{Rerelease} Wolf Man Of Maryland & The Mystery Of The Hexham Wolf (ep106)

[00:00:01] Before I start tonight's episode, I'd like to thank all of you for your continued support, as well as my newest supporters, Heidi, Jason, Steven, and of course Sarah. Thank you so much for your generosity. Next week I'll be posting part 1 and 2 of my 2022 year in review,

[00:00:20] and I'll be back on January 2nd with all new episodes, and season 7. Until then, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I hope you enjoy tonight's rerelease of episode 106, Wolf Man Of Maryland, and The Mystery Of The Hexham Wolf.

[00:00:55] Welcome to the show everybody, and thank you for tuning in. Before we begin today's episode, I want to say thank you to our newest supporters. Thank you all for your generosity. If you're interested in supporting what we do here, please visit us at patreon.com

[00:01:10] slash paranormal mysteries or head on over to buymeacoffee.com slash paranormal, where you can make a simple one-time donation. And of course, subscribing to the podcast and sharing it with your friends is one of the best ways to show your support.

[00:01:26] So with that being said, let's get ready and start the show. The first time it happened, I was sleeping and woke up because I felt a hand on my leg and I realized that I couldn't move.

[00:01:43] And he come across this object on the ground which was the shape of a flying saucer, so he jumped out of his pickup and went down there, and there was four beings laying on the ground.

[00:01:54] When I raised my head back up, I was turning my head and out of my peripheral vision, I seen something hop to a tree, and it was tall, about seven, eight foot tall, it was black, real hairy, like a gorilla.

[00:02:07] Welcome once again everybody, and as always, I am your host, Nick Ryan. In today's show I'll be sharing a few stories that I think you'll enjoy. I came across these articles on Mysterious Universe earlier in the year,

[00:02:35] and I figured that tonight is as good of a time as any to share them with all of you. So let's get into it. Throughout history, there have been those stories in which something sinister and deadly has come to town to run amok.

[00:02:49] Strange beasts, phantoms, ghosts, demons, or whatever the case may be, these entities have touched down to cause a good amount of trouble and even death, before passing along into the mists of time. One such case involves a quaint rural countryside in England, speckled with quiet hamlets,

[00:03:09] which for a time was prowled by some bloodthirsty beast from a nightmare. It was October of the year 1904. The rural farming area of Hexhamshire had a very strange and vicious visitor. In this land of rolling green hills and placid farms,

[00:03:26] farmers were beginning to claim that something had viciously attacked and mauled or killed their sheep, sometimes devouring parts of the animals, but sometimes seeming to have killed them just for sport. The damage done to the carcasses was examined,

[00:03:41] and it was determined that the culprit was likely a large dog or wolf, which would have been strange, since the area had had no wild wolves in centuries. Nevertheless, something continued to kill sheep at a prodigious rate,

[00:03:56] to the point that three to five animals a night were dying, and farmers were taking to housing them indoors at night, to protect them from whatever was marauding out there through the gloom. In the meantime, there were reports trickling in of witnesses seeing a massive wolf with dark

[00:04:12] coloration prowling about the countryside, and the panic was such that a wolf-hunting committee was put together, called the Hexham Wolf Committee. It would come to the attention of authorities that a Captain Bain of Shotley Bridge had kept wolves,

[00:04:27] of which one had gone missing, and although he insisted that the escaped animal was only was only four months old, and thus too young and small to really pose any serious threat, this nevertheless became the main culprit for the myriad of sheep killings.

[00:04:44] There were many wolf hunts organized during this time, and in December of that year, a hunting party tracked what they called a very large and imposing wolf after it had carried out a mass slaughter of sheep, but it escaped, only to return to its kill later,

[00:04:59] and drag one of the bodies away. A renewed search was launched, and although wolf tracks were found, the beast could not again be located, even as sightings of a huge wolf continued to startle locals in the vicinity. Oddly, reports of this thing's appearance seemed to be inconsistent,

[00:05:17] with some saying it was black, others saying it was tan, and still others speaking of something that looked more like a large big cat. Considering the different descriptions, Considering the different descriptions, it was soon being suggested that one or more of the bloodthirsty beasts was on the loose,

[00:05:33] which only further stoked hysteria. The wolf committee took to sending out seasoned teams of hayden hunting hounds to try and hunt down the wolf, but they were never able to pick up a solid trail, even when brought to the site of a sheep killing,

[00:05:48] and it was perplexing to all who were involved. There was even a seasoned bigshot game hunter by the name of Mr. W. Briddick brought in, although he managed to see the animal and even get it in his sights on occasion, it remained rather frustratingly elusive.

