Josh Gates Investigates Disturbing Dogman Sightings Deep in the Michigan Woods

A night search begins in eerie silence

As darkness settled over the wilderness, the atmosphere turned unsettling almost immediately. The woods were quiet, almost unnaturally so, and that silence only made the investigation feel more intense.

With nightfall often believed to bring increased activity, Josh Gates headed out alone to scan the area for any sign of movement. He searched for eye shine, disturbed ground and any clue that might reveal what could be living in the forest. But being isolated in the dark quickly began to weigh on him. The terrain was eerie, visibility was limited and every sound seemed amplified by the stillness around him.

A loud knocking sound breaks the stillness

The first major moment came when Josh heard a sharp knocking noise somewhere nearby. It was loud enough to stop him in his tracks.

Checking in over radio, he told Heather that he had heard the sound, though nothing had yet appeared on the thermal camera. Even without visual confirmation, both investigators agreed the area felt deeply unsettling. The silence no longer seemed empty. Instead, it felt as if something might be listening from the darkness just beyond their line of sight.

The team tries to provoke a response

Believing sound might travel farther from the ridgeline, Josh decided to try a vocal call into the woods. Heather agreed to follow with one of her own after a pause, hoping that if something was out there, it might respond.

Josh let out a howl and then waited. The sound echoed through the surrounding landscape, carrying across the forest in a way that made the area feel even larger and more exposed. For a few seconds, there was nothing. Then the situation changed quickly. Heather suddenly reported movement on the thermal camera, something moving fast in Josh’s direction before vanishing from view behind the trees.

A thermal sighting raises new questions

The thermal signature was brief, but it was enough to alarm the team.

Heather directed Josh toward the area where she had seen the figure, though by the time he reached it, whatever had appeared on the screen was gone. What mattered most was not just the sighting itself, but the speed of the movement. The text makes clear that the creature’s motion was rapid, and at that distance, the size of the thermal mark suggested it was not a small animal.

That moment shifted the investigation. What had begun as a cautious search for signs now became a more urgent attempt to determine what, exactly, had passed through the woods in front of them.

Fresh evidence on a tree suggests a large predator

As Josh searched the area, he came across something else that added to the tension: fresh urine marking on a tree.

The smell was strong, and the mark appeared relatively high up, suggesting the animal that left it was large. Josh immediately connected that clue to the possibility of a massive canine presence in the area. In the context of the investigation, it felt like one more indication that their howling had provoked a response from something nearby.

When Heather and Phil reviewed the thermal footage, they were struck by the speed of the moving figure and the apparent size of its heat signature. Though they could not identify it with certainty, they agreed it looked substantial. That was enough to send the team pushing deeper into the forest in hopes of locating it again.

The trail goes cold by morning

Despite their efforts, the team was unable to recover another sighting that night. The trail, as the text puts it, went cold.

That setback did not end the investigation, however. The next day, the team split up to gather more information. While one member tracked down another possible eyewitness, Josh met with a man who described himself as a Dogman expert, hoping to understand how local theories and reported encounters had shaped belief in the creature.

A Dogman expert describes a terrifying creature

Josh’s meeting with self-described expert John Bell introduced a far more elaborate theory about the Dogman phenomenon.

Bell, an army veteran and retired law enforcement officer, argued that Dogman reports belong to a broader world of cryptozoology: creatures said to exist despite lacking accepted scientific recognition. According to his account, adult males can stand eight to nine feet tall, move on both two legs and all fours, run at extraordinary speed and display amber, yellow or red eye shine.

Bell then took the claim even further, suggesting that such creatures may have been discovered and weaponised by the military in a secret super-soldier programme. He claimed there were reports of deployments in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, though he offered no verifiable public evidence and said details were classified.

A local hunter recalls a close encounter

Josh also heard from a local hunter and trapper, Jake Shettenhelm, who described a recent sighting near a stream not far from where the team had been searching.

Jake said he and a friend were checking traps when they heard a branch snap and saw a large silhouette. What first appeared as a massive animal then rose onto two legs, revealing what he described as a towering figure with golden-amber eyes and ears like a German Shepherd. According to Jake, the creature stood more than seven feet tall and approached closely enough to leave him frozen with fear. His friend, he said, ran back toward the house in panic.

The following morning, Jake claimed they returned to the area and found tracks that looked canine but were larger than his hand. For him, the experience changed Dogman from local legend into something far more real and disturbing.

Rumours point toward a larger mystery

As the investigation widened, Bell pointed Josh toward rural areas connected to the Department of Natural Resources and highlighted unusual man-made structures in remote places as possible clues. One location he singled out was Miller Airport, near Reed City, which he described as oddly large for such a small town and linked to alleged military involvement. According to one of Bell’s sources, the place was even referred to as Dogman Hotel.

These claims remain highly speculative, but they show how the Dogman legend in Michigan has grown far beyond isolated sightings. It has become a web of stories involving wilderness encounters, hidden facilities and rumours of official secrecy.

An investigation that leaves more questions than answers

By the end of this stage of the search, Josh Gates and his team had no definitive proof of Dogman. What they did have was a chain of unsettling moments: a knocking sound in the darkness, a fleeting thermal image moving quickly through the woods, fresh scent marking on a tree and witness accounts that describe a creature far outside ordinary experience.

Whether the figure seen that night was a known animal, a misidentified shape in difficult conditions or something far stranger remains unresolved. But the events in the Michigan woods were enough to keep the legend alive and to send the investigation into even more unsettling territory.