When a Former CIA Agent Crossed Paths with a Dogman: The Startling Aftermath You Won’t Believe!

When a decorated CIA field operative is ordered to investigate something that officially doesn’t exist, you know the rabbit hole goes deeper than anyone imagines. For 40 years, I’ve carried classified knowledge about creatures the government has been tracking since the Cold War—creatures that walk upright like men but possess the savagery of apex predators. They call them Dogmen. And what I’ve witnessed in the field has kept me silent until now. But silence has a weight, and after four decades, it’s time someone told the truth.

The Call to Action

My name is John Penelopey, though that’s not the name I used during my operational years. In March 1987, I was a 32-year-old field operative working for a division of the CIA that most agency personnel didn’t even know existed. Our official designation was the Biological Anomaly Research and Containment Unit, or BARCU, though internally we just called it the Program. Our mandate was simple on paper but terrifying in practice: investigate, document, and when necessary, contain biological entities that fell outside conventional scientific classification.

I had a background that made me valuable to the Program: a master’s degree in zoology from Cornell, eight years with Army Special Forces, psychological operations training, and a security clearance that went beyond top secret into compartmentalized access that even most generals didn’t have. I’d seen combat in places the public would never know about, dealt with human threats of every variety, and thought I understood the full spectrum of danger this world had to offer. I was wrong.

The call came on a gray Tuesday morning in March. My handler, a woman I knew only as Control, contacted me through the secure line in my Arlington apartment. “Reeves, pack for two weeks in the field. Cold weather gear. You’re being deployed to northern Wisconsin within six hours.” Her voice was steady, but I detected something underneath it—not quite fear, but close. Tension, maybe. Apprehension.

“What’s the situation?” I asked, already moving to my closet where my go-bag stayed perpetually ready.

“Local law enforcement found something three days ago. A hunting party, or what’s left of them. Four experienced outdoorsmen torn apart in the Chequamegon National Forest. The scene is… inconsistent with any known predator behavior. We’ve contained the local investigation, but we need assessment and possible containment protocols activated.”

I had worked enough of these cases to read between the lines. When Control said “inconsistent with known predator behavior,” she meant something had killed humans in ways that couldn’t be explained by bears, wolves, or mountain lions. When she mentioned containment protocols, she meant there was a possibility we were dealing with one of them—the things we tracked, the things that supposedly didn’t exist.

“I’ll be ready in three hours,” I said.

“Two hours,” Control corrected. “The helicopter leaves from Reagan National at 1300. Don’t be late, Marcus. This one feels different.”

“Different how?” I wanted to ask, but the line was already dead. Control never stayed on longer than necessary. Operational security was everything in the Program.

Into the Woods

The flight to Wisconsin took us to a small regional airport outside of Park Falls, where I was met by Agent Sarah Chen, a forensic specialist I’d worked with twice before. Sarah was brilliant, methodical, and one of the few people in the Program who’d seen as much field time as I had without cracking under the psychological weight.

She greeted me with a grim expression and a file folder marked with classification stamps I’d only seen a handful of times. “It’s bad, Marcus,” she said as we climbed into an unmarked SUV. “Worse than anything I’ve processed before. I’ve been doing this for six years and I’ve never seen a scene like this.”

We drove for 45 minutes into increasingly remote territory. The forest was dense, the roads barely maintained. Finally, we turned onto a logging road that had been blocked off with orange cones and an unmarked van. Two men in tactical gear, clearly military despite their civilian clothing, waved us through after checking our credentials. Another mile into the woods, we reached the actual scene.

A temporary command post had been established—essentially, several large tents heated by portable generators. Personnel moved with purpose, all wearing unmarked uniforms, all carrying weapons I recognized as specialized for large, dangerous targets: high-caliber rifles, not the standard issue you’d see even in special operations.

Dr. James Cartwright, the lead forensic pathologist, met us at the command tent. He was in his 50s, gray-haired with eyes that had seen too much. “Agent Reeves,” he said, shaking my hand with a grip that trembled slightly. “I need to prepare you for what you’re about to see.”

“I’ve been a forensic pathologist for 28 years—military, FBI, and now this Program. I’ve processed mass casualty events, war crimes, the absolute worst humanity can inflict on itself. This is different.” He trailed off, searching for words.

“Show me,” I said quietly.

