The Black Dog of Saint Paul

SOS

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:31:00 -0400

Gloria’s dead. I don’t know how or what, but it sure looked like an animal. Maybe they just wanted it to look like an animal. Either way, I’m sure I’m next.

I’m gonna take the box to the newspaper. If you don’t see anything in the media, they got to me first. Please, make copies of what I’ve posted here, before they pull it down. Someone needs to drag them into the light of day.

I’m so sorry.

Kept hearing noises, getting up and searching the house, finally...

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:23:00 -0400

Kept hearing noises, getting up and searching the house, finally brought my camera to bed and got this. Black Dogs are death omens for a reason. I’m gonna check on Gloria, then go silent for a while. Sorry, everyone. This is just too much.

Either it’s real or I’m losing my mind. Caught this video...

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:40:28 -0400

Either it’s real or I’m losing my mind. Caught this video outside my house.

If it’s real, does that mean the cult is real?

Field Trip

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:47:00 -0400

The symbol in Torelseth’s bible looked familiar to me; I think I’ve seen it on the ceiling of the Saint Paul library. I went back today with a friend’s camera and looked for it, but there are kind of a lot of crazy symbols in that building. Does anyone know what they are?

Then, way in the back of the music collection, I found a picture of Elisbet Pool. One of the journals describes her as wearing “a yellow ribbon in her hair.” Circumstantial, perhaps, but this plus Torelseth’s symbol… the evidence isn’t just coming from Gloria anymore.

On the way home, I walked past a bunch of girls playing jump rope. They were singing this song…

Crazy, crazy, Elizabeth Pool
Lives in the woods. Doesn’t go to school.
Got no shoes. Her feet are bare.
How many years will she live out there?

Here’s the weirdest part: None of them can recall where they learned the song. Maybe that’s just kids saying “I don’t know” to avoid answering a question, but they told me it just popped into their heads one day. If anyone else has heard this, please post a comment. I need to know I’m not crazy.

The Church Grim

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:02:14 -0400

I suspected this when I read the notes from Mikael Cook’s interrogation. She referred to the Black Dog as a “grim,” which probably meant “church grim.” It’s a particularly ugly branch of Black Dog lore, so I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but now I’ve got confirmation.

There was this early Christian tradition, probably borrowed from pre-existing pagan beliefs, where people would bury a dog in the foundation of a new church. Burying it alive. For some reason, the people who did this believed that the dog’s spirit would protect the church. I’d think the ghost would be more likely to haunt the people who buried it alive, but what do I know about necromancy?

Anyway, that’s exactly what the founders of that Norwegian church in Pig’s Eye decided to do. One of them volunteered his hunting dog to go into the ground. The following winter, there were complications.

First, the Grim started howling at night, which scared away all the wild game. Rather than put the spirit to rest, the founders decided to punish it by proxy. (Again, what do I know about necromancy?) For seven days, they brought a new dog to the churchyard and butchered it. Slowly. But the Grim’s baying did not abate and the game did not return.

On the seventh day, just as the first blow was struck, the Grim appeared. It approached the whimpering mongrel and tore out its throat, then vanished. The founders interpreted this as a truce, but they never raised a hand against a dog again, whether in the churchyard or anywhere else.

The Wicked Father

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:48:48 -0400

I finally figured out what this old bible is about. It belonged to a priest named Edvard Torelseth who was assigned to the Norwegian church around 1849. His brash rhetoric fanned ethnic tensions already set ablaze by a massive influx of new immigrants. Perhaps consequently, there were all these wild rumors about him: Most of them involved sexual affairs with his female parishioners. Some claimed Torelseth worshipped the Devil and had a “hellhound” as his familiar.

A lynch mob laid siege Edvard’s church one Christmas Eve. Not one of them lived to hear the bells ring on Christmas morning. They say Edvard’s hellhound ripped through them like a butcher’s knife, leaving only scraps.

The journal’s vague on what happened to Torelseth. There’s some evidence that he stole a horse and fled town, but the author seems to believe that the Black Dog killed him along with all the others. Of course, the locals said that the Devil claimed Edvard, body and soul, and dragged him back to Hell.

I don’t know about all this Devil worship and hellhound stuff, but Torelseth was clearly obsessed with the Black Dog. And bugfuck insane. Just take a look at these…

“Pleasure is the redemption of the flesh”

“The Devil is howling, howling, howling, howling…”

A buddy helped me transfer this video over the weekend. The...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:10:00 -0400

A buddy helped me transfer this video over the weekend. The Mentos thing happened in 2006 and it looks like autumn in the park. I know they have picnic tables like that in Battle Creek. I’ll try to track down any missing persons or animal attacks from that time. Exciting!

