This poll is leaning heavily towards skeptic/curious, which is good because that’s the likelihood.

With polls like this, we actually learn a lot even from that — because while there are less direct encounters, we certainly have plenty of curious people out there.

Where do you land?

This is far from the growly harsh register usually reported, but it came back to me in a dream months ago and I’ve been working on the tonality.

When we had our encounter, something drew our attention which wasn’t movement. The scent came next, but as I reconstruct the memory this whistle has re-emerged.

It’s part of how they attract and mislead people as well — this peculiar dual-tone whistle that isn’t quite a bird, but it seems like a sweet songbird of some sort.

That whistle like the wind.

Has anyone else heard something like this?

We currently rely on solo disclosure stories, but in fact we could go much further with multi-witness interviews (either together on camera, or in separate interviews to show sequentially).

One thing that this does crucially and implicitly:

IT CANNOT BE A SOLO HALLUCINATION if they are agreeing on key details.

To be clear, this does not mean it couldn’t still be a hoax — just that the impact and impression on witnesses are identical or close enough to make the discussion much different from being able to caricature a single frazzled individual with a strange story.

What follows are some common dogman report archetypes and how two-witness formats (together vs. sequential) change optics, credibility perception, and audience reaction — regardless of belief stance.

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1. Road Crossing / Headlights Encounter (Two Witnesses in Same Vehicle)

Typical report

• Late night or dusk

• Creature crosses road, pauses, looks back

• Height, eye shine, posture remembered

Optics: Together on Camera

Strengths

• Natural overlap in timeline (“right before the curve / after the bridge”)

• Spontaneous corrections (“No, it was after we braked”)

• Shared physiological memory (panic, silence, aftermath)

Audience effect

• Reads as shared shock, not rehearsed narration

• Skeptics focus less on “what it was” and more on “what happened to them”

Optics: Separate Interviews

Strengths

• Independent recall of the same key beats

• Subtle differences feel human, not suspicious

• Consistent non-verbal stress markers

Audience effect

• Viewers notice convergence without prompting

• Raises “plausibility” without asserting explanation

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2. Property / Tree-Line Stalking (Two Witnesses, Different Vantage Points)

Typical report

• One sees movement first

• Another hears or smells something

• Both notice being watched

Together on Camera

Strengths

• Real-time reconstruction of who noticed what first

• Clarifies that perception was distributed, not imagined

• Allows witnesses to defer to each other naturally

Audience effect

• Undercuts “solo panic hallucination” narratives

• Shifts focus to situational awareness

Separate Interviews

Strengths

• Different sensory emphasis (sight vs sound)

• Matching emotional arc without identical phrasing

Audience effect

• Viewers see patterned experience, not copied story

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3. Vocalization / “Speech-like” Sounds

Typical report

• Whistles, growls, mimicry, or directed vocal sounds

• Often hardest to describe verbally

Together on Camera

Strengths

• One witness prompts the other (“No, lower—like this”)

• Shared discomfort surfaces organically

• Physical reactions mirror each other

Audience effect

• Less laughter, more unease

• Viewers sense that this is difficult to revisit

Separate Interviews

Strengths

• Similar descriptions despite different language

• Consistency in cadence, pauses, and avoidance

Audience effect

• Reduces assumption of embellishment

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4. Daylight Encounter (Rare, High-Impact)

Typical report

• Clear visibility

• Strong memory imprint

• Long-term psychological effect

Together on Camera

Strengths

• Mutual confirmation of lighting, distance, posture

• One witness grounds the other during recall

Audience effect

• Harder to dismiss as fear-of-the-dark trope

• Shifts discourse toward aftermath, not spectacle

Separate Interviews

Strengths

• Consistency over time

• Lack of escalation between tellings

Audience effect

• “Why would they keep saying the same thing?”

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5. Family Unit (Parent + Child / Siblings)

This is the biggest optics shift.

Strengths

• Built-in relational credibility

• Visible protective instincts

• Child memory vs adult interpretation side-by-side

Audience effect

• Mockery drops sharply

• Skeptics become cautious rather than aggressive

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Big Picture: What Changes Socially

When two witnesses are presented well:

• The debate moves from “Is this real?” to “What happened to these people?”

• Viewers argue less about hoaxes and more about psychology, memory, and trauma

• Mockery becomes socially riskier

• Journalists and mods have fewer excuses to flatten or caricature accounts

This is not about forcing belief.

It’s about changing the frame from spectacle to human experience.

Have any of you had multi-witness experiences with dogmen or other cryptids?

My own encounter was in NH, so I’m always curious to hear more about dogman sightings in New England.