The Kill Site

The kill site was another 100 yards into the forest. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Even in the cold March air, even with three days passed, the scent of death and something else, something musky and wild, hung heavy in the clearing. The second thing I noticed was the trees—deep gouges in the bark 8 to 10 feet off the ground. Four parallel claw marks that had torn through the wood like it was paper.

Then I saw the remains. Dr. Cartwright had been right. This was beyond anything I’d encountered. Four adult males, all experienced hunters based on the equipment scattered around the site, had been systematically torn apart. Not eaten, not dragged away like typical predator behavior. Torn apart with what looked like focused rage. Limbs separated from torsos with force that suggested strength far beyond any known animal.

Claw marks on the bodies matched the ones on the trees and bite marks—massive bite marks that showed a jaw structure unlike anything in our databases. “Dental impressions suggest a canine-type predator,” Dr. Cartwright said, his voice clinical but strained. “But the size is all wrong. The jaw that made these marks would have to be massive, at least twice the size of the largest wolf on record. The bite force calculation suggests something in the range of a large crocodile, but the tooth pattern is definitely mammalian—canine specifically.”

I knelt beside one of the bodies, studying the wounds with the professional detachment I’d learned to maintain in the field. The victim’s face was frozen in an expression of absolute terror, eyes wide, mouth open in what had probably been a final scream.

“Time of death?” I asked.

“Based on temperature, lividity, and environmental factors, we estimate between 72 and 76 hours ago. Early morning, probably between 4 and 6:00 AM. They had a camp set up about 50 yards from here.” Dr. Cartwright pointed toward a cluster of trees where I could see the remains of tents and camping equipment. “They were attacked while sleeping based on the pattern. Two of them made it out of their tents, tried to run, didn’t get far.”

Sarah had been documenting everything with a specialized camera, taking measurements, collecting samples. Now she approached with her tablet, showing me a three-dimensional reconstruction the software had generated. “Look at the attack pattern,” she said. “This wasn’t random predation. This was methodical. The creature, whatever it was, approached from the northwest. It took out the victims in the tents first, eliminating the ones who were most vulnerable. Then it pursued the two who ran. One made it almost 100 yards before being brought down.”

The tracking pattern suggests the attacker was bipedal. “Bipedal?” I looked at her sharply. “You’re certain? The footprints are conclusive?”

She nodded. “We found 17 clear impressions in the soft ground. They’re unlike anything in our comparative database. Canine features, definitely elongated foot structure, prominent claw marks, but they’re arranged for upright locomotion—heel-to-toe gait pattern. Whatever made these tracks walks on two legs like a human, but with a foot structure that’s clearly not human.”

I felt the familiar cold sensation in my gut that came with these cases—the moment when you moved from investigating an unknown animal attack to confronting something that defied everything you thought you understood about biology and zoology.

“Size estimate?” I asked.

“Based on stride length and depth of impression, we’re looking at something approximately 7 and a half to 8 feet tall when upright. Weight estimate between 400 and 500 pounds. Massively strong based on the force required to inflict the damage we’re seeing.”

Dr. Cartwright pulled out another tablet, showing me close-up images of the bite marks. “Look at this carefully, Reeves. This is what keeps me up at night. The tooth pattern shows both crushing molars and tearing incisors. That’s typical of carnivores. But look at the arrangement. The canine teeth—these four here,” he highlighted them on the image, “are massive, over 3 inches long based on the depth of puncture wounds. But more than that, look at how they’re positioned. This isn’t a wolf’s jaw. This isn’t even close to a wolf’s jaw. The structure suggests something that’s adapted for both tearing meat and maintaining a powerful bite grip. Something that hunts intelligently.”

I stood and walked the perimeter of the scene, studying everything—the scattered equipment, the patterns of blood spatter, the directional analysis of how the attacks had unfolded. Sarah and Dr. Cartwright were right. This was methodical. This was an ambush by something that understood how to hunt humans specifically.

“What does local law enforcement know?” I asked.

“We fed them the bear attack story,” Sarah said. “Aggressive male black bear, unusual for the season, but not unprecedented. The local sheriff bought it because, frankly, what else was he going to believe? The bodies have been released to the families with instructions that the caskets remain closed due to the traumatic nature of the injuries.”

