Mysterious Michigan: 5 Creepy Tales from the Mitten

For thousands of years Native Americans have shared the lore of a half-man-half-dog creature. Legend came alive one summer morning for several loggers in the early 1800s. As the men were working near the Manistee River, they came upon a very playful animal they thought was a strange looking dog. They chased it all around until it hid in a hollow log. One of the men tried coaxing the animal out of the log by poking it with a stick. A horrible, otherworldly sound came from the beast as it, according to legend, stood upright. The loggers quickly packed their belongings up and abandoned camp in the middle of the night, never to return. It is said that there have been Dogman sightings across Michigan, including in Allegan.

Winn locals will warn you about driving along a stretch of West Coe Road. They say that the figure of a man emerges from the cornfields. But he is no man. Whatever it is, it is dark, dirty, and horribly disturbing. A 2003 sighting still has a former truck driver terrified, and his account happened in broad daylight.

The #1 item on every cryptozoologist's list is proving the existence of Bigfoot. There have been over 1,200 Bigfoot sightings in the Mitten, making places like There are 1,200 written incidents of Bigfoot interactions in Michigan (the supposed "Bigfoot Capital of Michigan") meeting places for believers of the beast.

What's so mysterious about a little light, huh? Well, when you can't find it's origin and it appears semi-regularly, you start to wonder... The Paulding Light in Paulding, Michigan, fits the bill. A group of teenagers in the 60s were the first to spot it and report it to local authorities. Legend has it that it's the ghostly lantern light from a railroad brakeman who died on duty. Others say it's swamp gas. Still others (read "students at Michigan Tech") are convinced it's nothing more than headlights from distant cars.

Infidelity can haunt a person, or in this case, a cemetery. Legend has it that Findlay Cemetery in Ada has a supernatural resident. A "lady in white" has been seen on several occasions over the years, and locals believe it is the ghost of woman from the 1800s who was caught cheating by her husband when she crept out in the middle of the night to meet her lover in the cemetery. The enraged husband killed his wife on the spot, then turned his attention to the other man. A bloody struggle ensued with both men dying from their wounds. Locals have said that you can hear sounds of struggle coming from the cemetery, wails from a sobbing woman, and of course, see the apparition of a woman in white.