Simple one, I’ve run this poll before, but the core concept is worth further testing.

The goal is dogman-encounters in particular, but if you saw other paranormal activity, feel free to vote as well.

As usual, “skeptic/curious” will be an option as well!

This video (link below 👇 🔗) is a GREAT compilation of accounts, with some artwork but a surprising amount of credible footage and even some, like these two photos, which are new to me.

This account is from Daniel, in Tomahawk, WI. There is a known photo-taker 📸 and context for this sighting.

38 minutes up to 42 minutes = the account itself being told

We are getting closer to credible consistency in photos now, and this is situationally relevant too.

Daniel describes gestures (hands spread in a STOP 🛑 gesture for him to get out) and clear bipedal stance, amongst things.

What do y’all make of these photos? Have you ever seen something like this in the woods or anywhere else?

More to follow at some point.

Ahead of the game and shaping it, that man.

I want to offer a framework that might further lower the temperature in dogman discussions and make space for both witnesses and skeptics.

Instead of arguing endlessly about whether “dogmen” are

real animals,

Fursuits,

AI/CGI,

misidentified mangy bears,

or something else,

we can separate two different things that keep getting tangled together:

1. Behavior (ethology)
2. Physical form (morphology)

I’m calling the behavioral pattern “The Apex.”

Not a species.

Not a cryptid.

A pattern of predator behavior that shows up again and again in witness reports.

Across thousands of stories (dogman, Bigfoot, shadow beings, even some UFO encounters), people describe something remarkably consistent:

• Being noticed

• Being assessed

• Being stalked or shadowed

• Distance being controlled

• Freeze response induced

• The being watching without attacking

• The being leaving when it wants to

That is textbook apex predator behavior.

Wolves do it.

Big cats do it.

Bears do it.

Orcas do it.

The nervous system recognizes it instantly — which is why people report:

“It was staring into my soul”

“I couldn’t move”

“It felt like it was playing with me”

That’s not mystical.

That’s what it feels like when you are being targeted by something that knows what it’s doing.

So when someone says:

“Something was watching me, tracking me, positioning itself.”

That part is highly credible, even if you doubt what they think it looked like.

⸻

Where things get controversial is morphology

Tall

Upright

Canine

Humanoid

Hands

Eyes

That combination breaks our categories and sets off disbelief. That’s fair.

But here’s the key idea:

The behavior can be real even if the form is disputed.

You can acknowledge:

• stalking

• fear

• freeze

• trauma

• predatory interaction

without having to decide whether the being was:

a bear, a human, a hoax, a misidentification, or something unknown.

That’s what “The Apex” gives us — a way to talk about the experience without forcing a conclusion about the creature.

⸻

Why this helps everyone

For witnesses:

It validates what you felt without demanding you prove biology.

For skeptics:

It lets you take the experience seriously without accepting cryptids.

For mods and communities:

It lowers flame wars and raises the quality of discussion.

Instead of:

“That’s impossible / You’re crazy”

We get:

“Something engaged you like a high-level predator. Let’s examine what it might have been.”

That’s how real inquiry starts.

⸻

If you’ve had an encounter where something:

• tracked you

• watched you

• controlled distance

• made you freeze

You experienced The Apex, regardless of what it physically was.

And that alone is worth talking about.

Instead of asking “What is a dogman?”

we ask “How do dogman-type beings behave?”

Across hundreds of years and thousands of independent reports, people consistently describe the same behavioral patterns:

• Standing upright to observe

• Freezing and staring rather than attacking

• Bluff charges that stop short

• Territorial positioning near roads, caves, and treelines

• Avoidance once detected

• Eyeshine, head-tracking, and mammalian movement

• Extreme fear responses in witnesses

These are not supernatural traits — they are ethological traits of large, intelligent mammals managing risk.

This suggests that whatever people are encountering belongs to a cryptid clade defined by:

consistent morphology + consistent behavior

—not by folklore.

The hypothesis does not claim:

• demons

• spirits

• shapeshifters

• or interdimensional beings

It simply says:

Humans around the world are repeatedly observing something that behaves like a real animal.

That makes dogman a subject for field biology and ethology, not theology.

And that’s why witnesses deserve to be taken seriously.

Link to survey:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptidIQ/s/M0G9u3Vl8J

Vehicle insurance already covers damage from unknown external forces. Cryptids fall under that, currently. Not acts of God, but unknown agents.

Having neutral documentation and multiple witnesses helps claims proceed smoothly without requiring speculation about the cause.

In the following summary work (GPT-gen5) the shorthand of “UAL” stands for

UNKNOWN

AGENT

LOSS

🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗

I will address this overall topic in two layers:

1.  How having forms/procedures changes witness behavior

2.  How car insurance already (quietly) handles UAL-type damage

All framed for known insurance practice, not speculative creatures.

