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The Problem with Werewolves


Still Waters

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Just the other night, I did a radio show which briefly touched upon my research and writing in the field of werewolves. One of the things I noted to the host is that despite the fact that most people think werewolves are born out of nothing more than fantasy, folklore, legend, and movie-scripts, the reality is that reports of dog-headed humanoids, and creatures that sound just like the classic imagery of werewolves, absolutely abound, and have done so for centuries.

http://mysteriousuni...ith-werewolves/

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This subject is like the Loch Ness Monster, many reports, almost no pictures and the ones that are out there are fake. So until we get some real pics or videos with one of them I will consider them just a myth.

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Just the other night, I did a radio show which briefly touched upon my research and writing in the field of werewolves. One of the things I noted to the host is that despite the fact that most people think werewolves are born out of nothing more than fantasy, folklore, legend, and movie-scripts, the reality is that reports of dog-headed humanoids, and creatures that sound just like the classic imagery of werewolves, absolutely abound, and have done so for centuries.

http://mysteriousuni...ith-werewolves/

There are a host of creatures who share the distinction of cropping up in mythologies the world over. They are simply common archetypes, and their existence proves nothing other than the fact that humans admired certain animals and wished they possessed some of their abilities.

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There are a host of creatures who share the distinction of cropping up in mythologies the world over. They are simply common archetypes, and their existence proves nothing other than the fact that humans admired certain animals and wished they possessed some of their abilities.

Or were terrified of them because they tended to eat them on occasion.

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Let's not forget that this type of stuff is how Nick Redfern puts food on his table

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My take on this is that werewolves as shapeshifters probably do not exist. I do however suspect that the southern Skunk ape ( like in the Clanton ,Alabama sighting) is one and the same as Loup Garou . There are a lot of things out in the woods and swamps that hide really well. ..hell the State wildlife folks down here say that no big cats are in these woods. Every local knows different.

As for werewolves I will let you know for sure when we find one...

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I still find it amazing how many people have found they can make a living doing this sort of thing. There's obviously something wrong with me that I can't do it as well.

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@Keninsc From what I have been told the hard part is getting the nerve to print the business cards....

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My take on this is that werewolves as shapeshifters probably do not exist. I do however suspect that the southern Skunk ape ( like in the Clanton ,Alabama sighting) is one and the same as Loup Garou . There are a lot of things out in the woods and swamps that hide really well. ..hell the State wildlife folks down here say that no big cats are in these woods. Every local knows different.

As for werewolves I will let you know for sure when we find one...

That's where the idea proposed by several leading cryptozoologists (including Loren Coleman and Mark A. Hall) comes in: that the loup garou of Louisiana, certain skunk apes, and the occasional Midwest reports of "kangaroos" (and perhaps the Michigan Dogman) are all one creature, some sort of baboon-like primate. This hypothetical creature is often referred to as a "devil monkey" and would seem to inhabit most of North America, with a good number of sightings seeming to take place along the Mississippi Basin in the south and midwest. Devil monkeys have the characteristic doglike face of the loup garou and Dogman, as well as a leaping gait that leads some witnesses to mistake them for kangaroos. Some reports also paint them as being occasional vicious predators, which would certainly fit with the hypothesis that they're some sort of baboon.

There are a host of creatures who share the distinction of cropping up in mythologies the world over. They are simply common archetypes, and their existence proves nothing other than the fact that humans admired certain animals and wished they possessed some of their abilities.

See, that's a good theory, up to a point. For werewolves, it works very well, men transforming into animals is the kind of thing that every culture could come up with. But then you start looking more closely at things, and every now and then you'll come across several myths from wildly different groups around the world that share uncannily specific details. For example, in the mythology of the British Isles, unwary travellers would often be led astray by the wee folk, or fairies. In the Slavic countries, crossing paths with the lesovik could leave one hopelessly lost. And in the Philippines, the tikbalang plays tricks on people walking in the forest, endlessly returning them to the same place, or confusing them until they lose their way. So what's the connection? Getting lost is of course human nature, and being taken by the fairies (or lesovik, or tikbalang) would make for a convenient excuse for doing so.

But the tikbalang, the wee folk and the lesovik can all be repelled by wearing one or more items of clothing inside out.

Edited by Ravinoff
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And my great grandmother insisted that putting your shoes under the foot of your bed with one facing out and one facing in would cure nightmares.

Trying to make sense of folk knowledge that was passed down through a largely oral tradition is an exercise in futility. First, you would have to be in that time and place to understand any practical application of wearing articles of clothing inside out might have, but it's not difficult to surmise that telling children a cautionary tale about following strange noises and lights in a dark forest is something that all cultures around the world could come up with on their own.

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So basically, the OP article contends werewolves are simply an undiscovered zoologically sound species of wolf that walks upright at times, as well as on all fours. (Shame on you paranormalists!)

And shapeshifting "Hollywood" werewolf reports make up a very small percentage of sightings. (Shame on you skeptics!)

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My take on this is that werewolves as shapeshifters probably do not exist. I do however suspect that the southern Skunk ape ( like in the Clanton ,Alabama sighting) is one and the same as Loup Garou . There are a lot of things out in the woods and swamps that hide really well. ..hell the State wildlife folks down here say that no big cats are in these woods. Every local knows different.

As for werewolves I will let you know for sure when we find one...

No, they're clearly misidentified Bigfoot.