[00:06:04] In the meantime, on December 29th, two local hunters claimed to have cornered the beast, but said that it had leapt over a high wall to elude them, and another report described a group of children and a mother confronting it to scare it away by yelling at it.

[00:06:19] And it would not be until late December that any headway was made in the strange mystery at all. On December 29th, 1904, the carcass of a large gray male wolf was found in two pieces, flung around 40 yards from a mainline railway on the way to Carlisle,

[00:06:37] and apparently having been cleaved in half by an incoming train. At first, the ones who found it simply buried it, as they had not known the significance of the discovery, but the carcass was later dug up and shown to the wolf committee and Captain Bain,

[00:06:53] who was adamant that this was not his wolf and that it was much too large. It would be surmised that this was a different wolf, but where had it come from, and was it the animal responsible for killing so many sheep?

[00:07:06] No one knew, however, the killings would seemingly stop after that, and the story, which has become known as the Hexham Wolf or also the Allendale Wolf, disappeared from the news to fade into history. Yet, things would only get more bizarre in later years.

[00:07:25] In 1971, two brothers by the names of Colin and Leslie Robson dug up two bizarre little stone heads about the size of tennis balls in their garden in Hexham, which besides being of unidentified origins and mysterious in purpose, supposedly were orbited by quite a lot of strangeness.

[00:07:45] Besides numerous instances of poltergeist activity reported in the boy's home after the discovery, there were also some rather ominous incidents. One evening, the boys claimed that they saw a half-man, half-beast, after which it supposedly casually padded off to vanish into the night.

[00:08:03] Even more sensational was the report given by an expert in Celtic artifacts by the name of Dr. Anne Ross, who acquired the stone heads for analysis, and soon after, had her own frightening encounter. She claims that she woke up one night from a nightmare,

[00:08:19] only to see looming in the doorway of her room a beastly, hulking monstrosity, and she would say this. It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and it was black against the white door, and it was half animal and half man.

[00:08:35] The upper part I would have to say was a wolf, and the lower part was a human, and I would again have to say that it was covered with a kind of black, very dark fur. It went out, and I just saw it clearly, and then it disappeared,

[00:08:49] and something made me run after it, a thing I wouldn't normally have done, but I felt compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and I ran, and I could hear it going down the stairs, and then it disappeared towards the back of my house.

[00:09:04] This creature would also allegedly be seen fleeing the home by Ross's own daughter shortly after. Ross came to the conclusion that what are now being called the Hexham Heads were cursed, and promptly got rid of them.

[00:09:19] There were a few other scattered reports of werewolves in the area at the time, and it has been speculated whether those heads were in some way connected to the Hexham Wolf Scare of the same area decades previously. Unfortunately, no one knows where the heads got off to,

[00:09:35] and they have just sort of disappeared into history. So, we are left to wonder. It has all become a rather odd historical mystery and oddity, and it leaves many questions. What was the Hexham Wolf? Was this an out of place wolf?

[00:09:50] And if so, where did it come from? Was it a surviving specimen of the long extinct British wolf? Was it mere hysteria and misidentification? Or was it perhaps something altogether stranger, and was there some connection to the Hexham Heads? We will probably never know for sure.

[00:10:10] This next article outlines a string of bizarre sightings that would occur in Maryland in the United States, and involved what many of the locals referred to as a dweyo, or wolf-like creature. It is described as having similar features to a wolf,

[00:10:25] with dark fur over its entire body, and a long bushy tail, and a dog-like nose. But it stands like a human, and utilizes its four legs like arms. It is said by some to be six feet tall. Here is the article.

[00:10:42] Among the many reports of various hairy wildmen reported throughout the world, some of the strangest are those that seem to point to some sort of dogman, or werewolf-type beast. Such stories and lore are plentiful from a range of disparate locations.

[00:10:58] One place that has long had its lore in strange sightings of a werewolf-like creature is that US state of Maryland, where a half-man, half-wolf apparition is said to roam. Tales that some sort of hairy bipedal wolfman stalking the wilds of Maryland

[00:11:14] go back to the times of the first Pennsylvania Dutch settlers to the area in the 18th century, who often called the beast the Hexham Wolf, and believed that it hunted their livestock. So far, it may sound like pure folklore and fantasy, but that would change in 1944,

[00:11:31] when it was reported that a hulking, hairy creature with canine features and a bushy tail was seen in the forests of West Middleton, Frederick County, and residents of the area frequently complained of hearing shrill howls in the night, and of finding strange footprints on their property.

[00:11:48] However, the creature would go on to fully propel into the public consciousness when a compelling report hit the news in 1965, which seems to have made the Maryland Wolfman more real. In November of 1965, a local man by the name of John Becker called a local newspaper

[00:12:05] and claimed to have heard a strange noise in the backyard of his rural property. Thinking it was some wild animal, he went out to investigate, and what he found was far stranger than anything he had ever expected to see out there in the murky dark.

