A DOGMAN Was Found Crawling ON THE CEILING of an Abandoned Church, What Happened Next is Terrifying

The Thing on the Ceiling

Never go inside an abandoned building alone, especially not when the locals refuse to talk about why it was really abandoned. I learned that lesson the hard way in 2003, and what I found crawling across that ceiling still makes me check every shadow in my house twenty years later.

My name is Marcus Bennett and I’m 61 years old now. For two decades, I’ve kept quiet about what happened inside that old church in rural Montana—not just because I thought people wouldn’t believe me, though that’s part of it, but because talking about it means reliving every terrifying second of that night. The church isn’t there anymore. They tore it down in 2015, and when they asked me to oversee the demolition as the county’s historical preservation officer, I made sure every single piece was reduced to splinters and buried deep.

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This is the first time I’m telling the complete story of what I encountered in that place, and why some buildings should stay abandoned forever.

A Job in the Quiet

It was September 2003 and I was 41, working as the historical preservation officer for Stillwater County, Montana. Not the most exciting job—mostly paperwork, grant applications, and sometimes stopping someone from tearing down a barn with minor historical significance. But it paid decent, gave me time outdoors, and let me work in my field without moving to a big city.

I’d grown up in Billings, studied history at the University of Montana, bounced through a decade of jobs—archives assistant, museum guide, one year teaching high school history before realizing I wasn’t cut out for managing teenagers. The preservation job was perfect: quiet, independent, focused on the past.

I lived alone in a small house on the outskirts of Columbus, the county seat. Never married, a few relationships that fizzled out. Most women didn’t find my obsession with hundred-year-old buildings particularly romantic. I had a cat named Roosevelt (after Teddy, not Franklin) and a truck older than some of the structures I was supposed to preserve.

Shepherd’s Grace

September in Montana is beautiful. The summer heat breaks, the leaves start turning, and the mornings smell like pine and earth. That month, I was assigned to survey several abandoned properties in the northern part of the county. Most were old homesteads, barns, the occasional one-room schoolhouse. But one property stood out: an old church about fifteen miles north of Columbus, built in 1889, abandoned since 1974.

I asked around before heading out. The county clerk, Dorothy, who’d worked there for thirty years, got quiet when I mentioned it. “That’s the Shepherd’s Grace Church,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “Been empty a long time.”

“Any idea why it closed?” I asked.

She shuffled papers. “Congregation just stopped coming, I suppose. Happens with these rural churches sometimes.”

“After almost a hundred years, that seems unusual.”

Dorothy looked at me, and her expression was strange. “Marcus, you’ve been doing this job long enough to know some places are abandoned for good reasons. That church is one of them. Do your survey, take your photos, file your report, but do it during the day and don’t linger.”

I laughed it off at the time. Dorothy was known for being a bit superstitious. But looking back, I should have paid more attention.

Arrival

The church sat at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by overgrown grass and weeds waist-high in places. A simple wooden structure, white paint long flaked away, gray weathered boards underneath. A small steeple with a crooked cross. Tall, narrow windows, some broken, others grime-caked. A rusted chainlink fence surrounded the property, gate sagging open. An old cemetery spread out behind the church, headstones leaning at odd angles, names barely readable.

I parked outside the fence, grabbed my gear. The place had that heavy silence some abandoned buildings develop, a kind of waiting in the air. Most empty structures feel neutral, just buildings people left. But some feel different. Wrong. The church felt wrong.

Inside

I started with the exterior survey: photos, notes about structural damage. The foundation looked solid, but there was significant rot. The roof had a few holes. The cemetery was interesting—burials from the 1890s through the 1960s, mostly families that had farmed the area. By the time I finished the exterior, it was just after noon.

The interior assessment was next. The front door creaked open, echoing in the stillness. The inside was surprisingly intact. Wooden pews in neat rows, dust and debris from holes in the ceiling. A pulpit at the front, a large wooden cross on the wall. The floor was hardwood, warped but mostly solid. Sunlight streamed through the dirty windows, dust motes drifting. It smelled like old wood, dust, and something else—organic, unpleasant, not quite decay but close.

I walked slowly down the center aisle, footsteps echoing. The acoustics were strange; sound seemed to bounce and stretch in ways that didn’t feel right. I took photographs, made notes. Old hymnals, a piano against one wall, religious paintings barely visible through grime.

Behind the pulpit, a door led to back rooms. The smell was stronger here, that organic, unpleasant odor. I climbed the steps, opened the door. A narrow hallway, two doors on the right, one on the left.

