NEW BOOK OUT
Current mood: blessed

September greetings, it has been a while as I've been debating whether to continue my MySpace page. So much of it has dealt with the cancer issue, and that is something I'm hoping not to dwell on in the future. It also is something that never really goes away, however. It leaves physical and psychic scars, and Lord knows what else. So I've decided to leave all the dollhouse images in case they may help someone else or give a chuckle. At the time I stopped doing those, I was looking for a doll that could represent Obama. I think I have a McCain and a Palin. Maybe I'll start the episodes again in a crypto-political vein.

On the news front, "Lake and Sea Monsters" is just out from Chelsea House. It's part of the "Mysteries, Legends and Unexplained Phenomena" series edited by Rosemary E. Guiley. See Amazon page The "Werewolves" book Amazon page came out last year and is now in paperback -way cheaper! I'm working on "Mythical Creatures" right now. All three books are much enhanced with illustrations by Troy Therrien, Bart Nunnelly, and my son Nate Godfrey, with a few thrown in from my own pencil box as well.

Serendipitous September greetings and more to come...Linda

9:20 AM - 5 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Belated Valentine and Uncanny Radio

Zounds, has Valentine's Day come and gone so soon? Below is a Valentine, admittedly biased in favor of Manwolf over Bigfoot, that I meant to post on time but did not quite get to. My time has been taken over by publishing deadlines and my new radio show, Uncanny Radio with Manwolf and Linda (see UncannyRadio.com. It is a very fun show, and my co-host, author and publisher Stephen D. Sullivan, aka Manwolf, is working hard on getting the 3 broadcasts we have done so far on downloadable archive or podcast form. The show airs Wed. nights 8-9 p.m. Central time, and is also streamed live on the web. Go to the Uncannyradio.com site for links to the streaming. Last week we featured author Nick Redfern talking about his book "Man Monkey; In Search of the British Bigfoot" and this week we will have Mark Moran, one of the 2 famous "Marks" of Weird New Jersey and Weird US fame giving the lowdown on Melonheads, Midgetville and more. Upcoming guests include Brad Steiger on his book "Shadow World" about the true (and varied) nature of ghosts, and Michigan author Lisa Shiel discussing "Backyard Bigfoot." And below, is my idea of the Beast's idea of a good Valentine. :-)
The show has also solved a problem for me; sharing recent sighting reports that I don't have time to synopsize in print. Every week on "BEASTWATCH" I discuss one or two of the reports that have come in to me in the past week. We also feature Manwolf's Howls and Growls, a consumer guide type review of current sci-fi, paranormal and fantasy TV shows and films. Hope you will all tune in. And in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled.

8:11 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

On Grendel, Bigfoot & Goldilocks, and Monsterquest

Greetings and apologies for my extended absence from blogging. I can blame it partly on Grendel, my best Christmas present. (See pic of Grendel and son Nate in their gray hoodies, hanging out). I named him well; he is a hairy monster but cute enough to continually save himself.


I've also been working on some art, my first "fine art" piece including a crypto creature, titled "Bigfoot and Goldilocks." (see detail) I was invited to be in a UW-Whitewater alumni show, even though I only went there 2 years and graduated from UW-Oshkosh.


Also have "Strange Michigan," which I'm co-authoring with Michigan Bigfoot expert Lisa Shiel, on the keyboard right now, and some work-for-hire strange writing to boot, so my dollhouse folks have been feeling sadly neglected. Especially the Hillary doll, who claims she could use some press after Iowa.


