MICHIGAN DOGMAN

1. Public Record

1 April 1987, WTCM-FM, Traverse City. Disc jockey Steve Cook records a song he credits to Bob Farley and plays it as an April Fool. The Legend. A seven-foot dog that stands up, first set in 1887 among Wexford County lumberjacks, then every decade on a year ending in seven. Cook has said he made the verses from his own head. The station's most requested record that spring. Then the phones: listeners who said they had already met it. A 1987 cabin at Luther with clawed wood. Two men on a road near Sparta who saw something grey and upright and allowed it might have been a suit. Cook added verses in 1997 after another Luther break-in and recorded it again in 2007.

Older Michigan talk of an upright canine exists in patches, including a 1930s Fortney story. Keep those as older water. The modern name walked out of a radio desk on April Fool morning.

I made it up completely from my own imagination as an April Fools' prank.

2. Date of Incident

Song 1 April 1987. Luther and Sparta reports that year. Older 1887 verse as fiction first.

3. Location

Wexford and Lake counties, Michigan. Approximate 44°23 N 085°21 W.

4. Official Narrative

No capture. Official narrative is a radio joke that outgrew the joke.

5. Witness Layer

Cook as the author who stayed sceptical. Callers after the first play. Luther cabin. Sparta road.

Somewhere in the northwoods darkness a creature walks upright.

Don't go out at night.

6. Recovery Logistics

A cassette. Clawed cabin wood of uneven weight. No hide.

7. Assessment

A song that became a folder. Keep Cook's invention in the first paragraph so the 1887 camp does not pretend to be a primary source. Keep the callers. A joke that harvests older sightings is still a document. Do not fuse this with Bray Road. Different road, different decade, a microphone in between.

8. Materials & Remains

The 1987 recording and later cuts. No specimen.

9. Key Personnel

Steve Cook : The song.

Luther callers : 1987 wood.

Sparta road : Two men, one maybe-suit.

10. Aftermath

Proceeds to shelters. A 2011 film. The seven-year clock still gets quoted.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: Radio song, 1 April 1987. Callers after. No specimen.

Confidence: High that Cook wrote and played the song as a prank. High that listeners then offered older and new sightings. Low that a biological dog-man was taken. Low that 1887 loggers are a primary source.

Filing note

A Traverse City studio, an April Fool, a song about a year ending in seven, a request line that would not die, a cabin door at Luther, two men who left room for a costume. Cook kept saying he had made it up.

The station's most requested record that spring. Not a sighting. A joke the county decided to keep.