The Sound

The first door on the right opened to a small storage room. The second was locked. The left door opened to a small office—desk, filing cabinet, bookshelf, everything covered in dust and moisture damage. I was going through the papers when I heard it: a sliding, dragging noise above me in the ceiling.

I stopped. The sound came again, like something being pulled across wood, but it was too heavy, too deliberate, pacing back and forth. I backed out of the office, stood in the hallway listening. The sound moved toward the main part of the church.

I walked back through the door to the pulpit area and looked up at the ceiling—high, maybe twenty feet, exposed wooden beams, everything shadowy even with sunlight. The sound moved from the back of the church toward the front. Then it stopped. Complete silence.

I stood in the center aisle, flashlight pointed at the ceiling, barely breathing.

The Thing

At first, I thought it was just a shadow, a trick of the light. But shadows don’t have shape, don’t have definition. This had both. Something was clinging to one of the ceiling beams near the front of the church. Something large.

My brain tried to process what I was seeing. It was the size of a large dog, but the proportions were all wrong. The body was too long, the limbs too angular, clinging to the beam in a way that defied gravity.

It wasn’t moving. Maybe it couldn’t see me. Maybe if I backed away slowly, I could get out. Then it turned its head and looked directly at me.

We stared at each other. Its eyes reflected my flashlight beam, glowing yellow-green in the darkness. My hands shook. The flashlight wavered, shadows dancing across the ceiling. But I kept it pointed at the thing, afraid to look away, afraid it would move if I broke eye contact.

The body was wrong. Too thin, too angular, joints bending in ways that didn’t match any mammal. The head looked almost canine, but elongated, the snout too long, the jaw too wide.

The Chase

Very slowly, I started backing toward the door. Small steps, keeping my eyes on the thing, flashlight pointed at it. If I could just get outside, get to my truck, I could leave and never come back.

I’d backed up maybe ten feet when the thing moved. It didn’t climb down or jump. It scuttled sideways across the beam, impossibly fast, limbs moving in ways that hurt to watch. Joints bending wrong, body contorting.

I ran. I don’t remember deciding to run. My body just reacted. I sprinted toward the door, gearbag banging against my side, flashlight bouncing wildly. Behind me, I heard it drop from the ceiling—the impact heavy, solid, the sound of significant weight hitting wood. Then the sound of movement, fast, coming after me.

I hit the front door at full speed, slammed through it, nearly falling down the steps. I could hear it behind me, close, the scratch of claws or nails on wood, a sound part growl and part something else, something I’d never heard before.

I ran across the grass toward my truck, not looking back, not daring to look back. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped my keys. I yanked the door open, dove inside, slammed it shut, locked it, jammed the key into the ignition. The engine turned over once, twice—then caught. I floored it, spinning around in the dirt road.

Only then did I look at the church. It was standing in the doorway, upright like a person, but the proportions were all wrong—too tall, maybe seven feet, hunched at the shoulders, front limbs too long, head definitely canine but held wrong for any dog or wolf. It watched me with those glowing eyes.

I didn’t slow down until I hit paved road five miles later. Even then, I kept checking the rear view mirror, half-expecting to see something chasing me.

The Aftermath

Back at the office, Dorothy looked up when I walked in, saw my face, and said, “You went to the church.” I nodded.

“You saw something.” I nodded again.

I told her everything. She listened, her expression troubled. “That’s why the church closed,” she said. “In 1974, something happened there. People just stopped going. There were rumors—shadows, sounds, something wrong with the land, or something that came from the forest and made the church its home. It scared people enough to abandon a church their families had attended for generations.”

“So for almost thirty years, that thing has just been living in there?”

“I guess so. Or it comes and goes. But as long as nobody goes in, there’s no danger.”

I filed a report stating the church was structurally unsound, recommended immediate demolition. I didn’t mention what I’d seen.

The Research

I started researching. County records, old stories. The church had been built in 1889, nothing unusual until the early 1970s, when attendance dropped off. I tracked down Frank Peterson, an old man who had attended the church. He told me about the sounds, the shadows, the smell, and the night his wife saw something crawling on the ceiling—“looked like a dog, moved like a spider.” After that, everyone stopped coming.

I contacted Sarah White Calf, a cultural liaison from the Crow Tribe. She told me that area was considered dangerous by her people, avoided for generations. Stories of beings that were part animal, part something else, that moved in ways normal animals couldn’t, that were intelligent in ways animals weren’t.

“Are they dangerous?” I asked.