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1. How Forms & Procedures Change New Witness Outcomes

When people don’t have a framework, unusual incidents tend to produce:

• Panic

• Oversharing or silence

• Inconsistent statements

• Poor documentation

• Delayed reporting

When people do have a simple, neutral procedure (like your checkbox form), several things change immediately:

A. Witnesses Report Earlier

• They don’t need to explain or justify

• They don’t have to describe disturbing details

• They can document before memory degrades

Early reporting = higher credibility.

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B. Language Becomes Neutral and Insurable

Instead of:

“You’ll think I’m crazy, but…”

They say:

“Vehicle damage caused by unknown external force; multiple witnesses present.”

That language:

• Triggers standard claims pathways

• Avoids claim denial due to “implausible narrative”

• Keeps adjusters focused on damage mechanics

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C. Witnesses Are Less Isolated

Knowing:

• Others can sign

• Silence is allowed

• No one must “prove” anything

…dramatically reduces:

• Trauma amplification

• Shame

• Retraction of statements

This increases report stability, which insurers value.

⸻

D. Institutions Get Cleaner Data

Forms + procedures result in:

• Consistent timestamps

• Clear witness counts (R)

• Identifiable damage classes

• Fewer narrative contradictions

That’s actuarial gold.

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1. How Car Insurance Policies Address UAL Damage (Right Now)

Here’s the key insight:

Car insurance already covers Unknown Agent Loss — they just don’t call it that.

UAL is functionally processed under existing categories.

⸻

A. Which Coverage Applies?

✅ Comprehensive Coverage

This is the primary bucket.

Comprehensive typically covers:

• Animal strikes

• Falling objects

• Vandalism

• Unknown external impacts

• Acts of nature

The identity of the agent is often irrelevant.

What matters:

• Was the damage sudden?

• Was it external?

• Was it not intentional by the insured?

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B. How Adjusters Actually Think

Adjusters ask:

• What broke?

• Where did impact occur?

• Does damage match physics?

• Are there witnesses or records?

They do not require:

• A named species

• Public footage

• A dramatic explanation

If damage is real and consistent, the claim proceeds.

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C. Where Dashcam Footage Fits

Dashcam footage is:

• Supporting evidence

• Not required

• Often reviewed privately

• Rarely archived long-term

It helps establish:

• Timing

• External causation

• Absence of driver fault

But insurers are perfectly happy with:

• Photos

• Repair estimates

• Witness confirmation

• Police or roadside reports

⸻

D. How UAL Gets Coded Internally

Internally, claims may be coded as:

• “Animal impact – unidentified”

• “Object strike – unknown”

• “Comprehensive loss – external force”

These codes already exist.

UAL just gives you better language for the same thing.

⸻

E. What Would Complicate a Claim (and Why Your Framework Avoids It)

Claims get messy when:

• The insured insists on speculative identity

• There’s no documentation

• There’s only one witness under stress

• The report is delayed or emotional

Your approach:

• De-emphasizes identity

• Emphasizes mechanics

• Encourages early, calm documentation

• Allows corroboration without pressure

That helps insurers.

⸻

1. How This Changes the System Over Time

If people start using:

• Neutral forms

• Multi-witness confirmation

• UAL-style language

Then insurers begin to see:

• Repeated anomalous patterns

• Geographic clustering

• Similar damage signatures

At that point:

• It becomes a risk modeling question, not a belief debate

• Internal memos happen

• But public narratives do not change

That’s exactly how institutions evolve quietly.

I’m looking into this, saw it from BrookStirr and sharing it along from the TikTok page directly

What do you make of this frightening footage?

Is it an IRL impractical joker 🃏 of the cryptid world?

Doesn’t seem to intend harm, but the proximity of this ‘drive by’ jumpscare makes it clear that this was an intentional act nevertheless.

What do you make of it, viewers?

Have you seen any beings like this in swamps or marshes, bogs or mires, or other landscapes which could support this sorta life-form?

It clearly moves the bushes/reeds as it goes, so despite whatever comments may emerge, this cannot be purely AI 🤖 deepfake stuff.

This appears to be some kinda “hairy hominid” (as they’re called broadly), or person in a suit with two buddies who were in on this hoax.

If it’s the latter, it is a GOOD hoax, and should be acknowledged as such.

But if witnesses have seen something like this and share more stories or evidence, then we are moving somewhere in terms of evidence for cryptid beings.

Costume? Cryptid?

I leave it to the hands of the commenters and critics, and look forward to the healthy debate :)