Would those be the same locals like those last week from Louisiana that swore up and down that they had a black panther in their back yard, but yet when game and fish showed up and compared the image to a full sized panther silhouette, it became clear that what they saw was a big housecat.

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Clearly, the people from Fish and Game were involved in a cover up.

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Yeah well , I guess everything is a lil bigger down south...wonder if this guy was a persian kitty or a Siamese.....He hangs out over in the 6 mile community near Montavallo Alabama ...its a bit of a sport for folks to get pics of him while hunting and post them on the board at 6 mile grocery down the road a lil from Dystopt

post-141093-0-14261200-1375226745_thumb.

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when i saw the title of the thread,

"the problem with werewolves"

i thought it was gonna be like, 'they're always leaving hairy pawprints in my butter' or 'when you lend them money they never give you it back' kinda thing.

guess it just shows you how wrong you can be when you really try.....

*sob*

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They always be leaving hair on the soap. Only damn hair on my soap is my hair. Keep your curlies to yourself you hairy bastids!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Perhaps I'm looking at this from a viewpoint that is too logical for my own good but it just doesn't make sense that a human's body can elongate, lengthen bone structure, grow hair, grow extra teeth, completely change skull structure, lose a few fingers to make paws, and grow claw like nails in a matter of minutes, run around like that terrorizing the countryside, then reverse all those changes to become human again. Biology does not work that way. It is an impossibility.

Now that is from the mindset that werewolves are human shapeshifters. I'm not even gonna get into the wolf/human hybrid thing because that is also genetically impossible. Freaky women have been practicing beastiality for what may be centuries and I have yet to see a hybrid baby born from that.

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The problem is mankind is still afraid of the dark.

We fear the shadows...we fear our own subconscious mind.

It is physically impossible to alter flesh and bone. I have always taken the "classic monsters"...vampires, werewolves, revenants, ghouls...etc...to be representatives of our primal mind....fear and desires.

Oh well, I love a good werewolf movie...I sure hope they aren't real...(whistles as he walks past the graveyard)

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Oh well, I love a good werewolf movie...I sure hope they aren't real...(whistles as he walks past the graveyard)

Wait a minute, isn't whistling as you pass a graveyard bad luck??? Come on, if you don't believe in werewolves, I'm CERTAIN that you believe in hexes and bad luck!!! :whistle:

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Just the other night, I did a radio show which briefly touched upon my research and writing in the field of werewolves. One of the things I noted to the host is that despite the fact that most people think werewolves are born out of nothing more than fantasy, folklore, legend, and movie-scripts, the reality is that reports of dog-headed humanoids, and creatures that sound just like the classic imagery of werewolves, absolutely abound, and have done so for centuries.

http://mysteriousuni...ith-werewolves/

This is a noteworthy point. The Dogape of Kentucky is another similar creature, it is a humanoid cryptid with the head of a dog. It is possible that although not in the traditional form, creatures like werewolves do exist.

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  • 4 weeks later...
 

Am I in the wrong part of UM if I suggest that the problem is not that traditional werewolf transformations are physically impossible, but that you believe it to be impossible. Who are you to say that there isn't something out there that can't be explained or comprehended by what is known today. People keep telling magic isn't real because it can't be physically proven, but if magic by it's nature is something that doesn't follow the laws of physics, then how can it be proven trough physics? What if werewolves (shapeshifters, dogmen chupacabras and whatnot) simply fall under this same category that man is yet unable to explain?

No proper photos? I don't know about you guys, but if I was out in the woods and saw a huge bipedal wolf in photo-range, then taking a solid picture would probably be the last thing on my mind.

No hunter has ever caught one? Suppose a werewolf turns human after being shot, how many hunters would try explaining to the cops: "But he was a wolf when I shot him!"

Then there's the chance that the changes are more subtle than traditional definitions claim.

Or maybe they are more similar to the Finnish "vironsusi":

The Finnish werewolves are rather melancholy creatures (surprisingly...). In our stories/legends/myths a person usually turns into a wolf without really wanting it, accidentally (by doing something that'll turn him into a wolf without knowing this might happen) or because some witch has put a spell on him (according to Finns, these witches would naturally be Sami, although the Swedes thought we were pretty good at magic ourselves). The werewolf (who's usually bound to be a wolf for nights and days until something releases him from the spell) then lurks around houses, sometimes eating cattle but rarely people and waits for somebody to recognize him. When somebody does (e.g the wolf's mother), she/he can break the spell by calling the werewolf by his Christian name or giving him some bread to eat. Sometimes after the werewolf had regained his human form, he would still have his tail till the day he died. Some houses actually exhibit sauna benches (or whatever they are called; 'lauteet' in Finnish) that have a hole in them, presumably cut for the ex-werewolf's tail. Finland's southern neighbor, Estonia is also known for its werewolf legends. Estonia is sometimes called 'Viro' in Finnish, and at one time werewolves were called 'vironsusi' ('Estonian wolf') in Finland. It should be mentioned, though, that 'vironsusi' is originally the same word as 'werewolf', meaning 'man-wolf' and connecting it with Estonia is a false etymology due to Estonia's reputation as a werewolf country.

source: http://www.werewolfpage.com/myths/global_legends.html (only English definition I could find)

Then again, I might just be another over-imaginative b****** who's seen too many movies and doesn't have better things to do than trying to argue about these things over the internet...

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