“Mostly they avoid humans. If you encountered one, it was because you went into a space it considered its home. You stay away. You don’t go back. And if you’re smart, you make sure that building comes down so nobody else stumbles into its territory.”

The Second Encounter

A few weeks later, I got a call from the sheriff’s office. Teenagers had been caught trespassing, planning to spend the night in the church as a dare. “We need you to go out there and make sure the building is secured,” the deputy said.

I put it off, but finally went. Late afternoon, November. I boarded up windows and doors, but as I was chaining the front door, I heard it again—that sliding, dragging sound from inside, from above, moving toward the front.

I opened the door a crack and peered inside. It was moving across the beams, body contorting, hands with too many fingers, claws digging into the wood. It turned its head, looked at me, eyes glowing yellow-green. Then it opened its mouth and made a sound I felt in my bones. I slammed the door, locked it, ran to my truck. As I drove away, I saw one of the boarded windows flex, like something was pushing against it from inside.

The End of the Church

I pushed for demolition. Sarah suggested an offering, a sign of respect. Two weeks before the demolition, I left tobacco, raw meat, and other items on the steps, and spoke out loud: “This building is going to be torn down. You need to leave. These offerings are a sign of respect, a request that you go peacefully and don’t hurt anyone.”

On demolition day, the crew checked the building—no sign of animals. The offerings were gone. The church came down piece by piece, no problems. In the rubble, there was nothing—no bones, no evidence, nothing to suggest anything unusual had ever lived there.

The Weight of Knowing

For a while after, I was tense, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The area remained quiet. I retired in 2015. Dorothy retired before me. Before she left, she said, “You did the right thing. Some things are better off destroyed, forgotten. Some secrets are meant to stay buried.”

But it wasn’t the end. I still thought about it. On winter nights, when the wind howled, I’d sometimes hear sounds that reminded me of that thing moving across the ceiling. I never went back after the demolition. The land sat empty for years. In 2018, someone bought it and built a house there. I thought about warning them, but what would I say? That I’d seen a monster in a church that used to stand on their property? They’d think I was a crazy old man. As far as I know, they’ve never had any problems.

Maybe the thing really did leave. Maybe it’s deep in the forest now, or maybe it’s still around, still watching, still waiting.

The Truth, at Last

I’m 61, and I’ve kept this secret for twenty years. I’ve tried to rationalize it, to find logical explanations. Maybe it was a bear with a deformity, maybe an escaped exotic animal, maybe I hallucinated. But I know what I saw. It existed. It lived in that church for at least thirty years, maybe longer. It moved in ways that shouldn’t be possible. It was intelligent in ways animals aren’t supposed to be. And it was terrifying in a way that goes beyond normal fear.

I’ve spent twenty years researching similar sightings. I’m not alone. There are other people out there who have seen things they can’t explain. Most keep quiet, just like I did.

But I’m talking about it now because I’m old enough not to care what people think. Because I’ve carried this weight long enough. And because I think people should know that there are things in this world, in the remote places, in the abandoned buildings, in the deep forests, that we don’t understand. Things that existed before we built our towns and roads and churches. Things that are still here, living quietly in the margins, staying hidden from the human world that has no place for them.

That church in rural Montana housed something impossible for decades. It was destroyed in 2004, reduced to rubble and hauled away. But whatever lived there, whatever I saw crawling across that ceiling, it came from somewhere. And if there was one, there might be others.

I don’t know if it was dangerous. It chased me, yes, but it didn’t actually hurt me. Maybe it just wanted to be left alone in its home. But I think about those teenagers. What would have happened if they’d gone inside? Would it have just scared them off, or would it have been more aggressive? I’ll never know.

The church is gone. The thing is gone. But I still check my ceiling sometimes. Still look up when I hear strange sounds overhead. Still remember those glowing eyes looking down at me from impossible perches. And sometimes, late at night, I wonder if destroying that church was the right choice. We took away its home, the place where it had lived for decades without bothering anyone.

Maybe that’s what we do to all the mysteries of the world. We tear them down, pave them over, shine light into every dark corner until there’s nowhere left for the strange and impossible to hide. And then we wonder why the world feels smaller, less magical, less full of possibility.

I saw something impossible in an abandoned church in 2003. I’ve spent twenty years trying to forget it, trying to explain it away, trying to pretend it didn’t happen. But it did happen. And now, finally, I’ve told the truth about it.

Make of that what you will. If you have your own stories, your own encounters with things that shouldn’t exist, you’re not alone. Maybe we can all be crazy together. And remember: not all abandoned buildings are empty. Sometimes they’re home to things we’re better off not disturbing.