how they describe the documentary from their website, “Have you heard about the “massacre at LBL”? A tragic and terrifying event that is said to have unfolded in the 1980s deep in the woods of a national recreation area in Kentucky, near the Tennessee border. The event kicked off a long-standing tradition of werewolf encounters within the park’s borders that still take place to this day.
But is there any truth to it? Shannon LeGro and Aaron Deese journey to the hunting grounds of Land Between the Lakes in search of evidence and, possibly, their own encounter with the beasts said to roam the area.”
I watched the documentary yesterday, and I found it really intriguing. It’s not a horror flick filled with startling scenes that will make you jump. It’s not a “Chasing the Dogman” Discovery Channel show filled with really shadowy images of something that might have been something but also might not. It’s a documentary where Shannon LeGro, host of “Into the Fray Radio,” a podcast that “has Shannon speaking to witnesses of cryptids, UFOs, and various aspects of the paranormal,” and Aaron Deese, a San Antonio, Texas-based author, and researcher and the former Editor in Chief of Paranormality Magazine, interview witnesses, other paranormal investigators, and even law enforcement officials about the strange phenomenon found within the area.
There are a couple of grainy photos captured with an infrared camera, but most of the information is from first-hand encounters and anecdotal information about the history of the Land Between the Lakes and the unexplained phenomena that reside there. I highly recommend the documentary!
So, is there other paranormal information about the LBL other than the documentary? Here are just a few examples I found:
This is from Four Rivers Explorer.com. “Our second story comes from a very trustworthy source, a man familiar with this area and its folklore. Having disregarded all the scary stories, he had camped in this area many times and was unconcerned with what might be hiding in the shadows. On this particular night, his opinion changed. He and his friends decided to camp on the northeast side of Land Between The Lakes on the bank of Lake Barkley.
He and his wife pitched their tent up on a hill while his friends made camp on the shore about 30 feet below. As night fell and darkness came over the campground, our source began to feel an overwhelming sense of dread and an urgency to move his tent. He describes this experience as though someone was watching him, or at least that he wasn’t alone. A very sensible and logical man, he couldn’t shake this feeling of fright and found it absolutely necessary to relocate his makeshift dwelling.
Some may brush off these feelings as par for the course while back-country camping. After all, being completely outside of your element can put anyone on edge, but the stories don’t end with this one. Our source tells us that his friends returned to the same location sometime later and built a campfire. “These are God-fearing, church-going people. I don’t think they’d be as scared about this story if they didn’t fully believe what had happened was real,” he says.
During this campfire, all three at once became overwhelmed by a very sinister sensation, and one even began to cry. The others turned to look into the darkness and saw a face peering back at them. As quickly as they could, they left the area, and they never went back.”
No time for smores, Verna! We need to pack up and go!!!
One of the main stories is an undocumented story about a family who were killed at one of the campsites in the early 1980s. Here’s a paraphrased version of the story from Lyle Russell.net –WARNING – GRAPHIC!!!
“On an uneventful night around 3 am, two police officers who were regulars at this gas station pulled in under the pump canopy. In Jan’s written account, she has left the officers unnamed to protect their identity. For the rest of this story, we’ll use the aliases she gave them of Officer Bill and Officer Adam. Instead of their usual jovial banter with Jan, Officer Adam collapsed onto the curb and vomited everything his stomach could muster. Jan watched through the window as Officer Bill did his best to comfort his partner but was also visibly shaken by whatever malady had befallen them. Jan came out to find out what was wrong, offering some Rolaids and refreshments. Neither said much outside of fragmented and incoherent sentences for a span of several minutes, only repeating, “I can’t believe it, it’s just not possible,” or, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” When Adam raised his head, Jan could see dried blood on his face and neck. Jan was curious but didn’t press for more information. She could not imagine what could have disturbed these officers so badly. In her words, “Adam’s bottom lip was trembling slightly, and it wasn’t from the slight chill in the late spring air. Someone or something had filled them each with a congested fear.” After a short while, they calmed some and began their story.
