November 16, 2005

Maine’s Dog-Killing “Hyena”

Whatever hates dogs in central Maine is back. It kills, it slices dogs’ throats, and it terrorizes the citizenry. Creepiest of all, eyewitnesses say it looks like a hyena!

During the summer of 2004, Lewiston Sun-Journal reporter Mark LaFlamme covered the story of a strange creature that was killing dogs. "It began in mid-August [2004]," wrote LaFlamme, "when a Wales [Maine] man reported that an unknown animal crept out of the woods behind his house and mauled his Doberman pinscher….Since that attack, people from Wales, Litchfield, Sabattus, Greene, Turner, Lewiston and Auburn have come forward to speak of a mystery creature."

During the wave of sightings in 2004, one animal control officer sighted the cryptid along Sawyer Road in Greene, Maine. Although the officer had years of experience with animals, he could not identify it. He told reporter LaFlamme only that it looked like a hyena to him, just as more than a dozen others had described it.

In the most recent incident, it happened again in Greene, a rural town outside of Lewiston, Maine. Reporter Mark LaFlamme recounted on Wednesday, November 16, 2005, in the Lewiston Sun-Journal:

"A dog found with a 10-inch gash across its throat in Greene on Monday may have been attacked by a wild animal, veterinary officials said Tuesday. The collie-shepherd mix was found wounded and bleeding on a porch at Allen Pond and Hooper roads. On Tuesday, the dog was recovering at the Lewiston Veterinary Hospital, but no one had come forward to claim it. And the nature of the animal’s wounds remained a mystery.

"We can’t say for sure that it was a wild animal," said Margaret McCloskey, a co-manager of the animal hospital on Stetson Road. "But something big and bad got at this dog."

In addition to the gash around the animal’s neck, the dog’s left front leg appeared to have been chewed on, McCloskey said. There was no indication that it was a person that caused the wounds.

"We’re pretty convinced that it’s a large-animal wound," McCloskey said.

Reporter LaFlamme interviewed me about this new attack, last night, and at the end of his article today, he open-mindedly included various candidates for the attack, from the mundane – coyote and badger – to the cryptozoological – mystery cat and Bigfoot. Due to the article, one couple has already emailed me details of a mystery cat sighting they had two years ago that took place near the recent dog incident. The case is ongoing, needless to say, and LaFlamme hopes to collect new details on the Greene mystery animal.

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See a November 18th update of this story by clicking here.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Alien Big Cats, Bigfoot, Breaking News, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Mystery Cats, Out of Place