And THEN...the Monsterquest episode "American Werewolf" will be shown on History Channel Jan. 23, not long! The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is doing a feature story on it, and Milwaukee Public Radio will air a segment on their Lake Effects show that day too. It's based on my "Hunting the American Werewolf" but I have NO idea what made the final cut of "my" script.
Belated New Year Happiness Desired in Spades for all friends and readers! - Linda
P.S. Deer hunters report Dogman encounter near Reed City this November...more later

5:58 PM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Not a Bloghouse but an Update- Monster Quest, Courthouse Critter

November 2, 2007 - Crypto Critter in Courthouse, Mysterious Kentucky and American Werewolf on Monster Quest

This is not a Bloghouse, but had a bunch of other things I wanted to share that I also posted on my Wereblog

I'm back after the appearance marathon that resulted from Halloween coinciding with the release of Strange Wisconsin. Some of the highlights included signing all my books for two days at the Milwaukee Public Museum last week, with almost all of the 1500 daily participants dressed as trolls, beasts, fairies and other fabulous personae, and speaking at Chad Lewis and Terry Fisk's Eau Claire Unexplained Conference which drew a crowd of 375 on the Saturday before Halloween.

With Strange Wisconsin now officially on both online and brick-and-mortar bookshelves, I want to point out one story that has not been printed elsewhere of interest to all students of crypto-related culture. In West Bend, Wisconsin, the Washington County Courthouse has a new mural painted last winter that contains, to my knowledge, the only purposely included cryptid in a courthouse mural in the country, excluding classic griffins, chimeras, etc.


The mural, 30 feet wide, was created under the direction of artist Ted Conde. He included the fuzzy creature depicted right (and told me there are several others hidden in the mural as well) after last fall's news reports about the Washington County creature mistakenly reported as Bigfoot. see full story Conde told me he wanted to add mystery to the painting, and that he's open to the existence of such creatures. Partly because the painting was done in a stippled, Impressionist style and partly because Conde wanted the creature to remain mysterious, the image is admittedly a true blobsquatch. But the intent is there and included in a government building meant for permanency. If anyone knows of other courthouse murals that include a Bigfoot, mystery canid, Mothman, or other cryptid I'd love to hear about it. (Photos copyright Linda Godfrey)


The Strange Wisconsin book, btw, tells the full story with an excellent illustration by fantasy artist Troy Therrien, along with explorations of the Man Bat of LaCrosse, the Wausau Whatzit, many Bigfoot sightings and the latest Bray Road incident.

And yeehaa it's here! the new History Channel show "Monster Quest" has hit TV screens at last with its Halloween debut episode, and finally I can talk about it without violating contract rules!

A new series produced by Doug Hajicek of Whitewolf Entertainment in Minnesota, Monster Quest aims to investigate monster lore and legend by using the latest in scientific equipment and technique. The first episode aired Oct. 31, and will continue with different cryptids each time. If you check the episode lineup on the above link, you will see American Werewolf is slated for Jan. 23. That title is based on my book, Hunting the American Werewolf. I've been interviewed on many national TV and radio shows, but this is the first time I was ever asked to write and co-produce one. I spent most of the summer of 2006 tramping around Wisconsin and Michigan with Hajicek and his crews, setting up polygraphs and interviews with witnesses, staking out Dogman hotspots, and digging up historical incidents. I still can't reveal results, of course, and the show has undergone many revolutions of change from my original script but I think this and all the other episodes will be worth watching. The HC writes:

"American Werewolf - Eyewitnesses in Wisconsin and Michigan report seeing a tall hairy man - beast some describe as a dogman...a centuries old legend based on myth, not a real animal. But what are they seeing? MonsterQuest will deploy professional hunters and trackers in an area with recent sightings, armed with a tranquilizer gun. And for the first time eyewitness accounts will be put to the test, using polygraphs and hypnosis&the results will astonish. Wednesday January 23rd"

Also, my son Nate who is a film and painting grad of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was tapped to do historically researched art for the film; here is a detail of his interpretation of a peasant woman being attacked by a French werewolf. He even researched details such as the red color of the hood a female peasant would have worn at that period (remember Little Red Riding Hood?). (copyright Nate Godfrey, may not be reproduced or posted elsewhere).