As far as anyone outside the program knows, this was a tragic but explainable wildlife encounter. But we know better, I said quietly. We know it’s one of them.

Dr. Cartwright confirmed. “We’ve had reports from this region going back to the 1950s. Native American folklore talks about creatures they called beastmen or walking wolves. Local legends about something in these forests that hunts on two legs. Sightings reported by credible witnesses—hunters, forest rangers, even law enforcement. The program has been monitoring this area for decades, but this is the first time we’ve had a confirmed kill event with physical evidence this conclusive.”

The Decision

A Dogman. That’s what the classification would be in our system. Not werewolf—that was Hollywood fiction. Not some supernatural entity, but a biological creature, flesh and blood, that somehow combined characteristics of canines and primates in a way that defied evolutionary biology as we understood it.

I’d seen the classified files, read the reports going back to the 1930s—sightings across the upper Midwest, particularly Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Descriptions that remained remarkably consistent—bipedal, canine features, massive size, incredible strength, and most disturbingly of all, apparent intelligence.

“What’s the containment protocol?” I asked.

Sarah looked uncomfortable. “That’s why you’re here, Marcus. Control wants an assessment before deciding on the protocol. If we classify this as an active threat, we move to elimination. If we classify it as a cryptid species requiring study, we move to live capture. But live capture of something like this—” she gestured at the carnage around us. “That’s a whole different level of dangerous.”

I spent the next three days studying everything we had—the attack site, witness statements from locals about unusual sightings in the weeks before the attack, historical data from previous encounters in the region, and most importantly, the tracking data. Sarah’s team had deployed motion-activated trail cameras throughout a 10-square-mile area around the attack site. We also had thermal imaging drones running grid patterns every night.

On the fourth night, we got our first visual confirmation. The trail camera triggered at 2:47 AM. The image that came through to our monitors in the command tent made everyone in the room go silent. It was massive, easily 8 feet tall, standing fully upright on two legs in a clearing about 4 miles northeast of the attack site. The body was covered in dark fur, the build powerfully muscled, arms that looked too long for the torso, but it was the head that confirmed everything—distinctly canine, wolflike, but larger, heavier in the jaw.

The eyes reflected the camera’s flash with a greenish glow, and even in the still image, you could sense the intelligence behind them. “Jesus Christ,” breathed one of the technicians. “It’s real. It’s actually real.”

I was already suiting up, pulling on thermal gear and checking my weapons. “Get me a location lock. I want a team ready to move in 15 minutes.”

“Marcus, wait.” Sarah grabbed my arm. “We don’t know its behavior patterns yet. Going in with a tactical team at night could trigger another attack.”

“That’s why I’m going alone,” I said. “One person, no aggressive posture, no threat display. I need to observe it in its natural behavior before we make any containment decisions. This might be our only chance.”

The argument that followed was brief but intense. Ultimately, Control gave authorization for a solo observation mission with aerial support on standby.

I was dropped by helicopter three miles from the camera location—far enough that the sound wouldn’t spook the creature if it was still in the area. Then I moved through the dark forest alone, guided by GPS and thermal imaging equipment toward something that had killed four armed men without hesitation just days earlier.

The forest at night in northern Wisconsin in March is a special kind of darkness. The kind that makes you aware of how vulnerable humans really are, stripped of our technology and tools. Every sound becomes amplified. Every shadow becomes a potential threat. I’d operated in combat zones, moved through enemy territory in places where discovery meant death. But this felt different. This felt primal. I wasn’t hunting another human, another predator that followed human logic and human limitations. I was tracking something that existed in a space between animal and something more.

I reached the clearing where the camera had captured the image at 4:15 AM. The location was empty, but the evidence of its presence was clear. Massive footprints in the soft ground, exactly matching the ones from the kill site. Claw marks on trees where it had apparently scraped bark, marking territory maybe. And the smell—that musky, wild scent that had been present at the attack site—stronger here, fresher.

I was studying the footprints using a specialized flashlight with a red filter to preserve my night vision when I heard it—a sound that made my blood run cold. It started as a low growl, deep and resonant, coming from the tree line about 50 yards to my left. Then it shifted, rising in pitch, becoming something between a howl and a roar. The sound carried through the forest, echoing off the trees, and I understood why witnesses described it as the most terrifying thing they’d ever heard. It wasn’t just loud. It was purposeful—a challenge, a warning.

I turned slowly toward the sound, keeping my rifle lowered in a non-threatening position. My heart was hammering, adrenaline flooding my system, but my training held. I couldn’t run. Running would trigger a chase response. I couldn’t shoot unless directly attacked. Those were my orders: observe, document, assess.

The Face-to-Face Encounter

Then I saw it. It emerged from the darkness between the trees. And even though I’d seen the photographs, even though I’d read all the reports and studied the evidence, nothing prepared me for the reality of seeing it in person. It was massive, even larger than the estimates suggested—easily 8 and a half feet tall when standing at full height. The body was covered in thick, dark fur that looked almost black in the dim light. The arms were long, muscular, ending in hands that showed both humanlike dexterity and animal claws. The legs were digitigrade, meaning it walked on its toes like a canine. But the posture was fully upright.

But it was the head and face that truly shocked me. Distinctly wolflike, with an elongated muzzle full of teeth I could see even at this distance. Pointed ears that swiveled to track sounds. But the eyes—God, the eyes. They weren’t animal eyes. They held something more: awareness, intelligence. It was looking at me, not like prey, but like another thinking being evaluating, deciding.

We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity but was probably only 30 seconds. I kept my breathing steady, my posture neutral, my weapon down. I was letting it assess me, showing that I wasn’t an immediate threat. The creature tilted its head slightly, a gesture that was disturbingly doglike, studying me with those intelligent eyes. Then it did something that changed everything. It spoke—not in English, not in any human language, but it vocalized in a way that was clearly deliberate communication. A series of sounds that had structure, pattern, intentionality.

It wasn’t just growling or howling. It was trying to communicate something to me. I stood frozen, my mind racing through the implications. If this creature had language, even a primitive one, it suggested cognitive capabilities far beyond anything we’d theorized. This wasn’t just an unknown animal. This was potentially an unknown intelligent species.

The creature, I mentally named him Alpha for lack of any better designation, demonstrated intelligence that exceeded anything we’d theorized. He understood pointing, could follow complex gestural sequences, and showed clear problem-solving behavior. When I drew simple symbols in the dirt—representations of humans and Dogmen living separately in the forest—he studied them intently and then modified the drawing with his own claw, adding details that suggested he understood the concept I was trying to communicate.

As darkness fell, Alpha made a final vocalization, something that sounded almost like farewell, and retreated into the forest. I sat in that clearing for another 30 minutes, my hands shaking from adrenaline before the extraction team came to get me.

“Did that just happen?” Sarah asked as we drove back to the base. “Did you just have a conversation with one of them?”

“I think so,” I said, still processing everything. “Sarah, we’ve been approaching this all wrong. They’re not animals. They’re not even just intelligent animals. They’re people. Different from us, yes, but people nonetheless. They have language, culture, social structure. They understand abstract concepts like territory and coexistence. We’ve discovered a non-human intelligent species living in North America, and nobody knows about it except us.”

The contact protocol was deemed a qualified success. Over the following months, we had four more controlled encounters with Alpha and two encounters with other individuals, including one that appeared to be female based on physical characteristics. Each encounter gave us more data, more understanding. We learned that they lived in small family groups, typically three to six individuals. They were primarily nocturnal but would occasionally move during twilight hours. They were omnivorous but preferred meat, hunting deer and elk with remarkable efficiency. They avoided human contact deliberately, having learned over generations that humans were dangerous.

But we also learned darker things. The attack that had killed the four hunters wasn’t random predation or mindless violence. Through our communications with Alpha, using the limited language bridge we’d established, we understood that those hunters had discovered a denning site where a female was raising two cubs. They’d approached too close, possibly threatened the young, and she’d responded with lethal force to protect her offspring. From the Dogman’s perspective, it was justified defense of family. From ours, it was four dead humans.

The Ethical Dilemma

The ethical implications paralyzed the Program for months. What were our obligations here? We’d confirmed the existence of an intelligent species. Did they deserve legal protection? The Endangered Species Act didn’t account for something like this. Did they have rights? Our legal system had no framework for non-human persons. And most critically, what happened if the public found out?

I wrote a 247-page report arguing for a policy of non-interference. Designate large wilderness areas as protected territories for the Dogmen, monitor them to ensure no human casualties, but otherwise leave them alone. Let them live their lives in the forests they’d inhabited for thousands of years before European colonization.

But there were others in the Program who saw it differently. They argued that any species capable of killing humans so effectively was an unacceptable threat. That we had an obligation to protect human lives above all else, even if that meant eliminating a unique intelligent species. The debates were fierce, conducted in classified briefing rooms with only a handful of people who knew the truth.

In August 1988, the decision came down from somewhere far above my clearance level. The Dogman would be classified as a cryptid species, protected status with active monitoring, which meant we would continue tracking them, documenting them, and most importantly, keeping their existence absolutely secret. Any individuals that demonstrated aggressive behavior toward humans would be contained, which was a polite term for killed. But the species as a whole would be allowed to survive as long as they remained hidden and didn’t pose an ongoing threat.

I stayed with the Program for another 12 years, eventually rising to become a senior field coordinator. I oversaw operations not just on the Dogman in Wisconsin, but on similar entities in other locations. There were populations in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, in remote areas of Minnesota, possibly in the mountains of Idaho and Montana. We documented, monitored, and occasionally intervened when they came too close to human populations or when someone got too close to them.

The hardest part wasn’t the danger or the long hours in the field. It was the secrecy. I couldn’t tell my family what I really did. I couldn’t share the most extraordinary discovery of my life with anyone outside a small circle of cleared personnel. I watched as mainstream science remained ignorant of an intelligent species living right under their noses. I saw cryptozoology enthusiasts ridiculed for believing in something I knew was absolutely real.

Over the years, I had dozens more encounters with Dogmen. I learned more of their language, though I never achieved anything close to fluency. I observed their social structures, their hunting strategies, their care for their young. I watched as human expansion gradually pushed them into smaller and smaller areas of wilderness. I documented as their population numbers slowly declined from an estimated 300-400 individuals in the upper Midwest in the 1980s to perhaps 200-250 by the time I retired in 2000.

I left the Program at age 45, older than most field operatives lasted. The psychological toll of the work, the secrecy, the moral ambiguity of our mission, ground people down. I was offered a desk job in Washington, a senior analyst position where I could influence policy without field exposure. I declined. I’d spent enough of my life keeping secrets.

A New Life

But leaving the Program didn’t mean leaving the truth behind. I stayed in northern Wisconsin, bought property near the Chequamegon National Forest, and continued my own private monitoring—not for any government agency, but for myself, for them. I felt an obligation to the species I’d spent so many years studying to ensure their survival, even if the world never knew they existed.

Now I’m 70 years old. I’ve been retired from government service for 24 years. The official secrets I carried are still classified and will probably remain classified long after I’m dead. But I’ve watched as climate change and human expansion continue to squeeze the Dogman’s habitat. I’ve seen their numbers decline further. And I’ve come to believe that their best chance for survival might paradoxically lie in people knowing the truth.

Not the sensationalized versions you see on cryptid TV shows. Not the monster stories that portray them as mindless killers, but the truth that there is an intelligent species, nonhuman, but deserving of respect and protection, living in the wild places of North America. They’ve been here far longer than European colonization. They’ve survived by remaining hidden, by avoiding human contact, by being smarter and more careful than we ever gave them credit for.

I’m breaking my silence not to expose them to exploitation or harm, but because I believe public knowledge, properly managed, could lead to habitat protection they desperately need. If people understood what’s really at stake, if conservationists knew they were protecting not just forests, but an intelligent species’ last refuges, perhaps we could ensure their survival.

The government will deny everything I’ve said. The Program’s files are buried under classification levels that ensure they’ll never see daylight. Anyone I name is protected by operational security protocols. I have no physical evidence I can share without violating federal laws that would put me in prison for the rest of my life. This is simply my testimony, the account of a man who spent decades studying something extraordinary.

But I’ll tell you this: they’re real. The Dogmen are absolutely real. They’re intelligent. They’re remarkable. And they’re disappearing. Whether anyone believes me or not, I’ve told the truth. After 40 years of silence, that’s all I can do. And sometimes, late at night, when I’m out in the forest near my property, I still hear them—those distinctive vocalizations carrying through the darkness.

Alpha is long dead by now—probably passed away 15 or 20 years ago—but his descendants are still out there, still surviving, still maintaining their ancient patterns of life in the few wild places we’ve left them. I just hope it’s enough.