They had been called to assist with a remote site investigation within LBL. It was the beginning of tourist season, and some early arrivals had already staked claim to the prime remote spots throughout the park. Sometimes, disagreements would erupt between campers wanting the same site, so an occasional call to the remote areas was not unusual. They arrived at the scene around sunset to find several other official vehicles and investigators already there. Among them were other police cruisers, an ambulance, and a coroner’s van. Before them was a parked motor home with the door hanging on by one hinge. A campfire lit the immediate vicinity that whoever was camping there surely built. Flashlight beams were splitting the usually silent forest surrounding the campsite and occasionally illuminated what appeared to be bloody handprints on the walls of the motor home.
Bloody handprints were insignificant to the carnage they witnessed as they walked into the site. Body parts were strewn everywhere. Shredded clothing, severed limbs, and internal organs were thrown about like confetti at a child’s party. Many on the scene had already lost their composure and their dinner at the gruesome scene. Adam and Bill asked another officer on the scene what had happened. He told them a newlywed couple on a hike had discovered what they were now looking at and fled into town to call the police. So far, they identified three separate bodies: a father and mother with their young son, as best they could tell, and they weren’t sure what the murder weapon was that caused such devastation. The coroner overheard the report and interrupted them with an answer. He stated there was no murder weapon at all and that the bodies had been torn apart by teeth and claws. Adam asked if this was a bear attack. The other officer said bears were not native to the area, but anything was possible. He added it may have been a mountain lion or a wolf. The coroner dismissed that explanation.
“These are not from a mountain lion or a wolf,” he said. “The teeth and jaws are far too big for that.”
The coroner showed Adam and Bill on a larger portion of what was identified as the father’s torso four distinct cuts made by claws, “at least 2 inches long,” he said. “But the bites are what confuses me. The depth of the jaw is much larger than a bear, meaning this beast has a longer snout.”
Suddenly, an officer burst from the ransacked motor home holding a little girl’s dress. “There’s a fourth!” he shouted. “Look for a little girl. We might have a survivor!” They regained as much professionalism as they could and renewed their search. The officers formed a line and marched into the surrounding woods, calling for anyone who could still be out there. After a few minutes of searching, a shrieking scream pierced the night. Bill ran towards the scream alongside the other officer he and Adam first met at the scene. When they came upon Adam, he was kneeling on the ground and sobbing. Bill shined his light onto Adam’s face, asking what made him scream. His tears streaked through the wet blood on his face. Adam pointed up. Their flashlight beams traveled up the nearby tree trunk and into the canopy. The officers jumped back with a start.
Dangling from a high limb was a small and lifeless hand, and on the other side of it, a pale leg with a white sock still over the foot. They had found the little girl, and she did not survive. Shortly after they took down her body from the tree, the coroner said her tiny body had been partially devoured, and clumps of dark brown/gray hair were clutched in her hand and on the bark of the tree. An animal had done this, but of what kind, they had no idea. After a few hours of trying to make sense of it all, a line of dark vehicles came up the road with a new team of investigators to relieve the officers. They gave explicit instructions not to speak of this incident to anyone, especially the media.
About a month later, Adam and Bill returned to the gas station while Jan was working, taking a break from their patrol. She describes them as being different after their harrowing experience. No longer jovial or friendly, but quiet, serious, and withdrawn. They told her that lab tests from the crime scene determined the hair and saliva samples could not be matched to any known species, and the closest comparison was from Canis lupus – a wolf, and that she should be careful. They explained to her never to mention to anyone that they had told her what happened that night.”
There are no police reports to substantiate the information, but many believe the government covered up the event because it either didn’t want to discourage tourism or the creature was something actually developed by them. They believe the line of dark vehicles that came to the site toward the end of the initial investigation was a government agency determined to conceal the event.
The documentary investigates this story and discovers a campsite that was opened the same year as the alleged attack but was suddenly shut down by the government with no explanation. Although a lot of money had been spent building the “modern” campsite facilities, they were just allowed to deteriorate and be absorbed back into the woods.
Pretty suspicious – right?
Nope – nothing to see here at all.
Happy Friday!!!
*(This is an affiliate link, so I could earn a commission if you buy the movie through this link.)