Mysterious Kentucky is another book I'd like to recommend. By my friend and fellow Fortean Bart Nunnelly (also a fine artist and who contributed several illos to Strange Wisconsin), this book covers everything from Western Kentucky Werewolves to lake creatures, Bigfoot, Goatman and more, and is embellished with Bart's powerful drawings. A true field investigator, Bart is also an "experiencer" who has been lucky enough to have several of his own encounters.It's a 164-page Crypto-rama of lore and first-hand reports, and I enjoyed it immensely. I also supplied a "blurb" for the book's front page and meant every word of it.

And finally, five years after our beloved Lhasa apso Tundra went to dog biscuit heaven I found a worthy successor: a 3-week old male I've named Grendel.

I can't get him til Dec. when he's weaned, but so many odd coincidences came together that I'm sure we were meant to be. I found him driving home from the Eau Claire conference after I changed routes as the last second on a whim. His breeders had never advertised with a roadside sign before; but if they hadn't I wouldn't have seen him. I just happened to have the right amount of cash in my pocket for a down payment, and the night before my father-in-law who is not given to psychic anything had a precognitive dream! He dreamed he saw a lady pushing a wire shopping cart that contained four wriggling, tiny puppies. When I stopped at the farm, a lady showed me a wire cage that contained four wriggling, tiny puppies! You can bet Grendel will be showing up in the Bloghouse!

7:59 AM - 9 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment

Sassy Sister Bigfoot and Strange Wisconsin

It's a serene Friday morning, and I had hoped to post a new Bloghouse by now but the star player, one of the local Bigfoot gang, is not cooperating for her closeup.

Rumors that I am moonlighting as a roadside Cheese Mouse are not at all true; I had to give that up a few weeks ago at the insistence of my publisher and start making appearances to promote Strange Wisconsin, which has already sold out half its first print run 3 weeks before official release. It has the full stories on the Man Bat and the Bearwolf of Washington County, many haunted places, eccentric artists and of course, giant roadside Cheese Mice.

In the meantime, I've had some incredible sightings come in and am at somewhat of a loss as to what to do with them. Things that I post tend to end up on other web sites or even in books or TV shows with little or no attribution and that gets disheartening. Have you noticed how every venue now wants monster content? So for now I will keep working on my new Powerpoint show for all these upcoming talks and keep quietly investigating until I can figure out how best to share some of these new creature directions I'm finding. And no, none of them look like this wolverine statue in Kalkaska, MI, I just couldn't resist putting it in here. Now to go argue with that Sister Bigfoot some more about whether she gets an exteme makeover for the camera....

6:57 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Linda’s Bloghouse: Sparks Fly

Hey folks, before I get into the new episode of Linda's Bloghouse,

explaining where I've been, I want to mention that today I was privileged to be the first to view official stills of a newly found but older film of what looks more to me like a Manwolf or Dogman than any other film or photo I've seen. The film itself is blurry as might be expected, but does not look like a human faking an attack. Neither does it look exactly like any other known animal. But the majority of the stills appear to be close to how most witnesses describe the head and torso of the Dogman. If it's a fake, which I can't rule out until the owner has more testing done, it's a fabulous job. Watch for its public release by the owner soon!

2:09 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Still More on Milwaukee Manwolf Plus Book Links

Just wanted to share another photo of the smaller tracks from the road's ending point...here you can get an idea of the stride length and see one of the smaller front limb prints in between the two larger ones. I've had some questions on this and wanted to be clear that this set of prints was made by something walking quadrupedally. These, again, were taken near the cliff point and about half a mile from the sighting, but similar prints were found closer, in the woods and the same "mud puddle" where the larger tracks and deer prints were discovered.

Also, I neglected to mention earlier that both Brianne and John reported catching whiffs of a "dirty animal smell"...not overpowering or constant but what you might expect when in the vicinity of a wild animal.

And finally, while this blog was created mainly as a fun diversion to get myself through chemo and other cancer treatment, and to serve as a bridge for some creature reports while I work at getting my other websites up to snuff, I've been receiving questions about book and site links so I'll list them all here.