[00:12:18] An article in the Frederick News Post would say this of his encounter. Near the woods of Gambrill State Park, John Becker went out in his yard to investigate a strange noise.

[00:12:29] It was getting dark, and he had started back to his house when he saw something moving toward him. It was as big as a bear, had long black hair, a bushy tail, and growled like a wolf or a dog in anger.

[00:12:42] As it got closer, it stood up on its hind legs and attacked him. Becker fought the creature until it ran into the woods, leaving him, his wife, and children in terror. Deciding to remain anonymous under the alias John Becker,

[00:12:56] he filed a report with local state police telling of an attack by a mysterious monster that he called a dweyo. It is all certainly pretty sensational, and it was met with much skepticism at the time,

[00:13:09] especially considering police who went out to the property where Becker supposedly lived found nothing, not even the rural road that Becker claimed to live on. Leading them to think it was a prank.

[00:13:20] However, as soon as it hit the news, other people began reporting having come across the same thing, prowling about the shadows. A witness in Jefferson claimed that he had seen a dog-shaped animal about the size of a calf

[00:13:34] marauding about chasing some cows on her farm, and several hunters saw the same thing as well. One hunter had this to say of their experience. In the summer of the following year, there was a remarkable report from the rugged area

[00:13:48] of Gamrell State Park where a mysterious creature was found. It was a black-haired dog, and it was about a foot long. The dog was about the size of a man, and it was about a foot long.

[00:14:02] The dog was about a foot long, and it was about a foot long. In the summer of the following year, there was a remarkable report from the rugged area of Gamrell State Park, where a camper claimed to have witnessed a shaggy two-legged creature

[00:14:16] the size of a deer that had a triangle-shaped head with pointed ears and chin which issued a horrific scream before running off into the night. In every case, the dweyo has always been described as looking like a wolf or an Irish wolf hound on its hind legs.

[00:14:33] Campers claimed that they had heard the beast at night, with one local claiming that it cried like a baby and then screamed like a woman for months. Still, other reports were a little more bizarre, such as one local who called the police to

[00:14:46] tell them that she had actually captured the wolfman in her basement, yet when the police arrived, there was no sign of it. So many reports were coming in that locals even organized a dweyo hunt, but almost no one showed up, so it was cancelled.

[00:15:02] Reports would mostly then fall off, but they did occur sporadically. In 1976, there was another alleged sighting that occurred in Frederick County near Thurmont between Cunningham Falls State Park and Catoctin Mountain National Park. On this evening, two men were driving down a dark private road through the woods when

[00:15:22] their headlights caught something they would never forget. The report was featured in the book The Michigan Dogman, Werewolves, and Other Unknown Canines Across the USA, in which the witness says this. It was at least six feet tall, but inclined forward, since it was moving quickly.

[00:15:41] Its head was fairly large and similar that to the profile of a wolf. The body was covered in brown or brindle-colored fur, but the lower half had a striped pattern of noticeable darker and lighter banding.

[00:15:53] The forelegs, or arms, were slimmer and held out in front of it as it moved. The back legs were very muscular and thick, similar to perhaps a kangaroo. This was not a hominid-type creature. It did not have the characteristics of an ape.

[00:16:08] It was much more similar to a wolf or ferocious dog, however it was definitely moving upright and appeared to be adapted for that type of mobility. I was particularly impressed by the size and strength of the back legs, the stripes on the

[00:16:22] lower half of the body, and the canine, wolf-like head. In 1978, two park rangers would report seeing a large, canine-looking beast running along on two legs. And in as recently as 2009, a woman claimed that a huge dog-like animal on two legs had

[00:16:41] chased her car as she was driving on Coxsey Brown Road near Myersville, Maryland. She would claim that it had actually leapt and grabbed at her vehicle before she was able to outrun it and it gave up to lope off into the night.

[00:16:56] We are left to wonder what this creature could possibly be. Is it some sort of Bigfoot? A real werewolf? Some sort of interdimensional being? Or merely lore and legend? Whatever the case may be, the Dwayo has remained firmly lodged within the lore of rural Maryland.

[00:17:14] And it's a curious case, indeed. I don't know what it is about cryptids that fascinates me, but I can't help but wonder, what if? And more importantly, I'd like to know if you've seen anything similar?

[00:17:29] If you've witnessed something that you can't explain and you'd like to have your story shared on the podcast, please contact me at paranormalmysteriespodcast at gmail.com or visit paranormalmysteriespodcast.com and click on the tell your story link.

[00:17:43] All of our contact information can be found in the show notes.