Bigfoot Researcher Captures Dog Man Cryptids on Trail Camera
Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2026
By Squatchable.com staff
There's something haunting about footage you didn't even know you were capturing. That's exactly the kind of moment that makes this particular video so compelling — a researcher going about his usual Bigfoot fieldwork, completely unaware that something else entirely was watching him from just a few feet away.
The footage comes from Scott Carpenter of the Sasquatch Awareness Project, an amateur Bigfoot researcher who had a habit of strapping a camera to his shoulder — what he calls a "back trail camera" — to film whatever might be trailing behind him during investigations. The idea is simple but brilliant: you can't always see what's at your back in the woods, but a camera can. Carpenter wouldn't review the footage until he got home, which means every hike carried the possibility of capturing something he never expected.
And that's exactly what happened.
During a routine investigation near a feeding station, checking tape traps for Bigfoot hair, Carpenter's back trail camera caught something that stopped him cold. Just three to four feet behind him, partially concealed in a brush pile, was a creature that looked straight out of folklore — a Dogman. The footage shows what appears to be a head peeking up, watching him. One of the most striking details is that this particular creature only had one ear — the right one — and Carpenter even loops the footage to show the ear suddenly perk up, almost like a dog locking onto its target.
For those unfamiliar with the Dogman phenomenon, it's a cryptid deeply rooted in American folklore, particularly in the Midwest. Witnesses across states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio have reported encounters with a bipedal, canine-like creature standing anywhere from six to nine feet tall, often described as having a muscular humanoid body with a wolf or dog-like head. Some researchers, including those in the Sasquatch community, have long wondered whether Dogman and Bigfoot might share overlapping territory — or even be related phenomena. Carpenter's footage is one of the few pieces of visual evidence that attempts to bridge those two worlds.
The second segment is arguably the most intense. Carpenter is standing near a lake, looking out at a small island where he had previously captured Bigfoot footage months earlier. He's focused on the water, camera in hand, completely unaware of what's rising up directly behind him. The Dogman appears, cautious but deliberate, watching him for several seconds. And then there's something even stranger — a small entity visible on the creature's shoulder, with what looks like mouth movement, almost like a puffing or popping motion. Carpenter openly admits he has no explanation for it. When he finally spins around, the Dogman ducks down, though a dark shape is still barely visible in the brush.
What makes this footage so unsettling is the follow-up. About two weeks later, Carpenter returned to the same area, and you can see the difference in his demeanor immediately. He's visibly shaken, jumpy, uncomfortable. He documents broken foliage in the exact spot where the creature had been — small branches snapped off, a path leading back into the thick brush. He estimates the creature was no more than three to four feet from him during that encounter. The fact that something that close had been watching him, undetected, clearly weighed on him.
Then, in May of the same year, Carpenter went back with a new mission — setting hair traps baited with hot dog buns and bacon, hoping to collect a sample from the Dogman. While preparing to leave, he got that unmistakable feeling of being watched. Zooming in with his camera, he spotted two black ears poking up from behind a tree. This time, the creature had both ears, a longer, more dog-like snout, and gray markings over the eyes — a more traditional Dogman appearance than the one-eared individual from earlier.
The whole video runs as a documentary-style presentation, with Carpenter providing commentary throughout, pointing out details like nostril flaring, eye movement, and the strange shoulder entity. He even includes footage from his forward-facing camera showing his own reaction — stopping and focusing on the exact area where the Dogman had been, as if some sixth sense told him something was there even though he couldn't see it.
This is the kind of footage that raises more questions than it answers, and that's what makes it worth sitting down and watching for yourself. Carpenter isn't trying to sell anything — he's just sharing what his cameras captured during legitimate fieldwork. Whether you lean toward the Dogman being a separate species, a regional variant of something else, or something entirely unknown, the footage speaks for itself.
Check it out and let your eyes be the judge.