Hunting the American Werewolf

The Beast of Bray Road

Weird Michigan

Weird Wisconsin

The Poison Widow: A True Story of Sin, Strychnine and Murder

Also, "Strange Wisconsin: More Badger State Weirdness" will be out in fall, 2007, and a book titled "Werewolves" from a NY publisher should hit the shelves early 2008. "Stragne Michigan: More Wolverinen State Weirdness," co-authored with Lisa Shiel, is due fall, 2008. And I'm looking for an agent for a YA fantasy novel that is finished, too.

My web sites that all work but have been static since my diagnosis...and hope to have them live again soon... are:

Linda Godfrey's home page, cnb-scene.com

Beast of Bray Road home page


Visit Weird Michigan

Weird Writers

There, that about does it. I'll be back with more on this latest sighting as I learn things, and also another Bloghouse episode. Gotta get rid of that latest wig, although Statue of Liberty do's are apropos for the 4th. And with Bill and Hillary visiting Cedar Rapids this week, who knows whether they might pop in for a visit to Bug Woman Betty. I still need my fun.... (sample here from previous Bloghouse)

7:58 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

More on Milwaukee Manwolf

Saturday, June 30 was the date of a happy confluence of events for me. I received a call from what sounded like credible people regarding the sighting of a bipedal Manwolf that fulfilled all my requirements for an investigation. It was recent (June 26), on accessible land, within reasonable driving distance, and occurred in weather good enough so there was a possibility evidence might still be in place. In addition, there were three adult witnesses who swore they had not been drinking or doing drugs previous to the sighting, and I was feeling sufficiently recovered from my cancer treatment to try a modest field trip. On top of all that, it was a full moon!

The hub and I arrived at the site, Fitzsimmons Road between South Milwaukee and Racine, about 4:30 p.m. The road, mostly closed off due to the fact that at the end of its one mile length, it literally crumbles off into an eroded cliff over Lake Michigan.



While he listened to a few more minutes of the Brewers game, I started off down the road, exactly as the witnesses had done about 1 a.m. four days earlier. Except in their case, the road was lit by a 3/4 moon and a streetlight at the concrete barrier. All I heard was chirping of crickets and red-winged blackbirds, but Brianne Virgin, 22, Jonathan Hart, 25, and Jonathan's brother Benjamin Hart, 18, along with two 18-year old friends of Ben's, Breonna and Shawna (last names withheld), heard a high-pitched, drawn out scream coming from somewhere in the cornfield to the north of the road. (To the south is a wheat field.) It sounded like a woman, said Brianne, yet they knew it was not human. They had walked about half the length of the road, still adjacent to the cornfield and about 1/8 mile from the small woods that lead to the cliff, when Ben spotted a pair of almond, yellowish eyes glaring at them from the brush. That was all his two friends, Breonna and Shawna needed to hear to return to the car.

Brianne, Ben and John stood there, Brianne's flashlight also trained on the eyes, which appeared to belong to some kind of furry, canid creature crouching on all fours. To their amazement it rose onto its hind legs and faced them. Its chest and stomach area were light tan, its doglike legs and forelimbs and face darker "clay" brown, said Brianne. Its fur was shaggy. Ben, who stands over six feet tall, said the creature wsa as tall or taller than he was.

The creature then moved one forelimb as if getting ready to come toward them, and the three humans shrieked and turned to run back to the car. Ben was in the lead, followed by Brianne and then John. They could hear its feet hitting the ground with the weight and rythm of a biped, but faster than a human's feet would go, they said.

At one point, the creature caught up to John, close enough that he could feel its body heat and that he "felt its presence." Then it grazed his shirt with its paws, leaving two sets of triple 5/8" slashes about one inch apart on the back of his button-front, "Cheech and Chong Up in Smoke" shirt. John said that he felt warm at the point where he was touched, but the rest of his body felt cold, "goose-bumpey and shivery." His skin was not scratched. He kept going. At a short distance before they reached the barrier and street light, they no longer heard the footsteps and turned to see the creature had vanished back into the cornfield. They got in the car and left.

