Blurry green photo of natural area with supposed black outline of beast apparition
Some search for years to catch a glimpse of the paranormal. It could be a shadowy figure in the night, rustling leaves in the woods or the unnerving feeling of hot breath on your neck.
Individual encounters like these have added up to create the Wisconsin folklore that fascinates and frightens us to this day — passed down through storytelling in whispers or on paper, and now online thanks to high-quality photos and videos the average person can capture with the device in their pocket. This month’s cover story profiles some of the Madison area’s most storied ghosts and creatures that still lurk in the shadows, some that have reportedly been spotted as recently as this summer.
Donna Wells Fink of Milton has been seeking out the supernatural since 2011. She’s witnessed UFOs and Bigfoot on multiple occasions. But there’s one cryptid that has long evaded her — the Beast of Bray Road.
That is, until this past August.
The Beast of Bray Road is Elkhorn’s famed dogman, which is a category of werewolf-like cryptids — walking on two or four legs, with dark fur and glowing eyes — that have been reported by many all around the world. The Beast of Bray Road is of notable fame, having been the subject of several articles, books, documentaries and a 2005 horror film. Fink remembers when she first learned of the Beast of Bray Road — she was a busy mom in the ’90s when a special came on after a show she was watching that featured the creature, as chronicled by Linda S. Godfrey, who went on to author a 2015 book about the Beast of Bray Road. Fink was hooked, and she’s been fascinated ever since. Now 70 and retired, Fink has more time for the hobby, and this upcoming spring will mark the third Beast of Bray Road multiple-day conference she’s hosted since 2021. She and friend Jackie Riesterer go out multiple times a week to see what they can find.
“We don’t do it to prove it to anyone, because we’re not out to do that, we just like to have those spooky adventures,” Fink says.
But on Aug. 3, the beast appeared.
They were walking near Bray Road. Fink is friends with Lee Hampel, a retired teacher from Illinois who grows hay in Wisconsin adjacent to property on Bray Road, Fink says. Hampel at first wasn’t a believer of the Beast of Bray Road, Fink says, but that changed after several sightings of paranormal creatures, UFOs and footprints that he’s captured photographic evidence of on his land.
He allowed Fink and Riesterer to walk his trails that August evening on their search. It was around 7:30 p.m., Fink says. They walked the entire property — woods on one side and a soybean field on the other.
Disappointed, they found nothing. “We started to get in the car,” Fink says. “I have a convertible and I had the top down. I was already in the car but Jackie just had the feeling she should turn around one more time.”
Riesterer froze and yelled, “There it is!”
She pointed. Fink excitedly searched in that direction.
They started the car and inched it forward. Fink handed over her phone and Riesterer scrambled to capture video, but dropped it in a flurry of adrenaline.
Still, Riesterer is sure of what she saw. A black figure stood in the soybeans. It took a couple steps. Then it disappeared into the woods. They went out the next day and found deep five-toed footprints where it was standing the day before. It was close to the trail.
“We must have walked right past it,” Fink says.
Andrea Behling is editor of Madison Magazine. This note appeared in the October 2022 issue of Madison Magazine.
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