u/Hazel_Ife

Hello y'all. For those unfamiliar with me, my name is Hazel Ife and I'm from Leamington, Ontario in Canada. I descended from early Free People Of Color that fled to Canada during times of racial tensions in the USA and back in 2025 I went to the USA to visit relatives in a small town called London, Ohio where I have many distant relatives I wanted to meet who are part of a thriving tri-racial community there. During my travels in the town - which were originally centered on meeting relatives, finding the few who do hoodoo and rootwork, and going on hikes - I ended up having my very own dogman encounter. A relative advised me to leave Ohio after my family's trip to Columbus and to never come South of Lake Erie again after I got home to Canada.

I've since come back to London, Ohio again several times, setting up a dogman hotline of sorts. Anyone who believes they've seen or heard the Madison Plains Dogmen can email me at hazeltucky0@gmail.com or using a box with a slit hole to insert notes in a box I've hid in Cowling Park in London, Ohio.

A few days ago, a lady from the town sent me two videos which I posted here of what sounded like a human-like barking along with animalistic growls and sniffing. The woman allegedly claimed it was the dogman. I posted it here with an open-minded yet skeptical position and titled it "alleged footage" but since it seemed to sound much like people, many have believed this was a crazy person or a goat or someone pulling my leg. I have decided I personally believe the footage was most likely a hoax, and I am now taking measures to try to weed out anyone pulling my leg. I personally think it's possible that a dogman could make noises like that. It is a dogMAN after all, it is almost like something that shouldn't be, not quite canine and not quite human. But the videos I got sent were in an open field on top of a hill surrounded by more open fields in broad daylight next to a busy roadway called Keny Boulevard. As someone commented, "Why didn't the passing cars see the dogman" and indeed the cars were only about two football fields away from the camera, which the woman claims was set up to film small birds in the area called Killdeer. I also doubt the authenticity because of the high winds, which were very strong, and the way the supposed dogman sounds were being picked up means it would have to be right next to the camera or the winds would've prevented it from being picked up as clearly as it had, yet no dogman was caught on the camera. It could have been a dogman, but now after giving it some thought and critique I just don't believe that.

There has been more dogman sightings reported by locals of London, Ohio on several Facebook groups, most of which are now private and are not public anymore, when they were public just 3 weeks ago, making me believe the ridicule people are getting for claiming to see this thing has led moderators to do that as no other obvious reasons have been indicated.

On June 23rd, 2026 between 9:30pm and 9:50pm about 18 people all testified to hearing howling simultaneously coming from different spots off of Spring Valley Road, Payne Thompson Road, and along the Robert's Pass Trail section of the Ohio To Erie Trail. These locations and Madison Lake State Park seem to be the epicenter of the recent sightings from September 2025 to June 2026 which are ongoing at the time of this post and are being reported almost bi-weekly. Despite having my own very real experience with seeing and coming very close with what I cannot be convinced was anything other than a dogman, I am now more skeptical of people's claims after the video that lady sent me.

Does anyone with experience covering other's stories or investigating the dogman have any tips or tricks for vetting reports and weeding out potential misidentifications or straight up fakes?

To answer some questions people have asked me in DMs repeatedly:

It was not hard for me to identify the tree species at night while also being nervous about the dogman nearby that I thought was coming after me. It takes a second. Just seeing the trees. Shagbark Hickory is called shagbark for a reason it's obvious. And all I have to do is see Red Maple leaves and it's like, "Okay, this is out in the woods and looks like that, definitely not planted here or cultivated so it's gotta be a Red Maple with that shape." It's easy to tell apart from a Sugar Maple or a Silver Maple even in the dark because if I can see the leaf shape I instantly know, that's all it takes. To the people claiming that they don't believe my dogman encounter I had back in October because I included extra details like what trees I saw and that I had goose bumps and didn't care that I hadn't waxed when I saw that, I don't care if you believe me or not, I know what I saw, but why do those details remove any credibility from my experience? If I did care about not waxing my arms while being chased by an 8 foot tall bipedal wolf-man creature, wouldn't that be what would be unusual if anything? I have got a lot of harassment and bullying but I will continue to share my story and investigate, sharing other people's stories as well, but also I will be more careful of what I take at face value.

I guess after seeing what I never thought was possible or real, I no longer questioned anything and believed anyone telling me they saw that thing too, but if I want to get to the bottom of this mystery I need the most credible evidence of the Dogman. I want to have some closure and understand what I saw. I'm not even scared anymore after all these months. Just confused. How was this thing real? I can't say. But I've seen it and it was there. For others who've seen it, you're not alone, and you're not a "wacko". Anyone can chat with me if they just wanna chat. I know it helps me process what I saw.

Sifting through the stories online and in handwritten reports and from locals on public and private Facebook groups, anyone trying to investigate the London, Ohio area dogman sightings and encounters quickly discovers a pattern of the dogman using wooded areas and tree lines between fields as cover, especially during the daytime, and being more active during the night, morning, and evening hours than during broad daylight.

Much of the area between Springfield, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio has long been clear cut for development and farmland, but few patches of dense and wooded areas remain. Enough to support and hide a dogman during the winter when trees are bare and fields are empty without the cover of tall cornstalks and ragweed plants.

The theory me and several others here have concluded is that:

Darby Creek and it's several large tributaries and branches including Little Darby Creek and Big Darby Creek seem to be a highway for the dogman making it's way from the Hocking Hills and Appalachian Foothills in Southern Ohio up to the rural shores and wooded swamps near Lake Erie around the Sandusky Bay and between the train tracks and the coast around Chapel Creek at Beulah Beach. Using the wooded banks of the creeks that haven't been cleared of trees, the dogman travels between London, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio and skirts around towns like West Jefferson and Plain City to make it's way towards Mechanicsburg, Ohio were it uses wooded patches and tree lines to move to the wooded hills between Springfield, Ohio and Bellefontaine, Ohio near the Mad River Mountain area. From there, it somehow hears North towards Indian Lake and Lake St Mary's and then the reports dead end around there and resurface again near Lake Erie.

Curiously enough, the famous location of the dogman being encountered by Keith and Diane Williams has been altered much since 1981 when they saw the dogman just outside of London, Ohio and it seems that little wooded areas remain near Robert's Pass Trail, although sightings continue near Payne Thompson Road and Madison Lake and all along Spring Valley Road.

Hello, I go by Hazel Ife and I am a Qarsherskiyan woman from Southern Ontario in Canada along the shores of Lake Erie. My ancestors were early Black Americans who migrated North to Canada hoping to escape racial discrimination and bigotry, at least to an extent. I am proudly from a long line of Canadian Qarsherskiyans and I have distant relatives living in London, Ohio and in various parts of Central Appalachia. I've been to the USA a few months ago to visit Madison County and surrounding areas in Ohio to meet relatives in the Ohioan cities and towns of London, Yellow Springs, Cedarville, Circleville, Chillicothe, and West Jefferson.

I had a dogman encounter there in late 2025 and have since set up a massive in-person tip line via a paper notes submission box in Cowling Park in London, Ohio. I am very interested in the legend of the Weyiwaya, which is pronounced like Whey-Eye-Whey-Ah. The urban legend starts in the 1960s with oral legends told at campfires alleging that a large black dog had been attacking livestock in Madison County, Ohio in the late 1800s, and by the 1970s people realized it was like a bipedal werewolf-like creature. It's been linked to other nearby Ohio Dogman sightings including the Limburger Cheese Monster, Cedar Bog Monster, Ohio Werewolf of Defiance, and the Germantown Dogman or Werewolf. Keith and Diane Williams famously encountered it just outside London, Ohio in 1981 and 1982.

I am really into root work and hoodoo and keep the traditions passed down to me by my ancestors from Black American folk traditions and rituals. We use the herbs of the Earth that God gave us. We honor our ancestors and their sacrifices they made to better our lives. We honor The Creator.

I like caving and scuba diving in a wetsuit in the Great Lakes basin. My dream has always been to go to Gambia and Senegal and to Benin, Nigeria, and Togo to study my ancestors.

"It was May 31st, 2023, my 18th birthday, and my mom finally let me hang out with my boyfriend alone. I was ecstatic and to celebrate we left our hometown (London, Ohio) for Madison Lake State Park. When we were driving down Payne Thompson Road, we saw a 9 foot bipedal wolf with black fur and very long and thin pointy ears. The thing was suddenly in our view after we turned a sharp corner and it looked up at our car and ran off the road into the cornfield and within seconds it was going around 30 miles per hour. It ran to a distant treeline and vanished into the trees. It was running very fast and if it stopped it would have fell on it's face because of how fast it was traveling. The thing kept barking and yipping and growling but didn't howl. Every time I hear the song 7 rings by Ariana Grande I get scared. That's what was playing in the car when we saw it. It used to be my favorite song but now it gives me nightmares."

Witness would like to remain anonymous and is being identified as Shantaya, she is a woman, age 19 as of 2026 today, and she says she has not seen any dogman activity before or after the incident, and until meeting me called what she saw "the London Ohio Werewolf"

Reports continuously streaming out of areas adjacent to Deer Creek. My work is not yet done here. More stuff to sift through and folks to talk to. Witnesses consistently describe black fur and pointed ears or mixed fur colors with orange, grey, black, and white individual hairs.