This one reminds me of those old “spirit photos”...

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:28:44 -0400

This one reminds me of those old “spirit photos” from the turn of the century. Maybe I’ve got dogs on the brain, but that smear looks an awful lot like snapping jaws.

The Girl Who Growled

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:40:37 -0400

Did I ever find a good one :) In the dead of winter, 1853, a young woman named Elisbet Pool began prowling the night in her bedclothes. On all fours. No shoes. She’d climb around on people’s roofs, growl at anyone who crossed her path, catch vermin with her bare hands and eat them raw.

Naturally, people thought she was possessed, but the members of her own church (the Norwegian one) refused to do anything about it. Then, one night in February, a Lutheran man found her in his bear trap. She was covered in blood, some of it her own. She had just killed one of his horses with her bare hands. The man tied her up in his bedroom and brought in his pastor to perform an exorcism. It didn’t go well.

For two days, the Black Dog plagued them. It would watch the family through their windows and appear in dark corners of the house, even sitting at the foot of the bed when Elisbet was being particularly violent. She injured the pastor gravely, slashing his face and chest, then clawing out one of his eyes. After that, the family cast her out.

The Protestants wanted her incarcerated, if not burned at the stake, but she didn’t wait around. Elisbet ran off into the woods, still barefoot, and disappeared. The elements most likely killed her, but no corpse was ever found. (Unless she was the old woman who raised Mikaela Cook!) The journal also contains a short list of subsequent sightings, mostly by children and lunatics, well into the early 1900’s. She’s always seen on all fours, snarling like a beast.

The Gypsy Pew

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:19:12 -0400

These aren’t Black Dog photos, but they’re part of an interesting urban legend with a tie to its story. There’s supposed to be an old church pew somewhere in Battle Creek park; they say it’s never in the same place twice. If you can find it, and if you can get a girl to sit in it with you, you’re guaranteed to get lucky.

At least, that’s the version I heard in high school. In another version, anyone who sits in the pew immediately confesses their worst sins and is either absolved or punished by God. Other stories include ghostly visitations from dead relatives omens of death soon to come.

I found these photos clipped to a missing persons report from 1984. Maybe these two lovebirds ran off together, but all the gypsy pew stories carry the same warning: When you sit in the gypsy pew, the Devil catches your scent.

The Great Gale

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:23:34 -0400

In August of 1904, domestic animals went missing in record numbers. No remains were ever found, but dozens of pet owners reported seeing a large, black dog prowling around their properties shortly before or after their animals disappeared.

At 7:17 am on August 21st, a woman named Viola Gee came told police that her child had been carried away by a black dog. (Years later years, from the inside of a padded cell, she would confess to having murdered her child, but the details changed with each retelling. On the advice of her psychiatrist, police declined to press charges.)

By 7:30 am, the Gees’ home was a disaster area. A tornado torn through Saint Paul, causing a total of fourteen deaths. Both Viola and her husband were injured. The storm blew an oak tree through their back yard, where the child had been playing.

Could this be Mikaela Cook? If so, she aged very gracefully; she was described as “middle-aged” when police committed her 63 years later.

In any case, this was far from the only time the Black Dog appears in connection with missing animals. I’m compiling a map of sightings based on Gloria’s files. Very few of them include photos, but I’ll post more as I find them.

No info attached to this one, either, but the dog is definitely...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:15:44 -0400

No info attached to this one, either, but the dog is definitely transparent. Apparition? Bad photoshop? Does anyone recognize the location?

I wanted to start with a good one, though this is probably just...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:23:38 -0400

I wanted to start with a good one, though this is probably just a normal dog. Is the photographer being chased? No police report is attached…

The Highwood Horror

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:49:16 -0400

There is one reference to a Black Dog conspiracy that pre-dates 1967, but it also comes from Gloria’s box of crazy. The newspaper clipping and police reports look legitimate, but I can’t find any corroborating stories online or at the library. As always, take this with a mountain of salt.

July 4th weekend, 1942, a married couple in the Highwood Hills neighborhood watched their neighbor, a man improbably named Casper Skoog, hack apart a human corpse in front of an open window. They called the cops and a stand-off ensued.

Over the course of several hours, Skoog confessed to a total of six murders. The first was an elderly woman he beheaded in her home. The most grisly was a teenage boy he abducted from the market and left strewn over three blocks. Skoog claimed that they were all members of a secret cult that learned necromancy from a demonic hellhound. He had to butcher the corpses to prevent their resurrection, you see.

Eventually, the Chief of Police showed up and lead a raid of Skoog’s home. Despite the fact that Skoog had been threatening to commit suicide, the officers managed to put 26 bullets into him. (Trust me, you don’t want to see the file photo.)

Okay, enough of spree killers and conspiracies. You’re all here for cryptozoology. I’ll get some of these photos scanned over the weekend, then… monster sightings!

Sno-a-Go-Go

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:31:49 -0400

Mikaela Cook stumbled out of the woods during the 1967 Winter Carnival; she was a middle-aged woman dressed in rags and severely snow-bitten. Carnival patrons took her for a homeless woman, and maybe she was, but this is what she said to the first police officer she encountered: “Mother is dead. Will you take care of me?”

The police took her to a hospital for treatment, where Mikaela told them that she and her mother lived in a church in the woods, one only they could see. She was remanded to the Minnesota Security Hospital in Saint Peter, which seems a bit excessive. According to the police record, that was that.

Of course, that is never just that. Gloria’s box includes three old notebooks that appear to contain interviews with Mikaela. It would seem that the police officer had her sent to a sanitarium so that he could continue interrogating her about the church and the Black Dog… how to worship and control it.

There are several references to a trip that they took on that first night, before the officer even brought Mikaela back to the precinct. They went deep into Battle Creek Park and found a dilapidated church with a corpse inside. Mikaela claimed this was her mother; she’s described as looking well over 100 years old. There’s no indication of what they did with the body.

The church itself had been turned into a pagan shrine and devoted to what Mikaela called “The Grim.” In context, she’s clearly referring to the Black Dog. She and her mother worshipped it. The police officer wanted to know how.

Then, I guess, he started his own cult. If any of this is true, it means the Laity’s backstory is all bullshit. It also means that there’s a magic church hidden in Battle Creek park, so who’s to say which version is crazier?

The Laity

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:38:23 -0400

Let’s begin this story where it all began for me: with Gloria and her conspiracy theory. Someone close to Gloria, maybe a husband or a brother, works in law enforcement. A few months ago, he was recruited by a group that calls itself “The Laity.” The stories they tell about themselves are beyond belief.

First and foremost, they claim to control all of Saint Paul. They trace their origin back to the founders of a Norwegian church in the mid-1800’s and consider themselves the custodians of the entire city. They say they started the Winter Carnival as cover for their pagan rituals. Famous members include Mayor Ramsey, James J. Hill, and Walter Mondale.

There are no records of that church, by the way, because the conspiracy covered it up. It’s hidden somewhere in Battle Creek park and it’s where they worship the Black Dog. Initiates are taken to the church and told to kill a stray dog. Then, they go home and the Black Dog comes for them. If they survive, the creature is at their beck and call. If not, the conspiracy pays for a closed casket funeral.

Unlike most phony conspiracies, this one doesn’t draw its power from a shadowy network of secret allegiances. Controlling law enforcement is pretty good, sure, but their real power comes from the Black Dog. They use it to spy on, intimidate, and exterminate their enemies, or so the theory goes.

Gloria says she stole her box of evidence from the cult’s secret cache of Black Dog lore. It contains every police report they’ve buried, every monster sighting they’ve silenced, and detailed notes on a mysterious woman named Mikaela Cook. Her story provides an alternative, but no less improbable, account of the cult’s bullshit origins.

Welcome to my Halloween Lark

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:58:00 -0400

Some of you already know me from various cryptozoology message boards. Feel free to comment, but please don’t use my real name or other handles. Nobody needs to be known as “The Sasquatch Guy” at work. If you’re new to all this, welcome!

Normally, I like to stick to the science and not indulge in a lot of mythology and urban legend, but this is a special case. Hence, I’m starting a special blog. A few days ago, I was approached by a woman who gave me a box of what she calls “evidence.” She told me a story about a spectral dog and a conspiracy that worships it. We’ll call her “Gloria.”

I’ve dug through the box a little and, man, is it full of crazy. There are thick stacks of old journal entries, some photos, an antique bible, various odds and ends. They tell a number of different stories stretching all the way back to when Saint Paul was called Pig’s Eye. I’ll do my best to verify the claims made by Gloria and her box of stuff.

Worst case scenario: Gloria’s a crank who wastes a lot of my time and a little of yours.

It’s October, after all, and there’s no better time for ghost stories.