All during the chase, they said, they kept hearing the same type of scream they'd heard at first in the field, but lower pitched and "more aggressive." They could not tell as they ran if it was coming from the field or the creature chasing them. Also as they ran, Brianne turned several times to turn her flashlight on John and the creature. They left immediately and told the Hart men's mother about the incident. Their mother told me the 18-year old sobbed as he told the story and was truly frightened. Their mother's sister was the one who finally contacted me.

I did find some canine prints on the sand point at the end of the road but they were about 3"inches long and could have belonged to a large dog but probably not to a wolflike creature that stood six feet tall.



We also found prints from what looks like some larger type of canid mixed with numerous deer prints and a few of the smaller prints in a clay mud-water hole off a deer trail into the woods on the north side of the road. (see previous blog for another print pic). The witnesses are all positive this was not a bear, human in a suit, or Bigfoot, based on what they saw of it. It walked "on its toes like a dog," said Brianne, not flat footed like a bear or human.



It looked like something had ambushed a deer at that spot; there were deer prints angled deeply into the edge of the clay as if it needed to spring quickly away. We also found a bone of a small mammal, probably a raccoon but as yet undetermined, lying on the road near the sighting area. However, any predator could have left it.



"Ever since then we've been on edge," said Brianne. "It's not an experience I'd wish on anyone."

So far, all the stories of the witnesses and the relatives to whom they had told their experience have tallied very well, and I have seen no reason to suspect their report. I will be interviewing them further and hope to return to the area to conduct a plant analysis and survey the habitat a little better. I also found a small amount of tan fur on the road near the sighting, which I'll try to get checked out. Stay tuned, and see previous blog for other pix. (I'm working on a new Bloghouse episode too, the radiation fairy is slowing me down).

10:27 PM - 4 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Fitzsimmons Road Manwolf

New sighting June 26 on Fitzsimmons Road between South Milwaukee and Racine:
3 people were chased by a Manwolf running on 2 legs, one had claw marks left on the back of his shirt
Investigation with 3 primary witnesses June 30
Full report coming but four pix shown here are of witnesses at sighting point, large footprint of unidentified animal found nearby, and shirt

6:09 PM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

More Holy Hill Strangeness - Creature Mailbox Post

Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to post the following strange thing I learned yesterday in a phone call from Steven Krueger, the witness who saw something that looked like a bearwolf rock his truck and steal a deer carcass as he was collecting them on his job last fall. (see http://www.cnb-scene.com/brayupdate.html for full story on that)

According to Steve, a stretch of Hwy. 41 Washington County locaated between Hwys Q and 60 (5-6 miles east of Holy Hill), has seen a sudden, huge increase of deer kills that have not occurred elsewhere on his route through that county or several adjacent ones. The spate seemed to begin about May 15: he has had 28 deer reported on that stretch alone since then, and found additional unreported ones as well. His total deer count in Wash. Cty. for May is about 80 compared to 45 the last 2 years. Average total in the rut season is 90, and it's a long time til rut.

Krueger said his first thought was that some other county was dumping them there, but then realized if they were going to the trouble to pick them up and move them, they probably would have just disposed of them. He now thinks something unusual is chasing them out. He also reported hearing an unidentified creature make a very loud and unusual "howl" one night as he was picking up a deer. He noted coyote had been skulking around the carcass, and when this howl occurred, the coyote scattered. He said it was not a coyote, wolf or bobcat. When I attempted to mimic the sound the 2 men who believe they have heard Manwolves make (varied pitch going from growl to yowl) he immediately said that was close to what he heard.

Could be there is a cougar, bear or wolf in that region but it must be sticking very close to the 8-9 mile stretch of highway if so. The carcasses have all shown car damage said Krueger but in this heat have been too decomposed by the time he gets them to see if they have claw marks or not. He has promised to keep me posted on this to see if it continues.

8:06 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment